How a Virtual Assistant could help with…your annual break
It’s that time of year when those of us in Australia are just about to start our summer holiday season. Last year at around this time I posted taking about How a Virtual Assistant could help with… your holiday preparations and earlier last year I did a post on How a Virtual Assistant could help with…travel both of these posts detail some of the things a Virtual Assistant can do to help you to have a stress free break.
Listed here are FIVE things you should definitely get your Virtual Assistant to help with so you can relax and have a real break:
1. Email
There are a few ways to handle email:
- An out of office message – although that will mean urgent issues are left until you return and clients with a genuine emergency may have major issues.
- An out of office message with a secondary email address for urgent queries – because what is urgent to some of your clients may not be urgent in the universe the rest of us inhabit. By having a secondary email address for emergencies with a message along the lines of “please contact my Virtual Assistant at awesome@superva.com if your query is urgent” will allow your clients to contact someone if they feel there is an emergency. Your Virtual Assistant will then be able to either solve the issue themselves, contact you if it is a genuine emergency or let the client know the issue will be worked on once you return.
- Give your Virtual Assistant access to your emails and have them flag non-urgent matters for your return and handle as much as possible. Pretty much the same as the above, except everything comes through to your Virtual Assistant and you come home to an inbox that’s relatively empty with items for you to deal with highlighted.
2. Social Media
Sure, you can continue to do a bit of social media while you’re away – but isn’t the point of a break to have a break? If you want to get away from it all, but still give your company social media exposure then you can develop a content calendar with your Virtual Assistant and get them to post some interesting articles, messages that you’ve pre-written, photos, seasonal wishes etc. And don’t forget to make sure your Virtual Assistant is monitoring all your accounts so they can let you know if there is anything that you need to deal with.
3. Seasonal messages
If you send your clients gifts or cards your Virtual Assistant can handle the purchase and sending of both. Your Virtual Assistant can make sure that your clients know when you’ll be away and what procedures are in place in case of emergency. Your Virtual Assistant can make sure your website, email responses and social media accounts are all updated with your holiday hours and make sure they’re removed once you return.
4. Point of Contact
Your Virtual Assistant can be a point of contact for clients, suppliers, co-workers, travel agencies and any other stakeholders who may need to contact you while you’re away. Your Virtual Assistant can probably resolve many of the “urgent” issues without disturbing you. That way anything that does come through to you will come with a full back story, details of what’s already been done and the possibility that you can solve it with a minimum of fuss.
5. 2012 Plans
If you want to hit the ground running in the new year – you should definitely have been thinking about your plans for 2012 already. Whether you’re just making a few small changes or even updating things such as your content calendars, marketing plan & business plan, or you are planning major changes for the upcoming year – it’s as good a time as any to get things documented and added to your corporate documentation. So get together those notes, ideas in need of further research and information sources and let your Virtual Assistant get them organised, collated and ready for your return.
So that’s my list, as always you should make sure you discuss the issues that worry you the most. There are no set rules, just discuss your needs with your Virtual Assistant and see what they can come up with to help you.
Have a wonderful break and best wishes for a prosperous 2012.
