Feedback from small business owners

[SOS Offices]

Evening All,

I'd like some feedback if possible please and maybe some guidance.

I'm a sole trader that offers office support to small businesses. I take on all the office tasks as required with out the added hassle of taking on an employee.

I work on an hourly fee or a set fee per week/month, I also have a office so I'm all setup.

I currently have 7 companies that I work with which totals around 50hours per week, this is enough for me however I want to expand. My questions are, as a small business would you use this service and if so where would you look for this service? I'm not to sure of the best method for advertising as all my current clients have been through word of mouth.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to your feedback.

 

[fisicx]

What does this office support include?

Cleaning, making the tea, answering the phones, doing the mail, writing letters and emails, doing the accounts, fixing the printer, PC maintenance are all office support tasks.

In any case, if you are already doing 50 hours a week I don't want you. It means by Friday afternoon you will be knackered. Add more companies and you will be even more knackered.

 

[SOS Offices]

The services I offer are administration, bookkeeping, pa support, customer services and social media, it's that side of office support.

If I was to take on new clients I would take on a member of staff to support me.

 

[fisicx]

Do you travel to the business to do the work?

What does 'customer services' and 'social media' mean to you. For example a small garage may need someone on the desk to do all the invoicing and take payments. A printer will need someone to take the orders and the money and so on.

Does your admin cover sorting and responding to the mail, signing for parcels and managing returns?

 

[penguin-chrissie]

I assume you mean that you work for the business from your own location and not within the organisation location, similar to a virtual assistant?

I was about to say that 50 hours seems a pretty decent number of hours but you have clarified that you would look to take on additional staff if you took on more companies to work with.

I think there is a lot of use having a virtual assistant, depending on the type of business of course. Many businesses do not need a physical presence to do their admin and so it is useful for this type of business. This would not work for my kind of business as we push the personal element of the business where customers can come to us if they wish and sit down with staff members to discuss their needs.

You could look at businesses such as plumbers, electricians etc - being able to do some marketing, book appointments, send invoices, do book keeping etc is likely beneficial where they do not need a physical, manned office for this kind of thing.

I would suggest looking for businesses that do not require you do specific hours though as you very much limit your market and restrict the number of businesses that you can cater for without taking on more staff than necessary.

Best of luck!

 

[Kasim21]

If it is a virtual office style offering, I would assume that a lot of small businesses would look to online freelancing sites such as people per hour and upwork. My advice to you would be to look at your numbers and consider whether the business is scalable, i.e. if you expand and hire someone else - is there still enough of a decent profit to make it worthwhile.

I know it's simple advice but you would be amazed by how many people sometimes fail to consider this (I've made this mistake myself).

Good luck!

 

[Balanced HQ]

We did use a VA network but over time the control and quality of the work slipped and it was better and much more cost effective for us to use the services of someone who wanted part time work. If you can sort this out when scaling up and still make a profit then it could work. The moment supervision comes into a business where the owner is already working long hours in my experience, the business output deteriorates not just with the supervision but also with the existing clients.

 

[BRIDGREGORY]

As you can work for local businesses more effectively than those some distance away I would recommend that you do some business networking.

There are many organizations and I don't doubt that you will find a BNI or 4Networking in your local area.

I would recommend going to a few different ones before you sign up to any one in particular. You can do this as a guest. This allows you to visit a group a couple of times before making the membership decision.

This is really an extension of the word of mouth that you already rely on.

This article may help. http://www.thesmallbusinessboss.com/4networking-versus-the-rest/

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I would suggest you narrow your tasks to just one or two selected options like for instance Payroll and book-keeping or any other two area's you are expert in, you cannot be a expert in all things and taking on staff with the same wide range of skills you presently have would be a nightmare to supervise even if you could find someone with those skills

 

[Gecko001]

Are you presently making enough money to expand? You may be making an adequate income working on your own at the minute, but expansion does come with a lot of costs. This is quite a specialist business and staff members need to be trained unless you want to buy in already trained people which I imagine would be very expensive. The latter I would not advise as you could end up working just to keep people employed.

 

[SOS Offices]

Hi All, thank you for your feedback.
I had a rare afternoon to myself the other day and had a sit down and looked at a plan for my business.
As your all pointed out taking on an employee isn't always the best solution and although it would mean I could take on more clients it would also mean initially taking a reduction in my pay in order to pay the new employee.
I have now streamlined the services I offer so it's not such a broad range, I have kept all my existing clients and taken on one more, I'm at my limit now.
However, one of the companies I look after has approached me to see if would consider taking on his daughter as an apprentice, this will cause me some additional work with regards to training but she could also be a great asset for all the simple tasks that take up my time.

 

[ValQ]

I have a short story. There was a man working in IT company, who was earninig 100k$+ for doing programming works. What he did, for this salary he was outsourcing all the job to chineese for a small portion of what he was getting.

Thus, you may and can consider finding some workers on upwork to do some tasks via interent like bookeeping. But checking their work afterwards, thus no costly labour and same job done well!

But it may take time to find right person! Good luck!

 

[Gecko001]

However, one of the companies I look after has approached me to see if would consider taking on his daughter as an apprentice, this will cause me some additional work with regards to training but she could also be a great asset for all the simple tasks that take up my time.

Good idea if you can make sure that she is able to maintain confidentiality.

 

[TODonnell]

Business sub out their chores to you and you sub out your chores to underlings; that should work if the employees are reliable and fast.

It could be a selling point if you use local people or even people working from your office.

If you use people who are far away, delays will occur.

Give your employees simple, discrete tasks to do and let them learn as they go along. Don't spend time yammering at some kid, trying to teach them everything, only for them to quit after 3 months.

 

[Sal Dean]

I come into contact with a number of sole traders who either deal with matters themselves to great inconvenience or use their better half's to deal with matters. I'm sure you would be in demand amongst this community.
As a side note, if you are looking for an insurance partner, please let me know as we are always looking for introducer's and offer attractive benefit agreements in return.

 

[BristolBiz]

Well done SOS for getting your business up & running, no mean task!

If you really enjoy what you are doing, it might be worth sticking as you are (& upping your rates, whenever possible). As soon as you take on A N Other your role is going to change considerably within the business. Your dilemma is one faced many startup businesses.

Can I recommend "The Emyth Revisited" - Michael Gerber's book, as a great way to understand what's really involved in your decision. It certainly clarified what I had to do in my business!

 

[Percy1980]

I have a strict policy of never employing anyone. I don't need to. I work 50 hours per week also and make a better living now than ever before. It took a few years of hardship to get here, but it sounds like you're at a similar point. Taking on an employee adds complications, expense and RISK.

I would say if you're working 50 hours per week and making a good living, keep at it, refine it, enjoy it. Also if you're working 50 hours per week and Not making a good living, then there's something wrong with what you're doing, and taking someone on wouldn't help.

That's just how my mind works, it suits me. Probably doesn't suit the empire builders amongst us