Run An Office Without Actually Being There

It is all well and good deciding to be your own boss, but sometimes you don’t realise the amount of work it takes to get things right. Often when you become self-employed you need to take care of the whole business. This means that as well as running the physical business as well as what happens behind the scenes. Sounds easy enough, but how can you be in two places at once?

Running an Office

One thing you will need to do is run an office. This sounds easy enough but how can you be getting on with your work if you need to be in the office answering calls? It might seem like something small, but if you don’t keep up to date customer correspondence and enquiries then business could dry up.

One way around this is to look into a virtual admin assistant. These can work away from where you are, but deal with any incoming calls and emails on your behalf. There are different resources online that  can help you find these on a freelance basis. www.message-direct.co.uk recommends finding someone with a reliable reputation. You should check that they can deal with emergency calls & overflow calls as well as being able to take messages in an efficient manner. You can then set aside time each day to call these customers back and deal with their enquiries. This helps to reassure customers that their enquiry is being dealt with, rather than their first call to you going unanswered.

Keeping Up To Date with Admin

When you are busy running a business it can be tempting to put paperwork to one side with the idea of dealing with it later. This is all well and good but if you aren’t careful then it can quickly become overwhelming. You really need to stay on top of your admin. You might not have time to dedicate to doing paperwork every day, but it is important to set aside time to make sure it is done. This can be as little as once a month, as long as you have a day set by and make sure that you stick to it.

Hired Help

It is important to remember that you don’t have to do it all alone. As much as you are self-employed it is possible to get help. Often it is easier to get help with one off jobs (leaflet delivery for example) but with freelancing websites you can get long term help too. If you have any friends and family that know anything about admin then it could be time to rope them in too.

When you are out and about running a physical business it can be hard to find time to do the admin and office chores that need doing. That said it is these which are going to keep your business going so it is important that you keep up to date with them. If you leave customer enquiries unanswered then eventually the work you have to do will run out and that is not a position that you want to be in.