You are the face of your business, you are the networker for your business, and you are the marketing specialist, the accountant, the back-office staff, the receptionist and the administrator. Whew! That's quite a few hats. No wonder most business owners struggle with wearing all of them. Let's take a look at some options for simplifying your life. Yes, help is on the way!
If you are a small business owner, it is a critical necessity to keep your own books. You need to keep track of sales, your expenses and taxes. My recommendation (if you aren't already doing this) is to buy QuickBooks Pro. It is user-friendly and it spits out all kinds of interesting and efficient reports that will help keep you in-the-know regarding how your business is doing, plus you will receive an added bonus of making your tax-time accountant very happy!
Next, comes the promotional hat. This particular hat seems to make many small business owners very jumpy. It really shouldn't. The secret lies in not being intimidated. Just jump in! Once you get started, you'll see that it wasn't as scary as you thought it would be. Establish who your target consumer is and then simply think of what those consumers like to do and where they like to do it. This will give you an idea of where to promote your business. Check out local associations and your Chamber of Commerce. Be active in those associations to help establish your core network.
Now let's address the issue of being an entire back-office staff of... one. This is daunting for business owners who don't have the skill-set to produce brilliant PowerPoint presentations or effective sales brochures. You can address this by several different ways. You can enroll in on-line classes to familiarize yourself with the Microsoft Office Suite... which should help you learn to create documents, presentations and spreadsheets. You can also look into hiring professional design companies to design brochures and sales copy for you. This can get expensive, but you will retain the templates to use in the future, so the cost does add future value. The third option is to outsource this type of work to a qualified Virtual Administration professional.
You can find VA's that specialize in almost every field, from general office support to marketing strategy. Their cost will also be an investment in your business, because the time that they save for you can be applied toward growing your client base and increasing your bottom-line profit. As the business market has evolved to have such a vast presence online, administrative support has evolved to change with it. Virtual Assistants can support your office from the convenient location of theirs. They use their equipment and supplies to get your job done.
As you can see, there really are alternatives to feeling overwhelmed. If you have the time, educate yourself and do the tasks yourself. If you have reached the level of success where you just don't have the time, that's great! Invest some time in researching a good Virtual Assistant to outsource your office work. The time you save will more than pay for itself as you spend more time acquiring new customers... and making more money!
Cori Chaffee is a female entrepreneur who owns a full-service virtual assistant company. The Perfect Admin, LLC offers a full-range of administrative services, from writing articles, editing and proof-reading to more complex marketing plans. Cori holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration. To learn more, visit her at http://theperfectadmin.com
Tags: business-general