easy to outsource

E-Commerce Advantage with GetFriday

If you are over-whelmed by your e-commerce business by the number of activities, GetFriday is here to help you with your business. We have skilled and experienced executives to help you with your e-commerce business needs. The key tasks which GetFriday undertakes on behalf of e-commerce business are inventory management, order processing, order tracking and customer support. Inventory Management The GetFriday executive logs into the client’s CRM and downloads the daily inventory files. The executive then checks and updates the client on the daily status of the products such as in stock, out of stock and approaching safety stock, to track for the availability of each product. Order Processing When an order is placed on the website by a customer, the GetFriday executive then co-ordinates with the vendor and places the order with them to be delivered to the customer. The executive also cross verifies the shipping address and the quantity officially placed with the supplier to fulfill orders. Order tracking Once the product has been shipped, the GetFriday executive co-ordinates with the logistical partner to get the tracking code. The executive will then proceed to verify the tracking code and updates the customer to help them track the order. Customer Support GetFriday executives are well trained to attend to all sorts of customer queries through calls and emails with multiple back ups so that regular work is not interrupted. If you are overcome by increased orders, GetFriday will be able to handle all tasks with multiple back-up assistance meeting all quality standards and deadlines. We provide 24/7 assistance with cost effective solutions high domain expertise and timeliness are other qualities of our executives. What are you waiting for? To get started, visit our website @ www.getfriday.com or write to us at support@getfriday.com or get an understanding of all the e-commerce process which GetFriday supports with the video Managing Major Tasks for eCommerce Businesses 0:00 Hello There! Do you run an E-commerce business? Are you overwhelmed by the number of tasks? 0:06 Do not worry!! GetFriday is here to help you with your business tasks. 0:11 First let me introduce myself. I am Kumar,Project manager for e-commerce businesses in GetFriday. 0:18 I will walk you through the processes we support for e-commerce businesses. 0:22 We have experienced and skilled executives to take care of your e-commerce business needs. 0:27 The key tasks we undertake on behalf of e-commerce businesses are Inventory management, Order processing, Order tracking, and Customer support. I am really excited to walk you through each task. 0:39 Let us start with Inventory management. 0:42 Your GetFriday executive will log into your CRM and download the inventory files daily at the start of the day. 0:47 Your executive will then check and update you about the daily status of the products i.e. In-stock, Out-stock, and approaching safety stock to keep track of each product’s availability in the stock. 1:01 Second key task is ‘Order processing’. 1:04 When an order is placed on your website by a customer, your GetFriday executive coordinates with the vendors and places the order with them to be delivered to the customer. 1:14 Your assistant will also cross verify the details such as shipping address and the quantity ordered for efficiently placing the order with the suppliers. 1:20 Now we come to the Third major task which is ‘Order Tracking’. 1:22 Once the product is shipped, your executive will coordinate with your logistics partner to get the tracking code. Your executive will then proceed to verify the tracking code and update the customers to help them track the order. 1:36 The other task undertaken for e-commerce businesses is ‘Customer support service”. Your GetFriday executive is well trained in handling all sorts of customer queries through calls and emails. 1:48 Your assistant will take care of your daily customer care support activities such as emails, calls, etc. with multiple back-ups so that the regular work continues uninterrupted. 2:00 And if you find yourself with increased orders, do not worry!! GetFriday will be able to handle all the tasks with multiple back-up assistants meeting all the quality standards and deadlines. 2:11 We provide 24/7 assistance with cost effective solutions. High domain expertise and timeliness are other major qualities of GetFriday’s executives. 2:22 Then what are you waiting for? Let’s get started. 2:32 Visit our website www.getfriday.com to know more about the services. Or write an email to support@getfriday.com with your requirements.

E-Commerce Advantage with GetFriday Read More »

If you are over-whelmed by your e-commerce business by the number of activities, GetFriday is here to help you with your business. We have skilled and experienced executives to help you with your e-commerce business needs. The key tasks which GetFriday undertakes on behalf of e-commerce business are inventory management, order processing, order tracking and customer support. Inventory Management The GetFriday executive logs into the client’s CRM and downloads the daily inventory files. The executive then checks and updates the client on the daily status of the products such as in stock, out of stock and approaching safety stock, to track for the availability of each product. Order Processing When an order is placed on the website by a customer, the GetFriday executive then co-ordinates with the vendor and places the order with them to be delivered to the customer. The executive also cross verifies the shipping address and the quantity officially placed with the supplier to fulfill orders. Order tracking Once the product has been shipped, the GetFriday executive co-ordinates with the logistical partner to get the tracking code. The executive will then proceed to verify the tracking code and updates the customer to help them track the order. Customer Support GetFriday executives are well trained to attend to all sorts of customer queries through calls and emails with multiple back ups so that regular work is not interrupted. If you are overcome by increased orders, GetFriday will be able to handle all tasks with multiple back-up assistance meeting all quality standards and deadlines. We provide 24/7 assistance with cost effective solutions high domain expertise and timeliness are other qualities of our executives. What are you waiting for? To get started, visit our website @ www.getfriday.com or write to us at support@getfriday.com or get an understanding of all the e-commerce process which GetFriday supports with the video Managing Major Tasks for eCommerce Businesses 0:00 Hello There! Do you run an E-commerce business? Are you overwhelmed by the number of tasks? 0:06 Do not worry!! GetFriday is here to help you with your business tasks. 0:11 First let me introduce myself. I am Kumar,Project manager for e-commerce businesses in GetFriday. 0:18 I will walk you through the processes we support for e-commerce businesses. 0:22 We have experienced and skilled executives to take care of your e-commerce business needs. 0:27 The key tasks we undertake on behalf of e-commerce businesses are Inventory management, Order processing, Order tracking, and Customer support. I am really excited to walk you through each task. 0:39 Let us start with Inventory management. 0:42 Your GetFriday executive will log into your CRM and download the inventory files daily at the start of the day. 0:47 Your executive will then check and update you about the daily status of the products i.e. In-stock, Out-stock, and approaching safety stock to keep track of each product’s availability in the stock. 1:01 Second key task is ‘Order processing’. 1:04 When an order is placed on your website by a customer, your GetFriday executive coordinates with the vendors and places the order with them to be delivered to the customer. 1:14 Your assistant will also cross verify the details such as shipping address and the quantity ordered for efficiently placing the order with the suppliers. 1:20 Now we come to the Third major task which is ‘Order Tracking’. 1:22 Once the product is shipped, your executive will coordinate with your logistics partner to get the tracking code. Your executive will then proceed to verify the tracking code and update the customers to help them track the order. 1:36 The other task undertaken for e-commerce businesses is ‘Customer support service”. Your GetFriday executive is well trained in handling all sorts of customer queries through calls and emails. 1:48 Your assistant will take care of your daily customer care support activities such as emails, calls, etc. with multiple back-ups so that the regular work continues uninterrupted. 2:00 And if you find yourself with increased orders, do not worry!! GetFriday will be able to handle all the tasks with multiple back-up assistants meeting all the quality standards and deadlines. 2:11 We provide 24/7 assistance with cost effective solutions. High domain expertise and timeliness are other major qualities of GetFriday’s executives. 2:22 Then what are you waiting for? Let’s get started. 2:32 Visit our website www.getfriday.com to know more about the services. Or write an email to support@getfriday.com with your requirements.

Top tips to build your online business brand with your Virtual Assistant

When you build your online brand, you create your business signature in terms of your company name, the product or service you offer, your brand logo, the jingle, the tagline etc. Your online brand bolsters your business identity and thus your business becomes more worthwhile in the market. The otherwise naive crowd then starts to visit your website, clicks through your pages, likes and reacts to your social media promotions, and start engaging with your content present online. Gradually your brand buzz turns on. This is how doing right the online branding earns you wonder. However, online branding in itself is a challenging process. Before going to build your business brand, you need to realize the essence of your brand and the risks associated with it. Your online brand speaks for your business. So, before building it, get into the crux of your business, understand it, and determine what impression you want to create for your business. Since your online brand is going to create your business impression in the market, you must ascertain that your brand is strongly likable. The brand elements like logo, name, jingle and tagline should be relevant to your business and attractive enough to make your customers and prospects feel happy whenever they approach your brand. Your brand is going to build the trust amongst your clients; your brand is a promise of the value offered to your clients. In long run it determines whether your clients will like to avail services from you. So, the strength of your online brand determines your revenues and profits. Your brand helps you to stand out of the competition. It convinces your prospects that your service/product is the best out of all the options they can choose from. Though building a strong brand fetches you brownies, it’s not an easy process. You, as a small business owner or an entrepreneur are tied in the limit of resources, whether it is money, people or time. In addition, you are overwhelmed with too many responsibilities to handle. You need to manage somehow everything on your own. Hiring full time experts to help you with branding is too expensive. Despite of all these limitations you need expert inputs to fetch expected returns on your marketing investments. So the best solution is to hire an expert virtual assistant and involve him or her in the brand building process. There are Virtual Assistant service providers that have the knack of marketing and drive your marketing efforts with rich inputs. They will help you to reap the expected returns on your marketing investments. Before hiring a Virtual Assistant to help you in your marketing efforts, you should have some nifty tips to avail the best results of hiring a Virtual assistant. Here are some tips to avail the best out of Virtual Assistance for your brand building. Let your Virtual Assistant be a part of your business: Your Virtual Assistant is your remote assistant, who will serve you without his/ her physical presence in your organization. Your brand is the reflection of your business, its culture and objectives. So your Virtual Assistant should be familiar to these very important elements. Make him a part your business, instead of treating him like a third party agency or part-time worker. Let your Virtual assistant have the full knowledge about your business. Let him have a deep insight about your objective, the purpose of your brand, the culture of the organization. Content Creation: Your brand is closely related to the value offered by you with your products and services. It creates an identity of your business to increase the reputation in the market. Content chosen by you for your brand communication is going to create that identity for your brand. People like to invest in less risky products and services. Your brand identity is going to offset the risks for your prospects. Avail your Virtual Assistant’s help in creating communication message and content for your brand. Content helps you in growing fans for your business and shapes the identity of your brand. Hiring a content expert team in the form of Virtual Assistants is very critical step towards your brand building exercise. Educate the customers through your blogs and other online content: You have to prove the differentiated value your business offers to your customers. Your prospect have lots of other known brands to choose from; to win amongst all, you need to prove that your brand is better and stronger than the rest. Get your Virtual Assistant to create blogs and other informational content for your target audience, where you highlight your unique value proposition. Make your brand relatable: Build social value for your customers. Get the help of your Virtual Assistant to do a proper study of your target segment and understand their self image and social identity that they seek. You may hire a Virtual Assistant with market research skills and build your brand persona to diligently match the social need of your customers. Make an active presence in social media: An active presence in social media requires a lot of time and persistence. A Virtual Assistant offers you the best help in this field. Giving prompt responses to consumer queries, creating engaging content, posts and activities to increase the involvement of your consumers, and increasing the frequency of posts in social media will strengthen the identity of your brand and improve your Social Media Engagement. It’s time to come out of your worries of ‘Brand Building’. Build your online business brand through Internet marketing experts of GetFriday and Relax!

Top tips to build your online business brand with your Virtual Assistant Read More »

When you build your online brand, you create your business signature in terms of your company name, the product or service you offer, your brand logo, the jingle, the tagline etc. Your online brand bolsters your business identity and thus your business becomes more worthwhile in the market. The otherwise naive crowd then starts to visit your website, clicks through your pages, likes and reacts to your social media promotions, and start engaging with your content present online. Gradually your brand buzz turns on. This is how doing right the online branding earns you wonder. However, online branding in itself is a challenging process. Before going to build your business brand, you need to realize the essence of your brand and the risks associated with it. Your online brand speaks for your business. So, before building it, get into the crux of your business, understand it, and determine what impression you want to create for your business. Since your online brand is going to create your business impression in the market, you must ascertain that your brand is strongly likable. The brand elements like logo, name, jingle and tagline should be relevant to your business and attractive enough to make your customers and prospects feel happy whenever they approach your brand. Your brand is going to build the trust amongst your clients; your brand is a promise of the value offered to your clients. In long run it determines whether your clients will like to avail services from you. So, the strength of your online brand determines your revenues and profits. Your brand helps you to stand out of the competition. It convinces your prospects that your service/product is the best out of all the options they can choose from. Though building a strong brand fetches you brownies, it’s not an easy process. You, as a small business owner or an entrepreneur are tied in the limit of resources, whether it is money, people or time. In addition, you are overwhelmed with too many responsibilities to handle. You need to manage somehow everything on your own. Hiring full time experts to help you with branding is too expensive. Despite of all these limitations you need expert inputs to fetch expected returns on your marketing investments. So the best solution is to hire an expert virtual assistant and involve him or her in the brand building process. There are Virtual Assistant service providers that have the knack of marketing and drive your marketing efforts with rich inputs. They will help you to reap the expected returns on your marketing investments. Before hiring a Virtual Assistant to help you in your marketing efforts, you should have some nifty tips to avail the best results of hiring a Virtual assistant. Here are some tips to avail the best out of Virtual Assistance for your brand building. Let your Virtual Assistant be a part of your business: Your Virtual Assistant is your remote assistant, who will serve you without his/ her physical presence in your organization. Your brand is the reflection of your business, its culture and objectives. So your Virtual Assistant should be familiar to these very important elements. Make him a part your business, instead of treating him like a third party agency or part-time worker. Let your Virtual assistant have the full knowledge about your business. Let him have a deep insight about your objective, the purpose of your brand, the culture of the organization. Content Creation: Your brand is closely related to the value offered by you with your products and services. It creates an identity of your business to increase the reputation in the market. Content chosen by you for your brand communication is going to create that identity for your brand. People like to invest in less risky products and services. Your brand identity is going to offset the risks for your prospects. Avail your Virtual Assistant’s help in creating communication message and content for your brand. Content helps you in growing fans for your business and shapes the identity of your brand. Hiring a content expert team in the form of Virtual Assistants is very critical step towards your brand building exercise. Educate the customers through your blogs and other online content: You have to prove the differentiated value your business offers to your customers. Your prospect have lots of other known brands to choose from; to win amongst all, you need to prove that your brand is better and stronger than the rest. Get your Virtual Assistant to create blogs and other informational content for your target audience, where you highlight your unique value proposition. Make your brand relatable: Build social value for your customers. Get the help of your Virtual Assistant to do a proper study of your target segment and understand their self image and social identity that they seek. You may hire a Virtual Assistant with market research skills and build your brand persona to diligently match the social need of your customers. Make an active presence in social media: An active presence in social media requires a lot of time and persistence. A Virtual Assistant offers you the best help in this field. Giving prompt responses to consumer queries, creating engaging content, posts and activities to increase the involvement of your consumers, and increasing the frequency of posts in social media will strengthen the identity of your brand and improve your Social Media Engagement. It’s time to come out of your worries of ‘Brand Building’. Build your online business brand through Internet marketing experts of GetFriday and Relax!

Six Things You MUST outsource to a Virtual Assistant

Focus is one of the biggest secrets to success. So, start focusing on the core tasks of your business. But, what if you have a long, boring list of trivial tasks to handle before you can even begin to focus on the core tasks? What if you are too confused and can’t figure out what you should be focusing on? Aren’t these questions becoming barriers to your business growth? Today, many start-ups and small business owners suffer from the ‘superhero syndrome’ -a condition where business owners believe they can take on anything and everything on their own! While taking responsibility for your business is good, juggling too many hats at the same time, could eventually lead to your downfall, as you slowly begin to lose focus on the core tasks and what you should ideally be concentrating on as a business owner. You start dissipating your valuable resources across trivial tasks which can be better taken care of by someone else. This is where the need for a convenient solution arises. If you are seriously looking at business growth or a balanced, personal life, you must think of hiring a Virtual Assistant. Now, before you get all excited and make a hasty decision of hiring a Virtual Assistant, ask yourself if there are aspects of your life that you need a break from and if there is a long list of other activities that you need to focus on. Once you have filtered out the activities that are best handled by a third party provider like an outsourcing company, you can then finally get down to hiring a Virtual Assistant.If you are new to outsourcing and don’t know where to tread yet, let us take a look at some of the tasks that you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant. Managing e-mails Managing e-mails can be a whale of a job. Sifting through junk and responding to countless e-mails can eat into a good chunk of your productive time. Consider outsourcing e-mail management to a reliable virtual assistant. It will free up a lot more of your time than you would have imagined. Trust us! Bookkeeping We all know how monotonous bookkeeping can get. It involves the time-consuming process of recording bills, invoices, payments etc. Imagine how much you can achieve in your business or personal life with the free time you get after outsourcing bookkeeping tasks to your virtual assistant! Numbers can get harrowing and with a Virtual Assistant in the picture, you won’t have to worry about one more complicated entry or computation. Online Research     Online research is another important task that many individuals and businesses carry out in their day to day lives. It also consumes a good fraction of your precious time. Online research, if outsourced, can earn you that much-needed time to focus on the activities that matter the most to you and that are crucial to your business. Travel and trip arrangement We all know how much effort goes into planning a journey. One may face a lot of hurdles along the way when it comes to booking a hotel to suit the budget, hiring a taxi, booking cheap flight tickets and the like. With the help of a virtual assistant, focus on the destination and let your Virtual Assistant take care of all the nitty-gritties of making your journey a comfortable one. Setting Reminders/Calendar management A well-managed calendar can help you sail smoothly through the month. Setting reminders is also an integral part of a well-maintained schedule. Outsource your calendar management activities to a Virtual Assistant and rest assured you will never miss another important deadline or family event! Data Entry Data entry is a simple task but can be monotonous and tiresome. Consider outsourcing data entry to a Virtual Assistant. It will give you a lot more time to do the things you love.

Six Things You MUST outsource to a Virtual Assistant Read More »

Focus is one of the biggest secrets to success. So, start focusing on the core tasks of your business. But, what if you have a long, boring list of trivial tasks to handle before you can even begin to focus on the core tasks? What if you are too confused and can’t figure out what you should be focusing on? Aren’t these questions becoming barriers to your business growth? Today, many start-ups and small business owners suffer from the ‘superhero syndrome’ -a condition where business owners believe they can take on anything and everything on their own! While taking responsibility for your business is good, juggling too many hats at the same time, could eventually lead to your downfall, as you slowly begin to lose focus on the core tasks and what you should ideally be concentrating on as a business owner. You start dissipating your valuable resources across trivial tasks which can be better taken care of by someone else. This is where the need for a convenient solution arises. If you are seriously looking at business growth or a balanced, personal life, you must think of hiring a Virtual Assistant. Now, before you get all excited and make a hasty decision of hiring a Virtual Assistant, ask yourself if there are aspects of your life that you need a break from and if there is a long list of other activities that you need to focus on. Once you have filtered out the activities that are best handled by a third party provider like an outsourcing company, you can then finally get down to hiring a Virtual Assistant.If you are new to outsourcing and don’t know where to tread yet, let us take a look at some of the tasks that you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant. Managing e-mails Managing e-mails can be a whale of a job. Sifting through junk and responding to countless e-mails can eat into a good chunk of your productive time. Consider outsourcing e-mail management to a reliable virtual assistant. It will free up a lot more of your time than you would have imagined. Trust us! Bookkeeping We all know how monotonous bookkeeping can get. It involves the time-consuming process of recording bills, invoices, payments etc. Imagine how much you can achieve in your business or personal life with the free time you get after outsourcing bookkeeping tasks to your virtual assistant! Numbers can get harrowing and with a Virtual Assistant in the picture, you won’t have to worry about one more complicated entry or computation. Online Research     Online research is another important task that many individuals and businesses carry out in their day to day lives. It also consumes a good fraction of your precious time. Online research, if outsourced, can earn you that much-needed time to focus on the activities that matter the most to you and that are crucial to your business. Travel and trip arrangement We all know how much effort goes into planning a journey. One may face a lot of hurdles along the way when it comes to booking a hotel to suit the budget, hiring a taxi, booking cheap flight tickets and the like. With the help of a virtual assistant, focus on the destination and let your Virtual Assistant take care of all the nitty-gritties of making your journey a comfortable one. Setting Reminders/Calendar management A well-managed calendar can help you sail smoothly through the month. Setting reminders is also an integral part of a well-maintained schedule. Outsource your calendar management activities to a Virtual Assistant and rest assured you will never miss another important deadline or family event! Data Entry Data entry is a simple task but can be monotonous and tiresome. Consider outsourcing data entry to a Virtual Assistant. It will give you a lot more time to do the things you love.

Things You Should NEVER Outsource As a Small Business

As a small business owner, it can be a real struggle to stay at the “top of things”. What you should ideally be focusing on is how to run your business and attract new prospects. Like any business however, the things you may want to do may slam into the things that have to be done on a daily basis. A great way to free up some time so that you can focus on growing the business is by engaging an experienced Virtual Assistant from an experienced outsourcing provider like GetFriday. A Virtual Assistant could be the answer to your growing business demands and help offload run-of-the-mill tasks like handling social media accounts as well as mundane jobs like contacting clients, email management, setting up reminders or devising a travel itinerary for you. The possibilities are endless! If you have decided to take the leap, be wary, because a bad outsourcing decision can be costlier than not outsourcing in the first place. Keeping that in mind, this post highlights three of the major things that you should NOT outsource as a small business and that are best handled internally. Take a look! 1. NEVER Outsource Your Core Competencies Never make the mistake of farming out your core competencies to virtual assistants. If you are a tech start-up, do not subcontract your technology or if you are a recruiting firm, don’t outsource your recruiters. Figure out what your company is really good at doing and outsource the auxiliary services that are related to these core competencies, if you must. Let us take the following example. You could hire virtual assistant specialists to write and edit the content that you want to include in your inbound marketing efforts. But make sure that your in-house team makes the business or the editorial decisions as to how the content has to be written, what topics should be covered or the channels that should be used to propagate the content. Part of developing an effective outsourcing plan is to understand what your company is really good at doing and keep it in-house. Outsource the rest to a dependable, virtual assistance service provider. 2. NEVER Outsource What You Don’t Understand There are probably a hundred things that you might want to outsource at the moment, such as getting an assistant to manage your CRM, designing a shopping cart, developing a WordPress website and so much more! While most of these can be outsourced, if you don’t really comprehend how they work precisely in accordance to what you need – be it now or later, you could end up investing a lot of money on something that you’ll end up substituting very soon. For example: You are unsure of how to create an online shopping cart, but you know that you require one that connects to your catalogue, can be easily modified, agrees for coupons etc. Even if you don’t know how to manually design a shopping cart, you will at least know how it works from an operational point of view. This is a situation that is considered safe for outsourcing. However, if you don’t understand the basics of how online shopping carts work at all, it is not advisable to blindly outsource it to a third party like a Virtual Assistant company. Chances are, you will never find out if the solutions they have recommended are effective enough. This is especially true when it comes to outsourcing software issues or technology and if you are a start-up. By relying on Virtual Assistants from the onset, you may miss out on the chance to understand the full picture on how the technology works. Outsource only what you need to. Ensure that the teams in charge have at least a basic understanding of what needs to be accomplished and the yardsticks that will be used to evaluate the final suggestions. 3. NEVER Fully Outsource Your Brand Identity If you are starting out, you need to focus on brand-building. Understand that you will attract more opportunities if you have built an effective brand strategy. Think of whether you have created an effective logo or brand message that will go on to resonate with your future clients. While there are Virtual Assistant professionals who can help build your brand message, tag lines or designs; your message and your brand identity need to strictly come from YOU. This is because, only you and your in-house teams know what it stands for and how the brand needs to be communicated to target audiences. Even if you insist on outsourcing this aspect to the experts because you don’t have the time for it yourself, you need to at least be involved in the logo/brand creation process every step of the way so, that your brand still retains your identity. For example, would you mind walking into a tattoo studio and letting the tattoo artist instinctively create what he/she wants to, onto your skin? Tattoos are permanent and the first impressions that people get of your brand, are equally indelible. Though the tattoo artist will be creating the final art work, your inputs on how you want it done, the styles, colours or the design will solely come from you and will echo your thoughts/experiences. Now, think of your brand in the same way Would you want to fully outsource your brand identity to a third party? You might think that you can subcontract every small task to your Virtual Assistant. Though there are a lot of tasks that you CAN outsource to your virtual assistants, certain aspects such as the ones mentioned above, could risk colossal business damage. You need to do some prior homework on what your company does best, understand when the right time is to outsource and the credibility of your outsourcing provider. What do you think? What are some of the functions or tasks that you will never outsource?

Things You Should NEVER Outsource As a Small Business Read More »

As a small business owner, it can be a real struggle to stay at the “top of things”. What you should ideally be focusing on is how to run your business and attract new prospects. Like any business however, the things you may want to do may slam into the things that have to be done on a daily basis. A great way to free up some time so that you can focus on growing the business is by engaging an experienced Virtual Assistant from an experienced outsourcing provider like GetFriday. A Virtual Assistant could be the answer to your growing business demands and help offload run-of-the-mill tasks like handling social media accounts as well as mundane jobs like contacting clients, email management, setting up reminders or devising a travel itinerary for you. The possibilities are endless! If you have decided to take the leap, be wary, because a bad outsourcing decision can be costlier than not outsourcing in the first place. Keeping that in mind, this post highlights three of the major things that you should NOT outsource as a small business and that are best handled internally. Take a look! 1. NEVER Outsource Your Core Competencies Never make the mistake of farming out your core competencies to virtual assistants. If you are a tech start-up, do not subcontract your technology or if you are a recruiting firm, don’t outsource your recruiters. Figure out what your company is really good at doing and outsource the auxiliary services that are related to these core competencies, if you must. Let us take the following example. You could hire virtual assistant specialists to write and edit the content that you want to include in your inbound marketing efforts. But make sure that your in-house team makes the business or the editorial decisions as to how the content has to be written, what topics should be covered or the channels that should be used to propagate the content. Part of developing an effective outsourcing plan is to understand what your company is really good at doing and keep it in-house. Outsource the rest to a dependable, virtual assistance service provider. 2. NEVER Outsource What You Don’t Understand There are probably a hundred things that you might want to outsource at the moment, such as getting an assistant to manage your CRM, designing a shopping cart, developing a WordPress website and so much more! While most of these can be outsourced, if you don’t really comprehend how they work precisely in accordance to what you need – be it now or later, you could end up investing a lot of money on something that you’ll end up substituting very soon. For example: You are unsure of how to create an online shopping cart, but you know that you require one that connects to your catalogue, can be easily modified, agrees for coupons etc. Even if you don’t know how to manually design a shopping cart, you will at least know how it works from an operational point of view. This is a situation that is considered safe for outsourcing. However, if you don’t understand the basics of how online shopping carts work at all, it is not advisable to blindly outsource it to a third party like a Virtual Assistant company. Chances are, you will never find out if the solutions they have recommended are effective enough. This is especially true when it comes to outsourcing software issues or technology and if you are a start-up. By relying on Virtual Assistants from the onset, you may miss out on the chance to understand the full picture on how the technology works. Outsource only what you need to. Ensure that the teams in charge have at least a basic understanding of what needs to be accomplished and the yardsticks that will be used to evaluate the final suggestions. 3. NEVER Fully Outsource Your Brand Identity If you are starting out, you need to focus on brand-building. Understand that you will attract more opportunities if you have built an effective brand strategy. Think of whether you have created an effective logo or brand message that will go on to resonate with your future clients. While there are Virtual Assistant professionals who can help build your brand message, tag lines or designs; your message and your brand identity need to strictly come from YOU. This is because, only you and your in-house teams know what it stands for and how the brand needs to be communicated to target audiences. Even if you insist on outsourcing this aspect to the experts because you don’t have the time for it yourself, you need to at least be involved in the logo/brand creation process every step of the way so, that your brand still retains your identity. For example, would you mind walking into a tattoo studio and letting the tattoo artist instinctively create what he/she wants to, onto your skin? Tattoos are permanent and the first impressions that people get of your brand, are equally indelible. Though the tattoo artist will be creating the final art work, your inputs on how you want it done, the styles, colours or the design will solely come from you and will echo your thoughts/experiences. Now, think of your brand in the same way Would you want to fully outsource your brand identity to a third party? You might think that you can subcontract every small task to your Virtual Assistant. Though there are a lot of tasks that you CAN outsource to your virtual assistants, certain aspects such as the ones mentioned above, could risk colossal business damage. You need to do some prior homework on what your company does best, understand when the right time is to outsource and the credibility of your outsourcing provider. What do you think? What are some of the functions or tasks that you will never outsource?

Debunking Common Outsourcing Myths

When you consider outsourcing, it means that you ideally want to avoid undertaking peripheral company functions on your own. Outsourcing has long been a strategic business practice and is a way of reorganizing or relocating a part of a company’s functions to a 3rd party, to boost productivity and improve business functions. Despite the numerous benefits that outsourcing can bring to the table, many first-timers or companies remain oblivious to the obvious and prefer handling all functions in-house due to the many myths and misconceptions associated with outsourcing. Through this post, we aim to debunk the 6 most prevalent outsourcing myths and unveil the realities.   Myth #1 – The Main Incentive For Companies To Outsource Are Reduced Costs Fact #1 – Companies Outsource For Other Reasons Than reducing Costs   For a very long time, companies outsourced because they believed that it would help reduce costs. Due to the mismatch in expectations and reality, the motives behind outsourcing has also evolved over time. Reduced costs may be ‘one’ of the incentives to outsource a function but definitely not the main reason anymore. Rather, the quality of the services provided and the quick access to specialist service providers who can complete a job in a much more efficient manner than an in-house employee, have become some of the major impetuses to outsource. Let’s face it. If your company is not very proficient with SEO, chances are that an outsourcing partner that has a specialist team for SEO, can generate quicker results for your company and work more efficiently.   Myth #2 – There Will Be Cultural & Language Disparities Fact #2 – Outsourcing Companies Are Trained To Handle Cross-Cultural Exchange   Apart from being just a myth, cultural and language disparities are also some of the greatest fears for first-time outsourcers. The fear being, that cultural and language barriers can pose obstacles during the process of exchanging vital information. However, it is safe to say that this is just a misconception. Most outsourcing companies hire qualified professionals that are experienced in cross-cultural exchange and are proficient with multiple languages, including English. India, Russia and Philippines are at the top of the league when it comes to deploying professional customer support teams who are both, fluent and familiar with multiple cultures and the English language.   Myth #3 – Clients Have No Control Once The Job Is Outsourced Fact #3 – You Have As Much Control As You Would With An In-House Team! This is one of the most prevalent outsourcing myths and is not as difficult to manage as most companies or people would like to believe. With check-points and methodologies established with the outsourcer, you can offer your suggestions, tested practices, sample frameworks and carry out regular checks on the progress of the job being done once you have outsourced a task. Frequent information-exchange and communication is a necessity and the more you exert control over an outsourcing company, the better your results and your personal virtual assistants‘ efficiency. By providing feedback, you will not only be encouraging your virtual assistant to do better, but you will also be establishing a great working relationship.   Myth #4 – Outsourcing Is For The Big Companies Fact #4 – Small Business Enterprises Have Benefited More With Outsourcing In The Recent Past   No one can take away the fact that large enterprises have made the best use of outsourcing in the past, but let’s not forget the scale on which these big companies outsourced. The decision to outsource nowadays is supported by different reasons for different companies and in the case of start-ups, they are driven to outsource because of the countless benefits. More small businesses are taking to outsourcing today to add value, know-how and experience to their business functions. It is all the more important for small businesses to focus on their core functions and grow their business rather than spend all their valuable time on laborious jobs that can be handled by professionals. An advantage in today’s time and age is that many outsourcers offer customized packages or prefer working for small business enterprises. Look out for these specific outsourcing companies or virtual assistance companies if you run a small business enterprise. 6 ACTIVITIES TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS   Myth #5 – Outsourcing Is Risky Fact #5 – Your Thinking Is Risky   Sometimes it’s your thinking that can be risky and can stop you from taking the right step for your business. You may believe that handling all the functions in-house will save your company from a number of risks. Though this may be true to a marginal degree, there are a number of companies who were responsible for their own downfall due to colossal data exposure and inadequate, in-house security measures in the past. Outsourcing companies on the other hand, have only grown and made their security policies more stringent. Experienced outsourcing providers and virtual assistant companies have always understood the importance of data security and these practices have always been treated with the highest priority. Routine measures such as encrypted data, superior firewalls, stringent work policies and NDA’s are some of the many measures that are given precedence when dealing with clients, sensitive data and their tasks. Outsourcing is an extremely safe practice provided you do your homework and choose the right company to work with.   Myth #6 – Outsourcing And Offshoring Are The Same Fact #6 – No, They Are NOT! You may have noticed that ‘outsourcing’ and ‘offshoring’ are interchangeably used, but they are definitely not the same. Outsourcing involves paying a 3rd party or a virtual assistance company to complete your work for you. Offshoring on the other hand, means relocating or moving your business efforts wholly to another country, instead of just hiring a company to handle key components of your business. Though the differences may seem negligible, there is in fact, a huge difference between the two terminologies.

Debunking Common Outsourcing Myths Read More »

When you consider outsourcing, it means that you ideally want to avoid undertaking peripheral company functions on your own. Outsourcing has long been a strategic business practice and is a way of reorganizing or relocating a part of a company’s functions to a 3rd party, to boost productivity and improve business functions. Despite the numerous benefits that outsourcing can bring to the table, many first-timers or companies remain oblivious to the obvious and prefer handling all functions in-house due to the many myths and misconceptions associated with outsourcing. Through this post, we aim to debunk the 6 most prevalent outsourcing myths and unveil the realities.   Myth #1 – The Main Incentive For Companies To Outsource Are Reduced Costs Fact #1 – Companies Outsource For Other Reasons Than reducing Costs   For a very long time, companies outsourced because they believed that it would help reduce costs. Due to the mismatch in expectations and reality, the motives behind outsourcing has also evolved over time. Reduced costs may be ‘one’ of the incentives to outsource a function but definitely not the main reason anymore. Rather, the quality of the services provided and the quick access to specialist service providers who can complete a job in a much more efficient manner than an in-house employee, have become some of the major impetuses to outsource. Let’s face it. If your company is not very proficient with SEO, chances are that an outsourcing partner that has a specialist team for SEO, can generate quicker results for your company and work more efficiently.   Myth #2 – There Will Be Cultural & Language Disparities Fact #2 – Outsourcing Companies Are Trained To Handle Cross-Cultural Exchange   Apart from being just a myth, cultural and language disparities are also some of the greatest fears for first-time outsourcers. The fear being, that cultural and language barriers can pose obstacles during the process of exchanging vital information. However, it is safe to say that this is just a misconception. Most outsourcing companies hire qualified professionals that are experienced in cross-cultural exchange and are proficient with multiple languages, including English. India, Russia and Philippines are at the top of the league when it comes to deploying professional customer support teams who are both, fluent and familiar with multiple cultures and the English language.   Myth #3 – Clients Have No Control Once The Job Is Outsourced Fact #3 – You Have As Much Control As You Would With An In-House Team! This is one of the most prevalent outsourcing myths and is not as difficult to manage as most companies or people would like to believe. With check-points and methodologies established with the outsourcer, you can offer your suggestions, tested practices, sample frameworks and carry out regular checks on the progress of the job being done once you have outsourced a task. Frequent information-exchange and communication is a necessity and the more you exert control over an outsourcing company, the better your results and your personal virtual assistants‘ efficiency. By providing feedback, you will not only be encouraging your virtual assistant to do better, but you will also be establishing a great working relationship.   Myth #4 – Outsourcing Is For The Big Companies Fact #4 – Small Business Enterprises Have Benefited More With Outsourcing In The Recent Past   No one can take away the fact that large enterprises have made the best use of outsourcing in the past, but let’s not forget the scale on which these big companies outsourced. The decision to outsource nowadays is supported by different reasons for different companies and in the case of start-ups, they are driven to outsource because of the countless benefits. More small businesses are taking to outsourcing today to add value, know-how and experience to their business functions. It is all the more important for small businesses to focus on their core functions and grow their business rather than spend all their valuable time on laborious jobs that can be handled by professionals. An advantage in today’s time and age is that many outsourcers offer customized packages or prefer working for small business enterprises. Look out for these specific outsourcing companies or virtual assistance companies if you run a small business enterprise. 6 ACTIVITIES TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS   Myth #5 – Outsourcing Is Risky Fact #5 – Your Thinking Is Risky   Sometimes it’s your thinking that can be risky and can stop you from taking the right step for your business. You may believe that handling all the functions in-house will save your company from a number of risks. Though this may be true to a marginal degree, there are a number of companies who were responsible for their own downfall due to colossal data exposure and inadequate, in-house security measures in the past. Outsourcing companies on the other hand, have only grown and made their security policies more stringent. Experienced outsourcing providers and virtual assistant companies have always understood the importance of data security and these practices have always been treated with the highest priority. Routine measures such as encrypted data, superior firewalls, stringent work policies and NDA’s are some of the many measures that are given precedence when dealing with clients, sensitive data and their tasks. Outsourcing is an extremely safe practice provided you do your homework and choose the right company to work with.   Myth #6 – Outsourcing And Offshoring Are The Same Fact #6 – No, They Are NOT! You may have noticed that ‘outsourcing’ and ‘offshoring’ are interchangeably used, but they are definitely not the same. Outsourcing involves paying a 3rd party or a virtual assistance company to complete your work for you. Offshoring on the other hand, means relocating or moving your business efforts wholly to another country, instead of just hiring a company to handle key components of your business. Though the differences may seem negligible, there is in fact, a huge difference between the two terminologies.

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