Administrative Support: A Necessary Investment

2017 is approaching and you have been thinking of ways to improve how you run your business. Ever thought about outsourcing your Administrative Support needs?

Outsourcing, the act of obtaining goods or services from an outside source, is not a new concept. In fact, it is very commonplace, especially among big businesses because they know that it gives them a comparative and a competitive advantage. How? It allows them to play to their strengths while partnering with other companies to provide services they­ are not experienced in performing or for which they just don’t have the time to set-up and execute.

Doing everything yourself is never a good idea. While it might seem like a cost-effective solution, on the contrary, it slows down your progress, especially when building your business. This is often the downfall of new or small business owners who try to work in those areas of their business that ARE NECESSARY, but for which they lack the skills or time to properly perform. For instance, let’s just say you need a website built. There are platforms out there that allow you to build your own website. However, I can tell you from personal experience that this is a very time consuming and labor intensive ongoing project. With that being said, I have a new found respect for website builders. Trust me when I tell you, they are worth every penny.

Another example of outsourcing is when dealing with the financial side of running a business. If accounting is not your forte, then a wise business owner would place this specialized area in the hands of a professional. Trying to handle this yourself through trial and error can put you in hot water with the IRS and is not a good idea.

Now that I’ve explained why outsourcing is no longer an option, but a NECESSARY investment, let’s look at the area of Administrative Support. This area requires a certain amount of expertise and is, without a doubt, a NECESSITY, in running a business -- you know, all the back-office tasks that are needed to allow you to have your business organized and running smoothly like clock work on a day-to-day basis. Some businesses have come to realize the benefit of outsourcing their administrative support. For them, it is not an option.

Many businesses do not think about outsourcing their administrative needs, because they assume it’s just one of those things that make sense to do on one’s own. Or, does it? Does it make sense to spend your time doing e-mail marketing, mail-merges or sending out letters to announce your speaking engagement when you could be writing the speech for your speaking engagement? Does it make sense to manage the upkeep of your contact database when you could be making contact and meeting with the people who are in your database? Does it make sense to search the internet, researching networking opportunities when you could be preparing your presentation for a networking event? Think about it. Every business requires general as well as specific administrative support as these are NECESSARY functions that keep a business operating at top performance. Are you finally convinced yet that outsourcing administrative support is the way to go?

Let’s face it. Outsourcing, in general, is no longer an option and outsourcing your administrative support needs only makes sense. It will free up your time to focus on what business owners love to do – GENERATE REVENUE.