Work ON your business and not IN it

Virtual receptionist

Sponsored Article

If you’re an entrepreneur, especially if it’s your first venture, you most likely started your business on a shoestring and are likely doing most, if not all, of the work yourself without any support. It’s great to roll up your sleeves and get the job done but at the end of the day you might find it’s rather a double-edged sword.

I am sure you started out with a grand vision of how it’s going to be, the reality is often different. We usually start up because we are great at delivering our services or our products.

By far the biggest issue is that spending every working/waking hour working in your business leaves you very little time to work on your business. And working on your business makes the difference between having bought yourself a job and owning a business that can ultimately survive without you.

If you are a sole trader you are probably all things to all people but at the same time you really want to work on your business which is frustrating. Perhaps there are some jobs you can have others do that will create time for you to concentrate on more revenue producing activity.

Take answering your phone calls. I am sure you will agree the success of any business is the customer and people like to deal with people. While you may not be able to afford or justify employing a real receptionist this is where you should use the services of a professional virtual receptionist. Imagine all your calls answered professionally without having to employ a full-time receptionist. Or ever worrying about missing important calls because you are tied up with a client or tending to an urgent issue. It happens right.

You will now free up your day to finally work on growing the business, perhaps plan business meetings, build partnerships or even just stay dedicated to your core work without the distraction of answering the phone. These are the sort of activities that will get you back on the path of your original vision.

So, you might say, “I am fine, I don’t need a virtual receptionist,” however, we all know what often happens is you are busy focusing on a task and then the phone rings and your attention is diverted. Even a missed call going to voice messaging is distracting and for some businesses a missed call is a lost opportunity. A professional virtual receptionist will filter those calls for you and let you know the ones that are important and the ones you can do later leaving you to concentrate on your business.

I have had the fortunate opportunity to help transform many businesses from start up to larger companies go from being reactive to their phone calls to having a virtual receptionist managing their calls in a controlled and structured way allowing them to be more productive. Even a few calls per day is enough to divert you from your vision.

Whatever else you do this week give some thought on what are you doing to work on the business and what is holding you back.

Brought to you by Roland Farrugia, Business Development Manager, SOI Virtual Receptionist