How important are new customers to you?

Let me ask you a question. How important are new customers to you? If you say fairly important let me ask you another question. Do you have a website for your business? If your answer is no then I have some very sad news for you indeed.

Imagine my disappointment today when I pulled up a search engine and proceeded to search for gyms in my area and found that not one of them has a website to advertise their classes, equipment, opening hours, location, staff profiles etc.

The end result you may ask? Well, without the information I desire I'm going to continue attending my current gym (despite it not offering the aerobics classes I'd like) and the twenty odd gyms in my locality are going miss out on my custom. Makes you think doesn't it!

Time Intensive Tasks?

Do you have a few time intensive tasks laying around that you will one day get around to completing? If so have you considered delegation? That's right, farm those tasks out to someone who has the time and inclination to get them returned to you completed and formatted as you've always intended to do yourself.

Take for instance Michelle & Brett of Fakenham, England, both would dearly love to move to NZ, but with 2 school aged children they needed the peace of mind of knowing which schools their children would likely be able to attend upon arriving. That's where Simplicity VA Services came in. They simply asked Simplicity VA to research primary schools in the area that they would like to relocate to. Two hours later they had a detailed list of schools, their ERO results, location, contact details, websites and recommendations. From that list Brett & Michelle were able to make a selection of five schools and contact each school individually. Now that's smart delegation!

Go on don't be shy! Email us today to see just how much we can make your life easier!

Replying to Emails the Smart Way

Some times it is easier to illustrate how to do something by explaining how NOT to do it. Here is one example.

Bay of Plenty man John Middleton (and member of the opposing political party) emailed Micheal Cullen (New Zealand Labour Minister of Finance) to express his concern at the number of New Zealanders who are choosing to move to Australia. Michael Cullen replied rather abruptly as you can see.

Michael Cullens biggest mistake was replying within 2 hours and 59 minutes of receiving John Middletons email.

He received an email that lets face it wasn't particularly flattering and replied relatively quickly instead of spending the time formulating a more constructive reply e.g.

Dear Mr MIddleton

Thank you for bringing this article to my attention.

Yours sincerely
Michael Cullen

When it comes to Replying to Emails the Smart Way in this instance, the golden rule is don't reply to emails when angry, frustrated, hurt or insulted. Instead give yourself a cooling down period in which to formulate a constructive reply that may resolve or minimise the damage that can be wrought.

Mandy
Virtual Assistant
Simplicity VA Services
www.simplicityva.co.nz
Making Your Life Easier - Providing Administrative Solutions
Contact us today to obtain a free no obligation quote

Backpackit - Is Simplicity Itself

Do you have post it notes scattered around your office?
Do your 'To do lists' become start to cascade off your desk?
Have you got computer folders full of images with elusive names like 0034.jpg, 0140.jpg etc and no idea what the actual photograph is of?
Would you like to get organised?

If so then Backpackit may just be what you are looking for! It allows you to:

• Make To-do lists
• Organise photographs
• Set reminders to be sent to your cellphone via txt
  
• Keep a calendar
• Share pages with friends/family or colleagues and
  
• Store data
  

Embedded below is a podcast (approx 5 minutes long) which demonstrates the features of Backpackit


Happy Organising!

Mandy
Virtual Assistant
Simplicity VA Services
www.simplicityva.co.nz
Making Your Life Easier - Providing Administrative Solutions
Contact us today to obtain a free no obligation quote

Creating Tables in Microsoft Word

Have you ever wondered how administrators format documents for both practical and display purposes?

Chances are that a table has been used in the background of the document to align data. To illustrate just how this is done we we have written a tutorial entitled Creating a Table in Microsoft Word just for you!

Mandy
Virtual Assistant
Simplicity VA Services
www.simplicityva.co.nz
Making Your Life Easier - Providing Administrative Solutions
Contact us today to obtain a free no obligation quote

Mind Mapping & Radial Diagrams

Today's post is on two topics, the first being Radial Diagrams, of which I've used to illustrate the second topic of Mind Mapping.

Radial diagrams are typically used to show relationships of a core element and are extremely useful when you would like to present a concept to a large group of people by way of say a programme like Microsoft PowerPoint or GoogleDocs web based Presentation software.

As for Mind Mapping, the diagram above illustrates not only how to mind map but the advantages of doing so.

The above Radial Diagram was created in Microsoft Word (and can be created just as easily in Excel). To learn how to Easily Insert a Microsoft Excel Graph/Chart or indeed a Diagram into a Document visit Simplicity VA Services

Mandy
Virtual Assistant
Simplicity VA Services
www.simplicityva.co.nz
Making Your Life Easier - Providing Administrative Solutions
Contact us today to obtain a free no obligation quote

Work Life Balance IV - Photography

These delightful pieces of art were photographed on a recent trip to Taupo here in New Zealand.
I have provided a map showing exactly where Taupo is below the photographs for those not familiar with NZ.

View Larger Map

Blogging Inspiration

I stumbled upon a an article called 101 Great Posting Ideas That Will Make Your Blog Sizzle over at I Help You Blog and thought it was worthy of sharing with my blog readers.

With gems such as 'Change up your posting style (e.g., tutorial, reviews, etc.)', 'add to a list started by another blogger' and 'create a huge list of your best posts' Philip Liu certainly has some great advice to bring out the blogger in everyone.

Happy Blogging Everyone

Mandy
Virtual Assistant
Simplicity VA Services
www.simplicityva.co.nz
Making Your Life Easier - Providing Administrative Solutions
Contact us today to obtain a free no obligation quote

New Years Resolutions

I recently read the results of a small poll on New Years Resolutions with interest .

50% of people polled indicated that they no longer set New Years Resolutions to 'give up' vices like smoking or alcohol . Preferring instead, to resolve to achieve something for themselves in the coming year.

One person polled shared how she had taken an interest in gardening and turned it into a lucrative career by committing to studying horticulture the first year, article writing/journalism the next, photography the third year and finally editing the fourth year. She aims to write articles on gardens & gardening for syndication by the end of 2008. I found her achievements to be somewhat inspirational.

The reasoning behind this approach seems to be solid and is based on common sense, after all its far easier to take up a new pass time than it is to give up an old one.

Do you have any New Years Resolutions? I'd love to hear about them!

Mandy
Virtual Assistant
Simplicity VA Services
www.simplicityva.co.nz
Making Your Life Easier - Providing Administrative Solutions
Contact us today to obtain a free no obligation quote

A World of Colour Exists Out There

Colour (color), whether it be for interior design, business branding, website design or charts & graphs plays an important part in business marketing.

With this in mind I was delighted to find the following website called Instant Color Schemes which shares some fantastic colour combinations.

This particular site stood out to me because it provides each colours hexidecimal code. With colours broken down into categories that have names such as 'City Sidewalk', ''Elegant Opulance' and 'Red Hot Sun' you are bound to find a color scheme which appeals.

Happy viewing!