Category Virtual Assistants

Entries 48 Total

Cost Cutting for Small Business – Payment Terms

Aug 24, ’07 3:37 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Boomer Business, Business Ideas, Contractor, E-Commerce, Entrepreneur, Finance, Freelancer, Generation-Y, Home Business, Lifestyle, Outsourcing, Personal Business, Relationships, SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro, Self-employed, Small Business / SOHO, Social Entrepreneur, Sole-Trader, Start-Up, Suppliers, Virtual Assistants, avoid growing pain, bootstrap, do a reality check, do cost cutting, do credit control, find funding, grow your business, handle problems, lower overheads, outsource effectively, plan cash-flow, plan your business, recruit the right people, start-up in business, use online IT

There are two ways to get better payment terms from your suppliers – make sure you know what the pricing is and negotiate the payment terms last, without warning. Most businesses do not expect small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses to negotiate payment terms, so you have the element of surprise on your side – and it makes you look more professional.

Firstly there is the extended payment term, of 60, 90 and 180 days – see if your supplier will allow any of those terms. Even if they only give you 60 days, you can always go back after 3-4 month using this payment terms in which you have shown to be trustworthy. If it is declined and only 30 days are offered – because you have no history – then this is the perfect scenario of our second method.

Early payment discounts of 2% if you pay within 7 days. This is like a 24% p.a. discount on the invoice value, not a bad way to compensate for the overdraft interest charges from your bank.

Surly you supplier is interested in your business, and is not going to decline both offers – you win either way – if they decline, then look for a new supplier. Because you are not only helping yourself with your cash-flow, but theirs too.

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Small Business Failure – Reason: Cash-Flow

Aug 24, ’07 11:37 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Failure, Health Check, Outsourcing, Small Business / SOHO, Start-Up, Virtual Assistants, avoid growing pain, bootstrap, deal with taxes, do a SWOT plan, do a reality check, do bookkeeping., do credit control, grow your business, handle problems, lower overheads, not to do it!, outsource effectively, plan cash-flow, plan your business, recruit the right people, start-up in business, use online IT

The first post in this mini series is related to this issue of cash-flow and so will be many that follow. Cash-flow is the central and most critical management objective for every small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business.

T o perform this small business health-check, ask your self the following questions:

  • Do I have a written plan and cash-flow forecast for my business? As I said before, without it it is like driving with your eyes shut.
  • Am I efficient in achieving those aims? We often allow non-core issues and irrelevant stuff to “steal” our time, or we are so overwhelmed by work that we do not have the time to stand back and look at our small business – take the time and make those decisions.
  • Do you have a feel how my small business works financially? If not, you must be feeling uncomfortable most of the time, again take the time and feel better about your small business.
  • When did I plan and monitor my cash-flow last? You need to do this at least once a week or if something happens that is not in the plan. Check your cash-flow each time before you make a bigger purchase or hire staff which is not in the plan, you will quiet easily see if you can afford to do it or not.
  • How much reserves does my business have? The best peace of mind is when your small business has substantial reserves, do you have any or are you at least planning to get a 2-3 month reserve buffer?
  • Have I re-negociated my terms with my suppliers? What if your suppliers gave you 60 or even 90 days payment terms – put that in your cash-flow and smile, it’s instant reserve. You need to pay your suppliers on time, only then will they trust you enough to give you the extra long payment terms.
  • Am I chasing my clients for payment adequately? Do you know the average number of days you clients need to pay you? Give incentives – 2 % off if you pay within 7 days – try and keep your average well below 30 days. If you have not enough time to do credit control outsource it.
  • Do I need my overdraft? If you get better payment terms fro your suppliers and do a better job at credit control, you may not need your overdraft anymore, which will save you a lot of money. Don’t cancel your overdraft, but make sure you only pay for it when and if you use it – shop around. On those terms you should get an overdraft, even if you do not need it, so if something unexpected happens you got the cash-flow reserve.

The importance of your cash-flow situation can not be overestimated, as long as you can pay your bills you are in business - as the saying goes: Cash Is King!

You can see other reasons for small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants failures in my Health Check Category, if you can add to this list please do so, I would welcome your comments.

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Small Business Failure – Reason: Fixed Cost

Aug 23, ’07 9:37 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Failure, Health Check, Outsourcing, Small Business / SOHO, Start-Up, Virtual Assistants, avoid growing pain, bootstrap, do a SWOT plan, do a reality check, do bookkeeping., do credit control, grow your business, lower overheads, not to do it!, outsource effectively, plan cash-flow, plan your business, start-up in business

I have decided to write a little mini series on why small business and personal businesses, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, fail and how to find out if your small business is in danger, too.

In this first part, I would like to talk about fixed costs in small business. To perform a basic small business fixed cost health check, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do I know where all the money is going every month? You should know where all your money is going at all times – if you don not know, it is important that you find out.
  • How comfortable am I with the current level of costs? Are you able to generate reserves in your small business, or is your business just making ends meet.
  • Are large parts of the costs for non-core business tasks and do I get value for my money? No matter how well your business is doing, you should never waste money – so if you can outsource do it, it will make you small business more focused and far more resilient and efficient.
  • Do I have a cash-flow forecast for my business? Having no cash-flow plan is like driving with your eyes closed – cash-flow planning is easy, and you will have a better feeling about your small business.
  • Are there any spending issues with business partners or colleagues? Are other people spending your money (?) and you can not control them – deal with it, sort it or get rid of them even if they are partners in the business, find a way or get help.
  • Am I in control of my spending or have I abdicated this function to someone else? Even if you have staff – outsourced of employed – doing your bookkeeping and organize the payments for you, you need to make the decisions of when your suppliers get paid, so you can control your cash-flow.

There are many more questions you could ask yourself, here I just wanted to get you going. If you have any more issues or are uncomfortable with any of your costs and answers to the above questions, then you should get some professional advice.

Running out of money is the reason most small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses, fail – not controlling your fixed costs is one of the main reasons for this.

You can see other reasons for small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants failures in my Health Check Category, if you can add to this list please do so, I would welcome your comments.

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Small Business Checklist: Home Office & Home Business

Aug 23, ’07 10:01 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Checklists, Entrepreneur, Freelancer, Green/Eco-Friendly, Home Business, Infrastructure, Lifestyle, Mobile Technology, MumEntrepreneur, Office - IT, Outsourcing, Personal Business, Relationships, Self-employed, Small Business / SOHO, Social Entrepreneur, Software as a Service, Sole-Trader, Start-Up, Virtual Assistants, Web Technology, WinWeb, Work/Life Balance, avoid growing pain, be eco-friendly, bootstrap, choose your office, grow your business, keep data safe, lower overheads, outsource effectively, plan cash-flow, plan your business, start-up in business, use online IT

As part of a bootstrapping exercise or a business start-up phase, working from home is a great way to work, so I thought of some points to consider when setting up your office, small business or personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants at home:

  1. Cost – you will save a lot of money and be very eco-friendly when you decide not to rent an office, this saving can be used in other areas of your business, like marketing, better web-site or better IT.
  2. Family – I suspect that many of you work from home because of your family, it allows you to be around when your kids come home from school or look after relatives, while still earning a living.
  3. Commuting – again a very eco-friendly approach and saves money and time. This time can be spend on real business activities. It certainly will enhance your work/life balance and make your small business or start-up more cost efficient form day one.
  4. Freedom – this may especially appeal to you if you like to work at odd hours, it will suit your lifestyle. Dress as you like it, so you will be more comfortable.
  5. Healthy – if you work in an office and one of you gets ill, soon all the others are down too – not if you work from home.
  6. Teamwork – chances are you need to work with other people, use online technology to collaborate with your colleagues and other team workers – they too may work from home.
  7. Domestic Life – you’ll be around when the plumber finally turns up or other trades people. You can enjoy your local life more – by having a social network in your village rather than at work – this could be the return of the local community.
  8. Small Business Infrastructure – use online technology to keep your data and work safe at all times without that you have to do anything, build your own virtual Small Business Team to timeshare professionals like yourself. Outsource to make your business more professional and scalable.
  9. Meetings – even bigger businesses use coffee shops to meet – they often have WiFi – so can you. Make sure you plan them well, so you can be efficient with your time.
  10. Eco-Friendly – you will only heat your home, no other workplace needs to be heated or air-conditioned, your energy efficiency goes up, no travel to work – so you reduce your carbon footprint enormously just by working from home.

You will need some pretty good reasons to go to an office and work. Especially for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business, you need to ask yourself if you can afford to miss out on all the above opportunities for your work and for your life?

I work from home over 90% of the time and only go to the office for meetings and I love every minute of this. I use social network communities like linkedIn to build my professional network, utilizing our online office, skype and other tools to communicate and work worldwide.

More and more of my friends work from home so we have nice “pub-lunches” locally, no traveling, less stress and a much better work/life balance – how is your work/life balance?

For more of my checklists see the Small Business Checklists category and as always please add to my list with your comments, tell us what works for you.

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Virtual Small Business and Business Start-Up Teams

Aug 18, ’07 10:53 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Globalization 3.0, Green/Eco-Friendly, Infrastructure, Outsourcing, Small Business / SOHO, Virtual Assistants, Web Technology, WinWeb, WinWeb Live™, be eco-friendly, bootstrap, grow your business, lower overheads, outsource effectively, plan your business, use online IT

I have been writing about virtual assistants and virtual workers for quite some time, explaining the benefits of outsourcing to virtual assistants and workers for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses.

But I never really wrote something about what it means to have a virtual small business team, which is part of WinWeb’s Small Business Infrastructure approach – so here it goes, a virtual small business team is:

  1. a collection of people working together in different locations, countries and time-zones
  2. a “network” of people working together using advanced online technology
  3. some teams my be project specific and/or limited in duration(time)

Not always do people only work virtually together, some times the meet – even if it is only socially. Under 1. many combinations are possible:

  • different time in different locations
  • same time in different locations
  • same time in same location
  • different time in the same location

This all really means one thing – anywhere at anytime! How virtual is your team or in other words how mobile and flexible is your small business. You should think about these issues in the planning phase of your business start-up.

Have you thought through all the possibilities for your small business outsourcing and bootstrapping or how much more green and eco-friendly your small business or start-up would be?

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Outsourcing Options For Small Business

Aug 16, ’07 8:44 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Contractor, Employment, How to ..., Outsourcing, Self-employed, Small Business / SOHO, Virtual Assistants, outsource effectively

A couple of days ago I mentioned the excellent posting from Kathie ” Virtual Assistant or Virtual Worker” followed by my own post of yesterday “Grow your small business – success or failure will follow“. This all leads us to the next question what to do when you decided you are going to get help for your small or start-up business.

Kathie highlighted two options, the virtual worker – who like her husband works as a contractor or the virtual assistant who takes care of certain work on a timeshare basis for an indefinite amount of time. The only other option is employing staff full time into your business.

Virtual Assistants will enable you to outsource – what I call non core business processes, like bookkeeping, call handling, typing, etc. – to a professional person, well equipped to perform these tasks for you in a cost-effective manner and I do not mean cheap, I mean cost-effective. It is also noteworthy that you will not have to provide office space, work-tools, computer, heating, etc. for virtual assistants, as they usually work from home. look at it this way, you are getting a professional on a timeshare basis, and believe me when I say, having you phone answered in a professional manner makes a lot of difference to your business, or keeping up with your bookkeeping, so you know where you are – this all will make your business much more professional. Businesses and people like to do business with professionals.

Virtual workers can be from a “Temp-Agency” or a from contracting firms. These relationships are for finite projects or to fill a cap, due to permanent staff illness on a temporary basis – they are limited by time or project. So again you can afford to bring in professionals, to perform tasks for you or your clients.

Both of these relationships are good for your cost-planning because they are not fixed, permanent costs, they are variable cost, meaning, when the project is finished the contract for your temp-workers, contractors finishes too. If times are harder for your business and you need save cost it is often easier and faster to terminate a virtual assistant – but remember to explain your decision, so that when your small business is doing better again you can start working with your virtual assistant again.

Employing people full time should only be considered for “essential, ongoing and full-time” work, this way you can provide a more secure workplace for your employee and look forward to a peaceful and unstressed work environment.

Building a support network community for your small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses is essential to your survival. Remember, the contractor you hire today, may hire you tomorrow on a project he or she is working on – networking is the way to go.

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Virtual Assistant or Virtual Worker?

Aug 14, ’07 12:49 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Small Business / SOHO, Virtual Assistants

Kathie Thomas has an interesting article on the difference between Virtual Assistants and Virtual Workers, and she writes:

As the VA industry evolves and more people become aware of this excellent way of working, it is only natural that there are going to be companies developing who have a staff of virtual workers. We’ve been seeing this in India for sometime but now it’s expanding to other parts of the world, with at least one that I know of in the US and I became aware of another in the Philippines recently. I’m sure there are others too. And that’s not to mention the agencies that tap into the VA market – there are many of these also.

In terms of out-sourcing techniques this touches on two of my favorite subjects for small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business, at the same time, please read it.

Remember, your small business or start-up can never be too efficient.

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