by Bridget Van Landingham
In our crazy busy world, we’ve found small business owners to be some of the busiest.
Like many business owners, they tend to wear many hats. Beyond their primary business activity hat, owners can wear an accounting hat, human resources hat, IT hat, marketing hat and more.
While we can admire that entrepreneurial can-do spirit, being busy—or overwhelmingly busy—can make it hard to get work done. More specifically, doing the work that will maintain and grow your business plus increase your income.
Wearing too many hats on your head can be unwieldy. It can take a stressful amount of energy to keep all those hats from falling off your head.
Energy that could be better focused on your core business activity.
Time to Share Those Hats—Advantages of Outsourcing
Outsourcing some areas of your business can be an efficient way to improve the running of your business.
Here’s a list of our top four outsourcing advantages:
Focus: Keeping Attention on Your Core Business a Priority
Smart business owners know they have limited time and attention for details. When that time and attention is consumed by peripheral day-to-day tasks, your primary business can suffer from neglect.
By outsourcing, you can shift your focus from outlying tasks to activities that:
- Maintain and improve the quality of products or services your business delivers
- Better serve your customers
- Make your business more successful
Save Money: Increasing the Efficiency of Your Financials
As your business grows and becomes more complicated, so do the tasks of maintaining and keeping track of your business finances. There comes a point when performing these accounting tasks at a consistent and reasonable cost becomes a challenge.
Outsourcing can be a lifesaver to your business’ bottom line.
Accounting: If you’re spending nights trying to do the books, hire someone to handle your bookkeeping and billing. They can handle these day-to-day tasks efficiently while you focus (see above) on your business.
Reduce Overhead: If you’re a growing business, you’ve maybe encountered a need for more office space to handle more staff. Expansion costs money. Instead of incurring additional overhead costs, look at the simple tasks an expanded staff would perform and locate a vertical assistant/service provider that can fulfill them for you.
Reduced Labor Costs: As a follow up to reducing overhead, outsource staffing. Hiring and training new staff can be an expensive endeavor. Some of your staffing tasks might be better performed through a business that specializes in your needs. Consider hiring out for your IT, human resource management and janitorial needs.
Competitive Advantage: Leveling the Playing Field
Let’s face it, bigger companies that can hire in-house support have an advantage over smaller businesses. Outsourcing is one of the only ways a small business can compete financially.
You Can Act Bigger: Outsourcing can provide your small business with the same economies of scale, efficiency and expertise as your larger competitors.
Staffing Flexibility: If you have seasonal or cyclical staffing demands like most of us in St. Augustine, outsourcing can be the solution. Work with a virtual assistance firm that can bring in additional staffing resources when you need them and release them when not needed.
Start New Projects Quickly: By outsourcing your peripheral tasks, you’re able to better focus on your business needs. That means you can put more attention toward new income producing projects. What’s more, a virtual assistance firm could help you ramp up new projects right away.
Reduce Risk: Let Others Worry and Solve It For You
It’s no secret that we live in a business world of change. Market and financial conditions are always shifting. New government regulations are always just around the corner. Technology changes quickly.
Outsourcing to providers with expertise in areas outside your core business arena can help keep you away from sleepless nights. Let these outsourced partners assume and manage these risks for you.
If you are ready to take advantage of our virtual assistant services call us today at (904) 429-4588 to learn more.
by Bridget Van Landingham
They say that time is money.
During the day, that statement makes sense (or cents).
If you’re an hourly wage earner, each full circle of that big hand on a clock is more money in your pocket. If you’re a St. Augustine business owner, you want that hourly money you’re paying to also generate a profit.
Now, have you ever thought about the economic value of your sleep time? After all, sleep amounts to a third of our life. It should have some worth don’t you think?
Recently, the staff at Business Solutions Unlimited listened to the Freakonomics Radio podcast “Economics of Sleep.” We highly recommend listening to the entertaining and informative broadcasts yourself as it’s definitely influenced our view on the value of a good night sleep.
Part 1: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wnyc/freakonomics-radio/e/43341371
Part 2: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wnyc/freakonomics-radio/e/39738374
If you want a rundown on what we found fascinating (and alarming) about the economics of sleep, read on!
Lack of Sleep and Health
Lack of sleep has been linked to health problems, including diabetes, obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, lack of sleep may result in an annual cost of $16 billion in health care expenses.
People who sleep an average of six hours or less have a 13 percent higher mortality rate than those who sleep at least seven hours.
Lack of Sleep and Productivity
Sleep deprivation (six hours or less a night) can lead to a variety of unproductive and even dangerous effects:
- Cognitive processing speed slows down
- Poor concentration
- Decreased memory
- Mood changes
- Workplace contention
- Workplace absenteeism
- Increase in alcohol consumption
- Increased Industrial and car accidents
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, lack of sleep may result in an annual cost of $50 billion in lost productivity.
The U.S. loses approximately 1.2 million working days each year due to lack of sleep.
The Value of an Extra Hour of Sleep
People who added an extra hour of sleep gained a 16% income boost. That statistic came from researchers compiling data from the American Time Use Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Early Birds vs. Night Owls
Morning-type people earn 4 to 5 percent more than evening-type people.
How Much Sleep Should We Get?
The National Institutes of Health recommend people get between seven to eight hours of sleep a night.
How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a third of Americans do not get enough sleep on a regular basis.
Unless there are health-related issues causing a lack of sleep, most of us can get in a good night’s sleep just by changing some habits and your environment:
Consistency: Go to bed same time each night & get up the same time every morning. That goes for weekends too.
Atmosphere: Make sure your room is dark (wear an eye mask if necessary) and relaxing. Plus set your thermostat to a comfortable temperature.
Remove Electronics: That’s a hard one for some of us addicted to our smart phones or Jimmy Fallon. However, there’s plenty of research showing the electronic glow from our devices can impact our ability to sleep and the quality of sleep. So, put your phone away, remove your bedroom TV and don’t drag your laptop to bed.
Avoid Indulgences: Large meals, caffeine and alcohol before going to bed. And that means tobacco and nicotine as well.
Exercise During the Day: Being physically active during the day can help you fall asleep easily at night.
So, paying attention to your sleep can pay off in better health and increased income. That extra hour or two of sleep is a price worth paying.
To find out how we can help give us a call at (904) 429-4588 during the day. At night, we’re going to be getting some sleep so we can be more productive for you during the day.
by Bridget Van Landingham
I have been lucky enough to have experienced working professionally in Corporate America, Government & Small Business. Believe it or not there are some similarities & of course big differences. I have now owned my own small business for nine years. I have seen it from all sides, however, I am naturally drawn to anything small business it seems.
How Eavesdropping Started It All
One day I was working in operations management for a particular industry. I often walked the halls when I had time to ensure I was visible & approachable to all staff members. Along a few of these walks, I overheard several of our staff in phone conversations that seemed to be about something other than the services we provided. I later returned & inquired. I was right, all about other operational issues of which I happened to be able to answer from the top of my head. I went back to my office & as I sat back down in my chair it was like the moons of my mind began to align.
- Over the years I have certainly found myself in situations I felt uneasy to handle due to lack of knowledge, time, resources, etc.
- I cannot begin to tell you the insanely wide range of issues I have & still deal with daily. At least I can say every day is truly a different day.
- I am most proud of my ability to build a strong, happy, talented team. That is evident in my own success.
- It can be lonely at the top. However, that cannot be a reason to begin to interrupt the needed employee/employer balance!
- The smaller the business the deeper the cut. Meaning, the effect of something on a Small Business can be much greater than on a larger business. For example, the employee pool may be shallow enough that the owner opens themselves or wasted money is truly money from the dinner table.
- Every (small) business owner needs a “business manager” or at least could benefit from one. Especially someone who understands all this & more.
At its peak, the thought was clear. “I will open a small business for small businesses, I can help them with so many operational issues”. Then I thought, “I could create a small business resource center based on their needs & requests”. By build a strong, happy, talented team of specialists in the main operational areas such as Accounting, Human Resources, Marketing & Management.” I love a small business win-win!
Years later, I am the CEO of BSU, a small business resource center headquartered in St. Augustine. BSU has grown and continues to grow as we help small businesses.
