The start of a new year is a good time to a look at how your business performed over the previous year. To think about which areas of your business to expand on, which need a bit of tweaking and which need a total overhaul. The problem is that to complete a proper planning and review routine each year, you’ll have to sacrifice a lot of time you could be spending with your family, or actually doing the work you got into business to do. Using a Virtual Assistant to help with the review and planning process can help you create a better process that takes up less of your valuable time.
I’ve already discussed some of the ways a Virtual Assistant can help in my earlier posts How A Virtual Assistant Can Help With:
Some other things a Virtual Assistant could do to help with the REVIEW process include:
- Competitor analysis
- Create a survey for current/past customers using Survey Monkey or Google Docs (both can be done for free)
- Download data from your accounting program and organise tables and graphs – whichever you find easiest to work from
- Download data from your stock system and analyse what products sell best, and to see if there are trends (i.e. Umbrellas sell better in summer or You sell more jackets in Winter)
- Research benchmarking data from similar businesses
- Collate data from previous years to allow you to make long term comparisons
- Research your ideas. When you want to make a change to the way something is done using new equipment or suppliers, your VA can find out things like price, system requirements, and similar systems that may be a cheaper/more suitable alternative
- Keep your notes and documents organised so that you can always put your finger on what you need.
- Offer an informed outsiders view and be a sounding board
- Document the findings of your review, so you can use them for comparison next year, and as a basis for your planning process.
When it comes to the PLANNING side of your annual review and throughout the year – a Virtual Assistant could help by:
- Creating a document template for you to use
- Creating and using templates for Goal setting and achievement on a regular basis
- Transcribing notes you’ve dictated while engaged in other activities
- Diarising tasks or due dates to help keep you on track
- Breaking ideas down into a series of tasks to make goals manageable
- Sourcing resources needed to achieve your goals/plans
- Adjusting budget in your accounting program to allow for purchases relevant to the goals
- Sharing the finished plan with your partners/business coach/accountability partners
- Initiate regular monthly/quarterly/bi-annual reviews to keep the business on track
- Be an accountability partner to help you keep your vision in mind when making decisions throughout the year.
Once you’ve got everything set in your mind, it’s important to document it and to keep an eye on your performance against the plan throughout the year and made adjustments as necessary. If you don’t, you might as well not bother with the review. By having done the hard work in the beginning to set your goals and document your plans you’ll have created the instruction manual to take your business forward in leaps in bounds.
What are your business goals for the year?
Click here to book a complimentary 30 minute catch up to discuss how I could help with your business planning and review.
