All small businesses have one thing in common: the need to save as much money as possible. This is, of course, just as important for larger businesses, but new startups are more vulnerable and have too many uncertainties and are not usually in the position to splurge.

Thankfully, there are a few tried-and-tested methods of saving money at the beginning in order to give yourself a fighting chance. We have put together just a few of the tasks that you may want to think about outsourcing, as well as the ones that you may want to train people to do in-house.

Before you start to think about outsourcing tasks to someone else, you need to think about your strengths and weaknesses. It is important to remember that your business will always be slightly different from others, so you need to identify your core competencies.  If, for example, you are an IT company, there is little point in forking out for managed IT services.

You need to think long and hard about the tasks that you want to keep in-house, to build up a clear picture of where you want to go with regards to training and the areas that need strengthening.

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1) Repetitive tasks

All businesses have some things in common, namely payroll, accounting, data entry, and inventory management. These are highly repetitive tasks that are done week-in, week-out or monthly. While these are core jobs, they can definitely be outsourced to save you both time and money, and to make sure they are done by someone who can do it accurately. After all, messing these jobs up can have some severe consequences for your business.

2) Specialized knowledge

There are tasks out there that require specific knowledge and skills, and as a start-up or a small business, finding someone to work in-house who can do these tasks can often be out of your budget. Outsourcing this task means you can find a freelancer or a contractor, who are usually happy to work on a short term or ad-hoc basis, meaning you save money on training and the benefits that you might afford a permanent employee. Tasks that may fall under this category could include search engine optimization (SEO) and website design.

3)  Social media management

Social media is an essential part of marketing and advertising for many businesses, but it is one of the most difficult – and time-consuming – things to get right. More often than not end up neglecting it and missing out on valuable exposure to a mass audience.  You do need to consider things like whether you want a consistent tone of voice and whether you are looking for daily interaction with your customers, as this will influence how you go about hiring someone to manage your social media.

As your business grows, you may want to take back control over these tasks and manage them in-house, but when you are starting up, it makes sense to let someone else do them for you.