Do you have a project that you have just started but are feeling overwhelmed with the administrative tasks that you need to complete it? Are you organising an event and having nightmares that your guest speakers lose their voices on the night? Or just beginning a new network and worrying about gathering all client data, updating lists, coordinating dates etc.? If so don’t fear VirtuAli is here!

Featuring today in WIBNI ‘s Member’s Monday. Sharing with other business owners how I can save their time and sanity by taking away their admin pain!

ALISON MATTHEWS – VIRTUALI ADMIN SOLUTIONS

04/10/2017

Alison Matthews is an experienced PA turned VA (Virtual Assistant) and since May 2015 with her company VirtuAli Admin Solutions she has been helping time poor entrepreneurs regain some balance in their personal/working lives by taking their admin pain away. She normally works remotely or ‘virtually’ with her clients sharing documents and tasks online but can also come to your office to help you set up systems or help make it paperless.

Having worked as a PA to CEO’s for more than 7 years, there are always two periods in every year which were dedicated to sitting down to plan the year ahead – January and September! This time was spent setting objectives for staff, organising appraisal reviews and to plan SMT/Directors’ meetings. Now as a self-employed sole trader my objectives are slightly different and it’s myself I have to plan for the year ahead.

I’m wearing one of many hats, speaking about my recent nomination as President of Lagan Valley Toastmasters Club, overcoming my fear of public speaking and climbing mountains!

Toastmasters International is a not-for-profit organisation that empowers individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders. It was set up in the U.S. in 1905 by Ralph Smedley to help young men initially to speak, conduct meetings, plan programs and work on committees in his local community. There are now 15,900 clubs in 142 countries worldwide. Men and women of all backgrounds are welcome.Learning a new skill is always exciting but getting over your fear of public speaking can be especially daunting because in front of an audience you are at your most vulnerable.

Toastmasters’ clubs provide a supportive environment, a journey with similar people where you can learn at your own pace.

In June, I published a post every day on my business Facebook page about productivity and as fortune would have it when I attended the 09:15 Biz NET meeting last Friday the topic for discussion was Time-Saving Tools. If you haven’t attended a 09:15 Biz Net meeting before -the clue is in the name! It’s a network for small businesses who meet at 09:15, every fortnight on a Friday at Antrim Enterprise Agency.

Looking for virtual office space or a registered UK address?

Whether you are a start-up who isn’t just ready to hire out a permanent office space or a company outside the UK wishing to have a registered UK address, I’ve had more and more people contacting me about Virtual office space and wanting a registered office address in NI. I don’t offer this service but there are any many spaces in N.Ireland which do and am listing the ones that I’m aware of below.

As a Virtual Assistant, I’m often initially approached by micro-business owners to alleviate whatever admin burden they have: entering data, cleaning email lists, formatting reports etc. Often as I get to know the client and their business better, the value added actually comes from analysing their administrative systems and seeing if their life could be simplified by implementing new ones or in some cases even making certain systems obsolete.

With aftershocks of the Brexit decision of 24th June 2016 still rippling around the world maybe this is the right time to look inside your own business and see what improvements you can be making to admin systems and procedures so that you are working at your most efficient not only now but also to prepare for the future, whatever that might bring…

One word sums up the reason to hire a Virtual Assistant rather than a full-time admin member of staff=uncertainty!

Uncertainty:

1. Uncertainty of Brexit and what it will mean for us especially in Northern Ireland with hard border issues

2. Uncertainty of what our neighbours to the left and right of us will do or say and global impact that has on us

3. Uncertainty of our own government and whether election results tomorrow will make a positive change to all of us

Do you find yourself overwhelmed at periods throughout the year and start researching who you could hire to take some of the time consuming tasks off your long to-do list but then get stuck and convince yourself of a 100 reasons why you can just continue doing it all yourself? Hiring a Virtual Assistant (a VA) can be life changing and before you say ‘I can’t’ read the reasons why you can!

Christmas is just 4 weeks away and it’s official, it’s up there with divorce, moving house and changing jobs as the sixth most stressful life event. As individuals 86% of us say they find buying presents difficult and 65% find Christmas shopping a stressful event but is your stress even higher if you are a small business owner worrying about all work you have to do before year-end and sales you will make before the January slump hits?

This week I’ve researched venues for Christmas dinner, put together course materials, made travel arrangements for a business trip, taken the minutes at an HR investigation case and make lots of diary appointments. Does this sound like pretty much your average day too as a PA? The big difference for me is that I’m self-employed; I completed these tasks for several different clients and I didn’t have to beat terrible traffic to go to work because I’m a Virtual (Personal) Assistant, a “VA”.

There are 4 questions that people already in administrative industry invariably ask me when I tell them I’m a VA:

When I studied French at Queens University Belfast, we read as many people did Albert Camus ‘l’étranger’. The definition of ‘étranger’ in Collins French Dictionary is : ‘foreign, alien, strange, irrelevant’. It has been a month now since Brexit decision and as someone who has freely lived and worked around Europe and now has been running a small business in NI for last year , this is my take on Brexit.

I was recently at the excellent Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council workshop delivered by Digital DNA (part of the optimise 2.0 programme) about writing web /article content and the speakers suggested always writing about topics that you have a certain amount of expertise in, so I’m writing this article on Top 10 places to meet for business outside the office. This is written from several perspectives:

Despite virtual nature of my job, I am still of the generation that likes to send snail mail and was writing a card to my former boss in Luxemburg the other day who has just retired. As I was writing it, I was thinking if someone had said to me in May 2013 that I’d be leaving Luxembourg to go back to Northern Ireland by May 2014 and that by May 2015 I would have started my own business, I would have laughed. Yet here I am in Moira, Co.Armagh, May 2016 an entrepreneurial business woman and not totally broke!

When I was writing the card it made me think of the YB12 (Your Best Year Yet) workshop that I did with John Higgins last September and one of exercises was to write an email to your future self. I found mine the other day and am proud of what I achieved in the last 12 months, though of course there is still lots to do to build my virtual empire!

Women in Business NI

Video created by Samantha Robb for Women in Business NI

Delighted to be announced winner of Power 4 end of traineeship ‘Dragons Den’ 2-minute pitch event sponsored by Ulster Bank Belfast. It has made a massive difference to me from a kudos, confidence and financial point of view.

Check out Women in Business NI programmes page for future pitching competitions.

I recently saw an advertisement in one of Northern Ireland’s leading newspapers placed by a busy entrepreneur who was looking for a remote PA who would mostly complete administrative tasks for them away their business premises, i.e. virtually.

It reinforced my concern that few very self-employed small business owners in N. Ireland (who are my main target client) know that 1) administrative support on a remote pay as you need basis exists 2) that the term for the professional providing this service is ‘Virtual Assistant’ (common abbreviation =VA).

My existing clients have all affirmed that they didn’t have the reflection to look for the administrative assistance they needed by searching the term ‘ virtual’ but rather under terms such as ‘PA’, ‘secretarial services’,‘remote administrative support’ etc.

What does it take to make the leap to self-employment?

This is the question on the lips of anyone who’s ever thought about leaving the security of a full time job to go it alone. Making the decision is the first step, but how to turn that into a reality and stick at it is not always as clear cut.

Three years ago, I was working as a Personal Assistant (PA) to a senior Director in the headquarters of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg where I’d gone to work 9yrs previously as a bi-lingual Project Administrator. I’d got to the stage in my career where I could go as far as I wanted in my grade and had already taken a sideways step to get more experience. I knew I wanted to use the skills I already had developed in 14yrs of varied administrative posts: customer –orientated , knowledge sharing, adapting to different personalities , evolving with new technologies and working with a high level of autonomy but I wasn’t quite sure which way to turn as I couldn’t find a role which was demanding and interesting enough.