Office Lifeline's LifeSaver Blog

How much Admin support do you really need?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:39:00 +0000

If you need a Virtual Assistant to help with your personal and business admin, then this will sound like an easy question to answer, but we've come to realise that most people find this quite difficult.

If you are currently doing the tasks yourself, the admin you need to outsource will be mixed in with other work and it's difficult to separate out the time. Also, people tend to over-estimate the amount of support they need: partly because that's how it feels to them and partly because VAs are usually quicker and more efficient - after all, it's their main job - see for yourself why VAs work our cheaper than employees or Temps.

Personally, I've reached the point of systematically halving the time people tell me they need, when I'm trying to allocate VA resources to a new client. It's not perfect, but its surprising how many times it works out that way. After a short time clients realise this too and the arrangements will be tuned to ensure the client is getting the best value for money.

Quite often, people like to find out how much time they need and how much that will cost, before they make a commitment to sign up for an ongoing VA service. Starting on a pay-as-you-go basis is one way to find out - the rate may be higher than a retainer, but it's flexible - and when the workload is understood, the client is much happier about entering into a retainer arrangement, to benefit from the discounted rate.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Telephone Answering Services... your options

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:32:00 +0000

If you are looking for a telephone answering service, its worth reading Anna Isaacs' short article which is on our website, entitled "Call Handling... What Are Your Options?" You can download the article to read on the move.

The article provides an overview of the main different types of Call Handling Service provider, including Telephone Answering Services, Service Office Receptionists, Virtual Assistants and Virtual Office Service Providers. It explains their differences in emphasis and approach, and for whom each is most appropriate.

If you have feedback or suggestions about improving the article, please leave a comment on this blog post.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Business case for hiring VAs

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:10:00 +0000

VAs will tell you they are good value for money and give you a whole string of reasons why, but you should decide for yourself before hiring one. Each situation is different and the importance of intangibles - the things you can't put a cost to - will vary, but here are the main things to consider.

First, be clear about the tasks and skills you expect of your VA, so you can make a like-for-like comparison. For example, an experienced PA costs far more (c.£20,000-24,000 pa) than a Secretary (c.£16,000-20,000) or an Administrator (c.£10,000-16,000 pa).

Then, decide how much time you require. Everyone over-estimates the amount of a VA's time that's needed as it's often far less than you would plan for an employee - try to find a realistic benchmark, ask around.

Once you've compared the direct hiring costs, consider indirect costs, such as:

Office Costs ...Providing office space, a desk, PC, telephone, etc
Training Costs ...Learning new business skills, PC/software training, etc
Management Costs ...Your supervision time, PAYE, sickness/holidays, etc

Now you have the full costs, overlay this with your list of intangibles, such as:

How the person sounds on the phone and interacts with customers
The quality of work and how the person adds to your professionalism
Dealing with employment problems, attendance issues and other hassles
Having all the necessary skills, precisely at the time when need them
The backup to handle surges in demand or deal with emergencies
... this list really does go on and will be personal to you.

There are negative intangibles to consider too. For example: your ability to work remotely, not "owning" the VAs time, relying on technology, etc. You need to be comfortable with these and any compromises.

So, how does the case look now? I suspect your initial mental assessment is perhaps more convincing than you previously thought. If you'd like to see a case worked through, take a look at VA Comparative Costs.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Getting the best suppliers deals

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:36:00 +0000

If you run an office, you'll probably have several companies providing anything from washroom supplies to printing and stationery, but are you getting the best deal? Now is a good time to re-visit your long-standing deals - you could save yourself £'00s or £'000s.

The main reason for not re-visiting deals is lack or time and a belief that our suppliers will look after us, which is not always the case. One way around this is to hire a Virtual Assistant to re-visit your supply contracts. This leaves existing staff focused on their jobs and you only pay for the time spent saving you money - some may offer percentage saving deals, so you'll always be quids-in, whatever happens.

Recently Office Lifeline took on a new client with a modest office suite and set about re-visiting their supply contracts as a fill-in job, around the main admin tasks. In the second week their Virtual Assistant re-visited a sanitary bin contract and re-negotiating the existing supplier down from £738 /yr down to £125 /yr - an astonishing reduction!. Personally, I think this begs a few questions about this particular supplier, but nevertheless it shows what an impact a VA can make.

This type of service is often on the list of Admin Services that VAs offer, but is perhaps one of the least exploited. And, its well worth asking about more imaginative charging mechanisms than that just paying for time.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

How important is time/expense reporting?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 20:19:00 +0000

I think we'd all agree, if you are asking someone to do work for you, effectively on a time and materials basis, its important that you know exactly how much time they are spending on which activities, so you can relate that to their output or deliverables.

So do all VAs will keep good records of the time they spend on your work and any expenses they incur? ... Well, they should, and most probably do, but its worth asking at the outset, and know how they do it and the level of reporting they can provide would be useful to know too.

Many VAs use spreadsheets, others keep paper records, but the more sophisticated will use a database. Those using databases should be able to provide you with detailed reports that show you exactly what they've been doing for your money.Your VA should be able to give you a full breakdown of time, expenses and purchases - any some will do this and discuss it with you regularly, so you always know where you stand and you always have the information to make decisions about how you use their service to greatest effect.

This is definitely something you should check before signing up with a VA service..

At Office Lifeline uses a online WebOffice database that VAs can access from wherever they are working at any time of day. This enables us to monitor client work day-by-day and run checks if we think something is not right (e.g. keying error) and catch it early. Clients can have a full breakdown at any time, but many don't see the need whilst everything runs to plan. Nevertheless, it's re-assuring to know it's there should you need it.

We believe that accurate records and transparency are key to an open and honest relationship and building trust between the VA and their client.You'd probably agree with that too.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Capture your thoughts whilst driving

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:49:00 +0000

What do you do with your thoughts when you are driving, reach for paper and pen? ... I'd hope not. Or, do you hang on to them for hours, or pull over and make notes? If your head's always full of thoughts then you will either be losing a few or forever stopping.

Instead, why not call a voice message number and dictate your thoughts? We all call people from the car and leave voice messages, so why not leave multiple messages with your thoughts on the meeting that you just left or your latest idea for making a million. This way, your notes could be typed up ready for you when you arrive at your office or home.

Apart from the safety issue, getting your thoughts down on paper as they occur means you can move on to other matters and be more productive. Wasting time dwelling on thoughts, just so you don't forget them, is a thing of the past now that we live in the internet age.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Remote support for VAs and clients

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:22:00 +0000

It's rarely practical for us to make a personal visit one of our VAs, unless they are local. However, we do need to help set up their PC with Audio Typing, Phones, etc. and train them how to use our IT systems when they join us, and we need to provide ongoing IT support too. This is a situation which would apply equally to any remote worker, whether they work alone or for a large or small company.

The simple answer is that I do all this over the internet from my desk using WebEx Meetings. The WebEx web conferencing tool allows you to run presentations, share PC applications and even take control of the other persons PC. This way I can install, run, tweak and fix most things. It's very clever and very simple, and comes as part of our WebOffice.

Having in-house Technical Support means we can also help our clients directly when they have an IT problem. This could be showing them how to use a Microsoft Office feature or sorting our problems with PC and email settings. Its good to know that we're here to help if we can.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Why Serviced Offices don't offer admin support?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:03:00 +0000

We recently did a survey of local serviced offices and found quite a variation in the services offered. Most just want to rent office space and provide the minimum infrastructure services (e.g. power, lighting, etc) and some also offer telephone and internet, and hire meeting rooms, but that's it.

A few offer basic admin support (e.g. copying, posting, etc) and telephone answering, using their in-house Receptionist, with other offering ad hoc services that they have found useful to their tenants (e.g. debt chasing). But, very few offer a full range of office support services.

Landlords either have no interest in providing these services, or they have found in the past that the total demand from tenants would not commercially support a full time secretary. Some have found a shift in the preferences of tenants to use virtual office services over their own services.

Virtual Office Admin Services are becoming more popular with companies in serviced offices. The services of Virtual Assistants often compliment the limited services provided by the Serviced Office Landlords' own staff, filling the gaps in their service offering, or as an add-on value-added service in their own right.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

How do VAs remember to do so many things?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 06:28:00 +0000

Clients often ask how Virtual Assistants manage to remember so many things for several clients at once. Do they have super-multi-tasking skills, or what? Some may do, but others rely on technology, for example, at Office Lifeline they use a WebOffice to drive and manage their work.

This particular WebOffice has an email reminder system that sends an email reminder at a pre-determined time (1 hour before, 1 day before, etc) to help the VA remember important events and tasks:

Tasks Reminders are used for important ad hoc time sensitive client events and actions
Calendar Events Reminders are used to set regular recurring tasks like ordering supplies, checking regular office services have been carried out, as well as client meetings
Database Activities/Task Reminders are used for Debt Chasing, Lead Chasing and other tasks driven directly from an Online Database Activity Log

Some of these situations can be managed from Microsoft Outlook too, and the WebOffice synchronises with Outlook Calendar and Tasks. But, having all reminders driven from the one place, that connects a team of VAs together, offers so much more flexibility. For example, if a VA is sick or unavailable we can immediately see her Task Reminders and re-assign these to the VA covering her job that day, wherever she may be working from.

Clients find this efficiency, reliability and flexibility re-assuring, knowing their time-critical office admin work will always get done on time.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Personal or business admin problems?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:00:00 +0000

If you're one of those business people that have a busy private life and takes responsibility for household matter too, then I'm sure you have very little spare time.

For many people, the problem is taking business admin home and not spending enough time with the family. For others, private admin creeps into the working day, doubling up the admin burden. One way to deal with this is to train your spouse to take care of it, but if that fails you might consider hiring a Virtual Assistant for Personal Admin tasks that you don't need to do.

That's what the owner of a successful Property Development firm did. He was saddled with mounting personal and business admin, getting stressed about both, and getting nowhere. Eventually, he off-loaded some of his banking actions, personal correspondence and organising household maintenance, water deliveries, gardeners, etc to Office Lifeline. This enabled him to relax - even spending an hour each morning at the gym - as well as taking on more projects. He spent a little and gained a lot, financially too.

Does this sound familiar? Don't let your personal admin get in the way of business.... act now and create some space in your life.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Is your month-end admin overwhelming?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:10:00 +0000

Month-end admin can be enjoyable, with raising invoices topping the admin charts. But when your business is taking off, with invoicing, payments and other tasks taking a more than a day of your time, perhaps its time to look for some help.

That was certainly the case for the Directors of Virtual HQ Solutions, a business management software and skills business. Working out adjustments and extras to customer invoices, looking back over the past three months of subscriptions, memberships and support hours, on top of the purchase invoices and payments to process, started to take its toll. The Directors turned to Anna Isaacs and Office Lifeline for help.

Now, Anna has access to the VHQ WebOffice and Microsoft Groove Workspace, and processes their invoices for them - its efficient, cost-effective and painless - leaving the Directors to get on with servicing new and existing customers. This experience has led them to use Anna's team of Virtual Assistants for other office admin tasks as their business continues to grow.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Low Cost Audio Transcription Options

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:03:00 +0000

If you produce large amounts of audio notes, such as interviews, meetings and dictations you'll need a low cost transcription service. There are several options to consider, from sending it overseas to jobbing sites and Virtual Assistants, but they all vary in cost, quality and reliability. So, here's a simple guide to choosing:

Go East: sending audio files to India or China is low cost, but finding the ideal person is difficult. You are also likely to suffer from language issues and cultural differences - after all, who really likes dealing with Indian Call Centres?
Go West: finding a transcription service in the US is easier and a little cheaper than the UK. There are fewer language issues - after all, they don't quite speak our language - but, the time difference is in your favour as the US is 5+hrs behind giving plenty of time to get your typing done overnight
Jobbing Sites: If you require occasional transcription, it's worth looking at online sites like People Per Hour. Here, people who want to earn pin money or need fill-in work undercut each other in a bid to win your business. It may be cheap, but you take a risk... I wouldn't consider this a long term solution.
UK Virtual Typist: The next best thing to an employee, with no language issues or time differences, and people who understand your business/profession. Its UK rates, but great service, often part of a range of Office Admin Services, and some have contacts abroad and turn typing around overnight too.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Who answers your phone when you're busy?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:25:00 +0000

If you are not large enough to have a receptionist or office staff of your own to handle your business calls, then you're in the majority. It’s a common situation. Professionals, Sole Traders and Small Business Owners alike all need to be doing work to generate income, not sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.

So, if you are busy, what happens? If your phone just rings out, unanswered, what impression does that give new and existing customers? If you have Voicemail then at least you'll get a message – that’s if they bother to leave one - but most people do not appreciate a business going to Voicemail... it’s not like personal Voicemails.

The alternative is to use a Telephone Answering Service, as many people do. It’s big business. Large firms with hordes of call handlers, many working from home, all connected via huge telephone systems, handling thousands of calls. No wonder they get accused of being impersonal. It’s rare that a caller gets the same person twice.

Companies offering a personal service are few and far between. It’s not easy, but Office Lifeline have been creative in our use of IP telephony and partner services to offer precisely that. You can read more about Call Answering on our website, but if you call us on 01926 659 120 we'll explain the options and how it works.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Cost-effective Buy-to-Let Property Management

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:17:00 +0000

These days a large number of successful business people are acquiring a portfolio of buy-to-let properties as a long term investment. They want to keep their costs low to maximise profits, but most don't want the hassle of managing the property and tenants themselves to achieve this. In many cases long distances also make it impractical.

Up to now, the options were to do-it-yourself or pay a Property Management Company 8-12% of rental income to do it for you. And the experience is often "does very little for the money", "never makes a decision", "couldn't care less about my property", etc ... you get the picture. And if they're on a flat fee then of course they'll do the bare minimum in order to maximise their profits.

Once you realise that property management is an admin job in the main, then it's possible for a Virtual Assistant with some property experience to do just as well for half the cost, and from experience they often do better, with a sense of caring and pride that is missing from the property management industry. This is what happened to Aspire Investments who acquired a block of 10 flats that were already rented out - they just wanted the investment, not the hassle.

When Office Lifeline started managing Aspire's flat, they provided wider range of services than expected. The owners had a PA into the bargain, who made decisions and sorted things out - with a minimum of fuss - sweeping away their problems. And all at roughly £250 per month - that's just over 50% of the average agent fees - in effect making the investors an extra £2.5k profit per year. Read Aspire Investment Case Study.

This reinforces the view that VAs are not a cost to the business, but more an opportunity to increase profits!

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Options for typing professional reports

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:21:00 +0000

For many professionals, producing reports comes with the territory. If you are a Consultant or a Surveyor that can mean lengthy ones and lots of them, so what are your options when it comes to typing reports?

Basically, you either do it yourself or dictate and get someone else to type it for you. Some people prefer to type themselves, either because they compose or develop content as they go, others may just type fast. For most, it's a case of preserving our sanity and making better use of our valuable time - getting more done, generating more income - for which there are 3 main options:

Hire Someone: you'll have their undivided attention, but you'll have to provide office space, equipment & IT, pay full employment costs, manage them and find cover for absences ... this option has a high fixed cost.
Hire a Temp: you'll commit to blocks of time and have cover (albeit a different person each time) and pay a premium rate for someone who still may not be fully utilised and who's not committed to your business ... this option tends to be loaded with hassle and is the last resort if all else fails... see Virtual Temp alternative
Hire a Virtual Assistant: you'll only pay for the hours worked with management or employment hassle and no fixed costs... this option gives you a professional, with the backup of colleagues as part of the deal, who prides themself on their efficiency and is committed to your success.

Hiring a VA is an increasingly popular alternative to hiring staff and Temps, especially for professionals and small businesses. Find out more by reading about how a Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist and Sheard Developments Services use digital dictation technology and VAs.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

What's a Virtual PA worth?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 09:42:00 +0000

Well, that depends how you measure value.

If you are considering hiring a traditional PA to look after you and organise your life, then that's one thing, but if you are looking for someone to front your organisation when you're not available, adding to the image size and importance, then that's has a completely different value.

In fact, PAs are experiencing a resurgence after years of decline. I wrote a brief article about this based on my experiences of IBM and the life after - read my article called Virtual PA .... How did I manage without one? The basic premise is that PAs were seen as dispensable, which started during the 1990s as IT enabled Executives and Professional alike to do-it-themselves, and very soon everyone became self-sufficient. But, recently we've all realised that our time is better spent on high value activities, and now many of us are looking for good old-fashioned PA support. Low and behold, we've discovered that IT has enabled a new breed of Virtual PAs to emerge, just in time.

The Virtual PA, otherwise known as Virtual Assistant, Virtual Secretary, Remote PA or Remote Secretary, can perform a variety of business admin and personal organising tasks. If you would like to know more about what they could do for you, take a look at the range of Virtual PA tasks you can expect them to undertake.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Good PAs make good liars?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:51:00 +0000

I've heard it said that good PAs are good liars, and I'm reliably informed by my PA that its a core skill - in the positive sense, naturally - and essential for dealing with many a client's personal and business issues. Not that this is something I subscribe to, you understand.

Taken from the experiences of nameless PAs and their nameless clients, here are a few situations where spinning a good yarn or being economic with the truth can come in useful:

Canceling meetings
Returning unwanted goods
Letting people down
Evading the VAT man
Delaying payments
Spying on competitors
... and many more, I'm sure

I guess we've all been in situations where being honest and confronting the truth is uncomfortable, and we'd dearly love to ignore the problem and hope it goes away. It seldom does, and in business this is especially true, but now you have the option of off-loading such problems to your PA or Virtual PA, if you're fortunate enough to have one, that is.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

No more PowerPoint... Yipee!

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:39:00 +0000

For those of us who've grown up on PowerPoint presentations, and are now growing tired of them, here's some refreshing news. A Swiss group calling themselves the Anti-PowerPoint Party are campaigning to "reduce the number of boring presentations worldwide" with the aim of making it so people who don't want to use PowerPoint don't have to justify themselves.

Apparently, we waste $500 Billion each year attending futile presentations. The APPP is encouraging us to keep presentations shorter and more memorable, and to use a wider variety of presentation aids, such as whiteboards and flip charts... very sensible and well overdue, to my mind. Read the full article called "Swiss Groups Wants to Banish PowerPoint" at Entrepreneur.com

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Setting up Google Calendar sharing

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:53:00 +0000

An easy way to share your Microsoft Outlook calendar with others for free is via Google Calendar. This will automatically synchronise with Outlook, so you do nothing once it's set up which is easy to do. Many clients use this to share their calendar with their PA, and allow their PA to add or amend appointments remotely, and here are the instructions and links I normally send then to help them set up calendar sharing:

Register for a Google Account, so you can access Google Calendar... goto www.google.co.uk and click "Sign In" (top right on menu bar)... then click "Create an Account Now" and follow instructions
Once signed in to your account, click "more" (on menu bar) and then "Calendar" from the drop down list - you should now be in your Google Calendar screen.
To synchronise Google Calendar with Outlook, you will need to download and install a small piece of software... goto the Sync With Microsoft Outlook page (you can also get there by clicking the gear symbol (top right on menu bar) and then click "Calendar Help" - "Sync" - "Sync with Microsoft Outlook")
Follow the instructions to download & install the software. Be sure to select 2-way sync if you want your PA to add or amend appointments on your behalf.
To share your calendar, at your Google Calendar page click "My Calendars" (if not already expanded) and click the little arrow to the right against your calendar... now click "Share This Calendar" from the drop down menu
Next, enter the Google email address of the person you wish to share your calendar with and select the appropriate "Permission Setting" (ie. for them to view or make changes) from the drop down menu to the right first... now click "Add Person", then click "Save" and its done.

Finally, have a play with the Google Calendar to familiarise yourself with it and run some tests between you and your PA to make sure it's set up correctly and the 2-way sync works.

It is worth noting the blue/grey rectangular "Google Calendar Sync" icon in the System Tray (bottom right in the desktop tool bar). You can force the synchronisation after a test or at any time - rather than wait for the regular timed sync - right click the icon and then click "sync". You will also see "Options" in the list, which is where you can change the Sync directions and timing options.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Creating a conference contact list

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:15:00 +0000

Recently we were approached by someone who had attended a conference - a European expert forum - who wanted to make contact with other speakers and attendees. He only had a PDF file with their names and companies to go on, and was faced with the laborious task of tracking down their contact details.

Lucky for him, our Tech Support was able to convert the PDF file to a spreadsheet and advise him of shortcuts, so he could complete the research himself... here's our advice:

With Adobe software (not the free Adobe Reader we all have on our PCs) you can export a PDF table to MS Word, and from there, cut & paste the data to a spreadsheet
Add columns for the additional data fields you need (eg. telephone number, email address, web address, etc) and you now have the makings of a contact database that can be imported to any CRM system at a later date.
Sourcing the missing data is the difficult task. Try searching for the company using Google to obtain their website address - and their web domain (eg. mycompany.co.uk) - and get the company telephone number from the Contact Us page.
If you were to call the company and ask for a personal email address, most switchboards will rightly refuse, but you now have the web domain which is useful because most companies use the email structure joe.bloggs@mycompany.co.uk ... so you can guess 80% of the personal email addresses you need.
By sending emails via a suitable mass emailing service (not from your Outlook or you'll get pulled-up for spamming) you will receive "delivery failures" for the 20% that are wrong - you could then try joe@mycompany.co.uk or jbloggs@mycompany.co.uk which are the common alternatives
You should now have a pretty good contact database, with name, title, company, telephone (albeit not Direct Dial) and most important, their email address
So, now its down to you to start making contact!... a personal email about the conference, with a follow-up call via the switchboard, might just do the trick.

Its crude, I know, but it can be just as effective as using professionals. After all, there's often a cheap alternative for the DIY marketing enthusiast to avoid gifting £000s to so-called marketing and tele-marketing experts, if you look for it. Good luck.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Sales support for busy consultancy

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:59:00 +0000

When a busy consultancy firm offering business planning advice recently approached us for Sales Management support, we were able to offer a really neat and simple solution covering telephone answering, lead handling and opportunity management support.

The company's Director and Lead Consultant was run ragged delivering client work, and his sales efforts were constantly being let down by unavailability and patchy follow-up. As a result he was losing business and his efforts to grow the business, and feed his team of Associate Consultants with work, was floundering. The solution was a dedicated Virtual Administrator to answer the phone and deal with enquiries, together with a simple WebOffice environment in which to manage sales opportunities and store company documents.

Their Virtual Administrator now filters out sales calls and qualifies the genuine enquiries. These are entered into the WebOffice Contact Manager and Sales Opportunity Management database, and the Director is tasked with an appropriate actions (eg. calling the person back). Any follow-up admin tasks, such as, sending information and marketing literature or booking meetings is done by their Virtual Administrator, using the WebOffice document manager and calendar. She also updates a built-in Activity Log so there is always a record of the interactions for each lead.

As a result, the Director now has an up to date view of all the company opportunities, their status and the actions taken - he is fully in control, as a manager should be - from anywhere he happens to be, via the internet. He is emailed the tasks that he needs to undertake, and the Administrator monitors whether he has actioned these, ensuring that any important actions are not overlooked or forgotten. After all, keeping your promises is a vital part of selling and proving that you are trustworthy - its one of the few ways prospective buyers can judge how well we might perform in delivery.

Now, with sales admin under control, there is more time to spend on important selling activity, which is resulting in more lead conversions for new clients and follow-on work. Plans are afoot to expand the use of the WebOffice to manage Time Recording for Associates and other aspects of business admin support. This company is now well on the way to success.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

Leamington lady receives book of memories

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:03:00 +0000

A sweet old lady who wrote down the memories of her childhood and travels for her children was presented with a bound copy of her memoirs by Office Lifeline Director, Anna Isaacs, as a token of her admiration. The Leamington Courier was there to record the event and provide the public with some background... read the full article.

As we say, everyone has a story to tell, whether it's about their travels or their life in general, and this one was certainly interesting. If you would like help to get started on writing yours, visit the Writing Your Life Story page on our website to download your free guide.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk

3 Key skills for VAs

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 09:48:00 +0000

A recent article by Darren Etherington at WebWorkerDaily highlights 3 core skills that all remote workers require, because of the nature of their job and the demands placed upon them in the workplace. It strikes me that this these are equally true for anyone providing remote admin and secretarial support, such as Virtual Assistants (VAs), and especially if they work alone, as many do. These skills are:

Wide ranging technical skills and experience: absolutely true if working alone because you'll have to know about every aspect of the systems and applications your clients use, or be technically confident to quickly adapt and acquire the necessary skills on the hoof. If a VA operates as part of a team or, better still, has technical support to hand, then this is not such an issue. Having technical support to hand is ideal as PAs and Administrators tend to pride themselves of their organisational skills and efficiency, not their technical skills.
Independently Motivated: this shouldn't be an issue with VAs because being self-employed and running their own business, they are naturally motivated to work and bill clients. However, problems can occur when a VA only works part-time or if they juggle work and childcare, and you have urgent matters requiring attention or tasks are date/time sensitive, relating to meetings and events.
Excellent Communication skills: in the VA world, communication quality also means frequency and timing, to make sure you stay in contact over tasks, with the right balance of instruction and initiative, as well as keeping connected during periods of inactivity. Being part of someones virtual organisation or team, when perhaps you've never met your co-workers, is a skill in itself.

All of these points are important to know when selecting a new, especially for the first time. If you are considering using a VA or in the throws of selecting someone, it's perhaps worth pitching them a few testing questions about their situation, skills and approach to the above points.

Read the original article, "3 skills that enable remote worker success" by Darren Etherington.

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Online file sharing for dummies

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:12:00 +0000

Here's a new online file sharing tool I came across recently, called Minus, which is free.

Minus is easy to use. You just go to the website and drag the files you want to share onto the browser window. These will be added to an online gallery and you are given a URL to share with colleagues or clients. Files can be downloaded individually, or the whole gallery can be downloaded as a ZIP archive.

No sign-in is required to share or download files, and its free to use. There is a limit of 50 files for everyone, although registered users get larger upload limits (5o MB per file, as opposed to 25 MB for unregistered users), a public profile and the ability to search their own and other users’ galleries.

Minus’ works on most PC and mobile device platforms, and its drag-and-drop simplicity makes it very easy to use for the less tech-savvy amongst us. The downside is that right now it's not secure, so it's not a bona fide business tool in our eyes. Whilst it may have its uses short term - dealing with occasional emergencies when you find you need to send someone a large file - I guess we'll need to wait for Minus to sort out their business model and pricing strategy to see if it has a future in the business community. This is bound to involve charging for secure sharing which is no bad thing.

PS. If you want to share a file with colleagues or clients, but aren’t sure whether they have the necessary software to open it then give Dropdo a try. This is a free, simple to use, online file sharing service that has built-in viewing tools for many different file formats.

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Work part-time, appear full-time

noreply@blogger.com (Denis) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:07:00 +0000

How many of us covert a better work-life balance? If you're employed then you'll have the challenge of persuading your employer to grant you some flexibility to work from home or work flexible hours, etc. If you're self-employed, it should be much easier. After all, you're your own master and you can to do whatever you like and set your own work patterns... or can you?

Often, having customers means always being available, especially if you are in the service sector trying to present a professional business image. If this is you, then trying to explain to a customer that you only work certain days or hours will go down like a lead balloon.

Many of our clients rely on their website, virtual office address and telephone answering service to project the image of a much larger company that they actually are. But, you need to be able to professionally cover periods when you're not around, whether you're in business meetings or actively expanding your personal life.

This is where a Virtual PA comes in. Traditionally, PAs have been great at covering for their boss - perhaps even telling white lies - creating diversions or covering for them whilst they are "otherwise engaged". This type of cover can perpetuate the illusion that you are an always-on professional working for a substantial outfit, whilst in reality you have a nice life and make a nice living without busting a gut.... great if you can pull it off, and many do.

Why not have a chat with a Virtual PA today, explain your situation and your objectives, and explore what's possible.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk