In the current financial climate, small businesses are big business. From crafters to professional services it seems that the growth in small and freelance business is a fast moving one. Whether it be due to redundancy, as a way to facilitate a career change or just as a way to get back into the workplace, the ‘kitchen table’ enterprise is a business model that is making a big contribution to the economy.

In the beginning it is the flexible working hours, the very short commute to the kitchen table and a sense of pride and achievement that make these small businesses successful. The passion and personal touch of the business owner is key to making potential clientele into repeat customers, but there does come a point when the business grows almost out of control. The personal touch is lost under a pile of paperwork and the passion is subdued after yet another website crash! This is the point that many consider taking on staff, but that in its self is likely to put more strain on the business and the already stressed business owner. The extra cost involved in employing a member of staff is often prohibitive and the extra paperwork obviously takes valuable time away from the front end of the business.

My advice has always been to outsource services as and when they are needed. To make use of all the other ‘kitchen table’ businesses out there. To tap into their myriad of skills and their enthusiasm for the things that is the stuff of nightmares for other small business owners. The social networks are full of small businesses peddling their wares and offering all manor of services. The beauty of platforms such as Twitter is being able to get a feel for the person before a entering a business relationship. The sort of things that they tweet indicates their level of knowledge and identifies a common interest, links to their websites and blogs will help sway a decision to make contact.

In preparation for this article I surveyed my Twitter followers, asking them about the services that they buy in to help their business run more smoothly. I was expecting accounting to come out top, but it was actually IT that was top of most peoples list. This actually makes sense given that most of my followers have online businesses and their websites are quite literally their shop fronts. But it is not just online businesses that need a shop front on the web, even those with a footing in the real world need to have an online presence. So it is little surprise that IT services took 66% of the vote. Coming in at 33% was accounting and there are no prizes for guessing that Tax Returns and end of year accounts where the most popular times of the financial year for using an accountant. Several of those surveyed do employ staff and they indicated that they make use of online payroll services. From my business point of view I was very disappointed to discover that outsourcing PR and marketing came within the remaining 1% along with admin support.

I asked what problems the small businesses had experienced in outsourcing, no major problems came back in the responses, but a general theme of vetting and getting references for potential service providers was expressed. I would concur, anyone who works for a business, whether that be as an employee, freelance or the business owner themselves will need to reflect the brand and respect the ethos of that business. The right person for the job is not the cheapest but the person who will help to grow the business and protect its reputation. I found that on average the small businesses that took part in my survey spent and average of 20% of their turnover on outsourcing services and this became less as the business grew as a direct result of using these services.

In conclusion I would emphasise that the best way to grow a business is to expand the talent pool and the quickest way to do this is to outsource the jobs that are either time consuming or beyond the skills of the business owner. There is absolutely no merit in spending hours trying to make the books balance if it means neglecting potential clients. With very few exceptions it is the business owner who must drive the marketing and PR of the business, whether they are using an outsourced PR company or not, having the time to be the face of the business is essential. In this golden age of online accessibility and a competitor being just a click of the mouse away, hiding behind a broken website, under a pile of invoices or not taking advantage of every opportunity to raise the business profile is not an option.