Tag Archives: time

Do You Need a Social Media Manager?

If you are a small business owner,the answer is most likely …YES!!!

Let me present some reasons why …

People start their own business for a variety of reasons. They want to follow their dreams. They want to work in a field they are passionate about. They want to make a difference in the world. For many (me included), they want to be in charge of their own schedule … not be told what/when/where or how to do their work. They want to be charge of their own time, and since they will be the “Boss”, they would hopefully have more “free time”. Free time … what is that?

As a busy entrepreneur, you wear numerous “hats” on any given day. You are the head of the Marketing Department, the Accounting Department, HR, Sales … you get the drift, you are the one in charge of everything. Every business decision lands on your shoulders.

What they didn’t realize is how time consuming the “running” of the business would be. They want to spend their time doing the work they love. Sadly, many get bogged down by having to handle the administrative side of running a business.

That is where having a virtual assistant comes into play. Having a VA handle certain tasks frees up your time to concentrate on doing the things your love about running your business. Tasks that you are the best person to handle … things that grow your business and make money. One of the best business decisions you can make is to delegate / outsource certain tasks to a virtual assistant.

Well-informed small business owners know the importance of having an online presence in today’s high-tech, 24/7 world. Social Media Marketing is necessary for all types of business, large and small. The difference is the large corporations have a Marketing Department. The small business – not so much. Unfortunately for the small business owner, social media management is one of those (very) time consuming tasks. On the up side, social media management is a task that many small business owners delegate to their VA. Your VA will work with you to put together a workable strategy and schedule for posting on your various social media platforms. You will decide what content will be posted to each platform, as well as, the timing and the frequency. After you and your virtual assistant have come up with the best social media strategy for your business, you can then hand that task off to your VA, knowing your SMM is in good and capable hands.

Delegating the task of social media management (or a multitude of other tasks) to a trusted VA will free up some time that you can then use to tackle the other tasks on your to-do list ?

Remember, “help” is just a phone call (or text, or email) away ?

Save Valuable Time ~ Delegate Social Media to Your Virtual Assistant

Owning your own small business is very rewarding … and, at the same time, quite exhausting! There is never enough time in the day. It is very time consuming to create relevant content for your audience and/or find inspiring quotes and tips to share. Hiring a virtual assistant to handle posting to your social media platforms is the answer to having enough time to manage all the other aspects of running your business.

Of course, you may be thinking that the VA may post something you wouldn’t like and/or you wouldn’t have posted. You may be thinking the VA wouldn’t convey your company’s “voice”. As a virtual assistant, I spend time learning my client’s personality and company “voice” via scheduled phone or Skype calls. My clients provide me with content ideas and relevant articles to use as reference for creating industry related posts.

You may be thinking it will be expensive to delegate your social media tasks. It is money well spent when you consider the time you will be saving (time that can now be devoted to growing and building your business) by taking this task off your plate every day (and you should be posting consistently/daily). It will give you peace of mind knowing that your social media posting is being taken care of by a trained professional. Tracy Helps You offers Social Media Packages that provide a certain number of posts per month, as well as, managing engagement (likes, shares, comments & messages) with your followers on your behalf. Think of it as you would any other necessary expense for running your business.

You may be wary of completely outsourcing your social media postings. The good news is that we can work together in creating and implementing your social media strategy. Tracy Helps You can create and schedule the bulk of the posts and you can add some personal content type posts. You can also respond to comments and messages. Another great idea is to post Live Streaming video. This gives your online presence a face and a voice for your followers to connect with. Interacting and building relationships is the main reason to use social media as a business tool … it’s social 🙂

Save some valuable time by delegating your social media posting to Tracy Helps You … help is just a phone call away! Call now!

Managing Your Email Inbox

Email is a wonderful thing. It’s so simple to use for fast and easy communication. It’s convenient. It’s inexpensive. Nearly everyone uses it.

Email is a great tool, and like other types of tools, it needs regular maintenance. Without regular maintenance, it can quickly become out-of-control and over whelming.

As your Virtual Assistant, I will help you clean up your email inbox. I will help you organize and maintain your emails:

By “filing” them into their proper folders and sub folders. If you haven’t set up a folder type system yet, that would be one of the first things I would help you implement. When you have all the related emails filed together, you can easily find the one you are looking for.
By deleting unwanted emails and creating tighter spam parameters to prevent future emails from that sender.
By “unsubscribing” to emails that you legitimately requested to receive but no longer find helpful.
By setting up an auto responder for those times when a quick reply is not available. An “out of office” type of message would be sent out as soon as the email is received explaining when you will be replying to them and who can help them if their matter is urgent and needs immediate attention.

Tracy Helps You can save you valuable time by organizing your email inbox for you. It is one of the many types of tasks that can be delegated to your virtual assistant, so your time can be spent on the matters that demand your expertise and/or personal attention. Call soon to schedule your initial appointment, then we can start to help you (in this area, as well as, in others) 🙂

The Most Wonderful (aka Busiest) Time of the Year

The Holiday season is upon us, and it’s the most wonderful time of the year. There are so many fun things to do, like spending time with family & friends … traveling … going to parties … shopping … wrapping … not to mention, celebrating the actual Holiday.

All these things are wonderful, but can also be stressful. Adding these fun activities to our already busy schedules can sometimes feel overwhelming. You are only one person, and you only have so much time. It’s the perfect time to have a Personal Assistant !! Continue reading →

Reminiscing About My Very First Blog Post

For some reason, I’ve been feeling kind of nostalgic this week. I’ve been looking through old photo albums and reading stuff from my old journals and day planners. I’ve found that reminiscing can be a double edged sword; you get the happy with the sad. Continue reading →

Personal Assistant to Help with General Office, Administrative Clerical Work

Do you have your own business? Could you use some office help? There is an incredible amount of time consuming work involved with keeping your business records organized. Even though so many things can now be digitalized on your computer, you still have to spend time “filing” your documents and reports into electronic files. You need to have an easy system in place to be able to locate those documents at a moments notice. Of course, there are still paper copies of things to file away for future purposes as well. As a personal assistant, I’d be happy to help you … I can take over some of the more mundane tasks of running an efficient office for you 🙂

Some ideas to get you thinking …

Courier Service – I’ll deliver your important packages in a professional, yet friendly manner (no offense grunted “sign here” FedEx driver)
Shredding – I’ll shred your stacks of documents, in your office with you present, using your shredder and you will dispose of the shredded material as you choose
Mass Mailing – I can fold, stuff, label your Holiday Cards or Customer Special Offers
Scanning – I’ll scan your paper documents and save them into their appropriate files on your computer system
Presentation Packets – I’ll assemble your printed material into packets to pass out during your meeting or presentation
Receptionist/Temp Help – Is your receptionist on vacation or out sick with the flu? I have decades of customer service experience in various industries … I can fill in here and there answering phones and greeting clients / customers for you.
Data Entry – I’ll enter all your info into spreadsheets for you so you can create reports to analyze and compare statistics for your company – or – do you need to create an opt-in email list for your upcoming email marketing strategy? (or help organize/clean up your existing contacts)
????? – How can I save you valuable time? Is there something more specific to your particular business that you could show me how to do? I’ve been told that I’m a quick learner 🙂

Give Tracy Helps You a call … I’m open for suggestions of how I can help YOU.

Tracy Helps You ~ Your Personal Assistant for Shopping & Running Errands

Would you like to have a wife?? No, this isn’t a marriage proposal. What I meant was, wouldn’t be nice to have a partner / someone to help out with some of your household duties?? How about someone to run those time-consuming, never ending errands??

I got a chuckle one day last week when I rang the doorbell at my client’s house. I was returning from running her weekly errands and grocery shopping. She opened the door with a smile and said, “Yay … my ‘wife’ is home”. It was too funny 🙂 Continue reading →

Update on My Tackle Spring Cleaning Early List ~ Kitchen

It has been a week since I posted my list of tackling spring cleaning early goals. During the week, I worked on re-organizing my cabinets. I started with my Tupperware cabinet … it was a mess.

First, I emptied everything out on my table.
Next, I matched each plastic container with its lid. I have no idea how this happens, but I seem to have a few bowls with no lids and a few lids with no bowls … again, I really have no idea 🙂 So, I got rid of them (recycle bin). I also got rid of a few that were in really bad shape … they get all stained and pitted, yuck.
Then, I decided I wanted them to belong in a different cabinet. They were shoved onto a top shelf before. Their new location has more room. Also, I now have the lids stored in the same cabinet as the bowls. I had them stored in a drawer and they kept falling behind and getting jammed. I used a wire basket to stack all the lids to (hopefully) be easier to find.
Nice, neat and tidy plastic storage containers and lids.
I also decided to divide the containers into everyday leftover/storage size and the larger/serving sizes and stored them in a different cabinet.
I then took out all my dishes and glassware to wipe down the shelves before putting them back. I tossed a couple of coffee mugs and a plate that had a chip in them.
My neat and tidy dish cabinet … now that I look at it, maybe I’ll raise the coffee mug shelf up another notch 🙂

Boy … on my list it was only a couple of sentences, but it sure was a lot of work 🙂 I’ll work on scrubbing and de-greasing the outsides of the cabinets another time, after all, we still have another 5 or 6 weeks of winter left (if you can believe the groundhog). I’m happy to have my plastic containers more under control … now if only the other members of the family will help in keeping the cabinets organized 🙂

How are you doing on tackling your spring cleaning chores? What is on your to-do list? Give me an update … we can encourage each other 🙂 Let me know if you’d like Tracy Helps You to … help you.

Visiting Minnesota During A Deep Freeze

My husband and I like to take weekend getaways whenever we can. We believe its good for our relationship to get away from the regular routine of everyday life once in a while to reconnect with each other.

Enjoying our visit to Granite Falls.

Last weekend we went to visit some friends in Granite Falls, Minnesota. It was a very long road trip … just over 9 hours each way. The weather was quite frigid, well below zero, but we managed to stay warm … think – layers, layers, layers 🙂

It was fun to spend time with old friends. They moved to Minnesota last July, and this was our first time seeing their new home. They are truly gracious hosts and great tour guides! We planned on having a relaxing, low-key visit and it really was. We enjoyed wonderful meals and long talks. We went to church and then shopped the stores in their small town . We played games and watched a movie, we saw Coach Ditka’s number be retired and saw the Bears win {gasp} on Monday Night Football. We even went bowling 🙂

Our plan is to go back next summer to visit and go to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove. The cast from Little House on the Prairie will be there in July … sounds like fun 🙂

All in all, it was a wonderful getaway and we look forward to visiting again.

Tracy Helps You’s Thankful Thoughts for Today ~ 11-30-13

November 30 ~ Today is SHOP SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY … Today I am thankful to be a small business owner. I am still in my first year of business but have learned so much. When I think back to the beginning of 2013, I am amazed at all I have learned about owning and running my own small business.

I have been blessed with support and encouragement from my husband, family and friends.

I have been blessed to receive great advice and guidance from many business professionals. Their experience and expertise has been invaluable to me, I couldn’t have learned so much, so quickly without them.

I have been blessed with customers … some of them repeat customers, which is a milestone I use to measure success with 🙂

Gift Certificates are available … Give the gift of time !

♥ Today I am thankful to be a small business owner ♥