The weather is turning, nights are getting darker and we’re unofficially on the countdown to the big C. For your small business, that means things might look a little different over the coming months with notorious busy periods creeping up on us. Exciting and daunting in equal parts!

As Virtual Assistants, we work with small businesses to help them manage these seasonal fluctuations, ensuring they’re fully prepared for anything that might be thrown their way. To ensure you feel prepared too, we’ve popped together a list of how a good VA can support your small business through seasonal changes. Check it out below!

 

Credit Control

Credit control is one of those processes that can be massively thrown out of whack by seasonal fluctuations. Just when you think you’ve got everything under control, you’re hit with a surge of sales and suddenly you’re buried under a pile of invoices. You know the importance of keeping on top of these invoices for cash flow purposes, but there really are only so many hours in a day.

Virtual Assistants who specialise in credit control are the perfect solution here. They can seamlessly integrate themselves into your business to make sure invoices are sent out quick sticks, monitor payment statuses, send reminders out to slow coach clients and keep an eye on your cash flow – all without you having to lift a finger.

This gives you the opportunity to focus on navigating your business through this busy period without having to worry about what your accounts are doing. Sounds like a win, win situation to us.

 

Content Creation and Copywriting

Notoriously busy seasons for your business are a great opportunity to really let loose when it comes to marketing. You’ll be wanting to promote your business in new ways, shouting about your seasonal products or services on any platform possible. Whether it’s striking up a Halloween campaign on social media, letting your customers know about your Christmas giveaway in your monthly newsletter or sharing tips and advice for the new year over on your blog, the opportunities really are endless.

But where are you going to find the time to do all that and run your business?

As Virtual Assistants, one of the biggest factors we find our clients struggle with when it comes to marketing is time. There simply isn’t enough of it, so seasonal campaigns go on the back burner in favour of more pressing tasks.

Again, investing in a Virtual Assistant is a pretty solid way of solving that problem. A VA who specialises in content creation and copywriting can pre-empt your busiest season and create content ahead of time that works to make the most of those seasonal changes. Cute posts for Christmas, spook-tacular social media campaigns for Halloween? Sorted.

 

small business seasonal support

Administrative Support

Paperwork, yawn, data entry, yawn, inbox management, double yawn. Look, admin is boring. And when you’ve got a bucket-load of it heading your way during your busier seasons, it can feel like you’re wading through a never-ending swamp of box ticking. It clogs up your to do list and you just want to be rid of it, but you’re also aware of its importance and the negative impact it could have on your business if not done correctly and on time.

No prizes for guessing what we’re going to suggest.

Behold, the humble admin Virtual Assistant. On-the-ball organisers, paperwork pros and inbox experts, Virtual Assistants who specialise in admin can really be your saving grace when it comes to keeping on top of admin during seasonal changes.

They can help manage your calendar to optimise your time, take on paperwork tasks to ensure everything is complete to deadlines, and wrangle your full inbox, ensuring customer queries are responded to quickly and important emails flagged for your attention.

Basically, they’ll organise your admin like it’s never been organised before. And the true beauty of Virtual Assistants? When your workload goes in the other direct and things are a little quiet, they can stand down until needed again, meaning you aren’t paying out for a service you don’t need.

 

Balancing Workload

Balancing workload is a challenge at the best of times, but doing so in your busiest season of the year? A whole different ball game. If not managed effectively, your workload during seasonal peaks can start to feel overwhelming, and you may find yourself missing out on the opportunities these seasonal peaks offer simply because you haven’t got the time to make the most of them all.

Our job as Virtual Assistants is to give you some of that time back. By taking on the tasks mentioned above, we’re not just taking care of those tasks. We’re also allowing you to focus on the aspects of your business that you enjoy most – the areas where you excel are generally those that will push your business to the next level in the end.

By taking care of everything else, Virtual Assistant support during seasonal fluctuations gives you the opportunity to do just that.

 

Seasonal Support with The Edwards Company

The busiest time of the year is upon is. If you’re feeling daunted by that prospect or really want to make the most of this season and could do with a helping hand to do so, give our brilliant team a shout.

They specialise in supporting small businesses with credit control, content creation and copywriting and admin during peak seasons.

For more info or to book your seasonal support service, please do not hesitate to get in touch.