redboxoffice

Hi everyone, just a quick post to say I’m about to go on holiday.

But fear not.  This space will be taken up with some great guest posts from my on-line colleagues.

I hope you’ll stay tuned for insights in to social media marketing, admin tips how to’s and much, much more.

I’ll be back mid-September, with parents in tow, to a full in-box and exciting Autumn to look forward to.

Best wishes, beijos,

Emma.

You know, a Virtual Assistant (VA) doesn’t have to be for life.  We don’t even have to be just for Christmas.  That’s the beauty of working with a VA.  You can hire & fire at will!  Or rather, if you just need someone to answer the phone while you’re on the beach, we can be  there for you.

I’m sure this summer has seen more mobile phones, Blackberries & lap tops on the beach than usual.  Not only is the access to Wifi and mobile broadband more prolific, (so that if you REALLY want to take your work with you, you can), but companies are still working with tightened belts, which means a number of core services are having to be performed by the CEO.

By which I mean answering the phone.

I’ve never understood it myself.  Why would you take your work on holiday with you when there’s cost effective, efficient short term management services available?

1. How to avoid Sand in your phone – get a call answering service. If you want someone to take calls on your behalf, over a long or short term period, I wouldn’t necessarily hire Red Box.  Seems crazy to say so?!  Well, that’s because I’m a tad expensive for just that one off service. I’d use someone like the team at Diamond Secretarial who are really rather good.  If however, you are outsourcing other tasks, it is something I take on as part of a bigger package.  And how good are we?  Well, my friend Emma Brunton over at Emma’s House in Portugal on overhearing a conversation on behalf of a client I was having, said she “would be stoked if I was answering the phone for her.”  And that’s Aussie for really, really thrilled!
2. How to avoid sun glare on your lap top – get a email management service. You know you’re either going to have to check your email on a regular basis or your in-box is going to be more overcrowded than the beach.  Using your lap top is an option, but then there’s the sun glare!  You could of course do what I used to do when watching Wimbledon as a teenager and that is to build yourself a little house for your lap top.  A tad cumbersome as you may imagine on the beaches of Rio…  Alternatively, you could hire Red Box to check your emails, reply on your behalf and keep the business communication channels open while you’re falling of your surfboard.
3. How to avoid ice cream on your presentation to the Board – outsource the project. If there was one thing that you could do for work, but you just can’t get around to because of all the other ‘priorities’ you have, what would it be?  Set up a Twitter account, update your website, create a power point presentation…  Why not outsource the project in the knowledge that it will be completed by the time you get back from your vacation.

If any of the above rings a bell, ice cream van or otherwise, do get in touch.  I’m on Skype, too, if that helps.

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money.  Find out how working with a Virtual Assistant can help your business.

I have 2 x £100 holiday discount vouchers to give away*.

I will be putting names into a very large straw sun hat & pulling out 2 lucky winners on 3 August 2010.

Please email me at ecrabtree@redboxvirtualoffice.com with the subject ‘Holiday Discount.’*

Feel free to pass this on to any potentially interested friends & colleagues.

Best of luck!

Emma xx

* Terms & Conditions:
1.The discount vouchers have been issued by Glen Travel & are redeemable against selected tour operator packages, usually sold through ABTA travel agents in the UK.
2. All email addresses will be added to the Red Box Virtual Office mailing list.  I hate spam, I guess you do too! Under no circumstances will your email be sold or distributed to 3rd parties.  Even for £1m!!

We are really pleased to recommend Espaço Ávila.

Espaço Ávila provides physical office space for individuals and enterprises who don’t require full time, serviced offices for their business.

Located in central Lisbon,Espaço Ávila also provides a Customised Business Telephone Service, answering calls when there is an overflow at your company’s HQ, or filling the role of telephonist during holiday periods or other absences.

If you’re in Lisbon and looking for space to work for a few hours, or even a few days, Espaço Ávila can provide a calm and inspirational environment from which to work.

As part of an intergrated network of office space providers, Espaço Ávila can connect you with partners in cities such as London, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, New York and Rio de Janeiro, amongst others.

Contact Espaço Ávila for further details.

Are your website visitors just looking for product information or are they looking to spend their hard earned cash on your products and services?

An email arrived in my inbox this morning from Jonathan Ledger, who knows a thing or two about SEO, internet marketing and the tools for the job.

Today’s email took my interest as it was around the usefulness of key words and how you can manage their effectiveness.

MSN has this great tool which measures the commercial intention of your website visitors.  Or, in English, whether those people visiting your site are looking to purchase services/products or are just looking for information.

It’s called the Commercial Intent Tool.  Click here to go and see for yourself.

As the MSN site says, “This tool can detect customer intent to acquire information or to purchase products based on their search queries or recently visited URLs. For example, if a customer searches for “canon digital camera”, it is likely that they want to purchase a canon digital camera; therefore, the online commercial intent is strong, with a confidence level larger than 0.5.”

Times the 0.5 by 100 and you have a 50% chance that someone searching for “canon digital camera” is looking to buy.  Just enter in your key words, hit ‘Go’ and the results come up in a box below with their commercial or non-commercial intent rating.

I’ve tried this out with VA related key words and it’s very interesting.  For ‘virtual assistant’ the non-commercial intent value comes back at 0.56, whereas ‘virtual assistant services’ returns a commercial intent value of 0.61.  Those searching on ‘virtual assistant’ are more likely to be looking for information that those searching on ‘virtual assistant services’, who may be looking purchase my services!

Try it our for yourself and remember to use this great tool next time you’re working on your key words.

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree, Virtual Assistant and Chief Organiser, is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Return to the main website to find out more

This is an unadulterated plug for Amazon.  The UK arm of this multi-national have recently given me a refund, without me having to ask for it.

I pre-ordered a DVD for a friend’s Christmas present at price £X and it was sold to me at £X-£6.  And I got the refund without having to ask for it.

Very good customers sales.  They could teach Portugal’s Customs and Excise a thing or two…

I know that lots of you, like me, receive PDFs that need converting into a user-friendly format to edit and generally play with.

I understand why most of us only have Acrobat Reader, rather than the full software, but sometimes it’s a pain to reformat the documents.

After a tip off from a colleague, I used this site, convertpdftoword.net to convert a quite complicated PDF for a client.  Lots of text boxes, arrows, time-lines and the like.  Not something that I would want to have to start from scratch.

And it worked! It was fantastic.  Unlike other converters, all the text boxes stayed where they were meant to, it looks great and I can edit it and use the file in any way I wish now.  Truly brilliant.  I’m bouncing.

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Return to the main website to find out more

Recently I subscribed to the ezine from Ladies Who Launch, a website aimed at women who are starting or who run their own businesses.  Me!

I liked this article that came through recently  about how to market yourself when you business is a service rather than a product.  I will definitely be using Julie’s ideas and tips myself.

I receive PA Enterprise each month and I loved this article by JoAnne Scalise

Yo-Yo Management

What are you?  The yo-yo, the finger or the string?!

I’m forever trying different software that’s free to download, on a trial, but then not following through and buying!

However, Snag It is different.

I have a number of clients that need images and images manipulating for various things, but not so much that investing in Photo Shop, for example, would make sense.

Snag It from Techsmith is great software for copying images from just about anywhere on your PC, manipulating them,  adding text, putting on fancy borders and the like.  I was really impressed that non-techy me could use the software straight out of the box, as it were.

I’m so impressed, I will buy the software!

 About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Return to the main website to find out more