Automated Split Testing

Useful Suggestions On Creating Business Plans For Successful Virtual Assistants

April 2nd, 2011

All businesses should have a business plan. It can be a rather intimidating task to sit down with a pen and paper and start creating one for your business. It’s absolutely essential for you to do though, and as a virtual assistance provider you will in all likelihood discover that you don’t need to do all that much, as it’s improbable that you’ll require a lot of funding for your start up costs. I would suggest that every start up business, Virtual Assistant or otherwise, should go through the steps of preparing a fairly detailed business plan. The very act of putting your ideas onto paper helps you to focus and clarify your ideas. There are plenty of templates out there to help you, and I suggest your first port of call would be to look through the ones on the Microsoft website.

When you start, you should begin with a very simple document that deals with the following items:

1. Your Elevator Pitch – A thirty second description of your organisation and the services you handle which you can bring up when networking to introduce yourself in less than 30 seconds.

2. Market Analysis/Market Research – Is the research that you have pursued to locate your market, the target market for your products and services, your competitors and your services. You’ll need to provide a description of the different groups of targeted customers included in your market analysis, and explain why you are selecting these as targets. You might also have an interest in describing the virtual assistants and their associated market by summarising the market expansion over the last few years and some fairly detailed trend analysis of where the market is likely to go.

3. Marketing and Sales – You should have established plans to market your product and to finalise sales. Your marketing strategy needs to include how you intend to concentrate on your target market, what sort of media you intend to utilise to establish awareness of your business and how you intend to position your business online; this will require developing your unique selling position. Your sales strategy on the flip side will address how you intend to finalise agreements and lock-in clients; this will encompass pricing, delivery, terms and conditions.

4. Operations – You should describe how your business is going to be structured, including location and necessary equipment, you may also wish to include how you see this developing as your online business expands.

5. Management and People – This area should encompass a rundown of how the company is set up, what support staff you use currently, or may want to utilise in the near future.

6. Finance – This is the part that generally scares people to death, but there is really no need to panic. You need to do this to make sure that your business is viable, and so that you have a set of goals and targets to work toward. You can download spreadsheet templates from the internet if you use Microsoft Office. I personally advise you get them from their site as they have a very extensive range of free templates. This will comprise of : This will comprise of :

* A personalised spending plan so you are aware of what expenditure you will need to cover from your income.

* A worksheet showing how you’re going to fund any start up costs you might have.

* A Sales Budget – You will probably want to use value based pricing for this. You can reasonably estimate your sales by working out your billable hours per month at the rate you expect to charge.

* A Costs Budget – You will need to identify your fixed costs and your variable costs. There is no requirement to calculate the cost of sales because as a Virtual Assistant you are merely offering a service.

* An Operating Budget/Profit and Loss – This is a strategy for your business which details the sales and expenditure accounts in one form.

* Break Even Analysis – This will demonstrate the amount of hours you need to bill in order to cover your costs, and then anything in excess of that is profit. To complete this type of analysis you need to know your variable costs/unit, sales price/unit and fixed costs.

* Cashflow Forecast – This is the most crucial document for you. It’s the heart of your business. Poor financial management is one of the principle reasons for business collapse. This will help you monitor the cash coming in and going out of your business, and it will help you identity when you will have cash available to make capital expenditures, or when you might not have enough cash and need to make arrangements with your bank before the problem happens.

That’s everything you essentially require to make a start. This should even be all you really need to set up a business bank account. You can add things like an executive summary at the start of the document, which is a section designed to give a brief overview of your business together with highlights from sections 2 -6 above. If you wish, you could add appendices to include your CV and so on.

Don’t forget, as a virtual assistant your business plan should be dynamic and you should use it as a yardstick of how effectively you’ve met your targets. It needs to be reviewed at least every four weeks from when you start your business, but this can be extended as your business grows, although it’s always best to monitor the financial section at regular, short term intervals.