6 Reasons Why Implementing An Online Office Will Help Your Business – especially Now

Over recent years the many advances in technology have ensured that almost every aspect of running a business is now supported by an online system. Many of these online systems offer different versions that can be selected according to business needs and budget. These systems combine to create an online office and offer a powerful transformative effect for efficiently running business operations.

 

It’s likely that when you started your business you imagined yourself as the cool, calm, wonderful business owner, with everything organised and very little stress affecting you. You didn’t imagine that you’d be rushing around, stressed out and frustrated that you’re wasting time on seemingly unnecessary tasks. You have probably never considered your business being forced to shut down due to the situation like we all facing now.

When we are staying at home, have to work from home an Online systems, as well as hiring a brilliant VA could very much help you run a better business and restore your work / life balance, not to mention your original business vision and here’s 6 reasons why…

 

1 Increase Efficiency

If your systems aren’t working for you, it can feel like you’re working harder but not moving forward any faster. You end up with less earning time and less time to yourself to wind-down.

Streamlining your business to reduce inefficiencies and wasted time with readily available online systems means there’s no need to ‘reinvent the wheel’. A suitable process and system almost invariably already exists and can be integrated with your procedures to support your business, reduce your to-do list, increase efficiency and free up your time.

2 Free up Your Time

You want to be focussed on the income generating tasks and business strategy, not bogged down by the day-to-day management of your business tasks. You want to run your business, not have it run you!

With increased efficiency, your workload is reduced and a large amount of your time freed up. This allows you to better manage your time and focus on more important things, such as your clients and the wider business strategy, either that or some much needed time to switch off and de-stress.

When you add home-schooling that will be back after the mid-term your time will out of the sudden be even more precious.  

 

3 Improve Client Experience

Using online systems will help improve consistency in your business processes and allow you to focus on meeting your clients’ needs and expectations – so you can deliver a better experience overall, for instance through a service like Asana, which has been specifically designed to assist you with actively managing client experience via ticketed support.

 

4 Increase Your Profit

With a more efficient business, and the wasted time now freed up, you’re able to turn your attention to income generating tasks, your customers and business strategy and steadily increase your profits.

Always remember, an improved client experience also leads to more recommendations, increased sales and repeat business.

 

5 Build a Better Team

Using online systems you can outsource tasks to VAs more readily and are no longer limited geographically when it comes to finding the best resource for your business. You can take advantage of a global talent pool and collaborate online using communication and project management systems such as Skype, Asana and Active Collab.

 

6 Be Competitive

If your competitors are more efficient than you, there’s potential that you could lose business, for example they may be able to respond quicker to enquiries, or offer a better service to their clients. It’s important to continuously refine your systems in order to stay competitive.

 

So, now more than ever it is the right time to start to improve your business systems, engage the services of one or more VAs and get your office online today!

How a Virtual Assistant Can Help You Build A LinkedIn Strategy

How a Virtual Assistant Can Help You Build A LinkedIn Strategy. 

Do you have a specific strategy in place when it comes to
dealing with LinkedIn? It may be correct to say that a lot of small business
owners bypass this social platform altogether, but this is increasingly a
mistake due to the amount of work that the network itself has put in over
recent years. Now it makes a great deal of sense to spend time on building up
your LinkedIn profile and company pages, to say nothing of getting involved
with their Groups feature. Maybe you need to have a detailed discussion with
your virtual assistant who can operate your LinkedIn profile daily.

Even if you have a LinkedIn presence, how “fresh” is it?
Just take a look at your profile for example. How up-to-date is that
photograph? It’s incredible how many people use a relatively low-quality picture
that they just happened to have in a folder somewhere. It shouldn’t be understated
how important that first impression is and in this case your photograph needs
to be professionally composed and produced and show you in the best light
possible. If you are going to use LinkedIn to its fullest extent and are the
type of person to attend industry conferences, meetings or events then you want
to be instantly recognisable. Of course, you don’t have the time to talk to
every single person at such an event, but what if that potentially lucrative
contact happens to recognise you from the far corner of the room? Now you will
see just how important it was to update that photograph, after all.

Nothing stands still in life in general or in your business
world. Why is it, therefore, that people tend to leave their profile “as is”
for an extended period of time? LinkedIn itself has made some changes to the
makeup of the personal and company pages, and you should work with your virtual
assistant to ensure that your profile is adequately optimised today.

You may well find that you can use some good industry
buzzwords within the body of your profile to make yourself appear more relevant
within your industry. Don’t be afraid to blow your own trumpet here and
remember that your updates will be shared with the networks you belong to, so
long as your virtual assistant has enabled the appropriate setting within your
profile details.

We all know how important keywords are in our online world.
Do you have the right keyword phrases in your profile summary? Have a good look
at your skill set as itemised in LinkedIn. Are you missing out on search
exposure because you have less than a comprehensive set of skills listed? Keep
updating your profile headline often, and you will find that you have more and
more visitors to your profile; this can only be potentially lucrative in the
long run.

LinkedIn is part of a network of sites that your virtual
assistant must maintain for you including of course your blog and your website.
By keeping up to date, fresh and relevant within LinkedIn, you will be able to
grow your network, enhance your visibility and drive traffic to your commercial
sites.

How The VA Can Help You With A Technological Minefield

How The VA Can Help You With A Technological Minefield

 

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Why Virtual Assistants Are The Right Kind Of People

Why Virtual Assistants Are The Right Kind Of People

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How The Virtual Assistant Comes To The Business Owner’s Rescue

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Why Your Business Is More Virtual Than You Think Already

Why Your Business Is More Virtual Than You Think Already

Some business owners hesitate at the idea of hiring a virtual assistant. They seem to think that if they can’t physically see and interact with a business assistant that they don’t have any control for some reason. Isn’t it the case that a significant proportion of professional relationships in any niche these days can be considered to be “virtual?” (more…)