Laptops With Attitude

Dell will shortly be bringing out some new colours for their laptop range based on OPI Nail Colours with cool names such as Strawberry Margarita and Kyoto Pearl.  This is in addition to their current range of 200 other colours and interesting artist designs you can currently choose from.  Perhaps a Christmas present for someone or even for yourself to add a little style in your office.

If you wanted to be uber chic you could marry it up with one of the new Samsung Genio mobile phones which also come in a myriad of colours.

The links for both of them are:

Dell – http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/design_studio/en/us/design_studio

Samsung – http://www.samsungmobile.co.uk/mobile-phones/samsung-genio-touch?kind=latest

Adding Sparkle To Your Documents and Presentations

Holiday occasions provide an opportunity to add a little bit of sparkle to your documents.  Particularly for training sessions and presentations.  They can add interest and life to what otherwise can be something that is a little boring.

Halloween is one such occasion.  If you have a powerpoint presentation why not choose a Halloween theme?  The shops are brimming with decorations and gifts for Halloween.  You could use the gifts as handouts or have place cards that look a bit more interesting!

Need to display some posters round your workplace – why not choose a Halloween background to catch people’s eye.  Perhaps you have some clients or friends to mail, how about adding a theme to your labels? 

There are some templates to try on Microsoft Office – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/default.aspx

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween

National Customer Service Week Promotion

Further to my post last month this week it is National Customer Service Week (visit http://www.nationalcustomerserviceweek.com/Default.aspx for more information).

As a special promotion we are offering a 25% discount to customers for any bookings taken this week.   So if you need some secretarial or admin tasks doing please get in touch – we are happy to help.

What is your business going to be doing for the week?  Here are some ideas:

• Throw open your doors to your customers and invite them behind the scenes (our local council in Bradford is doing this)
• Conduct a survey with your customers asking them for their feedback on your service – you may be surprised by the results!
• Offer a discount or gift with purchases
• Motivate your staff with a promotion to encourage good service
• If you are a boss get back to the shop floor and interact with your customers directly
• Invite your staff to pitch ideas for improving customer service and implement the best ones (you could do a Dragons Den style to create a little fun!)
• Think of the customers in your business - perhaps other departments who are internal customers and deliver extra special service for the week
• Some of the best ideas come from children – invite their ideas and ask them to get involved
• Send out a special bulletin or newsletter about the week and highlight good service delivered in the past year
• Feedback is two way – if you are brave!  Tell your customers “What makes a good customer”
• For every 100th or 1000th customer (or pick a suitable number) award an on the spot prize
• Have a supply of gold stars in a central work area and ask staff to award the stars to other staff members when they spot good service
• Wear badges or T Shirts about the week to encourage awareness
• Display promotional literature about the week in your reception areas

Of course if we can be of help then contact us or if you have some ideas please post them here for other people to view!

Getting Your Finances In Order

Whether you are a business or a private individual it has never been more important to ensure your finances are in order.  Save the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves is one of the truest mottos there is.

We help clients issue invoices, chase payments and reconcile them.  We came across a recent web tool which perhaps is beneficial for individuals if you need that “kickstart” to improving your finances.  It is called PocketSmith and the link is at the end of this post.

It works like a web calendar and perhaps helps make the task of addressing your figures and finances a little more interesting.   You put in your scheduled payments, alter for special events, upload your accounts and it provides a forecast of how financially healthy you are looking.  It shows you the impact interest rates might have and it comes with interactive graphs to bring your figures to life. 

One of the things I like is how it demonstrates a year’s worth of coffee (or any other little luxury!) impacts on your figures.   Perhaps good for the diet as well!

The link to view the product is http://www.pocketsmith.com/

National Customer Service Week

National Customer Service Week is on 5th – 11th October.  It is a chance to celebrate good service within your business and useful for engaging with customers new and old about how you rate as a business and how you could improve.   It is also an opportunity to involve employees in a practical way.

There are some good ideas on the Institute of Customer Service Website – http://www.nationalcustomerserviceweek.com/Default.aspx  You can also register your business, receive a certificate to display and start the ball rolling with ideas and actions to make the most of the week.  Business at the moment is very competitive but doing something positive like this can give you that edge and certain je ne sais quois?  (And apart from zut alors that is about all the French I know!)

Office Boutique

I have always felt that a note to a friend, employee, customer or supplier is a really nice to thing to receive and even better if it comes with your signature and some hand written personal notes added.  It can get your message across in a personal and warm way.

With this in mind we have recently ventured into selling business greeting cards to help our customers to be more organised within the office at home or at their business. Our online shop is called Office Boutique and can be found at Etsy (the marketplace for handmade items). The shop site is www.officeboutique.etsy.com  We design and hand finish the cards. Please order via Etsy or get in touch if you require a customised item.

We will also be venturing into selling social stationery paper products and bespoke office stationery paper products for business, if there is something you would like us to source or stock please get in touch.

Happy Birthday PowerPoint – 25 years old!

PowerPoint has been around for 25 years as this interesting article from the BBC News Magazine Website shows

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8207849.stm

We compile some PowerPoint presentations for our clients and try to give them that extra polish.  As shown in the article PowerPoint is not universally loved and this can be because slides have too much text content.  The best PowerPoint presentations contain music, movement, video, images and minimal text.  Keep the text for your handouts (and hand them out at the end or in various stages otherwise your audience then start shuffling the papers of the full handout while you speak!)

The best presentation is where the focus is on the speaker and PowerPoint is there to act a backdrop highlight.  If we can help with any of your presentations in any way please get in touch.

Stylish Office Stationery

I am thinking of gifts in advance for Christmas (yes I know it is early but I also have to think for some of our clients as well!). 

I recently came across the stationery and paper product line by Cavallini & Co, a company based in San Francisco, USA who produce very stylish but functional paper stationery.  As gifts for clients/friends or maybe for your own personal use they create a striking impression.  Here is an image of one of their sticky notes which has a Paris design.

Cavallini Paris Sticky Note

You can see their full range on their website http://www.cavallini.com with details of where you can buy them (they don’t sell directly to the public).  Maybe selling stationery is something we should start to add to our service and product line at Your Admin Assistant?  We do currently source stationery for clients but perhaps it is something to consider that we sell direct as a stand alone service.

In the meantime I recommend a look at their product range, it will help you complete your admin tasks in a more beautiful way!

What Is In A Name?

In doing some work for a client this week I came across an intriguing business website called “Men With Pens” – www.menwithpens.ca Their main business service is copywriting which was started by 3 guys hence the title!

When I started Your Admin Assistant I wanted a name that customers would be able to quickly identify as to what we do, it has had this effect and I think we have gained business from it.  There is however one downside and that is because of the name we are generally towards the bottom of any directory listing!

I remember I also considered Your Perfect Secretary however I decided against this idea.  After all we are all human and the odd error could happen and I can just imagine the conversation from someone to me, if an error did occur, along the lines of “I don’t think you are my idea of a Perfect Secretary”.  Not much escape from that is there when the call comes?

Finally another website I came across over a year ago which has an interesting name and has quite a cult following particularly in the US  – www.cookingforengineers.com  It is a fascinating and informative site for anyone who has an analytical mind and likes to cook hence again the title!  From time to time I myself like to visit the site for ideas and it has good reviews on kitchen equipment and tools.

Social Media Marketing

I went to a very interesting and informative training workshop run by Business Link who are very supportive of the business community.

The workshop was presented by Eskimo Soup, a web development agency on the range of possibilities available to businesses in social media marketing.  It primarily focussed on Facebook but also highlighted You Tube, LinkedIn, Discussion Forums and other relevant media networks.

One of the fascinating aspects of marketing through this media is of the low cost and the loyal base of customers you can build up and market to.  It does however require labour time and patience to start and maintain.  However some big businesses have benefitted greatly such as Pepsi Cola and Dell through their increase in sales.

One example I liked was that of a community pub which has ventured into holding Weightwatchers meetings in their function room.  The pub landlord then developed their food menu to include some calorie conscious meals, started a Facebook page for the pub and invited customers to visit and connect with the pub’s group on Facebook.  They then collected by permission from the customers their email addresses and every time they have a special event or offer at the pub they email all these customers.  It was highlighted they have collected 800 addresses and out of this they would generate around 5% of those customers taking up the offer and visiting the pub.  Not bad for marketing which is free?

Here is the link to view the slides from the training session:

http://issuu.com/eskimosoup/docs/online_social_networks_the_future_of_marketingfina