Are you following along with the Sticky Business Contest over at Men with Pens? As mentioned in a previous post the contest is well underway and you can no longer enter, but you can follow along and complete the thought provoking tasks for yourself just as I’m doing.

Task #1 was to write a brief overview of your business concept in 200-350 words. Explaining the business type, services, where you’ll find customers, how they will hear about your business, and how will they take delivery and pay for your services. Here’s my completed task.

“Gem’s Virtual Office is a small business owned by Deborah Frawley of Williamson, NY. It was originally opened as a virtual business offering bookkeeping and administrative services to small businesses and individuals needing an additional person to help them manage and grow their business. Today Gem’s is not only virtual, supporting businesses in any location, but also a local business, offering pick up and delivery of projects as well as onsite support as needed.

Some of the bookkeeping services that Gem’s offers are: Accounts Payable (entering and paying bills), Accounts Receivable (invoicing customers and recording payments), collections of overdue accounts, financial statement preparation (so a client always knows where their business stands), and bank account management and reconciling.  Gem’s bookkeeping software of choice is Quickbooks and Deb is a certified Quickbooks user.  Clients can choose to have the bookkeeping done at Gem’s home office with reports generated weekly, use the online version of QuickBooks, or their software can be accessed remotely using programs such as Log Me In.  Administrative services provided include: e-mail and calendar management, data entry, customer service, word processing, bulk mailing, and travel arrangements.

Gem’s will be marketing and networking locally and nationally on social networking sites such as Facebook,  Twitter, and LinkedIn. Brochures and postcards are also being sent out locally, and businesses and individuals can view Gem’s website at www.gemsvirtualoffice.com.  I’ll also look forward to meeting a lot of local businesses and people at area networking events.”

If you’ve been following along with the contest please share. It’s been a very good tool and motivational exercise for me,  and you might find it to be the same for you. Check back in the next few days and you can read my response to Task #2.

To see the Tasks as they post them for people to join in and to hear how the Stick Business contest is going, visit Men with Pens.