We've moved

We've moved to shiny new premises here: www.judesach.co.uk.

Please update your bookmarks - we'll be pleased to welcome you to our new home.

Thanks

Jude

Farewell AimHigher Kent and Medway

One of our clients, AimHigher Kent and Medway, a Higher Education project aimed at widening participation in University comes to a close at the end of this month.

We've been working with them making web updates for some time now and we will be very sad to see it come to a close.

This note is really just to say that the AimHigher Team in Kent and Medway have made a great impact in this region and it's been a pleasure to work with them.  We wish them well.

Virtual contact is all very well....

Working "in the cloud" I have found, suits me very well.  Unlike many commentaries on working virtually, I am not left wanting by the lack of an office to visit regularly.  I find that I can focus better, respond more creatively to client requests and the peace and quiet gives me time to mull over my next blog.

However, I wouldn't go without the face-to-face and telephone meetings that I enjoy with my clients.  There's no substitute for human contact, particularly when working to establish the goals of an assignment or the finer details of a project.

The human side of communication pertaining to feelings and emotions is what is so easily lost when you are communicating remotely or asynchronously. Mehrabian's commonly cited work on the transmission of mean in spoken communication underlines this well (thank you to the handy BusinessBalls website for the details):

• 7% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in the words that are spoken.
• 38% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
• 55% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in facial expression.

Recently I've been working with two new clients and we're learning about one another quickly.  With all the different modes of communication available to us, I'm glad that we still rely on good old-fashioned conversation much of the time.

Surveys, surveys, surveys...

So, the survey that I posted way back in February revealed some interesting information about outsourcing preferences.

Online research, customer surveys, preparing mailshots, document preparation and formatting all featured highly as tasks that people would outsource given the chance.

This confirms my suspicion that organisations and individual consultants all feel the need to hand a job over to someone from time-to-time without wishing to go as far as taking someone on directly or even engage a VA on a retainer.

The good news is that here at Jude Sach Virtual Assistance we're happy to take on ad hoc pieces of work however big or small they may seem to you.  It's always interesting to take on a new assignment and to know that we're helping someone out when they really need it.

The bad news is that I want more!  I would dearly like to hear from a larger cross-section of people and would welcome your views on the services we should offer - there is no obligation to leave your details but the information will be tremendously helpful in shaping our services.

Take a look at the (exceedingly short and swiftly completed) survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5PJYQ3L

You're always welcome to get in touch directly by email jude@judesach.co.uk too though.

Thank you!

Been slacking on this blog lately

It's been a busy couple of weeks.  I've been working with a new client who is developing her fledgling business.  She's a great customerand it's really exciting to be in at the beginning.  I'm gaining a great insight into the rationale and philosophy of her business and this is helping me, in turn, to fine-tune my approach.

I've been producing press releases, blog entries, conducting online research and generating content for the company website in preparation for the official launch of the venture.

Varied, interesting and collaborative - just the sort of work I love.

More on this soon...

Things your VA could do for you - Part Five: Inbox Management

Whether you're out of the office for a couple of days at a trade show or even sunning yourself on the beach for a week or more (ooh, that sounds good), it's unlikely you've perfected the trick of being in two places at once. Keeping up with your inbox when you've got your hands full (or even when you're just trying to relax) can be a real headache.

Many businesses call upon a Virtual Assistant to look after the inboxes of key staff. This could be on an ongoing basis or just from time-to-time when the need arises. A Virtual Assistant is here to offer you flexible support that releases you to get on with the most important stuff and to help you manage the rest.

We can respond to email enquiries, clear out spam and unwanted mails and pick up on urgent messages that need a response and put together a digest on either a daily or weekly basis, highlighting actions that you need to take where appropriate.

For more information on how this could work for you, drop us a line: info@judesach.co.uk or call 07971 490462.

Things your VA could do for you - Part Four: Research and Surveys

Knowing your customers and competitors is fundamental to building a sustainable business. A key tool available to even the smallest business or inedividual entrepreneur is to conduct research. Customer research can take the form of satisfaction surveys and post-event feedback, while competitor research may include evaluations of products and service to identify points of competition and strengths and weaknesses in your own product range.

We have conducted training needs analyses, event feedback surveys, learner surveys, market research and competitor data gathering for clients and can even produce reports providing analysis of results.

Whether you need an online survey or a more detailed telephone interview carried out, talk to your Virtual Assistant about how we can help you. Drop us a line: info@judesach.co.uk or call 07971 490462.

Things your VA could do for you - Part Three: Manage Training & Event Bookings

If you're holding a customer training event, open day or even meetings at a trade show or conference, managing responses from customers can add a considerable short-term workload that is just the sort of thing your Virtual Assistant can help you with.

Let us look after the whole administrative element to your event while you get on with delivering the goods on the day. We can handle the influx of enquiries, send leaflets, information and joining instructions, check special requirements and even follow-up with post-event satisfaction surveys, and produce and send certificates of attendance.

Things your VA could do for you - Part Two: Blog and Twitter Updates

Having a social media presence is becoming an increasingly important element of marketing strategies for companies of all shapes and sizes. Talking to customers and responding to questions via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like is just as important as having an up-to-date website.

Unfortunately making regular updates to your blog or twitter feed can become time consuming, not to mention the challenge of finding inspiration.

From a potential customer's point of view, finding that blogs and tweets are current and new information is published regularly indicates that a company is active and engaging with its customers.

As a Virtual Assistance service, we tweet and blog regularly on our clients' behalves. We agree a schedule for updates and have talk through upcoming events and news items on a regular basis and then we just get on with it. Of course there's always scope to add extra items at short notice or to change tack as new information emerges too, so your social media presence reflects your organisation most effectively.

So, if you'd like to hand over your social media updates to someone who actually enjoys it, drop us a line: socialmedia@judesach.co.uk or call 07971 490462.

Inbox overflowing?

These may be truisms, but it does no harm to be reminded of them occasionally:

1. Successful businesses know that it's not about working harder but rather working smarter.  
2. Recognising the need to hand over the mundane and repetitive jobs is key to using your skills most productively.
3. Email is one of the biggest causes of interruption and distraction in the modern workplace.

So, when you got back to work after the various holidays and high days we've enjoyed recently, were you confronted with an overflowing inbox and a to-do list as long as your arm?

Free up hours each week by outsourcing administrative and organisational tasks and you'll have time to focus on what really matters to your organisation.

Our flexible range of services can be tailored to meet your requirements and budget, so why not drop us a line   - info@judesach.co.uk.

What's in a name?

Now here's a thing: Jude seems to be a popular name for Virtual Assistants.

I've just fallen into the trap of doing a little "vanity googling" (to check for positioning in search results of course) and have found another two VAs called Jude and one with Jude as a middle name just in the first page of natural results... can that be statistically significant?

Things your VA could do for you - Part One: Response Handling

One of the paradoxes of sales and marketing is that when you're at your busiest is also when you should be redoubling your marketing efforts.

Being flat out in the office processing orders and delivering to customers means it can be hard to stay on top of other acitivities such as responding to new enquiries generated by a recent advertisement, trade event or leaflet drop.

This is a great time to use a Virtual Assistant to help "iron out the lumps" of life in a small to medium-sized business. A VA can deal with email and telephone enquiries and provide information to potential customers, send information, samples, brochures or leaflets in either electronic or hard copy format. This frees up time in your main team to look after the work in hand and make sure you have happy customers all round - existing and potential alike.

10 top tips for getting on my nerves...

Is it me? It may just be me, but I suspect that it isn't.

Someone, somewhere, once wrote that the way to do online marketing (such as through social networking and blogging) is a little reciprocity, give and take, share and share alike. Absolutely. You will hear no argument from me on that. Helpful people will always get my vote (and my business for that matter). Not rocket science, just the basics of good customer service.

But it isn't really a new phenomenon this reciprocity thing is it? Ever heard the phrase "use a sprat to catch a mackerel"? Same idea from a different era: give a little with the hope of getting more in return. It's probably a more honest way of putting it too.

I'll get to my point...

So what's the problem then? The reciprocity idea has manifested itself in blogs everywhere, we've all seen it and many of us have done it: Ten top tips for [insert desirable but often unachievable thing here].

It's utterly logical: share a little of your knowledge for free, demonstrate your capabilities, help out a potential customer and they'll come back for some paid-for work as your reward.

However, this incarnation of the reciprocal marketing approach has become so popular that there are now marketing consultants offering 10 top tips on how to do 10 top tips. Twitter is laden with them. Blogs, websites, news sites, they're all overflowing with helpful articles proffering tips for everything from conducting successful offline networking to selecting a suitable Virtual Assistant, written by a Virtual Assistant. No hidden agenda there then... no, I mean it's absolutely not hidden, it couldn't be more overt.

Maybe it's time to concede that this ship has sailed. We're all going to have to put our thinking caps on again to come up with a more imaginative way to get our message out there.

If your social media marketing consultant is suggesting that you prepare a newsletter, blog update or tweet featuring any mention of "10 Top Tips" then they're well "behind the curve" and you should fire them immediately. Well, that may be a little harsh, but I would recommend that you at least give them a stern talking to!

Right, must dash, have just received 5 useful tips on how to rant less and the first is "Know when to stop".

All hands to the pumps

Well, today, down at Printshop they are busy... really busy. The printing presses are running at full tilt, the phone is ringing off the hook and the emails are pinging into their inbox as fast as the internet can carry them. Settling down to do any work, particularly stuff that requires your full attention like design and print, can be really hard to do under those circumstances.

Desk space is also at a premium down at Printshop as it's all hands to the pumps, so I'm delighted to say that they've asked me to look after their inbox and 'phone calls so they can get on with things.

I'm working remotely so they aren't tripping over me. I can access email via the web interface provided by their hosting service without the need for messy things like VPNs and so on. The phone is forwarded on to me and here I sit, poised and ready to go.

We've agreed that unless there's something particularly urgent, I will compile a digest of messages, filtering out the rubbish of course, that can be properly dealt with a little later on this afternoon.

Meanwhile, back at Printshop, there's just a little bit less to contend with, which means they can get back into their stride and look after their customers properly.

What's more, the sun is shining, the washing is drying on the line and the birds are singing.

Glorious!

When using a VA makes sound economic sense

Obviously I'm keen to say that using a VA always makes sound economic sense, but when I've got my sensible hat on I know that this isn't always the case.

However, I thought I would give you an example that demonstrates when it's smart to use a VA.

If you're currently seeking to recruit a PA/Admin type person, you're probably advertising a post at around the £8.50 an hour mark as a minimum (assuming you'd like to hang on to them for more than 3 months) and you work in the wilds of Kent - elsewhere it will be more.

Add to that those sneaky on-costs you pay for the privilege of offering someone a job (employer's NI and Tax contributions) and you're nuzzling up to £9 per hour before you've even got them a desk to sit at. 

That's a monthly commitment of around £1300.  Every month.

So, next get them a desk, computer, chair, monitor, risk assessment, pension, pens, a phone line, tea/coffee, a printer, heating and light and... whoa hang on a minute, this is starting to seem like a scary contract to be entering into!

Back-of-fag-packet type calculations reveal that employing someone doesn't come cheap.  And now you've made the commitment to shell out upwards of £1450 every month, nearly £17.5k a year, you're kind of obliged to do it regardless of how sales have gone this week.  We all know that asking your full-time employee to be a bit flexible about when and how much they're paid often makes them a tiny bit grumpy.

The natural assumption is that a VA will cost more and, if we're just comparing hourly rates, yes, we do. BUT... for the money you spend in just one week paying the salary of your Admin/PA you could buy 15 hours (at least) of VA time.  That's without having to buy the desk, heating, risk assessments, computer, pension, tea and coffee.

And at the end of those 15 hours, if there's no more work for a while, you won't pay anything else. Simple.

Of course, we hope you come back in a couple of weeks with some more work as we'd be pleased to hear from you, you're lovely people to work for and we enjoy the variety, but you get my drift?

If you need flexibility and direct control over costs, getting a VA is a really smart move - I've the figures right here on this discarded fag packet to prove it.

What would you most like to outsource?

The magic of using a Virtual Assistant is that you get to hand over tasks that cost you time and money but don't support your bottom line.  Tasks that take time out of your day and distract you from the things you should be doing.


So, what would you outsource?  


Take two minutes to tell us about what you'd outsource given the chance.


Thank you!

Got something to say? Mailshot your client list for £35*

Keeping in touch with your clients via email or post is a vital way of generating sales, but organising the communication can be a time-consuming headache.

Infuriatingly, it's not always as simple as just coming up with your email or letter and sending it.

Does this sound familiar?

1. Spend a couple of hours typing up your letter and tweaking it.
2. Remind yourself of how MailMerge works.
3. Produce mailmerge to 100 contacts and smile.
4. Spot a mistake, re-do MailMerge.
5. Print the first 30 and spot another mistake.  Start again.
6. Break off to deal with a customer query.
7. Return to the mailshot. 
8. Remind yourself of how MailMerge works.
9. Pat self on back for having produced 100 beautifully crafted mailshot letters.
10. Remind yourself on how to produce labels using MailMerge and start again...

We can produce mailshots for you for delivery via post or email.  What's more, we'll do a list of up to 200 contacts for £35*

If you are looking for something a little different, we can help you source leaflets, postcards or brochures to communicate your message in a fresh new way.

Email now to tell us what you need.

*£35 does not cover the cost of postage and letterheadings.  The cost of address labels and envelopes will be re-charged to you at cost.  If your mailshot is to be delivered via email these costs won't be payable of course.  You will need to provide a pre-prepared mailing list along with your letter or email and we'll take care of the rest.

Could you use a babysitter for your business?

For small businesses, taking a holiday or even attending a training or networking event can pose a real problem.  We will happily look after things while you’re away – everything from enquiry handling, invoicing, web updates to general office administration.  Whether it’s just for a day or a full week or two, you can rest assured that things will keep on ticking over while you’re away.  Email now to tell us what you need.

A VA is not just for Christmas

Listening to a discussion on the radio earlier this week about the impact of the recession on small and medium-sized businesses really highlighted to me that as a Virtual Assistant I have a lot to offer. 

Taking on staff is a headache at the best of times.  It's time consuming, costly and, occasionally, you find yourself wondering if it was all worth it when the new recruit doesn't cut the mustard.  Equally, using agency staff can provide a short-term solution but believe me, if you've had the same temp back twice you've been lucky. The strength of a Virtual Assistance service is that you get the best of both worlds: a low-cost, low-risk injection of extra help AND the benefits that building a long-term relationship can bring.

Virtual Assistants are, by their very nature, resourceful, enthusiastic and committed individuals.  VAs have had the gumption to establish themselves in the marketplace, develop a client base and respond to varied requirements from day one.  The goal of course is to develop a fruitful, long-lasting relationship with clients so that you can slot straight back in whenever you're needed.

For those who haven't used a VA in the past, it can be something of a leap of faith that using a remote worker is feasible.  My advice: give it a go.  An initial meeting to discuss the project or assignment is always a good starting point, and regular contact by email, Skype or online meeting is absolutely vital and much easier to arrange than you might think. 

We also tend to use online shared workspaces to facilitate project work.  It means that you have access to project documentation, minutes, meeting updates, templates and presentations whenever and wherever you need them.  Working "in the cloud" quickly becomes quite natural.

So, at times such as this when SMEs need to respond to customers' requirements or, quite literally, risk going to the wall, knowing that you can call upon a VA is a real strength.

Happy New Year

I hope you had a restful break over Christmas.  Here at JSVA the cogs have been whirring about a range of new projects in the pipeline (more of which to follow soon), but this hasn't detracted from my enjoyment of things.  No snow on Christmas Day in the end for us, but at least that meant that we managed to visit family without to much fear of getting stuck on the way home.

So it's time to get back to work and fire up the online office.  And in the non-virtual world, it remains for me to reclaim the home from trees, wrapping paper, new toys and, of course, the inevitable turkey mountain.

I won't be the first to say this I know, but can I take this opportunity to wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011.

Best wishes

Jude