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Don’t Work Harder, Work Smarter
Have you ever heard the phrase “work smarter, not harder” and wondered what it was all about? At Red Desk, we have been helping companies to work smarter for the past 5 years.
Smart working is essentially maximising your time and results with minimum effort; time management, having an efficient working environment and outsourcing those tasks that can be delegated.
Red Desk is the Virtual helpdesk, providing business support to a number of local companies and individuals. We are currently 4 assistants, each with our own different skillset, so when a new enquiry comes in, we match the assistant to the job.
Meet the VAs
Our newest addition to Red Desk is Katie Colton. Katie’s background is in Venture Capital, Entertainment/Restaurants and Architecture. She’s the team’s trouble-shooter. Ever resourceful and professional, she can turn her hand to anything from bookkeeping to traditional PA duties.
Jacqueline Goldenstein makes the impossible, possible. She’s an expert in all-things-concierge, providing private PA duties to clients (travel, property searches etc) but can also assist with business administration so that small businesses can focus on their core activities.
Mel Pretorius seems to have a knack with social media: if you want witty tweets, informative facebook posts or award-nominated blog content, then she’s your go-to. Also handy with bookkeeping and other business support.
Lindsay Miller is the Virtual Assistant guru and founder of Red Desk. She not only provides support and advice for the other VAs but is a dab hand at Powerpoint, Microsoft Office templates, diary management and social media.
If you are struggling to find time in your business to carry out those core money-making activities then send Red Desk an email.
Not sure with what help you need? Never fear, keep a diary over a day or a week and note down the tasks that you end up doing (marketing, bookkeeping, filing, social media, appointment booking etc). Do they make your business money? Could they be outsourced?
The answer will be yes, most can be outsourced and we can talk you through the rest.
We can be contacted as below:
Find me on Twitter @reddeskVA
Find me on Facebook Red Desk VA
Tools for a retail business and setting up an online shop
I’ve recently been working with a retail client and in doing so have discovered some great tools for running a retail business and setting up an online shop.
Firstly, everyone is talking about ‘Pinterest’ a relatively new social media site set up in 2010 that really lends itself to retail businesses or businesses whose products are very visual. It is as the name implies a pin board so you can pin any image that interests you and organise them into specific categories. In the same way as Facebook you have followers who can ‘like’, ‘comment’ or ‘repin’ your posting, this means your post could go viral if people find it interesting.
The thing to note with Pinterest is, as with other social media, it is not about continuously plugging your wears, you do have to share & comment on others content and be social. Piniterest has been showing amazing results for pushing traffic to websites so it really is a must for anyone in the retail business.
I’ve also been looking at a website called ‘Moonfruit’, it allows you to build your own online shop & it’s is really very impressive how straight forward it can be. There are a few different websites offering this service but for me Moonfruit has the best templates and is the easiest to use.
Once you have designed your site Moonfruit publish your site for the web, mobile and social media, your entire online shop can be published to Facebook. By making sure your site is connected to all the right places for you they are taking care of the majority of your SEO (search engine optimisation) for you.
There is an enormous library of backgrounds and images to choose from so you can build a unique site and the option for a paypal checkout, this really gives your site a professional feel. All the necessary buttons are available, allowing your customers to ‘like’ you to Facebook and tweet interesting products.
The standard package is only £7.20 a month for a maximum of 50 products making is a very viable product for small businesses.
If you need any help setting up a Pinterest page or creating a Moonfruit online shop then I can be contacted on lindsay@reddesk.co.uk
Find me on Twitter @reddeskVA
Find me on Facebook Red Desk VA
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