The beginnings of any small business are humble and may require you to rely on professional services that cannot be done in-house. A good businessman is one who recognizes the abilities of the people that he or she hires, and utilizes those skills in tandem with outside services. Here are some examples of services that will help you grow that small business into the empire you may be imagining.
Someone To Call
There may not be a specific guidebook to help you get started, but there are plenty of people out there who can pass on knowledge based on their own experiences. Starting a small business in the United States is not uncommon, but keeping a business growing into something larger is a different hurdle and one that not many can overcome.
Frankly, the obstacles are small but many––and it’s easy to get lost in the sea of other responsibilities that you must tackle. Do you have a good and secure internet connection? Will your Wi-Fi have public access options? Do your employees have the right to use mobile devices on the work floor? Can your business use a mobile app? Do you know anyone who can create a mobile app? What do you do if you need to serve a notice of termination? These are but a small sample of the many questions that you, the small business owner, are the sole decision-maker of.
However, there is help at hand. As your business scales, communication between clients and customer service staff increases. Though you may not yet be in a place to build your own contact center, there are services that help meet this need. Ansafone is one of the largest providers of small business call center solutions that helps to alleviate some of a small business’s workload. As a result, the owners of a small business can concentrate on getting their company started and growing instead. The way Ansafone works is simple: they provide a call center for your business operations to continue in lieu of an in-house department. If you and your staff are spread too thin to handle call volumes, then Ansafone’s pros will take phone calls from your customers as representatives of your business. One of the most common reasons that businesses fail to scale in the early days is because they have bitten off more than they can chew. Having a call center working on your behalf will allow you to focus on more strategic growth initiatives while maintaining the business that you have built.
Legal Services
Did you know that Mastercard compiles a list of merchants who have been terminated due to fraudulent activity, bankruptcies, illegal activity, and insolvency? As a payment processor, Mastercard, as well as American Express, Visa, Discover, and other financial establishments keep a terminated merchant file (TMF) as it is the best way to ensure that a new merchant is legitimate and able to meet their financial obligations. Anyone who is on the TMF is considered high risk and is unlikely to secure any business loans or funding.
As a new business owner, this Member-Alert-To-Control-High-Risk List (or MATCH list for short) is not one you want to find yourself on. The only way to be removed is by staying on the list for five years, or to challenge your involvement in it in the first place. To avoid the former is simple, do not engage in any fraudulent activity yourself, or make sure that anyone you are partnering with is not on the TMF list, or the MATCH List themselves.
However, if you have been added to either the MATCH list or TMF list in error, then (ironically) it’s more difficult to have yourself removed. Acquirers do not like to admit they have made a mistake in adding a merchant to the MATCH list, as they face liability for any further financial losses that occur as a result of their error. As such, you’re probably going to need some legal advice (firms like Global Legal Law Firm specialize in this area) in order to get your removal from the Terminated Merchant File.
Online Presence
Simply put, unless you know exactly what you are doing when it comes to working online, you are probably going to need a tech-guru or digital specialist. With so much business being conducted online (especially due to COVID-19) it pays to have someone to take care of your online presence and business. For extra efficiency, get some cloud photo storage so that they can document your business growth through pictures.
Funding
At the end of the day, you’re never going to be able to grow your business into a larger one, if you don’t have one to start off with. For that, you’ll need a bit of money behind you. Unless you’ve been siphoning off your own funds into an account to get you started, have a look into government funding for small business.
If you have already started, but the pandemic has threatened your growth, there are ways to get help to preserve small businesses during COVID-19. From call center services and MATCH list help to cloud storage and financial advice, there are many services geared towards growing businesses.