More and more people are open to the idea of working abroad these days because it’s extremely affordable, it’s effective, and you can generally carry out any remote job while you’re on the go. All you need is a laptop and some kind of workflow that accommodates working outside of the office.
In fact, there are plenty of people that just run their own businesses from a laptop instead of having a remote job. Whether it’s an eCommerce business or freelancing as a writer, there are loads of different ways to start a business from a computer and have it follow you wherever you go. This is why the idea of a remote business is so enticing for people; it lets you travel while you work and you don’t need to have an office!
But if you’re going to start working remotely, you need to start making better use of outsourcing. If you’re unsure what outsourcing is or how it can be used effectively for your business, here are a couple of pointers to help you out.
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Why outsourcing?
Outsourcing means getting goods or services from a different company instead of using your own employees and resources. For example, you can outsource content creation by getting a writing service to help you create blog posts, articles, and product descriptions. Similarly, you can outsource web design to help you create a functional website without doing any of the work yourself. All you need to do is give them an idea of what your website should look like and they’ll do what they can to meet your needs and expectations.
So what sort of outsourced services should you be looking to use when growing a remote business?
Get a physical address to represent your business while you’re abroad
One of the best uses of outsourcing is to get yourself a physical address for your company. Having a proper address gives you far more credibility and it’s also extremely useful for maintaining a legitimate business. While most people that freelance don’t need to have a physical address, it certainly helps if you’re running a business that buys and sells various goods.
Virtual address services go above and beyond to help you run your business as well. You can get high-quality scans of all your mail and you can even ship packages internationally to your location. It’s managed over the internet with a cloud dashboard as well, meaning you can access it from any kind of device.
Accounting services can save you a lot of time (and headaches)
Accounting can be one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks to manage because it involves a lot of calculations. As your business grows and you make more transactions, you’ll find that accounting gets increasingly complex. Factor in tax responsibilities and you have a recipe for a headache every month.
You can make this process a lot easier by simply hiring an accountant to help you. This is a service you’ll only need for an hour or two each week, making it very affordable even for a small startup.
Work with an outsourced marketing team to grow your brand
Another great outsourced service to use while you’re abroad is a marketing company. Growing your business takes a lot of work and it’s arguably one of the most time-consuming parts of running a business. Luckily, you can cut out a lot of the work and ask an outsourced service to do most of the heavy lifting.
You can give general directions for how you want your business to be perceived, then your outsourced marketing team will help you decide on the best course of action to make it easier for you to grow your company. It saves a lot of time, it can help you give your brand some personality, and it’s extremely cost-effective.
Automating customer service with an outsourced service
Customer service is arguably one of the most difficult things to handle when you’re working remotely. This is much harder when you run an international business that never really closes its doors. Due to time zone differences, you could get a customer support message when you’re fast asleep at 5 AM.
To help counteract this issue, you could have an automated customer support service that is managed by another company. Alternatively, you could rely on a real customer service company to cover for you while you’re unable to answer calls or take messages. This can cost quite a lot of money since you’ll need to provide documentation for your customer service staff to follow, but it ensures that your business can operate around the clock.
