What are business support services, how they can save you money, and free up your time?
‘What are business support services, how they can save you money, and free up your time?’ is a question I frequently get asked. Unlike some industries, I have worked and solved the pain points for varied and diverse clients. Busy Lives! services are bespoke to be precisely what you need help with not what ‘Joe Bloggs’ needs. This blog post explains and gives some concrete examples of my current trends in work, things I have been asked to do and how, as a result, generated more income for businesses.
Overview
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What are business support services?
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What are the most common types of services requested?
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How business support services can free up your time and you make more money?
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Is it worth it?
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Your to-do Lists!
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Key questions to ask yourself if business support is right for you and your business?
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How Busy Lives! can support you?
What are business support services?
Business Support Services are there to solve the pain points in your business.
This can be aspects of your work you haven’t got the capacity to do within your day or jobs that you really don’t enjoy doing such as invoicing and reconciliation.
Business support services are services provided by an outsider business which aim to help your business grow without you having to employ additional staff.
Business support services frequently complete those time-heavy tasks which don’t automatically generate you additional income but in the process of doing these for you free up addition time allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business which do.
The beauty of using Busy Lives! is that you can assign work which is from a few hours up to a day on a weekly or monthly basis. This can be at your business premises or remotely whichever works best for you.
Top Tip:
Just like many other businesses there are busy and quiet periods of the year. When possible book well in advance when you can to ensure your delegated work is completed well in time for when it is needed.
What are the most common types of services requested?
Business Support services such as Busy Lives! have two categories of clients, ad-hoc clients that need a specific task either once or a few times within a year and regular clients which range from weekly to a specified number of hours within a month.
Current top five business services Busy Lives! is used for with repeating clients:
- Financial managerial support such as income invoicing, paying expenditure bills and reconciliation.
- Database and analysis work most frequently on excel specific to finances, clients and services used.
- Research, a vast spectrum depending upon the business industry.
- Organisation and filing of paperwork.
- GRDP data protection related work such as extracting papers for archiving and shredding.
Current top five business services Busy Lives! is used for as a one-off service:
- Website review and comparison against key competitors.
- Combining and creating a central client database from financial programs such as QuickBooks, Emailing contact lists and business cards.
- Researching specific businesses and creating a database to market and reach more clients from public information available such as businesses within a specific postcode area.
- Tidying up contacts within a CRM removing duplications and completing all missing fields.
- Organisation of all household paperwork creating a quick and easy filing system for the future.
Business support services can span a wide range of need. My most popular services tend to be mathematical and systematic orientated work, but I can do other types of work.
How business support services can free up your time and you make more money?
Using a business support service can save you time and make you money in several ways. Their hourly rate may be a fraction of what yours is, so getting someone to do certain tasks really can generate more money with what you can be doing with your time instead.
If your business is expanding you may not be at the stage of employing an additional person with all the additional costs which will have to be met such as National Insurance Contribution, Tax and Pension. With outsourced support you pay a flat agreed rate.
Below are real-life examples of how Busy Lives! have assisted businesses.
Example 1:
Business X did not have a single database for their clients. Instead they had several data bases for different clients – this is not an effective way to store this type of information. The negative effect of this meant that when the business ran marketing campaigns, they missed clients which in turn lost them custom and money.
Busy Lives! resolved this by compiling a central client database. Having all client information in one place meant everyone was being targeted in their future marketing campaigns.
Example 2:
Business Y had a client database but did not have all the information for every client. Busy Lives! was bought in to conduct research and gather all the missing information. This allowed Business Y to conduct specified marketing, for example they could target all clients within a certain postcode area or clients who work in a specific trade. Targeted marketing resulted in a more successful campaign and more sales.
This client had been planning on doing this for over a year but didn’t have the time to dedicate to achieving this. With Busy Lives! doing this work, the client was able to spend more time maintaining and building professional business relationships which was key to their business.
Example 3:
Business Z wanted to conduct a postal campaign for businesses with a certain number of employees and within a specific radius.
Busy Lives! complied a list of businesses which fulfilled both requirements. This list allowed Business Z to conduct a postal campaign, target businesses, and obtaining new trade.
The above examples demonstrate how business support services can assist businesses and help you to maximise your profits. Many small businesses can benefit from using business support services as they allow you to focus on your products / services while someone else completes the ‘housekeeping’ tasks for you. Business support services are also beneficial if your business does not have dedicated people to complete housekeeping tasks or if you struggle to complete these tasks yourself as companies like Busy lives! have experience in all areas of business and so can complete any tasks you cannot do yourself or need assistance with.
Is it worth it?
Perhaps it depends on the person when considering outsourcing. One way of looking at this would be if you consider the overall cost per year, another way would be the amount of time you’d actually gain back from doing it!
Two quick examples from two of my regular clients:
3 – 4 hours a month – this equates to them having 6 additional days a year to do with as they wish for business or pleasure.
3 – 4 hours every week – this equates to them having an additional 24 days a year to do as they wish for business or pleasure.
To-Do Lists
We all have tasks that we enjoying doing and others that always go the bottom of that to-do list and get transferred to the next one! Rather than putting pressure and guilt on yourself with those tasks reflect if they could actually be outsourced. Just think about it – ‘X’ never being on that ‘to-do!’ list again.
Top Tip:
If you can’t get a referral about which business support service to use, have a look at a few websites and read the testimonials which have been written. These will often give you a greater insight into the calibre of person than just the ‘About Me’ page.
Key questions to ask yourself if business support is right for you and your business?
Ask yourself what are your pain points?
“What don’t I like doing?”
What takes up too much of time or can be is relentless?
What three things could you outsource that someone would be able to do quicker than you?
Why haven’t I given Karen a call yet? (07565722031)
How Busy Lives! can support you?
Busy Lives! was created when I left a busy career that left me time poor and unable to give sufficient priority to what really mattered to me. I now provide a wide range of bespoke business support for people in that position.
Busy Lives! relevant links to this blog post, click on the sentence below:
- Find out what other questions I frequently get asked about business support.
- Take a look at my case studies where I’ve solved other clients problems.
- Business support for the running of your business.
Let you help you gain precious time back. Ring Busy Lives! 07565 722 031
Drop me a message on this website, LinkedIn or Messenger on Facebook
Or Email: karen@busylivesnottingham.co.uk