Your Total Guide To Business

My Strategy For Surviving Coronavirus

By Ruth Bruce, of Ruth Bruce Virtual PA, a business which started in November 2019. I'm a Virtual Assistant or a freelance PA. My clients outsource time-consuming tasks to me so they have more time to focus on their family, running their business and bringing in new customers.

When did you realise the Coronavirus could be a problem for you and your business?

As a member of Jo Munro's VA Handbookers group, Jo made sure that we were prepared early on for potential issues we could face due to the Corona virus. I knew that some businesses would go into survival mode when we went into lockdown and that work could slow down.

What has been your plan to continue?

Keep visible, keep networking and making new contacts. Convert from face to face to online networking. Help clients to pivot by providing contingency and pivoting suggestions. Help clients to future-proof their business - and that will help us all.

How have you changed your business as the weeks have passed?

Working with remote teams and video conferencing is second nature to me because of my background in project coordination and administration. For VAs working from home this is business as usual.

I quickly moved the East Bristol LWL group online and we held a virtual meet up within days of the lockdown. The move from face to face networking to videoconferencing was straightforward.

Have you been able to access any government support or funding?

I fall in the 5% that don't meet the eligibility criteria, though I am claiming Universal Credit. It's worth thinking of applying for UC as the minimum income floor has been temporarily lifted to support those who lose income as a result of Covid19.

What have you seen about business which has been positive?

There are so many networking and training opportunities being offered that sometimes you're spoilt for choice. Here are just a few which have helped me:

The support from local networking groups including Business Women In, Ladies Who Latte, Come Network With Me and the Bristol Small Business Network.

Enterprise Nation, Small Business Saturday and BT Skills for Tomorrow offer networking, training sessions, webinars and daily Facebook lives.

Nicky Marshall of Discover Your Bounce goes live on Facebook every day with positive and supportive messages.

VA networking groups and individual VAs are supporting each other.

Businesses coming together in the SMEs vs Coronavirus Facebook group.

What advice would you give to other business owners?

Although a pandemic situation is unusual, there are other situations that will challenge your business (accidents, recessions, 9/11, natural disasters, bird flu, Brexit, foot and mouth). Learn from this, future-proof your business, create a continuity plan and review it regularly.

Use this time well. Make a daily to-do list and tick off each task as you complete it. Keep marketing and block in some time for learning and development.

Remember that you can't be positive all the time, when you have a bad day accept it and remember that it's not going to last forever. Don't suffer in silence, use your support network.

What can we do to help each other?

Share leads with your network. Give testimonials on LinkedIn and Facebook. Contact your business contacts and customers and check they're okay.

Your parting thought?

As a new business it's great having Jo Munro and the Handbookers group behind me encouraging me through both good days and bad days.

Find out more here, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthbruce/

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