1. Virtual Working in theVirtual Working in the
2121stst
Century –Century –
for PAs and VAs alikefor PAs and VAs alike
Caroline Wylie,Caroline Wylie,
Founder of Society Of Virtual AssistantsFounder of Society Of Virtual Assistants

2. A little bit about me...A little bit about me...
• Background in music and advertising – worked for Sony
Music and AMV:BBDO in London and Euro RSCG Riley in
Glasgow.
• Lives in Glasgow with husband Craig, our toddler son
Cassius, and my beautiful Burmese cat, Princess Lottie.
• Started my own VA business in 2004.
• Founded societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk in 2005.
• SVA is the largest UK organisation of virtual assistants.

3. About you...About you...
Corporate PAsCorporate PAs
• Big business 250+ employees
• No influence over external departments –
finance / IT / marketing
• Looking to use tools to save time
SME PASME PA
• Small business
• Used to juggling many different roles
• Looking to make savings for the company
VA or Aspiring VAVA or Aspiring VA
• Escaping the rat race
• Setting up own business
• Looking for tools needed to run a VA
business

4. The aim of the game...The aim of the game...
Time is moneyTime is money
Yours
Your employers
Your clients

5. How do you spend your time?How do you spend your time?
Email
Chasing Accounts
WWILFing
Meetings
Being interrupted (phone/people)
Doing stuff you hate
Commuting
Average employee
checks their email 36
times an hour!!!
Average commute is 41 mins
(London = 71 mins)
Average number of meetings/month – 62.
31 hours spent in unproductive
meetings/month
Each phone call takes 15 mins to regain the level of
concentration you had before the interruption – 45 mins
for a personal visit.
Internet browsing costs businesses
£130 million a day in lost productivity
SMEs spend half a day each week
chasing late payments
20% of people are procrastinators – we
spend longer putting off the task than
actually doing it!

6. HOW DO VAS DO IT?HOW DO VAS DO IT?
Stay focused, make their time pay and juggle clients...

7. Remote WorkingRemote Working
☺ Have an office you can close the door
on
☺ Learn how to motivate yourself
☺ Childcare is not optional!
☺ Do get dressed every morning
☺ Leave the house occasionally

8. ObjectionsObjections
Your house could burn down
They don’t know who else is in your
house/office/workspace
Confidential data might be stored on
your computer and not disposed of
properly
Your motherboard could melt
A river could flood your house
You could get burgled
You might send a confidential file to
another client by accident
They might be punished for your
security lapse – e.g. Spam attack,
virus, hacking
They might need a file in the middle of
the night/when you are on holiday/when
you are off sick
Who is running your cloud system? Do
they comply with UK law?
☺I have off site automated back up
☺I know what responsibilities I have under
UK Data Protection Act and have systems
in place
I need someone to
make my coffee!!!

9. Remote WorkingRemote Working
• One system only which is securely
backed up and which everyone has
access to... Working remotely should
be as easy as wondering past your desk
in the office for a file!
• Get into the habit of checking in
beginning and end of the day to do a
handover.
• Delight your clients – pop in to say
hello, post them sweeties, make sure
you ask about their dog...

10. WITH FUNDAMENTALS INWITH FUNDAMENTALS IN
PLACE...PLACE...
What happens day to day?

11. Zero Inbox StrategyZero Inbox Strategy

12. Email ManagementEmail Management
In response to our heavy workload and an ongoing commitment
to quality, e-mails are checked daily at 10am and 4pm GMT.
This enables us to work efficiently for all our clients.
When a client purchases an hour’s worth of services, they get
each and every one of the 3,600 seconds of it.
If your message requires urgent action, forward it to our
urgent mailbox XXXX where it will be dealt with in a timely
manner.
Autoresponders

13. Email ManagementEmail Management
Delay delivery Calendar/task list
Mail merge Synch with
SmartPhone

14. Meeting CrackerMeeting Cracker
Schedule a phone call first
Discuss what the meeting will involve and what you need to put on the agenda
Offer to send information or resources via email/courier
Decide if the meeting is still necessary...
Have the meeting at your premises – saves on travel time
Send agenda through in good time
Day before: check they are still coming
Set up a digital recorder at the meeting – have everyone introduce themselves
Keep track of time allocated to each topic
Use Skype, GoToMeeting or other webinar/online workspace to have the meeting instead.
Post meeting, send meeting recording out to be typed onto your minutes template.
Put actions into a calendar and activate email reminders.

15. Phone NinjaPhone Ninja
Divert to answerphone
Use VOIP to
reroute calls
Ringtones forspecial people
Ask people to
send an email
Autoresponder
routing

16. TIME TRACKING CRM/ MARKETING/ PROJECT MANAGEMENT/ CALENDARS CONFERENCING
Hour Guard SmartStamp online postage Go To Meeting
Myhours Team Viewer shared workspace Hightail
My Roster Plaxo – address book Webex – share desktop/PC screen at meetings
Paymo.Biz Capsule
14 Dayz SmartSheet – Project management SURVEYS
HoursTracker Zotero – research saving WooFoo
Minutedock Constant Contact Survey Monkey
Getharvest.com SugarSync Jotform
Toggl Trello
Freshdesk support desk email software COMMUNICATIONS
ACCOUNTS TeamworkPM project management Skype
Xero Google Calendar to sync with client diaries Rebtel – Cheap calls to overseas
Quickbooks Asana – Teamwork without email Yahoo messenger
Quickfiles Hootsuite Voipfone
ExpressInvoice MailChimp IP phone forwarded to mobile
Creation of own client worksheets Evernote and Evernote Premium Callagenix
Kashflow OneNote Outlook
Sage Pay Basecamp
Worldpay Qinec Touch – Practice management software AUDIO TYPING
Gocardless – Direct Debit provider Highrise Start Stop transcription software
CleanersMate – Carpet and Upholstery Industry Olympus
BACKUP TriggerApp WAVpedal
Norton Zone Eline – online booking system for Property Management Turbo dictate to convert DS2 files for Express Scribe
Skydrive Insightly – PM linked to Gmail NCH Doxillion Document Converter
Carbonite Boomerang – scheduling emails Express Scribe
Livedrive Gantter NCH Switch Sound File Converter
Cubby Hollycroft – form filling, job management, office letters
Dropbox Eventbrite GRAPHICS/FILESHARE/CONFERENCING
iDrive – for PC/Mac online back up Pdfjoin.com
Private Virtual Network SOCIAL MEDIA Wetransfer.com
Spideroak Twitonomy Sharefile
LogMeIn – remote access desktop Hootlet Picmonkey
GoogleDrive Bufferapp.com Animoto
Raven Tools EchoSign
GADGETS FanPage Karma Adobe Professional
Scanner MailChimp Ipiccy
Flex design tablet Woobox and Shortstack for Facebook tabs Presentamedia
CamScanner Hootsuite and Hootsuite Pro PDF Creator
iPhone scanning app Facebook Pocket – save for later App
Creation of own templates for each client Feedly – organisation of news feeds and delivery to one place
Magnetic postcards – more effective than small
business cards
Scoop.it – discover and share content LeechBlock/minutesplease.com/Productivity Owl for Chrome:
Blocks or restricts access to time wasting sites.
Treadmill Desk
Tools to help...Tools to help...
From
UK VA survey

17. Great book...Great book...
• “Escape manual” for employees
• Excellent time management

18. GET THE SLIDESGET THE SLIDES
www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk