Writing articles can be assisted by your virtual assistant in several ways. By providing you with ideas for topics to write about and helping to draft articles, to researching and suggesting keywords to be used within the body of your article. They can help to create a byline that includes a call to action for your readers. Virtual support can proofread and then distribute online to the many websites that specialise in article submissions.

A good image to distribute with your article can be researched by virtual support. They can track whether submissions have been successful by using Google alerts and research other places which may accept articles.

A VA can use and re-purpose the articles into blog posts and extract links for social media updates. Using excerpts/clips from the article for Twitter updates and link back to the complete article, together with ensuring they are posted to all social media channels.

When assisting with press releases the same work can be done by your virtual assistant as that done for articles, ensuring the press release is sent to the right people and the most beneficial outlets, and in the mode that they are best received. Make sure that the articles or press release are easily read and reproduced. It’s of no use to you if all the hard work put into the work falls down because it is inaccessible for whatever reason. If the media require hard copy it’s not worth sending it by email as it may well be binned and not reach an audience at all.

Virtual support can contact and submit press releases to television, newspapers and radio. They can be responsible for submitting items of information to the same channels.

Using Google Alerts to monitor keywords and competition a virtual assistant can analyse the success of the press releases and help you to make the necessary changes.

Do you need help with articles, press releases or do you want to know more about Google alerts? If so, email us here, or telephone Tamara, on 0203 468 8594.

If you are unsure what you want to happen in your business and are feeling stuck, before you hire a Virtual Assistant, hire a coach or a mentor to help you define your business ideas and plans. Coached, or mentored, you can then hire your team to reach your goals, show them your vision and you will be able to work as a cohesive team, when you know where you are going.
Your coach or mentor, will help you clarify the things that you should be doing as an entrepreneur and the parts of the business your team will do far more effectively than you can, leaving you to do the things that you do best. Not only will they be efficient in getting the job done, it will also be more cost effective.

The best of both worlds comes from a team that is provided with a clear picture of your vision , who are then given the freedom to do the job to the best of their abilities.

Are you are afraid of taking the plunge because you’ve heard horror stories of Virtual Assistants leaving you in a mess, and you have no idea how to access the parts of your empire they have dealt with?

To avoid this happening:

It’s a mistake to carry on with something that is only OK, it’s a waste of their time and your money. Don’t settle for second best just because it’s easier. Your team should support your business, helping it progress and grow. If you have chosen your team unwisely, you can change this. Don’t expect things to get better until you have taken responsibility and made the moves necessary to remedy the situation, whatever that entails. Having a heart to heart with your team may sort things and give people the opening to either follow and really work with you at your business or take the moment to move on and find something else.

You don’t have to go it alone, there are many virtual support professionals available who can help you succeed in your business . Trying to do everything yourself is a recipe for disaster . There are people available to do all the jobs you hate doing, or the ones that take you such an inordinate amount of time to do, which would then allow you to get on with building your business while they take care of things.

Have you got the right team?
If you feel, or can say, that your team cares as much for your business as you do, you may well have the ‘dream team ‘.
With the right team in place it should give you the confidence that they understand what you want and they will make it happen. They enjoy what they do and share with you in the success of your business, proving with what they do, that they care about your business as much as you do.

For help and advice, email or telephone Tamara, on 0203 468 8594.

For any business to thrive they need a good support team in place. To keep things running smoothly your team need to be good at what they do and you need to be sure of them and know how to get the best from them . When you are employing the right people all is good in your world and you business will thrive.

Have you employed your Virtual Assistant and now don’t know what to do? If you are unsure of your needs before you hire you may end up with the wrong person for your business. Choosing someone needs to be based on what they can do for your business and if you haven’t a clear idea of what you want them to do, then your ability to choose the right person for the job is made more difficult. Likewise, if you are unaware of the capabilities of a Virtual Assistant, you may be looking at a work load that you think you need to do, when in fact the work load is better managed, and more efficiently done by a Virtual Assistant.

Your team that you employ need to be given a clear picture of what you see as the future of your business, what you want to see happen and where you want to be. If they know and understand your vision they can apply their knowledge and ability to help you reach your goals.

For your team to be able to achieve this, they need to be aware of the ‘big picture’ and will be working at a disadvantage if you expect them to gain this knowledge by mind-reading or ‘osmosis’. Don’t hire a team and think that all the work is now done. You still need to share with them and keep them updated on changes that could affect your vision. The inability to share the knowledge with your team will lead to frustration for them, and could lead to an incorrect decision being made. An error in judgement leading to a wrong things being done, result; a waste of time and money. The other scenario being no action by your team, again a disgruntled you and a frustrated team, twiddling their thumbs and again, a terrible waste of man power.

Have things run well for a while but things seem to have taken a backward step? Did you jump at the chance of hiring and made a mistake and hired the wrong person for the job? Or were you unsure of where you were heading? Before hiring, clarify where you are in your business and what you want to achieve. This gives you a basis for selecting the right people for the job.

For more help and advice, contact us by email or telephone Tamara on 0203 468 8594.

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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