So what have I been up to?  Well, apart from having the odd facial , walking the dog, entertaining children, feeding my fitness habit and spending lots of money on wedding related things, I’ve been busy on the strategic side of the business.  Thanks to the lovely Janice Ross I have a renewed focus and I now know  which direction my business should take.   I need to aim high and not get bogged down with low level admin.    I think when you start out in business you’re often happy to take any work that comes your way.  After a while, you re-prioritise and think about why you made the jump into self-employment.  For me, money isn’t the key motivator, it’s all about being able to do something I enjoy, from the comfort of my own home, whilst feeling challenged.  My number one priority remains my family.  That’s why I am treating this year as market research as I still have my youngest at home. And what a year of market research it has been.  I have an amazing website up and running, thank you John Harrison.  I have a fabulous brand, thank you Jenni Sime/Anchor Point Design.  And I have a small, but growing, portfolio of customers.  I have had many referrals and lots of positive feedback. What more could I want!

When it comes to September, the magic month when the youngest starts school, I’ll be in a position to launch an attack on my target customers.  I have a hit list and I’ll be working my way through it.  The sky is the limit, I haven’t spent over 20 years in the business to do someone else’s filing.  I’ll be focusing on high level support to top execs in the region (and beyond hopefully).  Spread the word – if you know of any small or medium companies enjoying a growth spurt – recommend me.  Maybe the office junior can’t cope with their needs any more, maybe they need help now they are exporting, maybe their Chief Executive is starting to travel more.  Key is to remember that I am a Personal Assistant – I just happen to be a virtual one.

I am ready to take on the world and reach for the stars.  Roll on September!

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Surely the main factor is whether they can match your business needs.   You may have spent years building up your business and reputation, why on earth would you then waste valuable time doing tasks that can be outsourced – freeing up your time to increase your turnover.  Remember, your time is money.

A word of caution is needed however: there are a lot of virtual assistants out there and most are very capable.  But think about what you really need.  Have a look through a selection of virtual assistant websites – you’ll probably find that most of them offer just about every admin service under the sun.

That’s where we are different.  We offer a virtual Personal Assistant service and that’s quite unusual in the North East.  Add to that more than 20 years experience in a multitude of industries, not many Virtual Assistants can lay claim to that sort of experience.  Finally add in global experience, well you’ve found yourself a rare breed of virtual assistant – a virtual Personal Assistant operating at an executive level.

Yes, you may end up having to pay a bit more for that specialist support, but boy will the investment be worthwhile.  You’ll have your very own Personal Assistant at your disposal at a fraction of the cost of a permanent member of staff.  Your stress levels will reduce and your “me” time will increase.

So, if your company is growing rapidly and you’re struggling to cope with an expanding team, increased service offerings or you want to start reaching out into overseas markets, give us a shout.  We can help you – you only need to check out our testimonials to see proof of our experience and credentials.

You know it makes sense.

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http://www.harrison-it.com/why-free-e-mail-costs-your-business/

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My marriage proposal was very modern.  Feb 29^th 2012, via Face Book.  Oh so unromantic.  But he never checks Face Book, I didn’t dream he would see it.  I admit to complete shock and a little bit of horror when he responded, I confess that I even started doubting myself and my reasons after so many happy years of un-married-ness.

I’m so chuffed for my kids.  My daughter has never been a bridesmaid and there’s little chance of it happening any time soon unless – of course – she is bridesmaid at her own mum and dad’s wedding.  We’ve pushed the boat out for her, a stunning dress is currently being made in the US for her.  I know she will look fantastic but she’d better not steal my thunder.  As for me, I have shocked myself at my choice of dress.   But I love it and I hope hubby and my friends and family do too.   At least I hope they say they do!

So – back to planning a (my) wedding.  Well, as you may have noticed, I am a natural born organiser (aka bossy boots).  No way is anybody else going to be my wedding planner!  Not on your nelly.  This virtual assistant is relishing the role (but starting to panic a little as the  weeks fly by).  I admit I’m a fusspot and am probably starting to show bridezilla tendencies.  My poor cousin is in charge of organising my hen party.  Well, she would be if I would let her.

Every event planner needs a spread sheet and what better source than the Goddess of Spread Sheets.  How convenient too that the Goddess of Spread Sheets got married late last year!  Anyway, I have taken hers and made it my own (thank you, you know who you are).  Excel spread sheets are marvelous things, mine is colour coded and has a separate sheet for every element of the wedding from costings to clothes and a month by month timeline right through to logistics on the actual day.  Now the big day is getting closer, red items are starting to turn amber – or better still, green.

I started my planning way back in February last year.  The only request from the hubster was that everything was in one location.  That narrowed it down considerably as we didn’t want a flash hotel and the inevitable large costs.  Nor did we want a formal sit down wedding breakfast.  We hunted high and low on Google until we found our dream venue.  It has everything we need and more.  If the sun is shining it will be stunning.  If it’s not, the Prosecco will ease the pain!  The kids will be able to play outside and parents can prop up the bar.  It should be an amazing day and I can’t wait to share it with loved ones.

As the time has slipped by, I have tried to tick something off my list each month. It has worked.  I have sourced everything myself – there are loads of great local businesses out there gagging to help you out.  A friend with a graphic design business has done the invites (Anchor Point Design) and another friend with a  cake business is making the cake (Crumble and Co). My tiara is from a local jeweller (By Gina), as is my ring and the flowers will come from the local florist just a couple of days before.  No hairdresser or make up artist on the day – I’ll practise these myself with a couple of lessons from experts. We are even doing our own music (this has been a bit of a project in itself if truth be told) and have bought our own disco lights.  The food will be simple but so appropriate for a summer’s evening.

Thanks to my own organising and sourcing, we have saved ourselves thousands on the wedding.  I have loved every minute of it and would happily do it all again – for someone else of course……

Bring it on!

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Your website is often the first point of contact with a customer.  Don’t make school boy errors, get an expert in to help you.

• Firstly, it needs to be found easily
• Secondly, it needs to look professional
• Thirdly, content is key

So, where does a virtual assistant come into the picture.  Well, this particular virtual assistant can help with all of the above.

To be found, your website needs to employ SEO techniques (Search Engine Optimisation).  I know a bit about SEO – it’s really worth investing some time and money in this.  After all, what is the point of having a great website if nobody can find it?  Do your homework and find out what words people are using to search for particular services.  Don’t make assumptions.  Just because you use a specific term for a service, it doesn’t mean “Joe Public” uses that term.  I discovered some startling statistics when I starting investigating this for my own business.

Your website needs to look good or nobody will want to employ your services or buy your products.  My website is a word press one and I think it looks pretty darn good.  With some expert branding and specialist support, your website will look amazing.  First impressions count so make sure you make a good one.  I can put you in touch with a great designer as well as a word press expert and together we can make your website look amazing.

So people have found your website, they like the look of it, now you need to hold their attention.  The content must be well set out, easy to read, accurate and – please – no errors!  Give me 5 minutes to review your content and, 99 times out of 100, I will find errors!  I promise.

Effective communication forms the foundation of every successful business.  A poorly written business proposal can mean the difference between success and failure.  A poorly composed management email can destroy staff morale in a second.  A badly worded letter can alienate your customers.

Don’t risk your reputation – get the experts in.  With many years of experience in writing communications, JomyPA Limited can transform your business – take a look at some of my testimonials.

So endeth the sermon.  Enjoy the long weekend all.

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Let’s turn back the clock some 25 years.  Those were the days, my year out in Paris, swigging wine out of plastic bottles, playing cards and surviving on takeaway from the local Chinese.  Happy days indeed.  So what has changed since then?  Well, I swig wine out of large wine glasses now, play snap with my children and prefer Indian to Chinese.  Though I have to say that since the horse meat scandal, no processed meals have been eaten in this house!

I digress.  I studied French at Nottingham Uni (the proper one – those of a certain age will appreciate that ….!) and then realised I was never going to make it as a translator and really didn’t want to be a teacher.  So what on earth was I going to do with my French degree?  I know, I will let it fester away and will rely on my Collins dictionary to refresh my memory (now known as Google translate …).

My parents – desperate for me to get out there and earn money rather than return home (my dad had an amazing work ethic) – persuaded me to sign up to a secretarial course.  I excelled – word-processing/excel/shorthand/book-keeping – and found work immediately.  My first line manager was not amused when my salary rose to the same as her level within 3 months.  Then I found love.  Or at least I thought I did.  So I moved back north.

The move north opened up lots of opportunities and I rapidly progressed from Junior Secretary, to Senior Secretary, to Personal Assistant through to Executive Assistant.  I started out in a patent office, was secretary to finance director of a plumbing merchant, then into the NHS.  Onwards and upwards to the madhouse that was Metnor, run by 3 brothers – a very interesting role to say the least but that’s another story ….. I smashed up my first and only company car on the roundabout by Peter Barratts (I still hate that roundabout).  Then, spurred along by my love (a new one by the way) well I ditched the job, sold the house and went off around the world.

I returned 2 stone heavier (most people lose weight when they go back-packing, not us – we like to be different) and settled back into PA work.  My first role was for a large global manufacturing  company – here I did manage to ‘parlez francais un petit peu’!  My counterpart was the lovely Lilianne, based in Paris, she practised her English on me and vice versa.  Shame about the incompetent boss.  I scarpered, not wanting to be part of his failure and managed to get myself back to an Awarding Body in Newcastle City Centre where I had temped before.  I was PA to the Chief Exec and loved every (well almost every) minute.  I organised her from 8am on a Monday to 6pm on a Friday, providing travel arrangements and documentation, correspondence, Board meeting facilitation, minuting, restaurant and hotel bookings – I relished the role.

Ah but then the travel bug returned and off we went once again (it has a tendency to reappear once you have caught it ….).  That’s the beauty of my new business, should my other half have to work elsewhere – whether it be bonny Scotland or down under, I can take my business with me.  After nearly 3 years in New Zealand where I had a cracking job at the local council working as an assistant to a lovely man who is now retired and spends his days playing golf on the North Shore, we returned home.   We went to New Zealand as a couple and came back as a family of 3!

Upon returning, I landed on my feet with a great job at HP but sadly no career path.  It was great for a while – I was Executive Assistant, progressing to Centre Operations Manager then finally a communications Manager.  I’ve had fun along the way, worked in all sorts of different industries with different types of bosses.  All roles have required different strengths (patience, flexibility, calm, assertiveness, project management, supervision) and I’d like to think I’ve mastered most of them.  With such a colourful background, I’m really hoping to make big steps in the virtual world and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to use that rusty French!

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So, why hire a virtual assistant?  There are many benefits to hiring a virtual assistant, I have listed my top 5 below.  Get reading and, at the end, get thinking about how a virtual assistant could help you and your business.

Consider this, how much is your time worth?  Do you bill by the hour?  In this day and age,  money matters and with rates starting as low as £15 per hour, can you afford not to outsource your admin? All those hours lost to general administration could have been invested in generating income.  Do the maths.

Can’t justify a full-time permanent admin assistant? A virtual assistant can provide you with a solution.  Hire one by the hour as and when needed.  It’s like pay as you go with the benefit of no commitment, no large financial outlay at the outset and one off projects can be dealt with.  Hell you can even get a virtual assistant to help you go on holiday (not only could we source and book it for you, but we could manage your inbox whilst you are away sunning yourself!!).  Now how does that sound?!

Overheads?  No need to worry about tax, insurance, pension, sick pay etc.  When you hire a virtual assistant, all these horrible overheads are taken care of as virtual assistants are usually self-employed.

Likewise, no room for a personal assistant in your workplace?  No money to buy them a desk/laptop/chair/phone ….  Bingo, a virtual assistant comes with all of that included! No moaning about the troublesome air-conditioning or the crap vending machine.  Most of us work from home with our own lovely chairs, desks, phones and laptops.  Most of us can work from any location.  If it’s sunny (yeah right ….) I can work in the garden.  If it’s cold, you’ll find this virtual assistant in front of the wood burning stove…..  And as I live on the North East coast of England, just 8 miles from Newcastle, then the wood burning stove sees a lot of action  .

Finally, you can benefit from the huge skill base offered by some virtual assistants.  Many have chosen to take the plunge and set up on their own after years and years in the business (myself included).  Not only are we virtual assistants, but we are astute business people.  You only need to look at my testimonials page to see my experience.

Go on, give it a go.  Well, give JomyPA a go.  You really have nothing to lose.  With 22 years of experience and a fantastic reputation, you will be in safe hands.

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Anyway, I really want to get this out today so here goes.  My 5 golden rules of business are:

Rule 1: don’t make promises you can’t keep

I never make promises I can’t keep in both my business and personal life.  I believe (and hope friends would back me up on this) that if I say I am going to do something, I do it.  End of story.  This translates well into my work life where honesty really is the best policy.  There is nothing worse than letting a client down at the last minute or missing that deadline.  Make sure all targets are achievable and keep to deadlines.  Your client won’t give a monkeys that you have 10 other jobs to do.  They are only interested in their job.

Rule 2: do the job properly or don’t do it at all

A job which has been done badly is not worth doing.  In fact, in my book it’s far worse to do a job badly than not do the job at all.  Establish your quality level and stick to it!  If you don’t, it’s not just your client you are letting down, it’s yourself and your reputation.   In this day and age, service is everything, drop your service level from what your client has come to expect and you may risk losing that client.

Rule 3: separate work from personal time

Guilty as charged Sir!  This is probably the hardest bit for me.   I am sure anybody reading this who has their own business whilst juggling house/children struggles on this front.  One of my friends frequently burns the midnight oil (you know who you are).  You need to have clear divisions between work and play, both physically and emotionally.  Have a dedicated work space.  Set specific work times – both client time and your own time for developing your business/research/emails/finance etc.  Don’t try and mix children and work.  Kids have a knack of running in on that important phone call, or spilling juice over your paperwork.  They also don’t appreciate sharing you with your laptop and nor should they.  As the secondary earner and the parent just setting up business from our home, I am chief child carer as well as chief domestic goddess (ha ha in my dreams).  All child and house responsibility falls to me from sickness to holiday cover, from shopping to cleaning, from washing to running errands.  If I am honest with myself, this won’t change drastically until the youngest starts school.  Hopefully then I will heed my own advice.

Rule 4: be prepared!

This is a given.   Opportunity can strike at any time, in any place.  Always carry a pen and paper (in my case my IPhone) and a wad of business cards/flyers.  My notes are constantly updated and serve as a key reminder.  I take photos as a reminder too.  I email myself.  I keep webpages open on my phone until I get home and have time to note them down/investigate properly.  Keep on top of these things, don’t just make a mental note.

Rule 5: learn from your mistakes and move on

Everybody makes mistakes.   Come on, we’re human. The key is to learn from them and move on.  Don’t regret what you’ve done, only regret what you haven’t done (sorry what a cliché).  Mistakes are all part of everyday life, they are how we improve and it’s important not to let them drag you down.  Don’t dwell for too long, hold your head up high and admit you’re wrong.

Right, I’m done.  It’s time for me to pick up the kids, walk the dog and prepare dinner.   Keep an eye out for the next installment – I’m going to give you lots of reasons to hire a Virtual Assistant.   Of course not just any VA, me.

(Originally published 12 April 2013)

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I’m very lucky. I have a supportive husband (to be), a decent handshake from my employer and perfect timing.  With the youngest in his pre-school year that should give me every afternoon to work. Only it doesn’t.  My 2.5 hours of intended work each afternoon turn into 1 hour after I have tidied away the lunch things, prepared dinner, tidied up the toys, put away the washing and done the supermarket shop.   And I have so much to fit into that 1 hour – endless threads to follow on face book, keeping up with networking, Tweeting, my own research, website updates, the list is endless.  Sadly, none of these bring in any income, but I know they will be worthwhile.

And of course the lovely handshake is long gone, we have a lovely new kitchen and bathroom though.

So September is the new April (perhaps we will see an Indian Summer ….).  The youngest starts school and I am a little bit too excited at that prospect!  6 hours to myself.  Yes that’s right, 6 hours for me.  Now that is when the real work will begin but for now I am enjoying time with my son, building the foundations for my business and trying to enjoy the run up to my (long-awaited) wedding.

Cheers everybody, the sun is shining, the playground beckons!

(Originally published 3 April 2013)

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My next blog was a work blog – it was more like an online newsletter actually – I scoured the teams for articles, reviewed them and posted them. To be honest, it was all rather dull though, full of fellow employees bragging about their successes or telling us what IT certifications they had achieved,  yawn.

And so to this blog.  It will be a little bit personal (but never too much), sometimes informative, it will contain the odd tip or two, a few anecdotes with the odd surprise thrown in.  It’s a learning curve – so please do give your feedback on what works, what doesn’t, what you find interesting and what you would like to hear about.

Finally, why blog?  In this ever changing world, you need to stand out.  Think big, think blog.  What’s wrong with an old fashioned newsletter, or an email update, or why not rely on your website?  Well – think of your blog as a means of attracting new readers.  It’s amazing who can stumble across your blog via social media channels today.  Treat it like a live newsletter.  Use it to direct people to your website and vice versa.  You can use your blog to advertise your skills and expertise.  You can share your experiences, good and bad, personal and business.  A good blog with clever analytics and use of key words can show up in search engines.  A good blog is a pleasure to read and will encourage your reader to find out more about you.  Be consistent, post regularly and google will find you and like you!

Finally, a blog is quick and cheap to create.  Don’t underestimate its power, just make sure you invest time in it.

Happy Easter everybody, time to go and stock up on chocolate.

(Originally published 28 March 2013)

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