For many self-employed people, the winter months can be quiet. A combination of the festive holidays and clients tightening their belts before the new year means there might be more down-time in your business than usual. Instead of worrying about how to fill your time, why not use it to create more demand, raise your profile and fill up your sales funnel? Outsourcing to virtual assistants can help with some of these tasks, helping you to invest in your business’s future.
Keeping things moving
It can be disheartening to look in your diary and see that things are slower than usual. If you see these quiet times as opportunities, however, you can make the most of the additional time, setting your business up for future success. Here are just a few things you could do with those extra hours:
- Review your business – take a look at the past year and analyse where your work has come from. Look at the customers who have given you the most business and think about how you have managed those relationships – are you rewarding them for their loyalty? Dive into the times when people have enquired and then not followed through – what could you have done differently to bring them on board? Which of your products or services are the most popular? Which are the least popular? The more data and insight you have into your business, the more you can refine your offering, helping your business to bring in more money.
- Look at your marketing – is now the time to do more with your profile? Have you been working hard enough on social media? Are there opportunities you missed because you were too busy to follow them up? This is the type of task that’s perfect to outsource to virtual business support. They can set up and run your social media, or help with your existing marketing admin to see how you can do things better – get a valued and experienced external marketing admin support system without having to pay through the nose for a big agency.
- Get networking – properly done, networking helps you to build up a valuable business network that can either give you business directly or put you in touch with new customers. When you’re busy, it’s easy to let that networking slide, so in your quieter months, look for networking opportunities. Make sure that you’re choosing to network where your target customers are, and that you’ve worked out a clear proposition that you can get across quickly and easily. It might take a bit of nerve to get started, but all small businesses say just how worthwhile it is.
- Do some market research – another great project to give to a virtual business assistant, market research helps you to see exactly where your business is positioned and what your competitors are doing. You can also find out more about customer trends and needs, giving you a clearer insight into whether your business is offering the right service at the right price point. In today’s business environment, data is invaluable, and the quiet months are the perfect time to gather some business insights so you can hit the ground running as things get busier.
Why hire a remote virtual assistant?
It may seem counter-intuitive to spend money on an external resource when your business is quiet, but successful business owners always have an eye on the long term. Quieter months give you the chance to take stock of how your business is currently performing, and the time to plan for the future. In order to get these plans right and to have a clear path for the months and years ahead, it makes sense to take advantage of existing skills rather than try to do everything yourself.
Outsourcing some of these key tasks to an personal online assistant is an investment in your business, rather than a cost – you should be able to recoup these costs and more by being organised and having all the information you need to plan ahead.
If you’ve been thinking about outsourcing to virtual assistants, but are unsure about the benefits or how they can help, why not call us on 0800 994 9016 or use our contact form in the menu above? We’d be happy to give you some help and advice.