And The Winner Of The Most Emails Is…

Mar 15, 2018 | Time Management, VA Services

Effective Time Saving

Outsourcing your email management is a very effective way to get some time back into your daily working life.  You can’t be on the end of email all day, every day.  However, by cleverly implementing some consistent email management with the help of your Virtual Assistant, you will feel confident your emails will not go unread, or lost.  This can take some of the pressure from yourself, and actually gain your Clients trust, because you will be demonstrating that you have it covered.

Would You Delegate?

Email is incredibly distracting. Unless you have outstanding willpower, you will likely to be checking your email several times every hour. This is because:

You want to know what’s happening or it’s habitual.  When you delegate your email, you set up a range of criteria with your Virtual Assistant.  It is important your Virtual Assistant knows exactly what to do with each email, or it will remain untouched for you to review at a later stage.  Your emails can be filed into urgent/non-urgent folders, or into subject matters.  The choice is yours.  Certainly ‘rules’ can be created for your emails so, for example, any emails that you don’t wish to see straight away, will divert to a folder and not clog up your inbox.

You don’t know how to share access to your inbox.  This is something that is easy to set up on many cloud-based email clients. You can see your inbox in real time, and your Virtual Assistant can manage your emails simultaneously.

Are you worried about someone else responding to your Clients?  This is a common worry, but it is easy to manage.  Your Virtual Assistant does not have to answer everything – you can agree between you that certain emails can be answered, such as general enquiries or diary confirmations, but the more complex emails are flagged for your attention. That way, you can concentrate on the most important enquiries.  However, as your Virtual Assistant could become part of your team, and trust is established, the more you may be comfortable giving the trusted Virtual Assistant the autonomy to respond ‘on your behalf’.

“A Virtual Assistant won’t organise things as I do!”.  When you delegate, you are still in charge. So, if you have a certain way of organising things, you can work with your Virtual Assistant to make sure your system is followed.  If you don’t organise your email at all, it’s certain that your assistant will be able to put some simple, clear filing rules in place and you’ll suddenly find that your relationship with your inbox is transformed!

“It’s too much hassle!”.  Managing email effectively releases a huge amount of time each day, and business owners who take the plunge quickly find that they are more productive, more efficient and feel less tied to their inboxes. What’s more, customers often get a faster response to queries and that improves their impression of your business.

How A Virtual Assistant Can Help

It may take a little while to set up and get used to, but the time saved in the long run is well worth the effort.  Very soon you will notice cost benefits too, because you are only paying for the time you use the Virtual Assistant for.  Getting some time back could enable you greater choice – you could be generating more income-earning tasks, or clock off earlier than planned!

I offer a complimentary 30 minute consultation.  Go on – what have you got to lose?

If you would like to discuss my Email Management services, please do get in touch.  Drop me a message on shirley@virtualofficebox.com 

Shirley

Some of The Tools I Use

Asana, Adobe Pro DC, Buffer, Canva, Dropbox, Evernote, Gmail Calendar, Microsoft Office (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, OneDrive), Hootsuite

Invoicely, LastPass, Linkedin, Outlook, RecurPost, Twitter, Facebook, Lumen5, SmarterQueue, SurveyMonkey, Todoist, Toggl, Trello, WeTransfer.