Business Archives - Page 3 of 3

How can a Virtual Assistant help you in your business?

by Anne Clark | Jul 31, 2020 | Mailchimp, Social Media, Virtual Assistant

Using the services of a Virtual Assistant is a great way to focus on what you love. You know, as business owners, how quick your day can fly by and you just never seem to have enough time. You find yourself spending so much time doing things for your clients, that you don’t seem to have time to focus on business development.

Working with a Virtual Assistant enables you to get back your time and have the confidence in knowing your various administration tasks/projects are being taken care off, whilst you do the things you love.

Here are some common tasks a virtual assistant can help you get started with. It is important to know that not all virtual assistants offer the same services, so don’t limit yourself to thinking you have to have just 1 virtual assistant.

DAY TO DAY FUNCTIONS:

Assisting you with your ‘To Do’ list.
Preparing correspondence.
Co-ordinate mail outs, both hardcopy or electronic.
Create business forms, templates and ensuring branding is consistent.
Create your stationery requirements such as letterheads, business cards, with compliment slips, flyers and brochures.
Be your sounding board for new ideas, events, products or services.
Managing your emails.
Assist with streamlining your office systems to keep you on track, organised and efficient.

YOUR WEBSITE:

Upload your blogs onto your website.
Source free images for blogs, or create original artwork.
Create pages, graphics and ‘call to action’ buttons.
Manage members.
Source guest bloggers.

YOUR BLOG:

Write your content.
Source or create accompany images.
Upload to your website and add in SEO components.

YOUR CUSTOMERS:

Attend to your customer emails.
Set up ‘canned’ responses for frequently asked questions.
Prepare an online ‘Client Questionnaire’ and review the returned results.
Undertake online research.
MailChimp e-Newsletters | Set up a template, import your list of contacts and create/compile your weekly/monthly/quarterly e-Newsletters.
Manage AWeber and Wishlist memberships, and creating newsletters.

SPECIAL EVENTS:

Create invitations
Promote your special event, workshops & events.
Collate RSVPs
Setting up online ticket buying – Eventbrite / TryBooking
Coordinate with venues, suppliers on your behalf.
Preparing documentation and presentations for event.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Create your editorial calendar of content for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+.
Create original branded graphics for your business.
Search for avenues to increase your followers and audience interaction.
Monitor your page and attend to any business private messages.
Create Facebook Ad campaigns.

AND MORE:

Create a PowerPoint presentation.
Create an Excel spreadsheet for a mail-merge mail-out, reports, budgets, etc.
Create and format Manuals and Workbooks.
Format your e-book.

My role is to make your life as stress-free and efficient as possible.

Ready to explore more, contact me today.

Determining when you are ready to hire a Virtual Assistant

by Anne Clark | Jul 20, 2020 | Business, Virtual Assistant

You have started your business and you are finding yourself faced with people advising you to ‘get a virtual assistant’. I personally don’t think you should, and here is my why. If you have not worked in your business conducting all the day to day functions, how will you determine what you love, hate, need assistance in doing or simply don’t have the time to do yourself.

Whilst having a virtual assistant on your team is a great asset. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend bringing one on board at the start of your business.

In my years in business as a virtual assistant, on many occasions I have been hired by business owners/entrepreneurs in the making, wanting me to manage various tasks from administration, social media, blogs, websites and newsletter, as they have anticipated increase volume in workload. Even though they aren’t at that stage yet. Or it may be that they have a new product or services launching and anticipate a high volume level of work for them and their virtual assistant. Whilst I do truly wish their dream came to fruition, sadly it’s rarely been the case. As a result I have seen them have to admit they don’t have the funds or the work requirements for a virtual assistant, at this point in time.

My recommendation is to allow the work to flow in, and the demand levels increase so you can 1) learn how your business operates, and 2) clearly identify what functions would be best outsourced so you can utilise your time more effectively and efficiently in your business.

In saying the above, please note that if you don’t have the skill base or the capabilities/time to learn new programs, then of course outsource these functions to an expert. If you have the time to learn, then take the time to learn! (You’ll feel empowered conquering them.)

A virtual assistant, if available for your business, is generally ready to come on board and start immediately. You are better to get to the point in your business where you are ready to off load a higher volumes of work or the work you don’t want to be doing because you have more than enough work and the finances to fund having a virtual assistant on your team.

If you are at the point in your business where you are ready to outsource, and want to know more about what types of things you can outsource, then please sign up here for my free opt-in which is a starting guide on what to outsource.

How to clearly communicate your expectations to your Virtual Assistant

by Anne Clark | Jul 17, 2020 | Business, Virtual Assistant

I commonly hear business owners who have used virtual assistants previously before knocking on my door, mentioned how their VA went on a tangent doing things they hadn’t asked for or failing to communicate to them.

Communication is an essential tool between any business relationships.
If you have had a failed VA relationship or keen to start working with one, but not really sure on your what, who and how, here are some tips to assist you to creating the perfect relationship with your VA.

#1 Outline the task

Don’t assume they ‘get what you mean’. Be detailed in your description, the more familiar and longer they work with you, the trust will build and a clearer understanding of how you both work will develop. When starting out with a new VA, you need to be as detailed as possible, otherwise you’ll be pulling your hair out. Don’t just ‘tell them’ what you need, follow it up with an email.

You have heard people say ‘yes I got it’ and discovered they were completely off track. The English language is very interruptive. It is better if you can give examples.
More experienced VAs will know what questions they need to ask you. But newbies will need more guidance from you.

#2 Explain your preferred communication style

Having previously worked in the corporate world for Managing Directors, Chief Financial Officers and various General Managers. No two were ever the same in how they liked their work done and communicated. Some were self-sufficient, some old school and some just confused relying on me to tell them what to do.

So it’s important you advise your VA how you like to work and how you like to be kept up to date, and this should be done in your initial phone call with your potential VA. The reason is some VA prefer to work certain ways and if you’re requiring an alternative to what they prefer, then you may find your working relationship deteriorate quickly (and that is not what you want).

Types of communication streams you may prefer;

Your VA to just run with it and advise when completed, only asking questions when needed.
Communicate every step of the way so you know exactly where tasks are. You can use programs like ASANA (which is free) to help manage this, and is beneficial if your VA is working on multiple projects.Alternatively if you have multiple team members. It’s an effective communicating tool. Other alternatives are TeamWorks and BaseCamp. There are plenty of others, some free and some paid.

Communicate a strict guideline. No work is to be done ‘outside’ the specified task, unless asked first. Or that a task must be done within a certain number of hours, if they have reached those hours then to discuss with you first before proceeding any further. This is advisable especially if you are budget conscious, however a VA should advise you if the work is exceeding the perceived time.

Ways to communicate;

You can use online software programs as mentioned above, ASANA, Basecamp & Teamworks.

You may wish to have a face-to-face meeting with your VA on a regular basis, especially if you don’t want your inbox clogged. This can be done via Skype, or if the VA is local by meeting up at a location suitable to both parties. (Note expect to pay for their time and travel, as they are in fact working for you during this time.)

You may simply prefer to receive an email from them regularly on how projects are progressing.

#3 Conduct a regular review

Whilst you may feel this is tedious, it is in fact beneficial for your business. You may find your VA, or you could be, doing something that the other party doesn’t like, is confused by, or they may have a better suggestion to improve the system. Having a regular review enables both parties to highlight any concerns, praise what they love and be clear on where they’re heading. You are effectively wanting your VA to be your life long team member, so set it up correctly from the start.

#4 When communication is breaking down

Sadly, I hear this one all the time, and it does disappointment that some (not all) business owner goes sourcing other VAs without actually communicating with their current VA what their concerns are. 9 times out of 10, the VA has no idea they’re not happy.

If you are having issues with your VA, TELL THEM! Explain what your concerns are, and how you would like to see things improve. A VA is a business owner, and isn’t going to want a client being dissatisfied with their services, they are quite likely thinking you’re happy with their performance as you haven’t made them aware of your frustrations.

And of course, if their performance doesn’t improve, move on and find a VA that suits and meets your needs.

Remember, that any experience with a VA whether good or bad, is helping you in your own business identify what works and doesn’t work. No experience is ever a waste, it is educational.

If you’re ready to work with a virtual assistant, or online business manager (like me), contact me today.

How to set up canned responses in Gmail

by Anne Clark | May 4, 2020 | Business

How to set up canned responses in Gmail. If you are frequently sending the same type of email to customers or clients, you can create a template, or as known in Gmail as ‘Canned responses’. Here are step by step instructions to help you along.

Log into your Gmail account.
Go to Settings
Click on Labs
Scroll to Canned Responses and Enable, then Save.
Type up your template email content only, and then select it all.
Click on the down arrow, and the dropdown menu will show ‘canned responses’ and a sub directory ‘new canned response’. Click new canned response.
You have now created your ‘canned response’. Now to test it.
Create a new email.
Click on the down arrow, select canned responses.
Select your created canned response and it will insert automatically.

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them below.

5 way to create social media content from material you already have!

by Anne Clark | Aug 27, 2019 | Business, Social Media

Coming up with content for your social media can feel frustrating, but here are 5 content sources you can utilise to build your social media content.

One of the biggest failing you do in business is spending more time creating than sharing. You should be spending 20% creating and 80% sharing (and re-sharing) content. This is what all the great digital marketers and entrepreneurs are constantly saying.

Here are 5 ways you can utilise previous content you’ve created for your social media.

Previous content/posts

Keep copies of content and images from previous post and don’t be afraid to reuse them. Very rarely do people go through a business’ content from 2 years ago, therefore if it’s still relevant re-use it. Even content from 6 months ago is reusable, or last week. If you have a series of images you use for people to sign up to your mailing list, then re-use it at least once a week, and more if you’re posting more than once a day.

Blog content

Most blogs should have a call to action, which could be signing up to newsletters, booking in discovery calls, purchasing a product etc. Re-share your blogs, if relevant. Take snippets of the blog content or write an intro and add a call to action, such as click on the link for more, or you could share the whole blog. If you’re blog was an article of tips, just like this one, copy a tip and tell readers to click on the link for the more tips. Use different images for social media to re-share old blogs (if you’re not comfortable using the same image).

Expertise Categories

In business, we all have niche areas, and under our niches are categories we specialise in. For example: in my coaching business, I am a coach who specialises in intuition, alignment, boundaries, balance and boundaries. Therefore, I would share content around those 5 areas. As a project manager, I specialise in social media, newsletters, blogging, productivity/systems and online management. Again, I would share expertise content around these areas.

Testimonials / Feedback

Feedback sells, often when someone is searching for a new product or service, they check out what others have said about it. You might have testimonials on your website, in emails or have had awesome comments on your social media platform, use these to share with your audience. Feedback on your service are big sellers.

Hints of things to come

Entice your audience with some of the projects you’re working on, or perhaps the blog you’re writing about this week. Tease them with what is to come. Perhaps if you’re making a new product take a snippet image of it and ask them what they think it is.

It is okay to share and re-share your content. Don’t be afraid to do so.

If you’re making a branded quote for the week’s content, then why not make a whole heap of them for the next couple of weeks or months and save yourself time and effort. This is BULK acting.

Don’t be afraid to pre-plan your content, and then if additional items come up add them in. By pre-planning and scheduling your content it enables you not to feel so panicked that you haven’t posted anything or having come up with content.

If you’re struggling to create the time to manage your social media, then let’s chat about how I can help you manage this. Contact me today.