Most of us at some point, experience periods of quiet. This can be for a number of reasons - it may be that you are at the beginning of your journey to self-employment and are not at full capacity, or maybe you have finished working with a client and need to find new business.
So what can you do to fill your time constructively (and to ensure you don’t spend your time cleaning the house, doing the laundry and watching daytime TV)?
If your priority is finding new clients:
- Spend some time looking for local upcoming networking events and get out and meet potential clients;
- Give existing business contacts a call or take them for a coffee, and ask if they know anyone who may benefit from your support;
- Have a look in relevant LinkedIn groups and get involved in discussions – contact people who may need your help;
- Start discussions on LinkedIn, or other social media sites where your ideal clients frequent;
- Prepare advertisements on, for example, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google;
- Write blog posts for your website, and ask around to see whether anyone would like you to write guest blogs for them – aim for industry relevant blog sites and sites which your ideal customer may read;
- Get involved in live discussions on, for example, twitter hours;
- Ask clients for testimonials and share these on your website and social media channels;
- Get in contact with previous clients and remind them of your services, or tell them of any new services that you offer.
Forward planning:
- Schedule social media posts using a scheduling system like Hootsuite or Buffer;
- Prepare a social media calendar, if you don’t already have one;
- Prepare anything which your accountant may need for your end of year, or plan your budget for the year ahead;
- Review your progress against your goals, or write some goals and plan how you are going to achieve them.
Work on your own admin:
- Spend time reviewing your website. It is easy to get this up and running and then forget about it, but as your business grows and changes, and you gain new skills and experience, you should ensure that it is regularly reviewed and updated;
- Sort out your office – physically: is your space working for you, virtually: does your virtual filing system need a tidy up?
- Send thank you notes to existing clients, or other business owners that have referred business to you;
- Revamp your marketing materials;
- Review your own systems and processes, and put new ones in place;
- Update your mailing lists, and send an e-newsletter.
Continue learning and developing:
- It is really important to keep on top of your game and keep learning and up-skilling.
- Ask your business community whether there are any books that they would recommend and get reading;
- Are there any tasks that you have been asked to do that you turned down as you did not have the required skills? Do a training course or watch relevant webinars;
- Is there a new service you would like to offer? Watch some YouTube videos and get practicing!
Have some ‘you time’.
The chances are that these lulls are few and far between, so enjoy the downtime and spend some time on self-care. Go for a lovely walk on a sunny day (with maybe a podcast on!), go for lunch with a friend, have a pamper treatment, go rock climbing. Do whatever you love whilst you have the opportunity! And of course go ahead and get on top of the laundry if you really have to!
She has been on a very steep learning curve but has enjoyed every minute of it!
- Looking Out For Your Health As A Virtual Assistant - October 8, 2020
- Tips for The Lulls: What to do When Work is Quiet - October 1, 2019
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.