Are you a small business owner? For those of you who have answered ‘yes,’ there’s no doubt you want to get a leg up on the competition. However, just the mere desire to stand out and distinguish yourself in a sea of other companies and corporations doesn’t really help you get anywhere. You’ve got to intentionally work for it – and work hard at that. It’s never been more challenging to make a name for yourself than right now, with the major eCommerce giants well-established and with a wholly flooded market to contend with.
However, there are a few things you can do that’ll help your case and offer you the slight edge you might need to still make a good name (and profit) for yourself. Working with a staffing agency is one of them, and here are four reasons why all small businesses should thoroughly consider it.
1. Carves Space Amongst Competition
As we essentially mentioned, the competition is stiff. We no longer exist in a world where any mom-and-pop brand or innovative small eCommerce business. Rather, we flounce about a world where Amazon promises everything from cold medicine to yoga blocks to dog sweaters and gives you free two-day shipping on top of this. 
It’s nigh impossible to beat that kind of convenience, and certainly not for the low prices that customers love. Expectations are high, causing problems for every smaller company trying to pull their weight in a hostile, rough market. Additionally, this creates further issues as small business is pitted against small business in completely horrible circumstances, battling it out for an incredibly small piece of the figurative pie.
Nothing about that is fun or fair, but it happens more often than not. Partnering with the proper staffing agency can assist you in competing better as you’re able to receive expert opinions and resources that others don’t necessarily have access to during the hiring process. Carving out a space in overcrowded waters is always infinitely easier once all the other important stuff is taken care of, and they can definitely offer you that as well.
2. Helps Find Employees with Specific Skills
Big corporations are known for their wide range of employee positions, seemingly billions of separate departments, and specifically skilled hires. That kind of operation is a necessity whenever there are literally thousands upon thousands working within your doors and millions of goods or services delivered as the days pass on by. Lacking this structure and dialed-in talent would create chaos as quickly as you could blink, leading nowhere good.
Meanwhile, small businesses often don’t have the luxury to be this organized or picky, as odd as that may sound. Putting much of your focus into the exact skills boasted by each candidate rather than the overall picture of their experience simply takes too much time and too many resources. Considering time is money, there’s honestly none of this to spare.
Staffing agencies help here, though. Since they’ve got the reigns, large candidate pools to choose from, and all the info necessary, they can acquire the specific talent you’re after and ensure your hires are some of the very best in the business. Dangerous for the competition but fantastic for you.
3. Saves Time and Increases Efficiency
Whenever you’re running a small business, you often get into the habit of thinking you need to put all the heavy lifting directly onto your shoulders. It makes sense. After all, they always say to do it yourself if you want it done right. And the DIY, solitary approach is also far cheaper to calling upon someone else to do it all for you while looking thoroughly impressive to everyone around you. It solidifies you as committed to your brand and a hard worker despite your position of power. That can do wonders for your reputation.
But regardless, that doesn’t mean you should actively embrace this as your go-to business strategy. It has equally as many cons as it does pros, if not more, upping the likelihood that something will fall through the cracks, you’ll burn out, or in worst-case scenarios, both. This is why it’s critical to rely on others for some things, and staffing agencies are an excellent first step.
With their assistance, the hiring process is consolidated and taken care of for you, saving time and increasing efficiency all around. You can then move your focus as a small business owner away from sourcing, interviewing, and training your candidates and towards bigger and better things.
4. Reduces Bad Hire Costs
In an ideal world, every hire we make would be exactly what you needed, ticking off not just the box for skills but also that for personally, drive, professionalism, and more. Of course, we don’t live in an ideal world. The truth of the matter is that some hires won’t be very good, regardless of how they looked on paper.
Sometimes, they may have the book smarts necessary but completely lack the ability to translate this into the real world, or they may be fantastic when fulfilling their responsibilities but ultimately fail to work properly with their team or coworkers. It happens to the best of us – even small business owners who usually have great instincts for these things. Clearly, this isn’t preferable despite how commonplace it is. Luckily, we can reduce the frequency of these bad hires and decrease the costs that are associated with them, too.
Staffing agencies are one part of the equation, able to delve deeper into a potential employee’s previous experience, skills, resume, etc., as great hires are their number one priority. There tends also to be better candidates available to these agencies, which only improves matters. That’s not to say staffing agencies entirely eliminate hires that don’t fit your needs, but they do create significant change. Remember: progress, not perfection!