Get Ahead VA Blog - Get Ahead VA

Outsource to a VA and reconnect with your “why”

Remember why you started your own business? It might have been because you’re a creative person and you recognised that you should be making a living from your talents instead of letting them stagnate. Or maybe you wanted the freedom to flex around the needs of your family, improving your work/life balance and being there for the people you love best. Perhaps hobbies or voluntary work are important to you and you wanted to be able to choose how you spend your time. Maybe it was just plain old maths – you realised you could make more from your profession if you worked for yourself than if you worked for someone else.

Whatever the reason you started working for yourself, it’s probably time to review the situation. Look back on that reason – your “why.” Then – if you’re feeling brave – compare that with reality. Be very honest and ask yourself some frank questions. Is running your own business giving you what you originally wanted from it?

Your “why” remains important – that’s what keeps you pegging away at your business, it gets you up in the morning and it is supposed to keep you focused. But if it’s getting lost in the drudgery of actually running your business, it’s time to find a different way of working.

Outsource to a VA

That’s where we come in. Outsource the tasks you don’t like doing, or the ones that take up too much time and keep you away from your core business. You didn’t become a graphic designer so you could spend your time cold calling possible clients – let us drum up your business for you! You shouldn’t stop baking with your kids because the phone rings – outsource your phone answering instead. And why are you messing around with spreadsheets when you should be engaging directly with clients? Ladies and gentlemen, there is a better way! By outsourcing, you can run your business in the way you always dreamed of. You can gain all the advantages of working for yourself and let a VA deal with whatever was holding you back.

Reconnect with your “why”

You know why you started your business and it’s time to get back to that “why.” Don’t let disillusionment take hold – instead, look to a VA to help you work more efficiently and even save money. At GetAheadVA, we have a huge team of VAs so whatever the task is that you need to outsource, we probably have a VA who can help.

Don’t know where to start?

If it’s all getting on top of you and you don’t know whether it would be more helpful to outsource your accounting or your social media, don’t worry – we can help. We’ve worked with many businesses over the years and we are very experienced at identifying what would help your business most.

To find out how working with VAs can help you reconnect with your “why,” running your business more efficiently and getting back all the advantages of working for yourself, talk to us today on 01483 332 220.

Meet the VA – Amanda Jones

Here at Get Ahead VA, our people are everything. Our ever-growing team includes a wide range of highly skilled professionals with different backgrounds, expertise and personalities to ensure we can find exactly the right virtual assistant to match our customers’ requirements.

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Digital detox for business owners

The idea of doing a digital detox – i.e. stepping away from technology to focus on real-life hobbies and in-person interactions – can seem challenging at the best of times, and especially so now, when we have even fewer opportunities for face-to-face quality time. But taking a digital detox could be even more important right now: since we’re being forced to spend so much time online, to do our work and stay in touch with our loved ones, the time we spend offline has become even more precious.

If you’re a business owner, you might be finding it particularly difficult to cut down on your screen time, as this may be the only way for you to communicate with your employees, network with others in your field, and promote your business to customers. After all, you can’t just put your phone in a box and stop checking your emails when you have a business to run! The good news is that a digital detox is still possible for you – here are some things you can do to give yourself a break from the screens, and to use them more mindfully when you need to.

1. Manage your notifications

You may have to be online during the day, but that doesn’t mean you need to respond to everything that happens right away. Part of the reason it’s so difficult to do a digital detox is that there’s always something new to look at – an email, a social media notification, a news bulletin – and you can find yourself reaching for your phone every time it pings.

The solution to this is to manage your notifications, so that when you do look at your phone or check your emails, it’s only for the most important things. Here are a few techniques you can try:

Turn off notifications for all but the most important apps. Emails and direct messages are probably important; up-to-the-minute news updates and notifications about live videos on Instagram are probably less so.
Silence your notifications outside working hours. Most email programs will allow you to set ‘quiet times’, so you won’t receive notifications once you’ve logged off for the evening.
Only check your emails or messages at certain times of day. You can keep your notifications silenced all the time and only read and respond to messages within half-hour windows in the morning and the afternoon.

2. Have fewer meetings

A big part of being a business owner is having meetings and talking to people. Perhaps pre-pandemic you had daily check-ins with your staff, or you went to networking events a couple of times a week – both of these activities can be moved online, but that doesn’t mean they should be done with the same frequency as you did them before. Video conferencing can be exhausting, especially when there’s background noise, technical issues and time delays, so it’s OK to adapt your strategy to match this new medium. Focus on quality, rather than quantity – one productive meeting in a week is better than daily chats where nothing gets done.

3. Outsource your work

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the amount of time you’re spending online, it’s OK to take some of that digital work off your plate and outsource it to someone else. Virtual assistants, like those at Get Ahead VA, can take on all sorts of jobs, including running your social media channels, managing your inbox, writing blog posts and email marketing campaigns, and managing your business website. Whether you need a week-long digital detox or just an afternoon off, VAs are flexible professionals you can hire as and when you need them.

4. Find offline hobbies

If you can’t escape the digital world during the day, at least make sure that when you log off for the evening, you really do log off. That means avoiding spending your evenings scrolling through Twitter or reading the news – instead, find some properly offline hobbies that will get you away from your devices, if only for an hour or two. This could be cooking, reading, drawing, crafting, going for a walk or a bike ride, writing by hand or dancing around your living room – it doesn’t matter what you choose, just make sure that you have one fun thing you can do without a screen.

To find out more about how Get Ahead VA’s team of virtual assistants can keep your business running smoothly during this tricky time, please give us a call on 01483 332220 or email us at office@getaheadva.com. We pride ourselves on being the staff you don’t see, but the difference you do.

Virtual conference facilitation on Zoom – a new service from GetAhead VA

GetAhead VA’s long-standing client, Shannon, runs a leadership coaching business. Long before the coronavirus pandemic, she had arranged an international, in-person, four-day conference with thirty delegates. When the global crisis threw a spanner in the works, she had no option but to hold the conference on Zoom instead.

Running a conference on Zoom has different demands from running one at a standard conference venue. While all the stress of catering and overnight accommodation disappears, different concerns about internet connections, hardware, software and real-time tech support present themselves instead. Shannon needed a virtual conference facilitator and we’re proud to say she came straight to us. At the time, our experienced VA Jenny Serra didn’t have direct experience of facilitating Zoom conferences, but she has used Zoom a lot and is one of our most tech-savvy VAs. She built on her existing skills and knowledge to deliver exactly what Shannon needed.

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Google My Business – what it is and why you need it

Google My Business is a great free tool to showcase your business, increase your online visibility and help improve your conversion rate. It’s particularly useful for B2C businesses, but B2B businesses will see advantages too.

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business (also known as Google Local and GMB) is a free digital marketing tool. You’ve probably used it before, maybe even without realising. When you Google for, say, “coffee shops in Guildford,” Google will show you a map of Guildford with labelled pins, and a list of the corresponding coffee shops.

To feature on the list, each one of these coffee shops will have created a Google My Business page and kept it up-to-date and accurate.

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The art of the pivot: How to be adaptable in business

Being able to ‘pivot’ is a valuable skill in business, and especially so right now, when the world is in a state of incredible uncertainty and changeability. If you’re not sure what pivoting is, there has never been a better time to learn about it, or to apply it to your own business.

Pivoting essentially means being adaptable – it means recognising that your business isn’t meeting certain expectations, and being agile enough to find a new way to do things in order to solve a problem or respond to a need. This could be a small change, a fundamental rethinking of your whole strategy, or anything in between.

Clearly the challenges of the pandemic and subsequent lockdown have made pivoting more important than ever, as businesses are having to learn to adapt to a situation that can change daily, even hourly. So if you’re keen to know more about how to master the art of the pivot, read on for our advice about nurturing adaptability in your business.

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Dealing with loneliness during lockdown

The UK government has recently introduced new guidance allowing people who live alone to visit and stay overnight with one other household, as part of a ‘support bubble’ during lockdown. This is good news for many single people in the UK, and an important recognition that one of the biggest side effects of the lockdown measures is loneliness.

Of course, you don’t have to live by yourself to be lonely – it’s perfectly possible to feel this way within a relationship or a family, or living with a group of friends. It’s important to acknowledge that loneliness is something everybody experiences from time to time, and it’s good to talk about it. So if you’re struggling with loneliness right now, here are some useful tips and resources to help you make it through.

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What we’re reading right now

Books can be a huge comfort during these turbulent times. Whether we’re reading to learn, to laugh or simply to escape, lockdown has given many of us much more time to read, and the Get Ahead VA team is no different. So if you’re looking for something great to read right now, here are some recommendations from us for brilliant reads we have loved.

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Tips for attending a virtual conference

Conferences are incredibly useful for all sorts of reasons – you can promote yourself, network and make new contacts, and find out about the latest developments in your industry. And although lockdown has put an end to most in-person conferences this year, many important events are still happening online.

If you’re planning to attend a virtual conference, it’s a good idea to be prepared, because it’s going to be different than you’re used to! The events might be pretty much the same, but you may find it tricky to get into the ‘conference mindset’ at home, so to help you out, here are our top tips for attending a virtual conference.

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Meet the VA: Beth Redpath

Beth is a strategic, yet operational, Chartered Marketer with a proven track record of delivering high impact go to market strategies that build brand awareness, drive revenue and deliver a return on marketing investment. She brings over 14 years’ B2B and B2C experience with a vast range of marketing skills.

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