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5 Tips for Running a Successful Small Business Without Outsourcing

August 8, 2011 No Comments

     If you are running a small business and are looking to maximize your profit, but are not interested in outsourcing some of your tasks, then you’ll need to find a way to streamline your processes so that you can invest more of your time into the areas that bring you the most profit.

In the article titled “Streamlining Tips For Small Business Owners“, Yolander Prinzel outlines 5 tips (listed below) that can help business owners utilize technology and manage their businesses to optimize time and savings.

1. Template Creation

Yolander points out,A number of forms that you utilize day after day don’t need to be recreated every time you work with them. Instead, you can create templates that allow you to simply fill in missing information without recreating the wheel. Some examples include templates for proposals that you send to clients, certain accounting forms and correspondence. You can also create email templates that allow you to quickly respond to common customer questions.”

2. Quote Request Forms Available Online

“When clients email you for proposal or quote requests,” states Yolander,  “you need to follow up with an email and a list of questions to develop the quote. You can save yourself a step if you simply create a form for your website that your clients must complete to get their quote. Make sure your online quote form has enough information on it for you to develop a realistic quote based on the answers, but isn’t so detailed that it dissuades potential clients from using it.”

3. Software is Worth the Investment

Yolander also notes that, “From customer relationship management (CRM) systems to accounting programs, there are a great number of programs that you can buy that will help make your business management tasks easier. For example, CRM systems can help you organize your contacts and set up schedules to get in touch with them, which lessens the amount of time you need to spend building to-do lists and locating client data. Accounting programs can work with your bank accounts to download your transactions so you don’t need to enter them in line by line. Some even have tax software that can help further. The type of software you will need varies depending on the type of business you have.”

4. Group Your Daily Tasks

When stating the benefits of categorizing similar tasks, Yolander says, “There are certain tasks, similar in nature, that you must complete every day. Examples are social networking on various networks, reading and responding to emails, or building proposals for multiple clients. Instead of breaking these tasks up and completing them all at different times of the day, group them so that you are focusing on like tasks all at once. For example, if you need to develop three client proposals in one day, don’t create one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one at the end of the day. Do all three consecutively.”

5. The Benefits of Auto Response emails

Finally, Yolander point out the usefulness of the auto response tool for certain emails, “Your email system can be set up to reply to incoming messages with an auto response. If you have separate emails for client complaints, inquiries and other issues, you can create auto-response emails. These can help clients find answers they are looking for, or at least tell them that they will get a response within a certain time frame, so you don’t feel you need to drop everything each time an email hits your inbox.”

Although outsourcing may be an inevitable outcome for your business, the above tips can help you to organize your schedule in such a way that may allow for a lesser expense. By following these 5 simple suggestions, you may be able to not only optimize your time and profit for business purposes, but even get that extra hour for yourself or family at the end of the day.

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