On the 12th February 2011 Tamara took part in the Cambridgeshire Business Mums Conference and ran a workshop called “Low Cost High Impact Marketing”. Many delegates attended this break-out session, you can see the presentation slides below.

The workshop looked at the following topics:

If you attended the session please post your comments and feedback below.

If you are working on your own, you will often have those frustrating moments, when you are busy getting the work done, trying to concentrate, and your phone rings. Do you answer and lose the moment? Or do you switch it off to go to voicemail? It’s even worse when you are attending a business meeting, the phone rings and you think it may be a new potential client. Can you afford to miss this lead?

That’s why many small business owners use one of the 3 types of business calls delegation: call answering, call handling or call managing.

Call answering is the simplest and the cheapest form of virtual reception. Usually it’s handled by teams of people so that there is always someone available to answer incoming calls. Call centres have advanced IT systems installed, that tell them in an instant which company the call is for, how they need to answer it and how to pick up a message. The conversation will go something like this:

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Unfortunately even today many small businesses I meet at networking events and online believe they have to do everything themselves in their business. Many are concerned they can’t afford the cost incurred with employing others or don’t know how to manage the staff. However instead of hiring someone full or part-time, outsourcing can be time and cost effective, allowing you to work on what you do best. Outsourcing business administration tasks lets you devote time to marketing and advertising, enabling you to generate more sales, more business, talk to more clients – activities that bring more value to the business.

You should definitely consider outsourcing vs do-it-yourself when:

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With us being nominated for the Virtual Business Awards I was thinking recently about the way we have come since November 2007.

It’s been 3 years and just how much I had to learn! Running a small virtual assistant business is nothing like being employed in the City. When you are employed you:

1. Typically work for 1-5 people, same people, day after day (unless someone changes job or is made redundant).
2. Deal with the same workload:email, diary, paperwork, meetings, projects, travel, a few conferences thrown in here and there, a few purchasing orders to do… OK it does vary a little based on the department you work in, but the core of PA tasks will be the same wherever you are.
3. Start and finish at a set time, have (at least in theory) a lunch break, water cooler moments.

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After the first 3 years in business (and what a great time we had along the way!), we are so proud to announce that TJConsulting Virtual Assistance have made it through to the final round in the Virtual Business of the Year Awards 2010.

It is a great achievement for us to be nominated and we would be grateful if you could support us. Voting is very simple and literally takes 2 seconds of your valuable time by following this link and clicking the VOTE button:

http://www.vbawards.com/2010/11/tjconsulting-virtual-assistance/

There are no forms to fill in, no registration and no personal details to disclose. It really is simple!

Who should be the Virtual Business of 2010? PPH are looking for “rewarding, young, fledgling companies that make progressive use of the web and technology in the way they operate, innovate and compete, looking for companies that can demonstrate how they have used the web in innovate ways to remain lean, efficient and competitive.” And we absolutely stand by every single word in that statement.

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