Sometimes the Support You Think You Need Isn’t Where You Need to Start

A client recently came to me thinking they needed social media support.

And they did.

But when I started looking at what they already had in place, I realised that simply jumping straight into creating content wasn’t necessarily going to be the best use of their time or money.

There were things we needed to look at first.

Was their profile actually telling people clearly what they did? Was it obvious who they helped? Were they making the most of the people already in their network? And, perhaps most importantly, what did they actually want social media to achieve for their business?

So instead of immediately starting with the task they had originally come to me for, we took a step back.

And this is actually a big part of what business support looks like for me.

Sometimes you need to look at the business before you look at the task

Before becoming self-employed, I spent a lot of time sitting down with business owners, talking through their businesses and working out where they were, where they wanted to go and what might help them get there.

And I still do this with some of my clients now.

We might sit down and go through their social media strategy. We might review their business development activity and look at where their enquiries are actually coming from. We might talk about what they've tried before, what's working, what isn't, and what they realistically have the time and capacity to keep doing.

Then we make it work for them.

Because there isn't much point in me handing someone a beautiful social media plan that requires them to post five times a week when I know they're never going to have the time to do it.

Equally, there isn't much point in spending hours creating content if their profile doesn't clearly explain what they offer, or focusing all their energy on Instagram when most of their best conversations are happening somewhere else.

Sometimes the answer isn't to do more.

It's to work out what makes sense first.

Good support isn't just about completing the task

There will always be tasks that simply need doing.

An inbox needs organising. A CRM needs cleaning up. Research needs completing. A project needs coordinating. Content needs scheduling.

And yes, I can absolutely get stuck into those things.

But I think good business support can go a little further than that.

Sometimes it's asking why we're doing something in the first place.

Sometimes it's spotting something that could be working better.

Sometimes it's helping someone turn all the ideas floating around in their head into an actual plan.

And sometimes it's saying, "Before we spend your time and money on this, I think we need to sort this first."

That last one is important to me.

If a client is investing in my support, I want that support to actually be useful to their business — not just give me another task to tick off.

There isn't one strategy that works for every small business

This is probably one of the biggest things I've taken from working with lots of different businesses over the years.

You can have two businesses offering very similar things and what works brilliantly for one might make absolutely no sense for the other.

One founder might love networking and build most of their relationships in person.

Someone else might get fantastic results from LinkedIn.

Another might have an existing network they're barely speaking to.

And another might not need more marketing at all — they might need a better way of following up the enquiries they're already getting.

That's why I like to understand the bigger picture.

What are you trying to achieve?

What's already happening?

Where are things getting stuck?

What do you actually enjoy doing?

What are you realistically going to keep up with?

And where would having someone alongside you make the biggest difference?

From there, we can make the support fit the business rather than trying to make the business fit a generic strategy.

That's what business support means to me

I've been thinking a lot recently about how I describe what I do.

"Virtual Assistant" is still part of it. I provide admin support, manage CRMs, coordinate projects, carry out research, create and organise content and help with plenty of the practical things happening behind the scenes.

But there's another part of my work that doesn't always fit neatly into a list of services.

It's sitting down with a business owner and untangling something.

It's looking across the business rather than at one isolated task.

It's bringing another perspective, asking questions, spotting opportunities and helping work out what needs to happen next.

And then, importantly, being able to roll my sleeves up and help make it happen too.

Because sometimes the support you think you need isn't actually where you need to start.

And sometimes having someone help you figure out where to start is the most useful support of all.