Are You Feeling The Pinch? TALK TO YOUR LENDERS
If you have debt financing, stay in communication with your creditors. Don’t wait until it’s too late before speaking with your lender. When you are already in a crisis and haven’t provided any warnings, situations may prove tricky. Maintain constant communication. It will help you should you ever need to renegotiate terms.
Are You Feeling The Pinch? YOU CAN ALWAYS CUT MORE
You can forecast expenses, you can’t forecast revenue. Look for places to cut expenses. When times are good, companies tend to add staff and expenses that are nice to have, but not critical. It’s time to take a fresh look at those.
Keep focus on core markets and spend money solely in those areas. Avoid putting cash and time into areas that have proven less profitable.
Many companies begin by cutting advertising / marketing budgets. This can be a mistake. Instead of cutting these budgets, review the methods you are using. Are there more cost effective routes to market? Does your current strategy bring in the right results? If not, rework your efforts to deliver the best possible results.
Are You Feeling The Pinch? DON’T DEPEND ON ANYONE
Keep a close eye on your suppliers, and have alternatives. In a downturn, some of your suppliers may become troubled as well, and you need to think about alternative sources for your critical inputs.
Are You Feeling The Pinch? - COLLECT WITH PASSION
On a related point, manage receivables aggressively. Businesses are holding on to their cash longer than before, resulting in late payments. These late payments are having a ripple effect through the SME community. Receivables will trend up, and some of your customers may become troubled as well. Don’t keep extending credit.
Are You Feeling The Pinch? CASH IS KING
How are you finding the economic downturn? Is your business booming as you pick up new clients that love the flexibility a VA can offer as they are less inclined to hire staff at this uncertain time? Or are you finding that clients are cutting back on their hours with you and taking longer to pay?
Entrepreneur and former Dragon Doug Richard shares his Tips For Survival In An Economic Downturn.
1. CASH IS KING
Manage cash - if you’re out of cash and out of credit, you’re out of business. You need a good 13 week cash forecast, generated NOT from the income statement but from a detailed understanding of receipts and disbursements. Monitor trends in your cash flow to keep on top of any sticky situations.
How to Avoid Fatal Virtual Assistant Website Mistakes - In summary
Your web site can function as an attractive online brochure, or it can be a client-generating tool to help you grow your business. As a virtual assistant, you need to generate clients from your website in order for your business to succeed, make the necessary changes and you will get more clients online.
How to Avoid Fatal Virtual Assistant Website Mistakes - Mistake 10: A website that is “me” focused.
While back in part 1 of this series we talked about personalising your website, but don’t spend all of it talking about yourself and how wonderful you are. Although your visitors need to know a bit about you, what holds their interest is the knowledge that you understand their problems and issues and have ready-made solutions that resolve those problems. Your visitor will always ask, “WIIFM?” (What’s In It For Me). Answer that question by making your web site about your visitor, not about you.
If you are not sure how to WIIFM your text, hire a professional sales copy writer if you can afford it or try the following format:
Do you struggle with getting your VAT return in on time, we offer a full book keeping service which means that your VAT return will never be late again and you will save expensive fines and a whole lot of stress.
Their ‘pain’ is the first part - not getting their ‘VAT return in on time’, then there is your solutions - you offer a f’ull book keeping service’, then comes the WIIFM ‘your VAT return will never be late again and will save you expensive fines and a whole lot of stress’.
How to Avoid Fatal Virtual Assistant Website Mistakes - Mistake 9: No testimonials or case studies to demonstrate your expertise.
One of the easiest ways you can create customer confidence in you and your business is to post testimonials on your web site. Don’t even think of writing these yourself (I’m sure you wouldn’t!) but ask your clients to write something that clearly states what you do for your client and how working with you has improved their business or life, etc.
If you are new to virtual assisting and don’t yet have clients you can ask for testimonials, prepare some case studies outlining a problem and how your service helped solve it. These case studies are also very powerful in convincing a potential client that you can do what you claim.
How to Avoid Fatal Virtual Assistant Website Mistakes - Mistake 8: Lack of additional resources and links.
One way to gauge the usefulness and helpfulness of a business is to have a look at their websites resources and links section. For example, the Resources and Links section of the UKAVA website lists a whole range of resources to help new and established virtual assistants and they are often featured in the email newsletter. In many cases the Association receives no compensation for the resource we recommend—I just know that it’s the best source to do a particular task.
Your clients want the same help and advice from you. The more you know about your industry, its problems, and how to find solutions – whether you offer the solution or not – the greater the perception of your expertise and, consequently, the greater value you offer your client.
How to Avoid Fatal Virtual Assistant Website Mistakes - Mistake 7: Copying every other virtual assistant web site.
As part of vetting the websites that we list on the UKAVA Directory, I have the job of personally checking every potential members website before it is added. It is quite obvious in a lot of cases that virtual assistants have simply visited the websites of their competition and formatted their own site in a similar fashion, but with their own information. I have found elements of my own VA website and articles on many of them, one time even finding a whole website that contained nothing but my website text added to a different design. The designer was blamed for this and it was soon changed but you see my point.
Don’t fall victim to such behaviour and make sure you pique your readers interest by injecting your personality throughout your site. Give visitors a great experience of “you” when they visit. And, flagrantly flaunt your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), so that your visitor instantly realises why they should do business with you instead of your competitor.