Local business development professional Richard Berger presents the final in a seven-article series designed to help Long Beach businesses successfully market themselves in a depressed economy.
On the Inside Looking Out
9:00am | Let’s face it; nobody likes to make cuts, especially in staffing. When it becomes a question of survival, businesses really do need to make cuts. Nevertheless, marketing and advertising should be one of the last things cut. It’s the only thing (less expensive than staff) that is keeping your services, your products and your brand in front of your consumers!
Understanding the importance of consistent marketing in a freakonomy, some businesses opt to reduce their staff instead and/or locally outsource non-core business activities and processes. Local outsourcing can save both time and money because the tasks that you outsource to local professional providers enable you to focus on what your business does best.
By outsourcing secondary services, you’ll save money. You won’t have to pay wages and related employment costs. Rather, you’ll typically get the services of an entire team of experts for less than the cost of a single full-time employee. With the proper relationship, you’ll be able to shift responsibilities and minimize risks in the areas not among your business’s core competencies. Additionally, you’ll generally get more responsive service and quicker project turn-arounds by working with reliable outsourced professionals in your area.
Focusing on What Your Company Does Best
According to an article in AllBusiness.com, many businesses used outsourced services during the down-economy of the early 1990s. “The flat economy caused many companies into huge layoffs and subsequently outsourced functions that were better kept in-house,” states the article. While most businesses understand the typical cost-savings by outsourcing, there are some important far-reaching benefits that the article points to;
- Control capital costs
- Increase efficiency
- Reduce labor costs
- Start new projects quickly
- Focus on your core business
- Level the playing field
- Reduce risk
Let’s say that your accounting firm is looking to reduce costs in this uncertain economy. You could potentially look at outsourcing your IT services to any number of qualified professional IT teams in your area. Depending on your actual needs, you could outsource to a certified IT professional for maintenance-type services or outsource to a full-service IT team for maintenance, development and planning. By working with a local third-party you’ll get a different perspective on your business and leverage the expertise and experience of the professional or team you partner with.
Aside from the cost and efficiency benefits, outsourcing also enables companies to produce more effective results, in most cases. Especially where employees often fulfill multiple roles, outsourcing ensures faster project turn-around and minimizes risk.
The Business Side of Local Outsourcing
You may not realize it, but outsourcing in the U.S. is nearly a $26 billion industry. From lowering costs and improving quality to enhancing communications and reducing time-to-market, outsourcing non-core business processes to qualified local third-parties is big (cost-saving) business.
Small Business Bible points to some of the more common jobs that are outsourced include; back office and research and development jobs such as call centers, transaction processing, ship design, software development services, web site development and design, financial research, medical transcription, IT consultancy, product design, and tax processing. Most jobs that are outsourced are done in the financial, insurance, technical, software and banking sectors, as these jobs are labor intensive.
As a growing and viable industry sector, there is plenty of credible information to help business owners make smart decisions when it comes to outsourcing.
Outsourcing Center is considered to be the world’s most prominent internet portal for authoritative information on outsourcing. It helps people understand how to create value through outsourcing and provides a trusted and objective third-party perspective through consistent editorials, research and whitepapers.
An interesting geo-economic take on local outsourcing is here.
If local outsourcing is a viable solution for your business, Steve Wathen provides an excellent overview on How to Choose the Right Provider.
Because of the hyper-competitive nature of offering their services to the marketplace, third-party providers typically enhance their capabilities by obtaining certifications, awards, and advanced education, service-level and quality differentiators to maintain high standards of effectiveness and delivery within their industries. This benefits you in the form of competitive pricing, expert knowledge, fast and professional service.
In a freakonomy, it’s survival of the fittest and third-party providers are some of the fittest of them all.
Summary:
Each of these previous seven marketing strategies is inexpensive and individually powerful when implemented successfully. Deployed together, they provide an overarching set of strategies that help reinforce one another and serve to pollinate your advertising messages into the corners of the market, while simultaneously connecting with consumers across multiple channels.
Whatever freakonomy plans you put into action, the fundamental component of any advertising and marketing strategy is to understand the objective. From there, planning backwards leads to predictable customer-centric scenarios where implementing business development techniques like these can be utilized.
In the end, doing more with less doesn’t have to be about making cuts and slashing budgets. It’s really about being smarter and more resourceful in implementing business development tactics consistent with the fundamental aspects of the current economic and marketplace dynamics.
This completes the entire How To Successfully Market Your Business In A Freakonomy series.
For your copy of a downloadable version of the entire series go to ASTRALCOM or Amazon.
Previous articles on Doing Business in a Freakonomy
How To Successfully Market Your Business In A Freakonomy
Success In A Freakonomy, Part II: (Re)purposeful Marketing
Success In A Freakonomy, Part III: Press, Press, Pull
Success In A Freakonomy, Part IV: Organic Positioning
Success In A Freakonomy, Part V: Put Your Net To Work
Success In A Freakonomy, Part VI: Let Your Freak Flag Fly
Richard is co-founder of the digital business solutions firm ASTRALCOM, LLC, a published author and an avid socio-political marketing fan. Previously appointed to the Presidential Business Commission and recognized as California Businessman of the Year, Richard’s primary business focus is assisting clients achieve success through effective social intelligence messaging and customer experience management. Richard encourages your comments and feedback. He can be reached at 562.240.2114, via email through the lbpost.com at [email protected], or by posting your comments below.