Every business needs 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 something that is very important for you to do though, and as a Virtual Assistant you will probably find that you don’t need to do too much, as it’s unlikely that you’ll need much funding for your initial start up. I would encourage every start up business, Virtual Assistant or not, to sit down and go through the process of writing a business plan. Just putting your thoughts onto paper helps you to concentrate and develop your ideas more thoroughly. 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.
Initially, you should start with a very simple document that covers the following items:
1. Your Elevator Pitch – A thirty second description of your company and the services you provide which you can use when networking to introduce yourself in 30 seconds or less.
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 should provide a detailed description of the various groups of targeted customers which are in your market analysis, and express why you are choosing these specifically as targets. You may also want to describe the Virtual Assistant market by summarising the market growth over recent years and some trend analysis of where the market is likely to be headed.
3. Marketing and Sales – You should have developed plans to market your products and services, and to close 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 other hand will deal with how you’re going to close the deal and get the client on board; this will include 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 should do this to ensure that your business has the potential to succeed, and so that you have a few specific financial goals and targets to push for. You can easily download spreadsheet templates from the Web 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 will be the most critical document to you. It’s the heart of your business. Bad financial management is the primary reason for business failure. This will assist you with monitoring the cash flowing in and out of your business, and it will assist you with identifying when you’ll have cash available, or when you may not have enough cash and should make alternate arrangements with your bank before the coming problem wrecks havoc.
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, 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.
Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an Executive Virtual Assistant who assists businesses and individuals with achieving their professional goals. Want to find out more about online business building success strategies? Support the Campaign for FREE Virtual Assistance today!
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