The biggest mistake that a new business owner can make is overestimating their own ability. If you’re reading this thinking that you can handle every single aspect of running a business on your own, you’re wrong. Nobody is Superman and if you’re going to last more than a few months, you’ll need to get help from other people and companies. There are all sorts of things that you might need a hand with depending on what you do, but there are some services that every business needs.
IT Support
This is absolutely vital. All businesses rely almost entirely on computers to run so every second that they’re down for is costing you money. If you’ve got one of your employees that knows a little about computers trying to fix a major malfunction with the entire system, you’ll be there for days. You need proper professionals that can get things back up and running as soon as possible to minimize the impact.
Hiring an entire IT team is usually too expensive when you’re just starting out so you’ll have to outsource to an IT company that offers round the clock support. Having them set up your office in the first place will also help you to reduce the likelihood of problems in the future.
Invoice Financing
Getting clients is the first hurdle you’ll face, but finding work doesn’t necessarily guarantee getting paid. Customers are going to want to see some work before they part with any money. When you’re established that isn’t a problem but for new startups, it means paying for all of the running costs and the cost of carrying out those jobs yourself. However, invoice financing companies offer a simple solution to that problem. They’ll pay you ninety percent of the invoice right away, and give you the rest when the customer pays. It’s such a huge help because you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to finance those jobs before the customer has paid and it helps you to avoid cash flow problems which often trip up new companies.
Social Media Marketing
When you’re trying to prioritize expenses to fit into a very tight budget, social media marketing is often low down on the list. Bosses think that posting a couple of things on Facebook and Twitter every day is simple and there’s no need to pay somebody to do it. But there’s so much more to it than that, and it’s something that only certain people can do well. You wouldn’t try to run the rest of your marketing campaigns yourself so why should social media be any different. You won’t see sales increases if your marketing campaigns aren’t all up to scratch so you’re just going to have to invest a bit of money in them.
Accounting
Accounting is a service that you need, and you’ll have to look elsewhere for it but you don’t necessarily have to pay somebody to do it. Getting a company to deal with it for you is one option but there is so much great accounting software out there that can make it easier for you to do it yourself. It’s a great cheaper option.
You can always try to do this stuff yourself but you’ll end up biting off more than you can chew and it’ll all blow up in your face.