Category: Home working

Virtual PA services have revolutionised business support. One of our most popular services, we believe using a remote PA is a cost-effective, efficient solution. However, we also know that it can be hard to break away from the traditional idea of an employed PA. That’s why we’ve put together our top reasons why working with a virtual PA is as good – or better – than the traditional model. Read on to find out more.

1. A close working relationship

Recent tech advances have changed the way we communicate with colleagues. In addition, working from home some or all of the time has become the norm, meaning we’re often in a different location from our team members. What we learn from this is that it’s completely possible to have a great working relationship with someone even when your desks aren’t side by side.

Get Ahead helps the working relationship get off to a good start too. Our regional directors (your first point of contact) will spend time getting to know you and how you work. With this information, they’ll choose someone to support you who has the right personality match and who’ll thrive in the environment you’ve created. This will help your new working relationship develop all the closeness of the traditional version.

2. Advances in communication technology

Your virtual PA can work with you as smoothly as if you worked in the same office, thanks to platforms like Zoom, WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams. Faster internet speeds make real-time interactions easier too.

3. Changes in the PA role

The role of the PA continues to evolve. Advances in tech clearly help this evolution (see above) but there are social factors at work too. With many businesses having a flatter hierarchy than they used to, PAs are less of an extension of the boss, and more of a responsible team member. This means that the modern PA role is easier to do remotely than its former incarnation. It’s time to let go of the old-fashioned image and see the situation as it is in the 2020s.

4. UK-based support

If you choose virtual PA services from Get Ahead, your new assistant will be based in the UK. This means you’ll be in the same time zone, making it easier to coordinate tasks, diaries and meetings. Most of our virtual experts have English as a first language, so you won’t encounter the language barrier you might if you used an offshore solution.  

5. A cost-effective solution

The bottom line is nearly always costs. When you use virtual PA services, you only pay for work completed. This means that if your business only needs support for a few hours each week, that’s all you have to pay for. There are also no recruitment costs, pension contributions, sick pay or holiday pay – you don’t even have to provide coffee!

Virtual PA services from Get Ahead

If you think your business could benefit from virtual PA services, we’d love to hear from you. Your local regional director will take time to find out how you work, so they can match you with the best business support expert for your needs. And if you’d like to see how this works in practice, read our case study here.

Virtual PA services have both similarities and differences from the traditional PA model. Unfortunately, some business owners are reluctant to sign up for support from virtual PA services because they don’t know what they can reasonably ask their virtual PA to do. This means they’re missing out on some great support.

If you’re wavering about taking up virtual PA services, you’re not alone. To help you, we asked one of our virtual PA’s Juliet to talk us through the top tasks her clients ask her to do. We’ll also take a look at more unusual tasks and how to go about finding the right support to deliver them. Read on to find out more.

Top tasks for virtual PA services

Email

Juliet: Email monitoring is one of the biggest areas of my role. With hundreds of emails arriving every day, it can be difficult for business owners to pick out the most important ones. That’s why I manage client’s inboxes, monitoring the emails to make sure that the right people see the most important messages and action them.

I keep my own records as well. If I notice an important email has not been actioned, I follow up with the recipient so it doesn’t go unanswered.

Initially, I send holding emails in reply so the sender knows their email has been seen. As time goes on and I get to know client’s businesses and how they work, I can reply to some emails myself, taking the pressure off the core team.

Outsourcing email monitoring means the clients can focus on their core business, confident that there is a VA looking out for the most important messages and taking the pressure off.

Accounts

Juliet: Having worked with a number of clients, I’ve got to know different types of accounting software! This helps me slot into a new business easily, and makes me more confident about taking on a new accounting platform. I enter the right data into the platform and chase and reconcile invoices.

Many business owners cite finance as their weakest area – if you hate it, you’re not alone! Fortunately, outsourcing means invoices can be reconciled more quickly and business owners don’t have to worry about it.

Reporting

Juliet: Many of my bigger clients have boards of trustees who have oversight of the business figures. Part of my role is to assemble quarterly reports, pulling together information from other sources so the trustees have an accurate picture of the business.

Preparing for board meetings can take up a lot of precious time. Fortunately, outsourcing the quarterly reports gives you that time back.

Events

Juliet: I often organise events, training and conferences for my clients. I’ve built up my own directory of venues and other services to help the practical side of business events run smoothly.

I love being able to share my established contacts with my new clients. Because I have worked with many different businesses over the years, I’ve developed a network of events contacts which I use to support my current clients.

What about other business support?

Get Ahead has a wide range of virtual experts. Even if you have tasks that fall outside virtual PA services, we have the expertise to deliver them. For example, we might match you with Juliet (or someone with similar skills) to put together a conference or stay on top of the emails. And if you have other jobs, like developing a new website or marketing a new product, other members of our extensive team can help. Even if you have more unusual requirements, like collating notes from a workshop, we hope you’ll come to us – we can always find the right support for your needs.

Virtual PA services from Get Ahead

Our team provide back-office support so that business owners can focus on their core offering. And without having to spend their evenings catching up on paperwork, business owners regain the free time and flexibility that they were looking for in the first place!

Want to find out more about virtual PA services? We’ve put together some of our resources to help you – have a read!

One generalist or a team of specialists? – Get Ahead VA

Don’t know whether to outsource? – Get Ahead VA

A hand-picked team for your business support – Get Ahead VA

Hut22 – a flexible solution for a changing workload – Get Ahead VA

If you’re full of plans but think you might struggle to execute your business idea, don’t worry – Get Ahead are here to help!

Christmas is a great time to reflect on the year just gone, and identify profitable areas for the year ahead. If you spent Christmas dinner bending your family’s ears about your new business plan, your new year’s resolution is probably to put it into practice.

In this blog, we look at why it’s great to have new ideas and how to get the right support to put them into practice.

New business ideas are great!

The Get Ahead team are always meeting entrepreneurs and start-ups. We’ve heard some fantastic ideas and we love the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs when they describe their plans.

Without new ideas, the world would grind to a halt. From the wheel to the internet, new ideas have continued to drive civilisation forward, creating new opportunities and new approaches to business and everyday life.

That’s why you should never stop having ideas. Even if you know your limitations, or you know what barriers stand between you and how to execute your business idea, don’t worry. There are loads of resources out there to help you fill in the gaps and realise your dream.  

Barriers to putting your business idea into practice

You probably already know that nothing worth having comes easy. There might well be barriers between you and a successful business idea. For example, you might have had a cool idea but you’ve never run a business before. Or you might be so fizzing with enthusiasm that you’re struggling to focus on writing a business plan to secure the right start-up funding.

Alternatively, you might know your own field very well, but feel less confident about the other aspects of a delivering a project.

Some people are starters and some people are finishers. The starters are often bubbling with ideas, while the finishers are focused and methodical. The business world needs both types of people, and they have to be prepared to help each other.

How do you get over these barriers? Well, we’d suggest taking some time to be brutally honest with yourself. Accept that your business idea will need some hard work as well as enthusiasm. Identify what skills you already have available to you and be prepared to recruit or outsource the other areas.

Plug your skills gap and execute your business idea

If you’re a starter, you probably need some finishers around you to help you make your business ideas reality. Your best mate might be really supportive, but if they’re too similar to you, they might not help you move your project forward. Sometimes it’s better to choose people who are focused on the bottom line, who are not emotionally involved with the plan and simply want it to work for the sake of business success.

Practical support for start-ups

If you need practical support for your start-up, Get Ahead can help. Our team are all experts in their fields, including finance, marketing, admin, and social media. We can put sustainable systems in place, like setting up customer relationship management software and creating spreadsheets for you to populate.

We insist that every team member has at least three years’ experience in their field before they join Get Ahead. Many have more than three years! This means that if you get your business support from us, you’ll be working with someone who has not only built up experience in their particular skill, but also has wider business experience to share.

If you’re starting a business this January, Get Ahead could be the support you’re looking for. We strive to bring maturity, experience and perspective to every project, filling in the skills gaps and to help you execute your business idea.

To see how this works in practice, learn how we filled in the gaps for a team of cutting-edge software developers who needed help to market their latest product. Read our case study here.   

Our telephone answering service is UK-based support for your business. One of our most popular services, we provide call answering for a wide range of clients. Some only use us once a year to cover the telephone answering while they’re abroad. Others use Get Ahead for other services and bolt on telephone answering when they need it.

In this blog, we look at how an outsourced telephone answering service can help your business and how it works in practice.

How does a telephone answering service help your business?

The invention of smart phones means that fewer people need an answering service than in days gone by. But telephone answering is still an essential business tool, particularly if you’re a solopreneur or work alone. Yes, you can answer your phone while you’re on holiday, but what if you’re swimming in the sea, meditating on a retreat or screaming on a roller coaster with your amazing family?! A proper holiday is one where you don’t take work calls. You need to recharge your batteries and reconnect with both yourself and the people you care about. Ultimately, it helps your business too. When you go back to work refreshed, you’ll be able to give your business and customers the attention they deserve. This will often translate into business growth. Trust us, breaks are important!

So, what you do you do instead of answering a work call? You don’t want to just leave your customers a recorded message. Quite frankly, it’s not good customer service. It’s impersonal and one message might not fit all callers. If your customers need reassurance, there’s no one to give it. And if disaster strikes, you won’t hear about it until you get back.

But a UK-based telephone answering service offers a better solution. The call will be answered by a real person, working as an extension of your business. They can take messages and provide reassurance that you will deal with the query on your return. They can defuse difficult calls and – if necessary – contact you to report emergencies. How does a telephone answering service work? Our telephone answering service works like this. If you’re new to Get Ahead, contact your local regional director here to get started. And if you’re an existing Get Ahead client, just get in touch with whoever your usually deal with! The regional director will take details about the duration of your holiday, what you would like the call handler to say and any other action they need to take.

Then you simply divert your work phone number to our call centre (don’t worry – it’s very easy and you’ll receive full instructions!). Our call handlers will answer the phone with the name of your business and whatever professional greeting you like to use. They will take messages, and when you return to your desk, the messages will be there, waiting for you.

PS – going on holiday tomorrow? Don’t worry – we can get you set up with our phone answering team in as little as 24 hours!

If you’re researching franchises and considering Get Ahead, you might have noticed that we’re a really supportive team. Helping each other out and not competing for clients is an important characteristic of a Get Ahead franchise, and one that’s only possible because our franchisees pull together. At Get Ahead, you get out what you put in.

Let’s take a closer look.

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What does “choose your own hours” look like for a Get Ahead franchisee?
All the support and none of the targets

Get Ahead’s regional directors have the freedom to work as much or as little as they like. This because, unlike other franchises, they are not given targets.

When Rebecca Newenham first founded Get Ahead, she wanted it to be flexible so that regional directors and team members could have work life balance the freedom to adjust their priorities if needed. That is why she doesn’t set targets – she just gives loads of support instead, exactly the right kind of motivation for the business to grow.

A scalable business model

One of the reasons Get Ahead regional directors can work flexibly is that the work is scalable. Each RD is a team manager for their local team of virtual experts. The virtual experts deliver the work for the clients, whether that’s social media management, admin, marketing or something else.

The franchisee does not need to deliver work themselves – instead, they can spend their time connecting clients with team members or building their networks. They can push themselves and become a local business support hub, accepting every job because they know they can outsource it to the team. Or they can limit their client base, maybe to manage their own workload or because there’s something happening at home which has to take priority.

What could choosing your own hours mean for you?
The best of both worlds

Choosing your own hours means the best of both worlds. You can lead your team and run a thriving business, working for yourself but not by yourself. But you can also have a happy family life, with the flexibility for hobbies and lunch dates. Our franchisees find ill partners and school snow days less stressful to deal with too!

Work life balance

When work and life are truly balanced, they should each be important and each fulfil you. A true balance is difficult to find, but we believe our flexible model comes very close.

A healthy attitude to work

Bags of stress and fifty-hour weeks are bad for us. So is measuring our worth only by how hard we work. Fortunately, choosing your own hours means you can nurture a healthier attitude. You’ll have time to exercise both body and mind. You’ll have time to spend with the people who bring out the best in you. You’ll have time to be a hand-on parent instead of being the one who’s always late for school pick up.
With more balance and less stress in your life, you should be able to keep things in proportion. We’ve seen this translate into working more effectively, and having fewer parental meltdowns too.

Become a Get Ahead franchisee

Rebecca founded Get Ahead to provide flexible support for business owners…and flexible opportunities for team managers like you. If you’re looking for a better work/life balance, we could be your next career move. Contact Rebecca to find out more.

Networking is a key part of the franchisee role when you join Get Ahead. It’s an important way of finding new leads and building lasting working relationships.

In this blog, we look at why networking is such an important part of the franchisee role. We also share our tips for successful networking. Let’s take a closer look.

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Social media is a fantastic marketing tool, but it’s not without its downsides. Many business owners struggle to find a balance between maintaining their presence online and managing their time. Could the decision to outsource social media be the right one for you?

Let’s take a closer look.

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We are very proud of the flexible opportunity we offer our franchisees. Everyone works better after they’ve taken a break, whether it’s a fortnight’s holiday abroad or lunch with a good friend.

When you join the Get Ahead family, you are free to work in the way that suits you. However, if you’re used to nine-to-five, managing your own hours and your own holidays can seem daunting. Fortunately, our franchise model works means you can take holiday without your business grinding to a halt.

Here are five ways to manage holidays when you’re a Get Ahead franchisee:

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IT breaches are nearly always serious. No business can afford to compromise data security or risk losing trade because of a computer virus.

In this blog, we look at some of the ways businesses of all sizes can protect their computer systems from hacking, data breaches and other problems. Some of these responsibilities are for management; others are good habits that everyone should get into.

IT responsibilities for management

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