Use The Power Of Love In Your Business

With Valentine’s Day due in a couple of weeks it can be a good method of brightening up your business mailing messages or even your marketing in your business. 

The Dogs Trust have previously sent out Valentine themed mailshots with themed stationery showing messages “Small Dog Seeks Big Love” and “Be My Valentine” backed up by some very cute pictures!

You could adapt some of your mailings around a Valentine theme or have a promotion with a special offer ”With Love To Our Customers”.  Need referrals or new customers?  Send a note to existing customers with the message “Treat Someone You Love” offering a discount or special offer for any new customer they refer.

For personal Valentines – do you know about The Loveland City in Colorado in USA?  Every year a volunteer staff group hand stamp envelopes with a special message which also carry the official Loveland Post Mark.   You send your card and envelope pre-addressed in a larger envelope.  The envelope with your card inside is then hand stamped with the special message and the Loveland Post Mark and sent on its way to the lucky recipient!  For more information visit the town’s Chamber of Commerce website who organise this annually – http://www.loveland.org/ValentineProgram

As ever if we can be of help in your business let us know or should I say Your Admin Assistant would love to help!

New Year Blitz

Just like a diet this is the perfect time to blitz your admin, work schedule or spring clean your office.

• Take an opportunity to clear the clutter from your office and workspace.
• Buy some new filing and desk accessories to help you be more organised.
• Take a hard look at your diary and commitments and strive to save yourself some time – do you really need all those meetings or appointments?
• Brighten your office space with a new calendar, picture or stationery.
• Take a look at how you file or save things electronically, one of the biggest wasters of time is finding things on your PC.
• In fact take a look at some of the things you save both electronically and manually, do you really need to save it?
• Review how you work and your work/life balance – could it be better and what would make it better?  Having a chat to someone else can bring in new ideas.
• Email, texting, internet and phone calls – all forms of communication which lead to information overload and wasting of time – resolve to check or do these at specific times of the day, you will be surprised at how refreshed it will make you feel.
• Expenses, accounts, invoices are key documents, do you file and deal with these accurately and promptly?  Resolve to be financially healthier this year.
• Look at the equipment you use, would new equipment save you time – sometimes you think it might but the reality can be very different!
• Set yourself a personal work to-do list/plan for the year and set out a calendar of when you will do things to help you in your work, it could be looking at your CV, marketing, suppliers, overheads, equipment etc.

Whatever you do I wish you a prosperous and successful 2010!  If we can be of help with blitzing your work or admin please contact me.

Less Than One Week To The Big Day!!

Yes just under one week to Christmas!!  It is so exciting, especially with all the snow that has fallen this week making it took very festive. 

We intend to have some time out over Christmas but some of our clients will be working.  We have been very busy this past week and will be so right up to the wire at Christmas Eve as many of our clients want to be able to work on things between Christmas and New Year. 

Transcription is particularly popular although we have done last minute accounts, invitations and card sending, data cleansing, preparing announcements and news, gift finding and general running around (the ever popular saying – Can You Just….)           I notice some people are preparing their To Do Lists for New Year now!

Whatever you are doing find some time to enjoy yourself and here is hoping that Santa brings you lots of delights!

How Organised Are You With Your Time?

Following on from last week’s theme about diaries and planners, how effective and organised are you with your time?  Do you find you that some days are not long enough or that some of your time is wasted?

I was looking at a school pupil’s timetable this week and it highlighted to me how effective some of the scheduling is.  I remember from my school days we had proper breaks, lessons and activity sessions.  It breaks the day into different sessions allowing time for work, rest and play.   Which is something we can all perhaps practise and schedule our own days just as effectively allowing your work and leisure time to be much smarter and more enjoyable. 

Diaries, Planners and Calendars

Well it is that time of year again when you start using next year’s diary, calendar or planner.  Perhaps you can also take a look back at this year and see how productive you have been (or not!).

Is a hand written journal or electronic diary the best?  I guess it depends on how technically savvy you are.  For most people it is likely to be a combination of the two.  One client this year had 3 hand written diaries on the go!  Another had 1 electronic, 2 wall charts and 2 hand written diaries, one for personal and business.  They wrote up all the entries in all of these 5 places.  A lot of entries going on there!

I think the best perhaps is electronic and then have a weekly wall planner pinned up either at your office or at your home.  You can print off the electronic version at the start of each week and Microsoft Outlook has a good calendar section which you can also colour code if you wish.   But it does depend on which will work for you best and which will be easiest for you to use. 

Some of the larger A5 style diaries can be quite stylish and perhaps inspire you to be more organised.  Whatever method you choose make sure you allocate leisure time as well as work time!

Send Your Christmas Mail With Style

Instead of using a regular stamp or the franking machine with your post this Christmas (business or personal) how about personalising your mail with Royal Mail Smilers?  You can add a photo, choose a stamp design, this is then printed for you by Royal Mail and the finished product is sent to you for you to use on your envelopes.  You can opt to just have a stamp design and no photo.  Not only is it a great way to cheer up that envelope but it can be a good marketing tool for business mail.  You can find more about them by using this link to the Royal Mail site – http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content2?catId=3800007&mediaId=3800008&keyname=SMILERS

As an alternative how about the Scouts?  In an earlier blog post I mentioned using your local scout group for card deliveries, it has official clearance to run a Scout Post Service and will cost up to 20p a card.   Ideal if you have lots of cards or mail to be delivered locally.

Whatever you do happy mailing!

Choosing A Professional Secretarial Service

I had a conversation this week with a business about what was different about us compared to hiring a temp?

Our focus is on the admin and secretarial service as a dedicated business resource and we work for a few hours or much longer depending on your project or requirements.  In some cases we have clients that started with us over 3 years ago.  But we try to establish a business relationship with our clients to provide a high quality service and become more of a business partner to you.  Additionally we only bill for time worked, not for any breaks, holidays, sickness, pension, NI – the list can be endless!

As we have grown and become more established our skill base has increased, we offer support for typing, data entry, invoicing, presentations, record management, newsletters, mailing services, event management, personal assistant, telephone calling, researching – our list seems to keep growing! 

We like to think we offer a service that provides real value – why not contact us to see how we can help you? 

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Then shall I begin………….No this is not Listen With Mother but it is about whether you are sitting correctly at your PC or Laptop.

I have been doing some work on my Laptop recently and found that I have had some neck strain because with a Laptop you have to look down at the screen.  It is not very ergonomic and then I discovered you can get Laptop stands which lift the screen to make it more user friendly.

You can also get Copyholders to hold paper next to your PC/Laptop on a stand or you can get a clip to attach to your PC/Laptop instead.  This will help when you are inputting information onto the PC/Laptop.  For your wrist when working with a PC you could also get a gel mouse pad to ease the strain.

Some of the ones to shop for are:

• Kensington Easy Rider Stand for Laptop
• Fellowes Easel Copyholder for your Laptop/PC
• Kensington Flexclip Copyholder for your PC
• Belkin Waverest Gel Mouse Pad

Of course you should also take regular breaks and if you can - do some neck and arm exercises to loosen your muscles.

Happy working!

Personalising The Display Name In Email Messages

When you add a contact to your email address book or send an email from your own account did you know you can personalise this in Microsoft Outlook?  So instead of using the same standard email that you are sending to or from i.e. instead of info@name.co.uk you could alter it so that it shows up as Comapny Name (for instance Your Admin Assistant) in the recipient’s in box.   Also you could alter the display name of the recipient so that it is more personalised when the recipient opens the email and sees the “To” field at the top.

To change it:

• For your own email account to change how your name is displayed in the recipient’s in box, go into – Tools/EMail Accounts/Change existing account/Change/ – then change the Your Name field.  Make sure the email address field however is fully correct.
• To change how recipient’s see their own name go into – Contacts/Choose the contact you wish to change/change the Display Name As field.  Again make sure the email address field is fully correct.

If you need help with this function please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Tackling Your Admin To Do List

Too may tasks on your admin to do list?  Feel you are stretched here, there and everywhere with no time for real work?  Here is a way of tackling them:

• First take a deep breath!
• Order them in priority – what needs to be done now, tomorrow or next week?
• Allocate the time they will take next to them
• Delegate what you can – either to a colleague, secretary or relative
• Draw up a schedule, could be handwritten, typed or a wallchart.  Microsoft Outlook also has a good electronic calendar, task list and reminder system
• Give yourself a little treat when you have completed a stage of them
• For the future allocate a little bit of each day to general admin tasks
• Look at ways of saving your time by delegating more if you can (ahem that is where we can help if you like!)
• Limit activities such as web browsing and email to a minimum, they can take up too much valuable time
• If all else fails go outside, take a walk, have a long break and come back refreshed.  Nothing is ever too important that it cannot wait for a little while!