Media
headlines are clamouring
about the Credit Crunch, inflation and how we are all heading for recession,
(or not, depending on who’s side you’re on), as well as the impact the American
instigated contraction of credit has had on the business community here in the
UK. Indeed, panic in the world financial markets has led to sharp falls in
share and house prices.
How should
we business owners be preparing our businesses for the inevitable lean times
ahead? In nature, lack of food and water – famine, naturally sift out the
strong, leaving the weak to die. We call it survival of the fittest. To survive
famine in business it’s about being lean and streamlined.
So, how can
the small business owner be more lean and streamlined than they already are?
Small businesses already have the upper hand when it comes to responding to
market changes. There’s no doubt that because of their very nature, there is
little bureaucracy of board, management or shareholder meetings getting in the
way of changes in policies, strategies and overheads that their larger,
corporate competitors suffer. But can the small business owner tweak it
further?
The astute
business owner needs to work smarter. Working
smarter does not mean working harder. Working smarter means reviewing their
activities and seeing where their time should be used, and comparing it to
where their time is actually being used. The business owner should be focusing
on activities that generate income. The smart business owner does this by
delegating the small stuff or activities that don’t directly generate an
income. These activities might include invoicing, book-keeping, filing,
customer service, answering emails, the mechanics of managing email campaigns
or any activity or procedure that you perform in your business for its
well-being. They’re all important and for some, easily done, however, they are
time-consuming and don’t directly generate income. These are the activities
that should be delegated to a Virtual Assistant.
Virtual
Assistants (also known as VA’s) are a new generation of business administrators
and assistants who work virtually from their own office, serving several
clients on a freelance basis. VA’s have typically come from PA and office
manager backgrounds who have gained a wealth of experience and skills during
their careers. You can take advantage of their top skills without having to
provide space or equipment as the VA provides it, or deal with employee issues
like PAYE, holidays and sick leave, because they are self-employed. A VA
charges for just the hours they work, so you don’t pay for tea breaks or quiet
periods when you don’t need any help. Far more flexible than the alternative of
engaging PAYE help, where you risk having to pay staff for doing nothing more
than turn up during your quiet periods and then not being able to cope with the
busy periods in their fixed hours.
Hard-working
business owners might take the view that they can so easily do these admin
tasks themselves and they have been doing that since they started. But that’s
not working smart. Suppose you spend 15 hours a month dealing with admin tasks
and your charge-out rate is, say £60 per hour. It doesn’t make sense to use
your time to do non-income generating work when you can engage the services of
a VA for £20-£25 per hour and focus on the income-generating work.
So, having
finally let go of your small stuff and delegated it to your carefully selected
VA, you find that instead of just surviving the credit crunch, you’re actually
better poised to grow. You’re no longer working “in” your business. Your
business has become lean and streamlined. All your time and energy is being
focused on the big picture, which means you’re more likely to spot lucrative
opportunities that you might otherwise have missed.
by Vee Smith, Virtual Assistant
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