In today’s rapidly changing world, the need for business planners continues to increase. Business planners assist companies in developing plans in what direction they want their business to go next. Because of the pandemic, business planners are now shifting to an online business planner job to adapt and continue working.
Duties and Responsibilities
A virtual business planner’s duties and responsibilities are very similar to that of a traditional business planner. Without their assistance, companies will find it difficult to know how they’ll adapt to the challenges posed by shifting to an online business setup. These duties and responsibilities include:
- Develop, document, and implement business plans.
- Support business planning functions for new and existing strategic partnerships and alliances.
- Identify project issues and develop resolutions to meet productivity and quality.
- Develop presentations for management and stakeholders regarding business operations and developments.
- Perform business and financial analysis across the organization.
- Identify risks and make mitigation plans.
With such duties and responsibilities comes an appropriate salary. The salary range for an entry-level, full-time online business job is from 23,000 pesos to 80,200 pesos, depending on your experience.
And you can take advantage of it as well. If you have what it takes, here are 8 Sought-after skills that can help you be more efficient and productive in your possible new online job.
Know Your Market
Every business should know who its market is. The more they target their niche, the more they can rake in more sales. And as an online business planner, you should know it by heart as well.
What are the demographics of their target? What’s the language they speak? Are they tiered on a certain income bracket? And many more questions to pinpoint the client’s persona.
As you create plans and strategies, they should be highly customized with their customers in mind to effectively increase productivity in their bottom line.
Know Your Client’s Business
After knowing their customers, next is you should know how your client’s business works. Deep dive into their processes like logistics, manufacturing, marketing assets, human resource, and more.
As you understand this fundamental knowledge, you can match your client’s targets with their current resources and create campaigns that will strengthen their internal operations and sales.
Analytical Skills
With all the data presented, how do you create a plan that will work? You should have analytical skills to be efficient in online business planning.
You should connect the information that can be vital for business decisions. For example, you may have inventory shortages because of a sudden trend. You should be able to analyze what’s happening to capitalize on the current situation.
Organizational Skills
Your organizational skills will play a big role in each plan’s success. A plan should be properly organized for the enterprise to follow step-by-step.
You should organize your move into easily understandable and actionable processes. In this way, you can streamline your campaigns or productivity tweaks as unobtrusive as possible to the current processes.
Financial Forecasting
Every business decision has an effect on the financial statements. But how do you show that to your boss? You should know financial forecasting.
Based on the data, what’s the expected increase in sales? Or when this plan is executed properly, what percentage will the costs go down?
Financial forecasting will certainly help your client to decide on what is the best move with the current information your company has.
Business Continuity Planning
Emergencies happen when no one expects them. Just look at the pandemic and how it struck down all major companies. As an online business planner, you should also know how to prepare for this catastrophe, just in case. That’s why business continuity planning is essential.
What should you do if Plan A doesn’t pan out? Is there a Plan B? Do you have backup plans if your data is breached or another pandemic happens? It will highly depend on the business you are in.
But if you can ensure plans for the future, you will surely be valuable to the company moving forward.
Communicate with Your Client and Team Members
Proper communication is one of the most important strategic business planning skills you need to practice. No matter how good your business plan is, if you can’t properly communicate it to your clients and team members, then it’s useless. Being able to express and hear one another’s thoughts allows for the free flow of ideas for your client’s benefit.
To hone your communication skills, schedule regular meetings between you and your team members, as well as with your client. During these meetings, listen to each other’s thoughts and comments earnestly. Doing this allows you to improve your business plans based on your client’s thoughts, as well as your team’s ideas.
Up-to-date
Trends change every day. What we know to be effective now might not be in a few months or even weeks to come. So to be sought-after, you should be up-to-date with the latest innovations and trends in your craft.
Join groups or thought leaders in your client’s field. In this way, your service will be always relevant and timely for your clients.
Conclusion
These are just some ways you can improve your productivity for your online business planner job. The tips mentioned above cover the essential things you need to consider when you’re just starting out. Being a virtual business planner allows you to guide your clients in which direction their business should take to prosper.
So if you’re looking to sharpen your strategic business planning skills, why not try being a virtual business planner today? There are plenty of opportunities out there; all you need to do is look for them.
