When you run a contracting business, you’ll spend a lot of your time completing projects for clients. Unfortunately, that isn’t all you need to keep your business going. If you’re not able to spend enough time on office tasks, the flow for your business could come crashing to a halt. Here are a few ways you can tell that you need some administrative support.

Your Business Is Expanding
In the beginning, there may not be all that much to coordinate for your contracting business. After a year or two, or sooner if you’re in a field affected by the labor shortage, you may want to expand. Expanding your business increases opportunities, but it also makes your business more complicated. As you grow, you may need to hire more employees. A dedicated team of professionals could have coordinated schedules and other administrative tasks that take away from your time available to work on projects. At this point, most businesses need to consider hiring someone who can manage the day-to-day functions.

You Need to Coordinate Multiple Projects
If you only work on one project at a time, it may be relatively easy to plan your schedule. On the other hand, many contractors need to book out at least a little bit to keep their business is running. After all, some projects take a few hours, while others may take several weeks. If you are lining up multiple projects, you need to make sure that you aren’t overcommitting yourself, your employees, or your equipment. The last thing that you need is to double-book on two important jobs and end up having to choose one. Instead, having someone coordinate your schedule frees up more of your time for work, while ensuring that each project gets appropriate attention.

Your Response Times Are Lagging
When you run a business, you’ll spend time preparing to do work and doing productive work. While you’re working, you want to be able to focus on the project-related tasks at hand. Unfortunately, having a busy contracting business makes it harder to be available to answer phone calls or respond to customers. Over time, lagging response times may translate into fewer leads and a decrease in available projects. Obviously, it’s a problem you should try to prevent. If you notice that you are taking more than a day or two to get back to people, you may need someone who can handle that correspondence on your behalf.

You’re Forgetting Administrative Tasks
Before you start a business, you may wonder how anybody could possibly forget to complete regular tasks like sending invoices or paying the bills. Then you start a business, and it all begins to make sense. After a long shift on the job site, the last thing on your mind is more work extending into the evening hours. And yet, those administrative tasks are absolutely crucial to keeping your business functioning. If you are late in sending invoices to clients, you may have to wait longer for payment. That can throw your cash flow into chaos, making it harder for you to order supplies or handle expenses. If this becomes a problem, you should plan to solve it as quickly as possible.

You Need Someone to Coordinate Services
There may come a time in your business where you no longer have to perform all the work yourself, but you’re not yet at the point of hiring a dedicated staff. In this case, you might rely on outsourced services for things like payroll or marketing. But even if you have other companies that you pay to handle these aspects of your business, you still have to make sure that the work continues to meet your expectations. This means that you will need to be available to periodically check up on them, and communicate with them as necessary. Hiring someone to coordinate the services for you can give you one point of contact for updates while removing those responsibilities from your daily list.

Running a business involves a variety of jobs that you can’t always complete on your own. Bringing someone onto your team can help take the load off. To learn more about starting your own contracting business, contact CSLS today!