This is the only national awards scheme of its kind for VAs in the UK and Europe and Vee Smith of My Super VA, Watford, Hertfordshire is one of 11 in the running for one of two prestigious awards. “I launched the inaugural National VA Conference and Awards in April 2007, as part of my nationwide campaign to promote and boost awareness of the VA industry as well as in my quest to find the most outstanding VA” states Founder, Carmen MacDougall, of The VA Coaching and Training Company.

VAs support their clients, from around the globe, providing PA and business support, working from their own office, communicating with clients via the internet.

“I am very excited and proud to have reached the finalist position”, says Vee “and believe this will demonstrate to my clients and prospective clients my professionalism, commitment and approach to providing an outstanding service as well as my support to fellow VAs.”

It is hoped the awards scheme, in association with The International Association of Virtual Assistants (www.iava.org.uk) and The Virtual Assistant Coaching and Training Company (www.vact.co.uk), will promote a wider understanding of the rapidly developing industry.  Judges include Bemyva.com, Reed Learning, Mums the Business, The International Association of Virtual Assistants and Executive Secretary Magazine.

Further information on the event is available at www.vaconference.co.uk or contact Carmen MacDougall on 07967 332915 or Carmen@vact.co.uk.

If you run your business efficiently you will no doubt have set targets and objectives each year and keep track of your incomings and outgoings then do the usual tally at the end of the financial period.  But, is that really enough to determine your success?  You may have made more money or gained new clients but has you business actually evolved?

While you have been busy reaching your targets so have your competitors and what’s the chances they have also been thinking ahead to the next strategic leap in getting ahead of the game?  Everyone wants to succeed but often only those who continually strive to get their business to the forefront of prospective client’s minds actually do!

So how do you determine your true success?

• Understanding your customer profile…it’s not about how many customers you have on board now. The answer lies in looking at the reasons new customers came on board and particularly why some didn’t!  Getting feedback from customers is an invaluable way of evaluating how well you are doing to the people who really matter…your customers!  Getting testimonials from satisfied customers is a very rewarding way of boosting your business profile and equally examining why others went elsewhere will give you some insight into whether you need to adapt your offerings or change how you promote them. If you use various marketing techniques to promote your products and services to your existing and prospective customers then these should be appropriate to the typical profile of your customers.
• Being prepared to respond to change…it not about the sales volumes it about understanding why a new product or service worked or wasn’t the success you envisaged which will enable you to adapt it for the ever changing market demands.  Over time you may need to expand and evolve your range of products and services and knowing in advance why some things worked and others didn’t helps you to decide the most appropriate direction for your business to take.  Looking at the questions customers ask about your products and the reasons they return to you, recommend you to others, make enquiries but don’t buy or go elsewhere is a great indicator of your business longevity.
• Viewing yourself as a valuable resource…it’s easy to underestimate how pivotal you are to your own business.  Your knowledge and skills are the fundamentals of your business and you need to ensure that you are free to do what you do best.  You are ultimately the reason for your business success so adding value to your business lies with your own ability to focus your time on the important tasks of evolving your business, dealing with customers and providing quality products or services.  Consider whether it’s the right time to delegate tasks or take a look at other ways to free your time.

If you’re ready to delegate to an administrative consultant like us, then get in touch. Being able to delegate the small stuff to a realiable virtual assistant leaves you free to focus on the important parts of your business that only you can and should do.

Ideally ‘real’ images should be used, which can include images of your products. It’s reported that there is a general distrust of ‘corporates’, so whereas a few years ago, it was desirable to hide behind a ‘corporate’ image, now people respond better when they see images of the people who run the organisation. So don’t be afraid of using images of yourself and other people who work with you doing their jobs or working with customers if that’s appropriate. It will give prospects more of a sense of trust in your business. Using these kind of images are also unique to your business and not likely to be used by a competitor. This applies to websites as well as other documents and marketing materials.

You can also select suitable images from sites such as http://www.istockphoto.com which provides a vast range of royalty and copyright free images that are available in a range of sizes and resolutions for as little as £1 each.   Simply create an account, buy credits then select the images you require – you can download a sample or save it to your own dedicated storage area called a ‘lightbox’.

As a general guide you should:

• Choose images where the content has the same dimensions, depth and colour tones as other images on the document or website.
• Ensure image colours do not conflict with your company branding. Image with similar tones to your branding can help to reinforce it.
• Avoid mixing different media types such as photographic images with cartoon type images.
• Ensure images do not take up more than one-third of the overall text/image ratio on the page or article.
• Consider the positioning of the image in relation to the text and vary this from page to page to create more interest.
• Resize, crop or rotate to get the desired effect. Be careful you don’t lose the impact of the image – if it’s too small to pick out detail or so large it becomes overwhelming on the page.
• Consider the message that the image is conveying and whether this is appropriate to the text with which it is associated.
• Review the overall composition of the image and look at the small details – backgrounds, facial expressions, body language, presentation and so on.
• Low resolution images are best for the web and jpeg format is preferable.
• Avoid popular images, unique is preferable! If using istockphoto.com look at the icons beside the image, representing the number of downloads, to get an idea of how many other businesses are potentially using that image too.

It is easiest to start with a selected single colour and use a tool such as http://kuler.adobe.com/ which is free and has a huge range of colour palettes with complimentary and contrasting schemes to choose from.  Select a colour scheme that is representative of the overall tone you want the business to portray.    You don’t need to use the full palette it offers and you should limit the range of colours to 3-4 overall.  Ensure you make a note of the hex colour code which is a 6 digit representation of the colour or the RGB values (Red, Green, Blue).

Another option is to take inspiration from the colour palettes for the document styles in Microsoft Word 2007 or later versions.   On the Home menu, click on the arrow under the Change Styles section of the Styles.  A drop down menu of Style Sets, Colours and Font allows you to experiment with a range of pre-defined colour schemes and styles that you can use to create a highly professional looking document and well as give you inspiration for a colour scheme for your business!  You can also create your own palette and set this as the default so you consistently use the same style and colours for all your company documents.

Some guidelines to adhere to:

• Select and incorporate any colours carefully for the logo so they can be replicated as accents, headers, backgrounds etc throughout your all company documents and marketing materials.
• If possible, choose a design that is symbolic of the service or products you offer.  Where this is not feasible you may want to consider a more abstract design but ensure that this is not something that could be incorrectly interpreted.
• If possible, integrate your business name into the logo design but ensure the logo can also be used independently of the business name so it can eventually be used to represent your business.  This is a very powerful marketing tool.
• Ensure the logo is scalable so it can be used in different sizes e.g., on a business card, email signature or on an adverting banner.
• Consider the background colour or whether it should be transparent.  If the latter, ensure if will still have the same impact on different colour background that you will use.
• Ensure you also have high and low resolution versions of the final logo – low res is best for web and high res for printed materials.
• Finally, ensure the logo is not too similar to another company’s branding.  Apart from infringing copyright law you also risk your business being wrongly identified.

Once you logo has been agreed you should use it on all documents and marketing materials and maximize every opportunity to promote your company branding.

Created by Candocanbe‘s Karen Skidmore, How to Hire a VA is a quick and easy online course that takes you step by step through the process of successfully hiring a VA.

One of the biggest mistakes small business owners make when hiring a VA is not taking the time to be totally clear on who and what you need. This e-course helps you decide what tasks and projects to give a VA, making a clear job specification  so that you know what sort of skills and personality will fit with your business and how to set ground rules to make sure communications between you work effectively.

Click here to find out more

Here’s how to get started:

Get 3 different coloured plastic slip folders (I have red, yellow and green), 1 lever-arch folder and 1 set of a-z index dividers. Each statement, bill or receipt progresses through these folders only once and eventually ends up in the A-Z dividers in the lever-arch (or the shredder if it has no value in keeping.

Red folder – labelled “to check/pay”

Here put all statements (bank and credit card), invoices or bills that need to be paid. They might arrive by post or email. If by email, then print them off and put them here. When they’ve been paid or in the case of statements, checked, then put them in the yellow folder. Check this folder weekly to fortnightly so bills are paid in time so not to incur late fees, and not too early that the bank and not you benefits from the interest on your money.

Yellow folder – labelled “to log”

Here you put all the receipts and statements you’ve checked and/or paid. You can also put other paid receipts that you collect in your handbag (credit card receipts as well as cash receipts that are business expenses). I log all these in a spreadsheet where I record date, which card (i.e. whether I used my debit card or which credit card, or cash), what it was for and the amount. This is the same spreadsheet that I use to reconcile the bank and credit card statements. I just have an extra column for checking off. If the receipt is not needed any further (e.g. grocery or hair/personal receipts, etc), then I shred it. If it was for a purchase for my business (e.g. petrol, stationery, postage, business services etc) then it’s needed for my tax records and it goes in the third folder, the green folder. If the receipt is for a large purchase that has a warranty, then this too goes in the green folder. I check the yellow folder as often as weekly to at least once monthly, depending on how closely I need to monitor bank balances.

Green folder – labelled “to file”

If I don’t want to do any further filing immediately, I slip the bills and statements I need to keep in the green folder ready to file in the lever-arch folder. I usually do filing at least once a month, so it doesn’t become too onerous.

Lever-arch folder – labelled “Expenses”

This is the final destination for receipts and statements. They are filed in alphabetical order with the aid of the A-Z dividers. Within each letter, it naturally gets filed in date order, so the latest is on the top. I have one for each financial tax year. If it’s been a particularly busy year, this folder might expand into two lever-arches before the year is over. At the end of April, it’s ready to pass on to the accountant and it’s all sorted ready for their audit, together with my spreadsheet, which also equates to a lower audit fee as they don’t have to sort my documents out to make sense of it all. Then I create another lever-arch folder with A-Z dividers ready for the next financial year.

Have you got some filing tips that work well for you? Please share them, I’d love to hear them.

The first thing your VA will need is access to your up-to-date diary. You will also need an automatic way to keep your diary up-to-date after your VA has set up appointments, so that you’re both always working from the latest version of your diary. This post shows you how you can achieve that automatically without having to manually enter appointments either of you have set up or changed.

If you’re still using a paper diary, then you will need to upgrade to an electronic version that allows you to share with others. A zero-cost one that is perfect is Google Calendar. If you already use something like Outlook, then Google Calendar will be able to sync with the appointments already set up there and you can share it with your VA. In addition you can sync it with your iPhone or other mobile device so when you are out and about at network meetings etc, you can still set up appointments and they will automatically transfer to your Outlook and Google calendars. You and your VA will then have access to the most current version of your diary, from Outlook, Google Calendar or mobile device.

Here’s how, in three easy steps:

Step 1:
Set up a Google Calendar account (it’s free)

go to www.google.com/calendar and follow the prompts

If you don’t intend using Outlook, then simply add your appointments by double clicking the appropriate date/time slot and enter the details. You can also make appointments recurring if they are regular. Or where you have a regular commitment that your VA needs to know about so they don’t book you an appointment there, for instance, school run or your business planning times.

Step 2:
Sync with Outlook (if you’re using Google Calendar on it’s own, skip this)

First you need to download a piece of software….

a) In settings (the cog icon) select Calendar help

b) select sync

c) select Sync with Microsoft Outlook

d) hit download

e) save the file to your downloads folder

f) when downloaded, run the file by double-clicking it

g) follow the wizard, accepting all the defaults it suggests

g) After installation, you’ll be prompted to add your Google email and password and select/confirm some options. Select 2-way and change the sync interval to 30 minutes. If access to the internet is limited, you may want to keep it at the default of 120 minutes to prevent error messages popping up because it can’t connect.

h) You will notice the Google Syncing icon active on the status bar indicating that syncing is in progress. Once the arrows stop moving, it’s complete.

Step 3:
Share with your VA

i) From the Google Calendar view, select Calendar Settings (hit the cog icon to access)

ii) Select Calendars

iii) Select the share this calendar

iv) type in the VA’s email and select ‘make changes to events’ from the drop down menu. Remember to hit save.

That’s it. All set up.

All you need to do is make sure your VA has the content of confirmation emails and joining instructions and any questionnaires you like new clients to complete so that you are prepared for the appointment.

If you don’t use an Exchange Server (most home and personal computers don’t) then the Out of Office feature will not be available.

So, how do you tailor a specific email response or organise your emails automatically while you’re away from the office?

The ‘Rules and Alerts’ feature on the Tools menu in Microsoft Outlook 2007 enables you to do just that, by setting rules such as:

• Send an automated email reply to all or specific senders by combining rules with an email message template. (Just create a new message template with your out-of-office style reply and choose to ‘reply using a specific template’ when prompted to select an action on the rules wizard).
• Put emails into specific folders according to keywords in the subject or from specific senders.
• Flag or forward messages with specific subjects or from a specific sender.
• File emails in a folder where you are part of a distribution list – e.g. this might be a newsletter or junk email.
• You can even set rules to send an alert to your mobile if you receive an email from a specific person – a much cheaper and less disruptive option to wireless network roaming while abroad!

Arrive back from holiday to find your emails are already organised according to your preset priorities so you can start back to work by dealing with urgent and important issues without the distraction of less important emails. Important: You will need to leave your computer/network running and Outlook on while you are away for this to be effective.   Don’t forget to turn off your power-save mode too!  Or simply run the Rules when you return from holiday.

If you are interested in knowing more about this feature and how to use it effectively for your business then please let me know by leaving a comment.

The solution is a call minding service from Call Partner, using real people to take your calls whilst appearing to clients and prospects to be part of your office.  They will answer the phone using your company name (or whatever instructions you prefer) and take the message details which are then emailed or texted to you if preferred.

The Call Partner service costs just 99p per call.  The calls are answered by a team of dedicated professionals and there’s no contract or fixed fees involved.

This is an invaluable service for small businesses as your office will always appear to be ‘open’ and prospects or clients are greeted by a person who can take their details rather than relying on a potential prospect or valued client to leave a message on an answering machine which in contrast appears far less professional.  The service means you can relax while you’re away from the office knowing this aspect of your business is being managed efficiently by professionals.

It only take a few hours to set up your account and your business will be assigned to a small team so the same people will be responsible for answering your calls giving greater credibility to the service.  You also have the option to choose different contacts for messages to be forwarded depending on the nature of the call.

We are able to offer a free 2 week trial to try them out. Just go to:
www.call-message.co.uk/mysuperva.html