by Colette Walls | Apr 1, 2023 | Business Tips, Virtual Assistant
Effective communication and seamless coordination are essential for success. However, juggling multiple schedules and coordinating meetings can be a time-consuming and tedious task for busy professionals. This is where the qVirtual team can step in to streamline the process and increase your productivity and client service.
Simplified Meeting Management
Virtual assistants excel at managing calendars, scheduling appointments, and coordinating meetings with precision and efficiency. By outsourcing these tasks to a VA, you can free up valuable time and resources, allowing you and your team to focus on high-priority activities that drive business growth.
Integration into Your Team
When you onboard one of our team, they become an important part of your business, working seamlessly alongside you to support your objectives and achieve your goals.
First Point of Contact for Prospective Clients
One of the key advantages of having a virtual assistant on your team is their ability to serve as the first point of contact for prospective clients. VAs can field enquiries and answer questions with professionalism and expertise. By delivering a high-quality service experience from the outset, VAs help to establish a positive impression and build trust with potential customers.
Delivering High-Quality Service
Virtual assistants are skilled professionals who are trained to deliver exceptional service to your clients. Whether it’s through prompt responses to enquiries or personalised communication, VAs ensure that every interaction reflects positively on your business and reinforces your brand’s reputation for excellence.
Enhancing Client Acquisition
By entrusting your meeting bookings and client interactions to a virtual assistant, you can provide a seamless and efficient experience that sets you apart from the competition. With VAs handling the logistics and communication aspects of client engagement, you can focus on delivering value and building meaningful relationships that lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Working with a virtual assistant can revolutionise the way you manage meeting bookings and interact with prospective clients. You can streamline processes, improve productivity, and deliver a superior service experience that resonates with your target audience.
Whether you’re a solopreneur or small business owner, partnering with a qVirtual virtual assistant is a strategic investment that can drive business growth and enhance client acquisition efforts in today’s competitive marketplace.
Are you looking for flexible business support and want to make savings by hiring a VA? Get in touch!
qVirtual – Virtual Assistant Solutions
by Colette Walls | May 6, 2022 | Business Tips
What does your desk look like? Is it messy or are you someone that tidies up every day?
Everyone has a different working style and it’s OK to have a messy desk if ‘organised’ chaos works for you.
Albert Einstein was known for his love of his untidy office. He once said, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?”
There have been lots of studies about desk tidiness and cleanliness and whether having a clear and clean working area can benefit us during our working day.
However, let’s face it, when it comes to working productively, it can be difficult to think clearly and work efficiently when your desk is untidy. While it can prove a challenge to carry out your work and still keep on top of the mess, there are multiple benefits of having a tidy desk.
Improved Health
Many workers choose to eat and drink at their desk out of convenience, but this can mean that your desk contains a lot of bacteria that can lead to illness. A typical office keyboard can carry up to 7500 bacteria at any given time. By spending time ensuring your desk is wiped clean regularly, which includes cleaning your keyboard and mouse, you can help to reduce bacteria and the risk of illness for you and your colleagues.
Improved Efficiency
When your desk is messy and untidy, it can have a negative impact on your productivity. This is because an untidy work environment can distract you from the job at hand or prevent you from finding the items you need. When your desk is organised, you will be far more focussed on your tasks and be able to find the documents or stationery you need in seconds thus saving time, which can help you to be more productive.
Lower Stress
The workplace can be a stressful environment and a cluttered desk can add to this stress. It’s therefore good practice at the end of each workday to spend a little time restoring order and tidying up your desk. If you work in an office, this action will also enable the cleaners to clean and sanitise your desk effectively and you may be more likely to start the day in a positive way.
Make A Good Impression
There is no denying that people form an opinion based on first impressions. So, imagine what people think when they see a desk that is cluttered and untidy. They might consider it to be a reflection of your personality or the way in which you work. If you have visits from clients or potential clients or people can see your desk when contacting you via Zoom or Google meet, it makes sense to ensure you create a good impression by keeping your desk clean and tidy.
Enhanced Security
Businesses now have a duty to ensure that confidential data is handled correctly, sensitively and securely. Therefore, an untidy desk could mean that confidential data and documents are left out for all to see. Documents might get hidden under other documents and they might even end up in the wrong hands should they be collected with other waste. With a clean desk, you can be sure that any documents that are out can be seen by you and then stored away when they are no longer needed without losing sight of them under clutter.
So, now you’ve decided that you’re going to tackle the mess, how can you keep your desk organised?
- Start using a junk tray.
- Recycle any old papers that you don’t need – you really don’t need to print out everything
- Colour code documents/folders to find them quicker.
- Clean your desk, keyboard, phone and mouse regularly
- Find a home for your folders/stationery/other items and keep them there. Don’t have things thrown all over your desk.
- Tidy your desk every night so that it’s clear for the next morning
If you can see that your productivity is waning and your desk is hidden under a pile of paperwork, maybe it’s time to have a little sort out and spray the Dettol!
There are so many benefits of having a clean and tidy desk, so it makes sense to ensure you spend a few minutes each day keeping on top of this important task.
Are you looking for flexible business support and want to make savings by hiring a VA? Get in touch!
qVirtual – Virtual Assistant Solutions
by Colette Walls | Feb 25, 2022 | Admin Tasks, Business Tips, Virtual Assistant
Do you find that opening up your emails fills you with dread? Do you waste time every day sifting through an inbox full of messages you should really have deleted months ago to find that elusive email from a customer whose name you can’t quite remember? Clutter, whether physical or digital, can cause anxiety and stress and can even affect your concentration and productivity levels.
Whether your inbox is filled with priority mail, newsletters you’ve been meaning to read, messages from family and friends or spam, keeping on top of your emails is crucial to enable you to stay organised, efficient and stress-free. You might be thinking this kind of admin work will take hours, but rest assured you can clear your inbox in an hour or two with our tips.
2-10 Minutes To Remove Junk And Unnecessary Emails
Assign yourself ten minutes to begin mass deleting emails that you don’t need, such as the messages your email client (Gmail, Outlook, Mail etc) has identified as junk, notifications from your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts that you will never need again, newsletters you’ve already read, messages with offers from shopping websites that have expired and more. By deleting or archiving these, you will make your inbox a lot clearer and possibly even help it load faster while also making it easier for your Virtual Assistant to manage too.
30-40 Minutes To Create Folders & Labels
With the emails that are left after deleting the junk, it’s time to determine how and where to store them so that you can easily access the messages you need quickly and easily. Creating a folder per customer, for purchases, for product orders, to hold invoices to be paid, to store receipts for tax filing, to pop newsletters you’d like to read later, to store your to’do list emails*, or keep emails you want to unsubscribe from in one place and even create a folder where you pop all of your unsorted mail ready for when you have five or 10 minutes to file it properly etc will really help organise your inbox.
10 Minutes To Take Action or Create a To-Do List
You will now be left with emails that need action. If you can take care of the action within two minutes then you can spend time doing this immediately. If the response will take longer than two minutes, you should look to add the email to a to-do list* folder or ask your VA to manage your to-do list for you. You can also use colour coded flags or labels to further filter down your inbox for example using a red flag for emails that need urgent attention, orange flags for emails that are important to respond to within the next couple of days and green flags for emails that are not important and that can be answered at your leisure.
The Importance Of Archiving Emails For Businesses
For businesses, it is often crucial that work emails are archived and not deleted. Communications often need to be kept for a number of years to comply with statutory regulations. For example, in the UK organisations are expected to keep business emails for six years. If these were to be stored on the employee’s computer hard drive it is likely their systems would get overloaded and slow. That’s why many businesses archive their emails and email attachments so that they can be easily searched and accessed when required. Some companies choose to archive their emails in the cloud while others use the archive feature in their computer’s email client.
An email clean-up is a great way to get on top of your inbox and it is also a great opportunity to unclutter your mind and work smarter and more efficiently.
Do you need help to organise your inbox or are you looking for flexible business support and want to make savings by hiring a VA? Get in touch!
qVirtual – Virtual Assistant Solutions
by Colette Walls | Jan 13, 2022 | Admin Tasks, Business Tips, Testimonials, Virtual Assistant
I conquered a very serious illness in 2017 and to say it changed my perspective would be an understatement. After more than 20 years delivering the highest levels of PA and EA services to the legal sector, I decided to make a massive change and disrupt virtual assistant solutions with qVirtual.
So many private and corporate clients have a lot on their plates. Workloads, deadlines, compliance, commitments and that’s before we get to families, fun and fresh air.
qVirtual provides businesses and individuals with virtual solutions that support their careers and transform their time so that they can enjoy professional and personal lives that are richer, more productive and more balanced.
It’s true, there are lots of VA’s out there, but I’d like to explain why working with me and qVirtual is a unique and exceptional experience (in a good way)!
The legal sector is rigid, scrupulous, pressured and professionally demanding. The attention to detail, organisation and precision levels required are unparalleled. To bring decades of experience performing at this level, managing the lives and careers of senior figures at leading international law firms, means I can say with some confidence, I can help you. And I love helping. What’s mundane, frustrating and time-consuming for you is broached with passion and productivity by me. I am the Usain Bolt of VA’s… cool, calm, high-performing and fun but possibly ever so slightly shorter.
My testimonials, referrals and feedback speak for themselves. I am one of those rare individuals who takes pride, passion, commitment and care in their work.
The relationships and reputation I fostered allowed me to found qVirtual with desirable results and technology allows me to take those results to a broad variety of audiences and industries. From private clients through to corporations, my remote support caters to the needs of every budget and client. And my business is growing. Our client base is growing. I am scouring for awesome Virtual Assistant Associates to enable more resources, more projects and complex client needs.
My clients choose me again and again because they trust me. They want to enjoy their business and restore balance to their lives. And restore it I do.
Are you ready to sample intelligent working and remove the tasks that weigh you down and make your business or home life hectic?
Why not take a peek for yourself and see how I can help you and your business by clicking here?
My dream is to continue scaling the best virtual assistant solutions company and breaking the mould. One that caters to every client need – whether it’s complex and quirky or simple and time-savvy.
qVirtual exists to make your life easier by giving you the support to thrive and succeed. But always done with a smile.
To grab your complimentary hour-long consultation, please click here.
by Colette Walls | Dec 29, 2021 | Admin Tasks, Business Tips, Virtual Assistant
Running a business is hard. It is a time-consuming process that often requires spinning several plates at the same time – this can be quite a challenge. As a result of trying to tackle everything yourself, some areas of your business can easily start to get overlooked. That’s why hiring a Virtual Assistant to help take more general tasks off your hands is the perfect solution enabling you to spend more time focussing on the more critical tasks involved with running your business.
Since starting my Virtual Assistant business, I’ve had several conversations that have clearly shown me that there are some common misconceptions about hiring a Virtual Assistant, some of which may be putting business owners off from hiring one.
So, what are these myths? Let me set the record straight by debunking the misconceptions surrounding hiring a Virtual Assistant.
MYTH 1: Virtual Assistants Are Expensive
Hiring a Virtual Assistant is not as expensive as you might think! In fact, compared to hiring a full-time employee, hiring a Virtual Assistant could actually save you money. A Virtual Assistant will only charge you for the hours worked, ensuring you get 100% productive work time for the money you pay. An employee, alternatively, will always require their salary, whether you are busy or not. In addition, when you take on an employee, you must pay them their salary, a contribution towards their pension, tax and insurance, holiday pay, rent out office space for them and more. A Virtual Assistant also has all the equipment needed to do their job already. They are a ready-made business, so you don’t need to incur additional costs to set them up.
It’s simply intelligent working to use a Virtual Assistant who doesn’t need any of these overheads.
You should not see a Virtual Assistant as a luxury but as an investment. A Virtual Assistant can relieve you of your everyday tasks so that you can focus on the more important aspects of running and scaling your business.
MYTH 2: VAs Only Handle Administrative Tasks
You might think that a Virtual Assistant can only deal with administrative tasks but that isn’t the case. There are now a wide variety of specialists within the Virtual Assistant industry. Whilst many focus on administration (being the one thing that most businesses need assistance with), some Virtual Assistants focus on other things, such as book-keeping, social media management, research and even blog writing. Whatever task you need help with, there will be a Virtual Assistant who is the right fit for you.
MYTH 3: I can do the job quicker myself by the time I’ve trained a Virtual Assistant
When you work with a Virtual Assistant, there will of course be an initial period where you will need to get to know how each other works. Virtual Assistants need to be onboarded properly and it’s essential to communicate with each other effectively. A good Virtual Assistant will want to learn all of your systems and will quickly adapt to your processes. However, all businesses are run very differently and, whilst it may be an inconvenience to help and train someone at the start of working together, it won’t take long for your Virtual Assistant to get up to speed with how you like things done. Virtual Assistants can work to deadlines and timescales in agreement and they will deliver the results you expect.
MYTH 4: You have to use a Virtual Assistant for 8 hours a day
It’s a very common misconception that you need to use your Virtual Assistant for 8 hours a day. You simply don’t. A Virtual Assistant will work with multiple clients, each one of them using the Virtual Assistant for different tasks and different hours. You can use your Virtual Assistant for as many hours a week as you need them. A Virtual Assistant can be used for a one-off project all the way up to regular weekly assistance. The beauty of having a Virtual Assistant is that you just pay for what you need.
MYTH 5: A Virtual Assistant will bring in clients
Unless you have discussed and agreed with your Virtual Assistant that their role will be sales based, a Virtual Assistant will not bring in new clients for you. You can offload and delegate tasks to your Virtual Assistant that are stopping you from growing your business. Once you’ve given some of your tasks away, you’ll love having more time to focus on the parts of the business you enjoy, including getting a bigger client base!
MYTH 6: Anyone can be a Virtual Assistant
A Virtual Assistant is a professional. Someone who has invested time and a serious amount of money into creating a business. Virtual Assistants come at all levels and qualities. Some Virtual Assistants have years of PA experience and can assist you seamlessly as if they were working for you in an office environment. Remember that your aim is to ultimately have a long-lasting happy working relationship with your Virtual Assistant. Look for a quality candidate that will be able to help your business succeed and who is equally excited at seeing your business wins.
All Virtual Assistants should have the correct insurance in place, be registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, protect your work with a good backup system and use a secure site for any passwords they keep for you. You should also look for a Virtual Assistant that gives you a Terms and Conditions document upon commencement of any work undertaken for you so that you are aware of how you will work together.
MYTH 7: Virtual Assistants are always available
Virtual Assistants often have many clients. Whilst this doesn’t mean that they won’t give your project or tasks their full attention, you also can’t expect them to be on call 24/7. If this is something that you feel you need for your tasks, it needs to be discussed at the initial Discovery Call with the Virtual Assistant. Often, if the Virtual Assistant’s diary doesn’t allow this due to an already full calendar, they can often find another Virtual Assistant that will be able to assist and provide the level of cover that you need.
MYTH 8: VAs Aren’t Professional
A Virtual Assistant wants their business to be a success. They know that their reputation is on the line with any work they do and they often get clients through word-of-mouth recommendations, so will strive to ensure their work is above and beyond their client’s expectations.
As you will have read from the above, outsourcing tasks to a Virtual Assistant is an ideal option for many businesses. You will be surprised at how quickly your Virtual Assistant settles into working with you and you’ll soon realise that those jobs that you hate doing so much or that you are simply missing because you’re now too busy, are better off being delegated to someone else!
If the misconceptions above were something that you were concerned about, I hope that reading this blog has changed your mind and you can now see the endless possibilities of what you can do with your business with some Virtual Assistant help!
Contact qVirtual to find out how a Virtual Assistant can make your life easier and you work smarter.
Do you need flexible business support and want to make savings by hiring a VA? Get in touch!
qVirtual – Virtual Assistant Solutions
by Colette Walls | Nov 23, 2021 | Business Tips, Virtual Assistant
As a business owner, you will often find yourself carrying out a wide range of tasks across the whole of your business. This requires you to wear a number of different hats in order to help your business thrive and grow. When building a business, it’s not always possible to employ a person to take care of each individual task and oftentimes as a business owner, you end up taking on a variety of roles. So, how do you decide which hats to wear and which to outsource?
Chief Marketing Officer (“CMO”)
Marketing is crucial for any business and even new start-ups need to market their products or services. Without customers or clients, your business will not survive, so you need your marketing model to work like clockwork in order to cultivate leads and drive sales.
In your role as CMO, you will cover the likes of social media, email marketing and branding, ensuring everything aligns and works towards your goals. To do this takes a lot of work. However, many of your marketing tasks, such as sending emails and newsletters or posting to social media, can be outsourced*, freeing you up to negotiate larger partnership deals and to work on your organisation’s overall marketing strategy.
Director of Sales
As you start to generate leads, you will need to turn them into sales. The approach you take will be dependent on your business model. You will need to identify what works in terms of taking your customers or clients through the sales journey. This will involve asking the right questions to identify your client’s needs and then offering your product or service as the solution.
Many sales tasks, such as making sales calls, sending emails, booking appointments with potential clients, preparing quotations or asking for customer testimonials, can also be outsourced*. Outsourcing some of your sales tasks will ensure you have more time to focus on demonstrating your product or service to your larger clients and securing those bigger contracts.
Chief Operations Officer (“COO”)
This is a considerable role that is especially important to ensure your business runs smoothly. A COO generally oversees all your business operations from administration to IT, to resource management to sales, distribution and more. If your resource, sales and distribution operations are not aligned, then your business will not operate effectively.
However, despite the importance of this role, many of the administrative tasks that a COO oversees can indeed be delegated or outsourced*. Hiring a Virtual Assistant to help you with your administrative tasks can help reduce your overall workload and give you time back to focus on the important stuff.
Human Resources
Once you’ve started to scale your business and you begin to hire employees and outsource work to freelancers, managing a team can be hard work and time-consuming. You suddenly have to deal with additional HR tasks that you hadn’t done previously, such as writing job briefs, updating personnel records, responding to queries about absences and leave, setting up interviews and liaising with recruitment companies.
A virtual assistant can help you with your HR tasks and offload some of the stress that comes with looking for and hiring an employee.
Chief Financial Officer (“CFO”)
Many businesses fail because they struggle to manage their finances correctly. Your role as CFO is therefore crucial to make sure that your business makes a profit and also has the necessary funds available to ensure smooth operations.
Many of a CFO’s more general administrative tasks can be outsourced to a Virtual Assistant*. Tasks that can be outsourced include data entry, managing receipts, assisting with the preparation of financial reports, invoicing clients, paying bills and keeping track of accounts payable and accounts receivable.
When Should You Outsource?*
As you can see, although a business owner has many hats to wear, the good news is that you don’t have to wear all of these hats alone. In fact, you can easily outsource tasks that take up too much of your time or aren’t your speciality.
Hiring a Virtual Assistant is the perfect solution for this. A Virtual Assistant will help you streamline your workload, meaning you can get on with the important job of running your business. Ultimately, this will help you to save time and money in the long run and enable your business to grow. Hiring a Virtual Assistant should therefore be seen as an investment in your organisation’s growth.
Do you need flexible business support and want to make savings by hiring a VA? Get in touch!
qVirtual – Virtual Assistant Solutions
