Creating fantasies about passive income or side business is our old fashioned way of dreaming. However, by providing services through your existing skillset, you can make this dream a reality that too alongside your main occupation.
In this blog, we’ll discuss about building a side income by fulfilling the requirement of businesses which outsource services to save on capital and boost their efficiency.
From identifying the service you should provide to bringing your first client and further scaling your business and what all do you require to start (definitely not a GST Number), we’ll discuss everything in detail.
Table of Contents
What is Service Outsourcing?
Let us understand service outsourcing with a small example example. Assume a clothing brand which mainly operates in off-line stores and wants to reach new audience through an online store.
Two Case Studies
To attract its potential audience, the brand decides to create content on social media so that it reaches to the masses and brings the required sales. This situation has two cases, the first one being that the company hires content creators, video editors and social media managers to produce and market social media content.
The second and more feasible option would be paying a person/company to create and upload content on their social media handles. Here, the first case would involve much hassle, finding the right talent and managing an in-house content creation team and paying them salaries every month is not cost efficient.
In the second option a relatively small amount of money is paid to a company or a group of skilled individuals which take care of the same with an improved quality and efficiency. This is called service outsourcing as companies outsource small tasks out of their expertise to companies and individuals, who are skilled in a certain task so that they can focus on getting their primary goals done.
Different examples of such businesses are present around us which include social media marketing, GST and Accounting Services, Content Writing HR & Recruitment and IT.
Thus, in a similar way, you can setup your own service outsourcing business after identifying your skill set in a particular niche as explained below.
How to identify your skillset?
As you’ve taken the first step by giving this article a read, it is important to identify your skillset in order to monetise it by outsourcing related services in exchanges of cash. Simplest way to identify your skillset is to compile the common activities you enjoy doing alongside your main job.
It may be public speaking, video editing or playing a music instrument. All of these examples can be monetised in one way or the other. For example, a persoon good at public speaking can take up small anchoring assignments for an extra income, similarly a person who enjoys editing videos and doing creative tasks, editing videos for some extra cash is a great way to start. Also learn more about top habits millionaires follow.
Now as you’ve identified your skillset, it’s time to discuss about basic setup requirements to start pitching to clients and then proceed to finding your first client and scaling your business.
Basic Setup Requirement to Start
In the initial days of of setting up a service outsourcing business, getting registrations, trademarks and related task should be the last thing to do. These expenses are only acquired when you have a few clients and you want to provide a more professional look for your business.
Many people commit this mistake of getting a GST number. As per taxation rules a GST number increases the prices of your services by 18% or as per the limit in your particular state. Not only it it provides a recurring activity of all the compliances related to GST filing but also introduces and additional cost of filing returns on time.
This builds a recurring expense in the initial days of setting up a business which has a very limited revenue in the start. Thus getting registrations and trademarks aren’t feasible what you should do to get a kickstart is making a website showcasing your brand name and the services offered along with the pricing and client reviews (after you get a couple of them). Visiting cards and letterheads are also useful tools as they can help with reaching out to potential clients and can help in bringing inbound sales.
This minimum basic set up is sufficient for getting first few clients. Later on, when you decide to legalise the business formally, you can open a current account in the name of your business by presenting few documents depending on the bank.
How to get your first client?
After identifying your skill, selecting a niche and setting up basics, its time to search for your first client. Getting a client is the first step to earning your first figures of revenue which you can do by various methods as described below:
Whatsapp Groups and Word of Mouth
Whatsapp Groups are a great way of finding your first few customers. Our Jagruk RJ himself found his first client for PF/ESI registration through a Whatsapp Group of entrepreneurs and early age startup founders. After quoting a nominal pricing, the client redily agreed to work with RJ’s firm and this led to closing his first client. You can start your journey in a similar way by building connections with entrepreneurs and business owners.
Word of Mouth is another conventional way of reaching to potential customers as your existing clients convey positive feedback about your services. This way, it reaches to more people of their network, ultimately resulting in a number of people approaching you for your services.
Cold Emailing
Cold reachouts through emails are another popular way of getting clients. Writing a short and concise email to potential clients can earn you a few of them and ultimately help expanding your network through out reach. Check out this video by Money Minded Mandeep where he talks about writing the perfect cold email that has a higher chace of conversion from a potential client to an actual one.
Just make sure you follow up with the person you mailed after sending the first email in case of no response and you’ll have plenty of opportunities if done the right way and at proper timing.
Google Business Listing and Own Website
Listing your business on Google also gives you a great edge when it comes for your potential clients to discover you offereing services in a particular sector. If you pay attention to the following the best SEO practices to rank your business at the top after gaining some quality reviews, it creates a positive impact on the people who wish to pay you to make things work for them.
Making your own professional looking website also has several advantages including a higher trust factor. Choosing a website theme matching to your brand’s personality promotes attention to detail and helps create a positive brand image.
You can use simple tools like WordPress and Odoo to start with by linking them with a customised domain name as per your business name. These practices are certain to boost your image and trust among your potential customers.
How to scale your Business and Conclusion
After putting the above things in place and for a particular number of clients, you must be wondering about scaling your business to an extent which makes an impact to its users and generates revenue and profits from its early stages. As you reach out to more and more clients and convert them to your customers, it is important to introduce new processes and hire people for improved efficiency. Learn about top startup terms as you scale your business.
If you are the only person reaching out to clients and working for them at the same time, you’re probably overworking that too in the wring direction as it will get you exhausted in order to not re-invest the profits you earned. This may provide you short term profits but is not substantial in the long run. Knowing about when to hiring people to delegate tasks is a matter of timing as well. Your skillset would be more useful i bringing business in place of working for your own clients.
Expanding your outsourcing business is about offering more services after building trust among a number of people and hiring talent as per the requirement. Through this, you can introduce automation in your business and help you develop a source of recurring revenue. Real estate is also one such asset producing returns on a regular basis. Learn more about real estate on Labour Law Advisor’s blog.
If you wish to know about the topic in the form of a video explanation, it is explained by Jagruk RJ on Labour Law Advisor’s YouTube channel. Check out the full video below to know about the explanation of concepts discussed above:
Found it useful? Figure out your skillset to know if it can be monetised in a way or another. Reach out to potential clients and expand your team and services offered with time. This makes way for you to help businesses with their pain points and build an income source for yourself.
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