Data Supplies Blog

Advice to New Businesses - Getting Your First Customers

There are many challenges to navigate when you start out in business. One of the biggest of these challenges is getting your first few customers. In many ways, this is a chicken-and-egg situation. You need reccommendations and a portfolio to get customers, but you need customers to get recommendations and a portfolio. 

There are ways that you can overcome this. We've shared a few tips for getting your first customers.

Use your contacts

Could any of your friends or family members put you in touch with a contact who might be willing to give you your first chance? Your existing network, be it previous employers or social connections, can be invaluable to help you get in touch with those first few customers.

Build your professional image

You may be new in business, but that doesn't mean you have to look it. Look into ways to make your business look more professional. Virtual services like the ones we offer can be a great way to look more professional on a budget. Why not use a virtual mailing address on your business stationery or use a telephone answering service?

Network

The more people you are able to talk to about your business, the more likely you are to meet someone who wants to give you a go. Make sure you are attending as many business networking events as possible, as well as putting effort into networking online via social media. 

Take pitches seriously

When you do get the opportunity to pitch to a new company, make sure you make the most of it. Do your research, put together some branded proposals, and practice what you are going to say along with the answers to any questions you think they may want to ask. If you work from home or a shared office, why not consider hiring a boardroom to present your pitch in? This doesn't have to be expensive, and it can really help you look, and feel, like a professional.

If you're a new business and want to take advantage of some of our virtual services - take a look at our Starter Park. We can offer you your own local telephone number to use for your business, a full time virtual receptionist, a call patching and message taking service, and we can even process orders. All this from £35 a month. 

Self Employment and Taking Time Off

Tell someone that you're your own boss and their first response is often something along the lines of great, you get to take time off whenever you want. 

Those of you who understand the reality of self employment will know that this isn't always the case! Yes, self-employment can offer a certain amount of flexibility - but that's not always the same as 'time off'. 

If you're office based, of if you work from home, it is true that you can usually leave the office for an hour or two during the traditional working day. However, when there isn't anyone else to take the reigns - this isn't time off. It's time spent juggling emails and phonecalls on your smart phone with whatever it is you left the office to do. And of course, once you get back in to the office  your workload will be just as heavy as it was before you left. Because self-employment often means that there's no one else to help out.

However, there is a solution. We designed our virtual assistant and telephone answering services around self employed people just like you. When you need to get away from the office, whether it's for meetings or for time off, we can take over. By taking care of your phonecalls, managing your diary, processing orders and managing your emails - we're able to allow you to really take time off and make sure that there's less pressure on you when you return. 

Whether it's for a couple of hours or a couple of weeks, Your Reception Desk can help you really take time off. 

Is It Inefficient For You To Do Your Own Admin?

When you run your own business, we know that there are so many things to worry about. Marketing, admin, communications, finances, legalities... and that's before you've even considered doing what it is that your business actually does. 

Often, business owners spend a great amount of time doing these more administrative tasks - meaning that they have significantly less time left to do whatever it is that they do best. Whether you're an illustrator, a photographer, a recruiter or a consultant - your main skills miss out in favour of the time you have to spend on your admin.

There is a problem with this. Spending time doing things other than your specialist skill can be incredibly inefficient. Why? Because the hours you spend sifitng through emails, or making appointments, or answering the phone are hours when you can't earn money for doing what you do. 

Ask yourself how much your hourly rate is. Then, ask yourself how many hours per month you spend doing administrative tasks and work out how much money you could make from doing your specialist skill during that time. Once you've come up with this figure, you'll likely find that it is significantly larger than the cost to employ a virtual assistant like us to do the administrative work. 

Using a VA to do your administrative work frees up more time for you to do what you best, and make money from it.

Why do Companies Use Virtual Assistants?

Almost three years ago we started virtual assistant and telephone answering service Your Reception Desk. The decision to start this company actually came from our own experiences using companies that provided these services. We found it difficult to find a company that was providing a service good enough to suit our high customer service standards. We decided to create our own.

Because we used VA services for many years before we started Your Reception Desk - we understand the reasons companies choose to use VAs more than most. We wanted to share some of these reasons with you. 

Because they want to spend their time doing what they do best.

Whether you're a web developer or a hairdresser - you do what you do because you're good at it and because you're passionate about it. What you're probably not passionate about (and maybe not good at) is your admin. A VA frees up more time for business people to do what they're good at by taking care of what they're not.

Because they want to present a more professional image.

Using VA services can help smaller and/or newer companies to look more professional to potential clients. Using a virtual mailing address or a diary management service can help businesses to bid for bigger clients and present a professional image at all times.

Because they want to cut down on outgoings.

Employing full time staff is a huge expense. Many companies can't afford to take extra staff on - but do need extra support. Virtual assistants provide the perfect solution to this problem;  they offer all the benefits of an extra assistant - without the disadvantages of traditional employment.

Because they're short on time.

This is one of the obvious reasons a company might choose to use a VA. Companies or business people who are in and out of meetings all day often don't have the time to answer phones or manage their emails. A VA service can really take the pressure off.

Do any of these sound familiar?

Using a VA to Manage Job Vacancies

Our virtual assistant services are available to use in a variety of different ways. We can help on an occasional basis, on a daily basis, or even just when you have an emergency. We can also put a service together to assist you during particularly busy or trying times. An example of this is during recruitment periods. 

Ever advertised a job vacancy and then spent the next week on the phone constantly? Call volumes can be so high during the period that your comapny is recruiting that it can make it very difficult to actually get any work done! But don't worry - we're able to help.

What about if we were able to provide you with a dedicated phone number that you could use in any job adverts you placed, either in print or online. We would manage all the calls that came in on that line - taking all the relevant details from each candidate as they called. We would also be able to answer the questions and queries that candidates had - taking the pressure off you entirely.

On the closing date (of before if it suited you), we could provide you with a list of all the candidates and their relevant details. This would mean that you would be able to shortlist and interview candidates as you normally would - but that you wouldn't have had to sacrifice your own working productivity to get to that point.

If you would like to speak to us about this or any of the other ways our VA services could help you - please contact us. 

A 'Virtual' New Look For Your Business in 2012

Do you want to give your company a new look for 2012? Moving into a new office is the obvious answer to this - but you might find that this isn't a realistic option finance-wise. There is another option to improve the outward image of your business while still retaining the convenience and low overheads of working from home or a shared office. Why not use virtual services?

We offer three services that are particularly useful in this sense; our telephone answering services (either our no-frills Pay As You Go option or our comprehensive Personal Assistant service), our virtual mailing address service and our board room which can be rented by the hour.

Telephone answering a service like the one we provide at Your Reception Desk is like having a receptionist or personal assistant... but we're there only when you need us and we don't require desk space! We're available to answer your phones in a professional and friendly manner - and can also take messages, patch calls through to you, take orders and make appointments. Whether you need us to cover your phones on an occasional or emergency basis - or whether you want to use us every day - it's up to you.

Virtual mailing address do you worry that your clients and potential clients will look your address up on Google maps and not like what they find? We have a solution. We can provide virtual mailing addresses at a selection of professional and desirable locations. This means that you will be able to use these official mailing addresses on your business stationary such as business cards, websites and invoices. You can also receive correspondence at these addresses, which we will send on to you straight away.

Meeting room hire if you require a professional space to meet with clients and colleagues - we can help. We can provide a boardroom in Cumbernauld that can be hired by the hour. With our partners we are also able to offer space in Edinburgh city centre. This is ideal if you want the convenience and facilities of a boardroom available when you want it - but not the upkeep and expense of a permanent office.

If you'd like to speak to us about these three services, or any of the other services we offer, why not give us a ring to have a chat? Alternatively, visit yourreceptiondesk.co.uk for more information.

Planning for The New Year

Welcome to 2012. Here at Data Supplies and Your Reception Desk we hope you've had a restful holiday and saw in the new year well.

For many people, this time of year is the time for making resolutions. Whether it's to get fit or to save money, millions of people are resolving to be a little bit better personally in 2012. We think that businesses should be doing the same thing. This is the perfect time for business owners to look back at 2011 and the successes and problems that came with it. Doing this is vital when it comes to making plans for the new year. Which direction will you be pushing your business in? How will you seek to grow and increase sales? How will you overcome last year's problems?

A lot of success in business is down to good planning. The first few weeks in January can often be a quiet time; meaning that it's perfect for taking quiet time out to do this planning. We recommend taking out your business plan and reworking it so it can act as a guide for you in the coming twelve months. Be honest and realistic about what you want to achieve and why you haven't yet been able to do it. Think carefully about the services and people you could seek out that might be able to help you. 

How will you be planning for 2012?

 

Handling Business Communications Over the Holiday Season

For many small businesses, handling communications over the festive season can be confusing. For many, the last week in December isn't worth opening for. For B2B businesses especially, often it can be more cost effective to close. Of course, for retail, catering and other consumer focused businesses this is not the case.

Whatever your business type, providing successful business communications over the holiday period is important. We've put together some tips on the best ways to do this.

Be Clear About Your Hours 

If you haven't already, sit down and make the decision about when you are and are not going to be open. Then, make sure that you publicise this schedule. If you have a physical premises, make sure you put a sign up, along with notices on your website and social media profiles.

Take Turns

If you do want to remain open over the festive period, consider doing so on a reduced basis. Perhaps you could put a rota together to allow staff to work/handle communications in turns.

Update Answer Phone Messages and Auto Replies

Make sure that you have up to date information available for any customer who does try and contact you while you're closed. Update your answerphone message to tell callers when you'll be returning to the office, and do the same with your email auto-replies. If appropriate, include an emergency contact number. 

Don't Be Afraid to Turn Off

If you don't want to be disturbed during your holiday - make sure you aren't! If you've been clear about your opening hours and updated auto-responders as mentioned above... why not turn off your work phone? Alternatively, consider passing the burden to someone else. This is especialy valuable if you want to take an extended break over the holiday season. Something such as our holiday cover or PAYG service can allow you to relax without missing communications.

How Do You Deal With Your FAQs?

In every business there are some questions you get asked far more frequently than others. Whether it's a query related to your service provision or a particular product; we guarantee that there's one thing you find yourself explaining over and over. 

There are obvious ways to deal with these frequently asked questions. Many websites and printed publicity materials come complete with an FAQ section where these common queries are addressed. This can be a great way to circumvent these questions and help save everyone time and confusion. However, sometimes it can be difficult to really get a point over without explaining to someone on the phone or face to face.

In these situations, we think it's great to be a little bit creative with your communications. If there's one question you want to address once and for all, why not try and make sure it's answered on the first page of your website/marketing materials? 

We have an example of this that you might find useful. At Your Reception Desk we found that we were often explaining to potential customers how our telephone answering service works. People sometimes think that we just provide an automated answer machine, when this is of course not the case. We thought carefully about what we could do illustrate our process in a fun and easy to understand way. And that's what we did - we got it illustrated! We worked with Scottish cartoonist Jim Barker to create the below comic strip. In just six steps we had a creative way to show potential customers just how we worked to help them. 

How do you deal with your frequentl asked questions? Is there a way you could approach the issue creatively?

Temporary Staff VS Virtual Staff

For many businesses, we're well into the busiest time of the year; the holiday season. Businesses from retail to service are taking on extra work, and many are struggling to keep up with the workload. The answer to this conundrum tends to be simple; they take on temporary staff. 

The question here is what kind of temporary staff is best for you. If your business is a shop of the 'bricks and mortar' type or another face-to-face style set up - then of course you do need in house temporary staff. These are usually sourced either via a temp agency or by direct recruiting. However, if your business is phone, internet or even office based - you might find that virtual or outsourced temporary staff are a better solution.

A virtual assistant service (like Your Reception Desk) can supply you with highly trained professional assistants to reduce the workload of your permanent staff. They can take on transcription work, they can do diary management, they can answer your phones, organise your emails and process orders. The benefit of virtual staff in this case is that you only pay for the time they are actually working for you. Once you have set up the arrangement, virtual staff will be on standby to help out whenever the workload gets too much. Rather than taking the risk of employing temporary staff on a full time basis, virtual staff are only there (and only have to be paid) for the time they are needed. There are also no employment taxes to pay - and you don't even need to provide them with a desk or a computer!

Does your business take on extra staff over the holiday season? Have you ever thought about taking on virtual staff?