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- Target your market and position your product
- Use trade magazines to advertise
Find out which persons will buy your product, and determine if such persons are financially viable to serve.
I'm assuming your budget is tight--I don't think a paying big bucks for trade magazine advertising is going to help you all that much initially. If your community is large enough to build a base in, I think I'd do as much targeted door knocking locally as you can to start with. I'm assuming what you're looking for are long term contracts to basically run the paper flow/organizational side of a very small business? An unknown is much more likely to be hired if there's some type of personal contact. I've started building my business that way--I netted about $30,000.00 part time last year through projects I took on from local contacts and networking. I expect my net to go up considerably when I move to full time. I'm in a specialized, higher demand field, but it can be done if you can provide something that people really need. Good luck.
I have my own bookkeeping business that I do from home. Small businesses - contractor, HOA, vacation rental place, and I might have another client starting next week. I primarily do bookkeeping, but other things are usually thrown in there as well.
I got started because a friend I knew that coached my son's ski team had a summer business and needed a bookkeeper. It grew from there. Every client I have is someone I know, who just know me and know I'm meticulous and get things done.
Start by reaching out to people you know. They might not need anything, but might know someone who does.
The website looks nice and professional. But I question the use of the word "virtual," which to me means that the services will be provided entirely online or over the phone. I don't want to pay $25 an hour for that. But without that branding, you're really just a temp service. And there are a couple of areas I might tweak, such as your breakdown of the cost of an employee- you don't pay more for giving someone vacation and sick time, you just reduce the number of hours worked when calculating cost per hour, and the numbers seem inflated overall. My assistant does just about everything you offer and makes far less, doesn't get a month of vacation and sick time, doesn't cost the company $6700 a year in training, software and bonuses. But even assuming the salary is 39, when you add in the real costs, 4% match, modest bonus, etc., the cost per hour of an employee is less than you charge. So personally I'd revamp this section and stress the advantage to the employer of flexibility and responsiveness. There are huge advantages to having an actual employee that justify much of the cost, so I would shy away from the cost comparison because it's not apples to apples.
Your business seems to offer a lot of services, but existing businesses that have a need for most of these services are already getting them done somehow . . . so how do you add value? Be a marketing company or an event planning company perhaps, because those are specialty areas that businesses may need but can't justify a full time employee for. But realize that most of the services (travel arrangements, email help, data entry, word processing) are entry level functions that most employers can easily fill with a part time employee or a temp. Where many small businesses need help is in accounting functions, website development and maintenance, it support.
I'd think hard about who your customers will be, and tailor your business to them. Marketing just to get your name out there isn't going to help you unless you get your name to the right people.
Have you tried kijiji.com or Backpage.com these are both free to advertise and have many good categories, or go around to the different companies you think might be interested in your services and drop off a list of your services available and your business card. Just keep going.
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