While nearly everyone would like to be a business owner, the fact of the matter is that running a small business is much more hard work than it is glorious. There’s no reason to go into business for yourself if you’re looking for an easy life. If you want your enterprise to be successful, you have to be willing to work longer hours and put more effort into your tasks than ever before.
If you want to grow your small business, you’ll have to expand your products, operations, and capabilities. You have to take your marketing efforts to another level and increase your brand awareness and visibility. Finding the right potential hires to help your business flourish can be difficult, but contracting key business services is a great way to save time and money. Continue reading to learn about some business services that are well worth the investment.
1. Electronic Payment Processing
These days, it’s more common for people to pay for goods with a credit card or debit card rather than hard cash. Last summer, during the height of the pandemic, there was a coin shortage and even talk of a cashless society. At this point, if your small business doesn’t have an electronic payment processing system, you have an archaic business model.
Independent sales organizations—also known as ISO credit card processors—offer POS services for credit cards and debit cards. These services are integral to expanding your business and transitioning into the new era of commerce. Smaller companies can benefit greatly from the various merchant services ISOs provide. Creating a merchant account with an ISO not only gives you access to POS services, but they even handle certain services related to marketing and data for analytics.
2. SEO Services
Thanks largely to the popularity of social media and online shopping, digital marketing has become wildly prominent, and SEO is an integral part of any effective online marketing campaign. Technically speaking, anyone can put together a digital marketing campaign, but applying SEO best practices is something altogether different. You could argue that SEO is both an art and a science.
The main goal of search engine optimization (SEO) is to help enterprise sites to rank higher on search results pages. For instance, when you look for something online, you likely choose a result that ranks near the top of the first page (excluding ads). The likelihood of your website ranking on the first page depends on factors like your domain authority and relativity of your content to the search query.
Enterprise SEO companies like Peaks Digital provide SEO strategy solutions that help small businesses increase brand awareness and visibility. Their list of SEO services consists of keyword research, link building, content marketing, social media marketing, and page optimization. Small businesses are locked in a constant battle to climb search engine rankings and drive organic traffic to their websites. Whether you’re an executive of a large organization or owner of a small business, SEO is essential to your digital marketing strategy.
3. OKRs Consulting
Goal setting is equally important to large companies and smaller companies alike. Enterprises with well-defined company objectives find it easier to get their team members in alignment with the direction of the company and achieve the desired key results.
Objectives and key results (OKRs) software is software used to set company objectives and measure progress relating to those goals. One of the ways you’ll know you’ve found the right OKRs software is if you find a vendor who also offers OKR coaching or consulting services.
OKRs programs are intricate with many different tools and metrics which they deliver. Even though Workboard’s OKRs enterprise software provides a friendly UX, they still offer training on how to use their software, as well as consulting on how to get the most from your team members using the software.
4. Accounting
The main motivation for going into business for oneself is to create revenue and earn a profit. Many business owners make the mistake of trying to manage their own finances before they’re ready, but accounting services could save your business in the long term.
The best thing about outsourcing your accounting needs instead of hiring an accountant is that you only have to pay for the accounting services you need. Hiring an accountant to work full-time for your company is too expensive for most smaller companies, but accounting firms offer different levels of service and pricing options.
5. Recruiting Services
Turnover is one of the largest expenses that business owners face, especially at smaller companies. It costs a lot of money to hire and train great employees, and furthermore, you don’t know what your ROI will be on a new hire until after a few months.
Recruiting services and headhunters know how to use the web to connect people with qualifications for specific positions. While scouring the internet to find the top potential candidates is something most business owners don’t have time for, it’s all recruiters and headhunters do.
By finding the right people for the job the first time around, your company saves time and money. So, a headhunter might cost you upfront, but what you’ll save in turnover and time will more than pay for itself.
