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Starting a business on your own can be daunting – but it can be done. You will find, however, that you will require support from various groups of people and businesses to get the ball rolling. For the most part, this will be in those that surround you in everyday life, but you will also require the services of professionals to help you make your business a success and achieve your goals.
Of course, there are plenty of businesses that are available for hire, and you should make sure that you carry out your research to ascertain which offers the services that are the best fit for you while making sure that you cover all of the vital areas.
#1 Qualified Accountant
Having a qualified accountant involved with your business from the start can be more than just helpful when it comes to compiling your accounts and dealing with taxes. A qualified accountant will also be able to advise you on the financial aspects of your business, rules, and laws that you must abide by. Of course, nowadays, you do not have to stick to those accountants that practice within your current location; there are those accountants, such as Michael Savage New Canaan, that offer virtual accounting services.
If you are new to the concept of virtual accounting, it basically means that everything is kept online and that face-to-face meetings will be held via a video link rather than in person – in line with the trend across all businesses in recent times. This gives your startup the bonus of seeking out the best accountant for your needs without worrying about spending too much time away from your work.
Virtual accountants have exactly the same skill and qualifications as their non-virtual counterparts. You will find that some have specialist knowledge that can help with your business startup and continuation to success, such as Michael Savage has renowned and unsurpassed knowledge of tax laws.
#2 Experienced Web Designer
As nearly all businesses operate on the internet in one form or another, you will need a professional-looking and fully functional website. Although you can purchase an off-the-shelf, fill the blanks kind of website relatively cheaply, you will find that it will undoubtedly lack that certain ‘something’ that your competitors have. This is because the off-the-shelf variety offers a one-size-fits-all product that, in fairness, doesn’t really fit anybody well enough to look or compete with the tailor-made products.
You will have seconds to impress your website visitors and provide them with a glance at your highly professional and specialized business; getting this wrong by providing them with a poorly fitting, less than professional website will not inspire confidence in your products or services. However, hiring the services of an experienced web designer will enable you to showcase your professionalism and prove to any visitor that your business offers the best service or products within your chosen niche.
Of course, a website is not just about how it looks but also about how it performs. An experienced web designer will be able to ensure that your website has all the functions needed to stay compliant with online laws and regulations and provides a good user experience to any potential customers. You may also find that an experienced web designer will be able to offer you hosting and website maintenance packages as well, which will ensure that your website can be viewed online and kept up to date with necessary plug-ins as and when they are available.
#3 Competent SEO Agency
Undoubtedly there is not much point in paying out for these services unless you have a strategy in place that enables your potential customers to find your website easily. This is where the services of a competent SEO agency come into play. In very basic terms, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) determines where a website is placed on search engine rankings.
You may not think that this is too important until you realize that very few people will search past the first three pages, and most will only look at the first page before making their choice. If your business is not on the first page of a search engine such as Google or even featured on the first three pages, you are losing out on many potential customers and the revenue they bring.
So, armed with this knowledge, you can see why hiring the services of a competent SEO agency is certainly preferable to not having one. They will endeavor to raise your search engine rankings by using focused keywords, creating backlinks, and creating content, among other vital tactics, to grow visibility for your online presence and generate organic quality traffic to your website.
Of course, their services will not stop here; they can (if you want them to) provide you with audits, analysis, and marketing strategies. This is so that you can see where positive adjustments will need to be made and avenues to create even more revenue, such as using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
#4 Ad-hoc Service Providers
When you are starting a business completely by yourself, you will also need help from other areas or struggle under the weight of the workloads you have taken on. Hiring employees might be out of the question as it can be expensive and raise your stress levels further, especially as you are unlikely to know how your business finances will pan out. It makes more sense to work and grow your business for a while before taking on the responsibility of employees.
However, this is not going to mean that you aren’t going to need the help and expertise of others to get your business through or provide your customers with quality products or services. When taking this into account, you should start looking to outsource those areas of your workload that you cannot do yourself to the standard you want to provide to your customers.
Using websites such as Fivver or Upwork to outsource ad-hoc tasks will mean that you get the job done while paying solely for the work carried out on your behalf. You will find that there are individuals offering their services to perform various tasks from the basic to the highly skilled and specialist, such as;
- Supplying copy – for either your website, email, social media posts, or general articles
- Logo design – for when you want to make your business more memorable and add continuity
- Graphics design – that you want to add to your literature or advertising campaigns
- Repetitive tasks – such as social media posts, website articles, transcribing, and analyzing data
Final thoughts
Running your own business can be highly stressful and exhausting, especially if you are trying to cover all of your bases yourself. This can lead to making poor decisions and burnout before you have seen your business reach its full potential. These factors alone make bringing in professional help from the earliest point a wise decision to make.
It is not a failure by any means to hire the services of other businesses or people to help you achieve your desired goals. It is important to remember that they are there to help you; criticism can be a hard thing to hear, especially if you are pouring your heart and soul into your business. It is important to remember their success hinges on your success, and it is far better to be a positive feature in each other’s success stories than go against sound advice in the effort of following what you think is right.