Debbie Ervin, MBA – Pilot Mtn Business Assistance

Do you have a small business, want a small business, or thinking of a small business?

Surry Community College has a Small Business Center.  You can make an appointment with Susan Cobles and chat with her about your requirements, ideas, and get advice.  There are numerous upcoming FREE seminars in various categories.  I am attending one tomorrow on Mobile Marketing.  We have to keep current with the times. 

Take a few minutes and check out their website at: www.surry.edu/corpconted/browsecourses/smallbusinesscenter.aspx

cobles@surry.edu or call 336-386-3685. 

Remember that the seminars are FREE!

If you have a business website, make sure to sign up on google, yahoo, bing and yelp.  It will put you in the local listings when someone is searching the area online. 

Virtual Business Professional (VBP) Offering a Flexible Contract Service For Business Solutions.

Do you have work processes in place for your employees?  If not, then you should consider standardizing your workflow so that everyone follows the same procedure.  You are putting down the steps involved in every aspect of your business.  This ensures that everyone is doing the job the same way and the process or product is repeatable.  This will make it easier to locate problems or issues as well as improving your business. 

Standardized work processes are one of the most powerful business tools available.  Standardization is promoted by ISO Standards, Kaizen, Quality Management Systems (QMS) and Six Sigma.  By documenting the current best practice, standardized work forms the baseline for continuous improvement.  Each time a process is improved, the new standard becomes the baseline for further improvements, and so on. Improving standardized work is a never-ending process.

I can help you with developing your process standards.  If interested, then contact me for more information.

A business and its personnel must be able to learn, change, adapt, and do it quickly to be successful in its endeavors.  Without good managers and owners, businesses cannot readily adapt to changing business conditions. 

In today’s business world, change is constantly evolving.  It takes good management to facilitate success and lead your employees into the changes without creating too much chaos.

Good customer service is key to repeat business.  You have to go the extra mile to make the customer happy and satisfied.  If you can’t help them with their request, then offer suggestions to other places they may try.  Anything that you do for a customer outside of the norm will give them a good feeling about your business.

Greeting customers as they come in can be nice BUT it quickly becomes annoying if there are a lot of people in the area.  Restaurants and stores overwhelm you at times.  There are certain restaurants that I won’t even go to because I hear the same greeting over and over and over…

According to BusinessKnowHow.com, new businesses have only a 50 percent chance  of surviving for longer than five years. The thing that sets a successful  business apart from a failing one is its leadership. A good businessperson must  possess a certain set of qualities and have skills and abilities that set him or  her apart from those in the business world who are just average.

Small businesses often tend to neglect back-office tasks and end up having a mound of backlog. Expert virtual business assistance is a great solution for all your small business needs. No need to hire full-time employees or build an infrastructure for activities that can be done more professionally, efficiently, and at a much lower cost.

The Virtual Business Professional or VBP does not work inside the company office suite or need the company to supply office equipment, furniture, or space for them. They work from their own offices (often in their own homes) with their own equipment and furniture. Since the VBP is an independent contractor, there are no employee benefit packages, vacation pay, or employee tax obligations required on the part of a company contracting their services.

 Services are usually delivered remotely using phone, fax, e-mail , and internet tools.  Meetings can be conducted face-to-face (locally), by telephone, or online as needed.

Pilot Mtn, NC – Flexible short-term/temporary business assistance/service