VirtualPABlog

Surviving "Out of Office" Return

by Vee Smith
Now is the time when a lot of people are either off on or coming back from their Summer holidays. All refreshed and raring to go, they open up their computers, and, whoa! It seems the whole world has sent them an email as there are thousands of unread new emails! Just where do you begin to sift through them all? Which are the important ones? And did you realise you had subscribed to this many newsletters? Well, before you slink off back to back to bed with a couple of paracetamol to combat the head-ache just thinking about it, here's some tips to make light work of it and get you back up to speed in no time at all.

How to quickly sort and prioritise your emails in Outlook

Create Sub-Folders in Outlook

There are several tools in Outlook that you can use to quickly sort through masses of emails. By default all your emails land in your inbox, and when there are hundreds and thousands of emails, it's difficult to know where to find the important ones.

First create 4 folders,

• right click on inbox
• select new folder
• type in a name

The four folders could be called: "urgent", "clients", "biz admin", "read later" or your might find it easier to call them "urgent/important", "not urgent but important", "urgent but not important", "not urgent or important".

Sort By Tool

Secondly, use the "sort by" tools. By default emails are sorted by date order, but they can also be sorted by any of the headings, so first try sorting by "importance" (click the icon with the exclamation mark),

• drag the sub-heading into the newly created "urgent" folder. All the emails under that sub-heading get dragged along with it.

Next sort by "from" (click on the heading called From).

• scroll through and find the sub-headings of emails from your clients and drag (again by the sub-heading) to the newly created "clients" folder.

Next sort by "subject" by clicking on the heading called subject.

It should be easy to identify all the newsletters and other bulletin type emails which can be dragged over to "read later", or emails related to your admin (tasks essential to the health of your business but doesn't generate income)

Creating Rules

Rules are another tool you can use to filter out emails:

• Select a typical email or newsletter
• Right click
• Select "Create Rule"
• Check the relevant box
• hit "select folder" and locate the folder you want them moved to
• OK, OK
• Check the box to run the rule on messages in the current folder

Using Flags

Having sorted out emails into the various sub-folders, you can now go through each folder and flag each email with a different colour to denote priority or project. For example you could allocate a colour flag for each client, or project, then when you sort by flag, all the same emails relating to that client or project appear together, making it easier to deal with.

Hopefully, your inbox should be looking much less stressful and now, it's easier to identify the important emails and deal with them first. It's also much easier to prioritise which category to work on next. You could schedule half to an hour a day to go through the "business admin" and "read later" folders and similarly flag/file/delete them as you've read them or dealt with them.

By Vee Smith

Founder, My Super VA

How to introduce Structure into your Work Life without harming your Creativity

by Madeleine Long of mad about admin

www.madaboutadmin.co.uk

 
To me structure means efficiency, organisation and control over what I'm doing. To some people however it means constraints, boundaries and the stifling of creative thinking.
 
The revelation is that structure doesn't impede creativity, it actually supports it and encourages it to grow by allowing you to control time wasting activities, such as these:

  
1. E-mail
E-mail is a wonderful invention, however most people's obsession with constantly checking it is not.  A familiar scenario - you're at your desk engrossed in a project when *ping!* an e-mail arrives.  You stop to read it, it's not particularly urgent but when you get back to your project, the flow has gone.  So now you have 2 issues: one to remember to flag up the e-mail for response later and second to try and remember what fabulous ground-breaking idea you were nurturing just before the mail arrived. 
 
2. Meetings
An hour of the day to meet someone, chat about each others businesses. Oh and 15 minutes each way to get there and back. Plus 10 minutes to find a parking space and get a ticket. And another 10 while you pop into the supermarket on the way back to get something you've run out of. It's very easy for an hours meeting to turn into two and if you have as little as two a week, if they are not structured properly, it can seriously eat into your time.
 
3. List making (at the expense of other activities)
Writing a list as a way of using time whilst avoiding doing something you don't want to do, or the top cardinal sin of writing a list that covers everything you want to do in the next decade and then not doing it because the list is just too big to even contemplate.  A short list of things that need to be done in the next 24 hours is all you need.
 
How can I help overcome them with structure?

 

1. E-mail  - Try allocating set times for reading and responding to mail, such as an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. In between these times SWITCH IT OFF! Don't be afraid to be unavailable for a few hours a day, if it's urgent people will generally ring. If your home and work e-mail address are the same then consider changing one of them so you can easily segregate work and home things.
 
2. Meetings - Structure your week so that wherever possible you have your meetings on the same day - if you can do several 121's back to back in the same venue then that's a real winner! Don't be afraid to put boundaries on your time, if you only have 45 minutes then say so at the beginning and stick to it. This way everyone knows exactly where they stand.
 
3. Lists - Plan for 10 minutes at the end of each day to write a list of tasks for the next day while they are fresh in your mind. And then plan in enough time to actually do the things on the list! Don't worry about the next years activities, these should already be in your business plan so you're just losing time by duplicating things.
  
Do I really need structure?
 
Write down the answers to these 2 questions, keep a simple time log for a week and see if the figures match up at the end.  This is your answer!
 
1.      How many hours a day do you want to work and how many are you actually working?
2.      How many of those hours are you actually achieving what you set out to do and how many are lost to other activities?
 
 
A weekly planner is a great way of keeping on track and a brilliant evaluation tool.  Make a simple spreadsheet marked out with days and working hours, then block out the e-mail checking times, list making and meetings. This will allow you to see at a glance how much time you have left for other activities.  If you try and stick to a pattern such as marketing on Mondays 2 til 4, e-mail 4 til 5, list for next day 5 til 5.15 then you should soon start to see exactly how much time you have and when, allowing you to decide if it's worth outsourcing work or not.

Virtual Communication

Good communication skills are the essential must-have in the toolbox of any good assistant, be they on-site or off-site, and for the virtual assistant you can't survive long without developing the art of communicating well.

In the traditional world of personal assistants, where the assistant is in the office, the boss able to check on progress every time he/she walks past their desk. As a virtual assistant, the "boss" is the client, and he/she doesn't have that visual reassurance that their work is being done and so relies totally on other communication means. It's quite common now for Personal Assistants to be delegated projects to just get on with, and they do just that - get on with it in a capable and adept way.

When a PA turns VA, even though they may still be entrusted with a project to "just get on with", they still need to very much keep the client in the loop with what's going on,whether it's good or bad. Sadly, I've heard stories of VA's not letting their client know that things were not happening according to plan or schedule, and in fear of letting their client down, kept quiet, in the mislaid hope that things would "sort themselves out", which invariably didn't and they ended up letting the client down anyway (who thought that silence meant everything was ok) and ultimately, loosing that client and tarnishing their reputation among that client's circle of contacts. Had they kept their client informed of what was going wrong, the client could then have taken an informed decision as to change tack or strategy, and ended up with a really loyal client rather than a disillusioned one.

So how does a good virtual assistant communicate well with their client? Here are my top tips.

1. Never assume that your client knows you've received an email instruction - a quick email reply acknowledging that you've received the instruction or have done it or when you plan on doing it reassures the client that their instruction hasn't got lost in cyberspace.
2. Don't go the other way and provide lengthy replies about more detail than is necessary - your client doesn't have time to read through long essays (or else they wouldn't need a VA!).
3. Keep in regular contact, as often as you feel the client needs to be reassured things are going to plan. It might be weekly or daily - depending on the assignment.
4. If things aren't going according to plan, let the client know immediately. Even better, make some alternative positive suggestions or proposed courses of action. 
5. Get to know your client's preferred communication style. Some prefer email, as they can deal with it when they are ready and don't like being interrupted with a phone call or may not be contactable easily by phone. Some may prefer telephone calls, as it's more two-way and instant (and they may find typing email messages just takes far too long!) - get to know which they prefer.
6. Book telephone call time with your client (an email setting out your intention for the client that isn't so easily available by phone) and make sure you spend their time (and yours) wisely and efficiently. Even if you are on really good terms and on idle-chat-about-personal-issues terms, it is a business call and sticking to your list of questions/queries when you do speak with them shows that you value and respect their time.

Composed by Vee Smith - My Super VA - helping busy business owners make effective use of their time.

Advice to virtual assistants on how to get your first clients

I found a great source of information and advice for virtual pa's and virtual assistants at www.entrepreneur.com and in particular a fab article by Sean M. Lyden, that is topical to a lot of new virtual pa's and virtual assistants, including me when I first started.

Landing Your First Customers

Q: I'm still in the early stages of starting my business, but I don't know how to begin getting the word out to potential customers. Should I take out an ad in the local paper? Do I need to send out a press release? Help!

A: When I raised money for a dotcom start-up a few years ago, potential angel investors would say things to me like, "Your business concept seems sound and your marketing and PR plans all look well and good, but tell me: Where are you going to get the first five customers who will actually pay for your product? Because until you have them, I don't see how you really have a business here."

Strong words, but how true! We can talk about writing press releases, taking out ads and sending out mailers. Yet, think about it. In tangible terms, how are you going to get those first few customers? Your first customers are so critical to your success because they:

• Legitimize your offering, demonstrating that yes, there is indeed a market for your products and services.
• Provide valuable feedback to help you improve your business operations.
• Give you real testimonials, which you can leverage in subsequent marketing campaigns.

Tapping Your Warm Market

Where do you find your first customers? Well, ask yourself this question: Who are the people most likely either to buy from you or send you good referrals? Yep, those are the people you know-your "warm market." How do you approach them and get the word out? The first step is to build your initial list of warm contacts. Here are 10 questions to stimulate your thinking:

1. Who are your personal friends-and their friends?
2. What about your school connections? Brainstorm a list of classmates, teachers, fraternity brothers, club members and so forth.
3. Who are your business connections? These include former employers, employees and customers.
4. Who are contacts within your civic activities? Are you a member of any civic clubs like Optimist International, Rotary or Kiwanis? What about fellow church or synagogue members? Think of all the organizations you belong to.
5. Who are your contacts in trade associations you've been a part of over the years?
6. Who are the tradespeople you know? Include folks like your lawyer, pharmacist, doctor, dentist, plumber, insurance agent, hairstylist, mechanic and even your babysitter or nanny.
7. Who are your neighbors-both past and present?
8. Who do you know through your sports and hobbies, such as hunting, fishing, running and golf?
9. Who are the people you know because of your home? These contacts include your mortgage lender, real estate agent, builder and so forth.
10. Who are the contacts you have through you and your spouse's families?

You know quite a few people, don't you! Now, how do you leverage this list to land your first customers? Here are a few cost-effective ideas to get you started:

• Send a personal letter and follow up with a phone call a week to 10 days later. In this letter, announce your new business. Offer a free consultation or a special discount, something to create interest and excitement in what you're doing. Perhaps you could offer to pay a "bird-dog" fee to those contacts who send you referrals who buy from you.
• Use the telephone. Call some folks to "catch up." Find out what they're doing and then share about your business.
• Set up breakfast, lunch or coffee meetings. Set it up as a "feedback session" where you present your product or service in a low-key manner as a way to solicit feedback from the person. At the end of the meeting, ask the person for referrals to people who might benefit from your offering.

Link to the original article: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingbasics/article57382.html

How Virtual Assistants can make the most of strategic alliances

Today at Athena Kings Langley's meeting, the business support topic was about how small businesses can team up with with other complementary businesses and extend their product/service range. It's called Strategic Alliance Partnerships. This works well with Virtual Assistants. Virtual assistants usually bill by the hour, so, on your own, the virtual assistant's earning capacity is limited by how many hours you are available. Entrepreneurial virtual assistants recognise this and strategic alliances are a way of augmenting their income. Instead of just offering admin services, virtual assistants can be likened to the project manager in the corporate world who delegates tasks to the most appropriate person. So become the one-stop virtual business service for your clients by teaming up with other businesses who might have the same client profile as yours. You suddenly open yourself up to more prospects, as well as offer more services to your existing clients, that you wouldn't have the skills to do on your own, for example, web design and telemarketing are two disciplines that I don't have expertise in myself, but on my team are 3 experienced telemarketers and a web designer. Today at the Athena meeting, there was a brilliant copywriter who would be a great addition to my services, and we're going to meet up. So watch this space.....

How not to win clients

Got directed to these tips by a fellow VA  who was rather shocked to find another VA recommending a rather underhand way of winning clients. http://www.realbusiness.co.uk/news/how-to/4788781/27-waysto-torpedo-your-rivals.thtml . Whilst the majority of tips are to do with keeping abreast of your industry news, I found tip no 4 by Moneypenny's MD rather underhand, namely "When your rival brags about landing new clients you can ring up and offer to undercut the deal.” apparently the MD uses this technique! To me, this seems to be a rather green-eyed reaction to your rival's successes. How do you think the client would view this kind of unsolicitored approach? And how does this affect the image of the virtual pa industry?

If, as a VA certainly, you ever got gazzumped by a rival undercutting your new deal you proudly shouted about on your website, rather than kick yourself for having given so much away on your website, you might take the view that the client wouldn't have been a good one if all they were interested in was the price-tag.

Always remember that as a virtual pa, you are offering a whole package. And to do that you need to find out exactly what the client's expectations are. That's the starting point. You also need to know what they hope to gain. Once you know what they want and their aim, you can then add value by using your knowledge and experience to suggest additional ways of augmenting, perhaps simplifying the process or improving it somehow. This way your prospects see your value beyond the price-tag, and you're more likely to win the client, (even if you are the most expensive) and you'll keep them even when a rival tries to undercut you.

Thankfully, my experience of the VA industry is one of mutual support of another. We share tips and knowledge and celebrate one another's successes. And likewise, we also share bad experiences, so that  our fellow VA's can avoid being stung too. What goes round comes round, so send the good stuff round and do unto others how you'd like to be done to!

by Vee Smith
www.mysuperva.co.uk

How Athena Networking has helped boost my confidence

I chaired my first Athena meeting yesterday at the Amersham Tuesday group. Being a member of Athena has been really great for not just my business, but a huge boost to my confidence. I'm enjoying some great supportive friendships. When I think back to this time last year when I attended my first Athena meeting, what a quivering shy thing I was, absolutely dreading the moment when I would have to stand up and deliver my monthly minute!

Gimme more widgets!

In researching for my talk on Friday about blogging for business at the Athena Conference (East Chilterns Region), I've come across an absolute gold mine of widgets and directories that I can link to and subscribe to that my mind is now beginning to 'bloggle' with the possibilities.

Must have software - pdf

Every virtual pa should have the means to convert documents into PDF files and I use desk pdf. I've also used pdf995. PDF995 has a free version which every time you use it up pop reminders to tell you to purchase the software to get rid of the annoying pop up reminder. I paid for desk pdf  ($60) and it is so quick to create a pdf document. You create your word document (or excel) then go to print and select the desk pdf from the printers drop down box. You then get prompted to save as and you give it a file name and that's it. Quick, simple and brilliant! That's what I like!

Athena East Chilterns Conference

Here's one Virtual PA looking forward to the  Athena East Chilterns Conference next Friday 9th May at Latimer House, in Chesham. I'm privileged to have been asked to give a talk about blogging for business. So, as an experiment I've set up this Virtual PA blog and been adding at least every other day to it and been monitoring my ranking in search engines. Yesterday, when I checked on Google for virtual pa blog it came up on the 2nd page, which is pretty good, considering I only started this virtual pa blog less than a week ago. Does prove that search engines like frequency.