houndblog

Businesses on Twitter WhatWeDo 3

Mon, 14 May 2012 22:06:22 +0100

Congratulations to our #whatwedo featured businesses

Want your business featured in our #whatwedo blog? Send a tweet to @OfficeHounds include #whatwedo with a brief description and link to your website.

Navigate Design
Navigate Design connects business communities, with design, PR, digital, content.

Follow on Twitter @NickKeith @navigatedesign

DS Event Management
We are a London based, event management service :) we do every format possible including Olympic hospitality!

Follow on Twitter @DS_EventMgmt

Dream Exchange
Urban employment services for street wise impoverished youth. #Dreambridgeexchange

Follow us on Twitter @TimothyAkalu

Life Coach Associates
Business and Personal Coaching in a fun and highly effective way!

Made in Kent
#Whatwedo internet marketing, sales lead generation and do it at a really fair, competitive price with real quality

Follow us on Twitter @Made_In_Kent

WMC Training
We deliver nationally recognised qualifications to employees via government funds. Brilliant - we love what we do.

Follow us on Twitter @WMCTraining

Your Outsourced Business Manager
I endeavour to offer the most appropriate & cost effective finance solution for you to buy the car of your dreams!

About the Blogger

Maggie Langley, Virtual Assistan t & Founder at OfficeHounds, StartupVA & Social Media Virtual Assistant

OfficeHounds provides telephone answering, outsourced admin and marketing on demand. We help businesses to do less paperwork and earn more money.

The Productivity Holy Grail

Mon, 14 May 2012 21:58:10 +0100

How to choose productivity tools that get the job done

Every business has to manage information.

The Essentials
Contacts
Calendars / diaries
Email

The Usuals
Invoices
Tasks / To Do Lists

The Should Haves
Social Media
Time Tracking
Shared space for Team

The Advanced
Ticketing system
Gant Chart
Project Management system
Real time collaboration tools

Although every business needs to use some kind of tool like Outlook or Google Apps to manage The Essentials, choosing the best productivity tools depends on the way you run your business.

Ask yourself
What do you need?
List your business processes, quotes, sales order, time tracking, invoices, etc. Can the tool live up to your needs?
Will the tool be adequate if your business grows? Can it handle the extra data?
What information did you have to waste time searching for in the last three months?
Will this tool make it easier for you to find information you usually waste time searching for?

Sense Check
If you have a system that works and gets the job done quickly, ask yourself whether it's actually worth changing it. I've seen companies with very simple processes, but they have been implementing them for so long, they run efficiently.

I've worked with clients who feel more comfortable handwriting sales orders and diary appointments. I input the handwritten data into their productivity tool. Don't fight what you like!

Fight what you don't like. I've seen companies with teams of people who are all supposed to record their time spent on client projects. Every month, time is wasted pulling together these timesheets. Invoices are sent late, because the staff procrastinate handing in their timesheets. They haven't kept accurate records in a centralised system, and the whole process is painful for everyone involved.

Using a simple project management, time tracking and invoicing tool like Paymo would make life so much easier. There's even a mobile app. No excuses for the team to not record the exact billable time they work on each project.

Get the right tool(s)
The hard part is deciding what you need. Try to find the right tools or combination of tools that will stop you from inputting the same data twice.

If you don't have administrative procedures for you business, start small. Focus on the goal of centralising your data in one place. You should be able to look up a client and easily find important emails, documents and tasks related to the client.

Best all-rounder CRM for small businesses
For its simplicity, I love icomplete. Plus, the team there are really nice and always helpful. (This is what I recommend for small businesses, but it’s really just a simply designed CRM with VOIP, email marketing and SMS marketing as add-ons.)

The Productivity Holy Grail
We're lucky to have so many great looking and slick tools to choose from. The difficulty is deciding on and implementing administrative processes and sticking to them.

Running a business is not made easy by the volume of data that has to be managed. Using productivity tools help guide you toward improving your processes.

Once you get a taste of the time saved and goals achieved by using productivity tools, you'll start your quest for the Productivity Holy Grail. . .the perfect Productivity Tools and Processes for your business.

Not sure where to start? Call 08435 570023
Tell us about your business. We'll give you some complimentary advice on your administrative procedures and do our best to recommend a productivity tool.
(No catch. Just help.)

About the Blogger

Maggie Langley, Virtual Assistan t & Founder at OfficeHounds, StartupVA & Social Media Virtual Assistant

OfficeHounds provides telephone answering, outsourced admin and marketing on demand. We help businesses to do less paperwork and earn more money.

Businesses on Twitter WhatWeDo 2

Mon, 14 May 2012 22:05:13 +0100

Congratulations to our #whatwedo featured businesses.

Want your business featured in our #whatwedo blog? Send a tweet to @OfficeHounds include #whatwedo with a brief description and link to your website.

Cupcake Sanctuary

A stunning cupcake and coffee shop based in Medway.

Follow on Twitter @mycupcakes

Biccies

We are a Kent based hand made edible gift company, run by a very busy Mum.

Follow on Twitter @mybiccies

Photos by Sarah

Freelance Photographer: Product photos for UK small businesses, takes photos of people too!

Follow on Twitter @TimmsSarah

Sparrow Primitives

We hand make distinctive shabby chic,personalised & country style gifts & home accessories

Follow on Twitter @sparrowprimitiv

Its Darling Gifts

2 full time working mummies,working hard to bring you pretty things we need

Follow on Twitter @itsdarlinggifts

UK Groceries Online

We are very new business. We supply UK Groceries to UK expats around the world.

Follow on Twitter @groceriesuk

Rebecca Inspires

What we do is enable leaders & teams to create fantastic places to work by improving their thinking.

Follow on Twitter @Rebeccainspires

About the Blogger

Maggie Langley, Virtual Assistan t & Founder at OfficeHounds, StartupVA & Social Media Virtual Assistant

OfficeHounds provides telephone answering, outsourced admin and marketing on demand. We help businesses to do less paperwork and earn more money.

Businesses on Twitter WhatWeDo 1

Mon, 14 May 2012 22:05:47 +0100

Congratulations to our #whatwedo featured businesses.

Want your business featured in our #whatwedo blog? Send a tweet to @OfficeHounds include #whatwedo with a brief description and link to your website.

SOS Computer

We are a pc repair and technology consultant company, making peoples live worry free and easier with computers

Follow on Twitter @billydeankent

Kent Photo Library

Offering a collection of contemporary Kent-based photographs for commercial and personal uses. Beautiful Kent images. Sensible prices.

Follow on Twitter @kentphotolib

Worksmart Small Business Support LLC

I provide online business support for Solopreneurs who want to grow a profitable biz online without losing their freedom.

Follow on Twitter @WorkSmartebiz

Jonathan Marsh Consulting

We are an independent business consulting firm dealing with a range of businesses offering pragmatic business solutions from strategic and business planning to process design and implementation. Our business is built on trust, integrity and mutual respect.

Follow on Twitter @JMC_SEast

Doggy Yum Yumz

I am a small business in ashford selling homemade dog treats at farmers markets and events in Kent.

Follow on Twitter @DoggieYumYumz

T-mex Procure

We specialise in product sourcing from Asia, direct to your individual requirements!

Follow on Twitter @TmexProcure

Caring Cleaning

Commercial and domestic specialist cleaning company, offering an individual personal environmentally sound service Canterbury UK·

Follow on Twitter @Caringcleaning

About the Blogger

Maggie Langley, Virtual Assistan t & Founder at OfficeHounds

OfficeHounds provides telephone answering, outsourced admin and marketing on demand. We help businesses to do less paperwork and earn more money.

Virtual Assistants - how we help businesses

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:59:45 +0100

My Virtual Assistant company offers super supportive and creative solutions to some of the less glamorous aspects of business.

Communication
I can offer local geographic phone numbers, 0800, 0845 numbers that can be accessed via VOIP, directed to a landline or the number can be put on a mobile SIM. (This can be fully integrated with a great CRM system we recommend so calls can be recorded and saved to customer records if required.)

Our 24/7 Telephone Answering Service ensures businesses don't miss a single lead, we can even provide a remote receptionist service where we'll patch calls through. Interruptions are productivity killers, so diverting calls through to telephone answering can help get things done.

Our services go far beyond telehpone answering, we are experienced Virtual Personal Assistants who can be trained to respond to sales enquiries or book appointments from the call received.

We provide a full range of outsourced administrative and marketing tasks. Plus, we have loads of experience of good old fashioned Personal Assistant work. Personal Assistants are the gatekeepers keeping out distractions and letting through the important unexpected tasks that inevitably turn up.

Experienced delegators will initially hand over mundane time consuming tasks for us to complete with responsibility growing as we learn more about the business.Less experienced business owners and teams benefit from our experience of implementing administrative processes and procedures.

If we see a business getting overwhelmed, we can often help with time management, project management, recommending collaborative tools and systems.

An experienced assistant adapts and provides the exact level of support required. I hope you'll consider working with a Virtual Assistant. I know we'll be a great help to your business.

Call 08435 570023 to find out how we can support your business.

CRM Myths that Stop small businesses from being organised

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:38:09 +0100

Imagine a world where your small business had processes in place that meant that you never had to search through your email inbox to find an important email. Every time you need to call a new lead or customer, you're able to quickly search for their phone number and refresh your memory of the last communication your or your team had with this person. The call results in you scheduling a meeting which you then record in your electronic diary. You send a meeting invitation to your colleague. The person you spoke with requested that you send a document, so you set yourself a task with a scheduled reminder. You also save your notes of the conversation in the client file, so your colleagues will be up to speed. All of the information you need is at your finger tips, synced and accessible from your home computer, office, Blackberry and ipad.

This kind of blissful organisation doesn't have to be a daydream. You could experience it for yourself, if you didn't believe these 3 myths about CRM (customer relationship management) systems.

Myth 1 - CRM systems or only for large companies.

True, large companies do use CRM systems to help formalise their administrative processes and ensure information can easily be accessed throughtout the organisation as needed. You may not have an office block with 500 employees, but even a freelancer or self-employed solopreneur can still benefit from formalising administrative processes. For example, an Business Coach could create customised fields to track the source of each new lead. Because she can see the drop down menu when she adds new leads to the system, she is reminded to record the information. She also records the exact time and date of each new email or phone enquiry meaning she can match the enquiries to her marketing campaigns.

Myth 2 - CRM systems are difficult to manage.

Your contacts can easily be imported into the CRM system, making it easy to get started. CRM systems actually make it easier for you to manage information with cloud storage, you can save copies of your client invoices and contracts for quick retrieval from any computer. When you need to email a client, you can do a quick search for their email address, and send an email direct from the system. The email will automatically be saved the client record. When you're working from your email inbox, you can add a special email address into the bcc field, and the email will automatically be saved to the client history. It's easy to add custom fields to suit your business. You'll have all of the information you need accessible from any computer anytime.

Myth 3 - CRM systems are expensive.

Some of the complex CRM systems sold to large Corporate businesses are expensive, but small businesses can get organised for £12 per month!

As a Virtual Assistant, I've input data into many different CRM systems. I always recommend icomplete to my customers. Get your 30 day free trial.

The team are friendly and helpful, and it's the most userfriendly CRM system I've come across.

Maggie Langley, Virtual Assistant & Founder at OfficeHounds

OfficeHounds provides telephone answering, outsourced admin and marketing on demand. We help businesses to do less paperwork and earn more money. Download our free Marketing Audit

Kent2020 - Twitter Packages for Exhibitors

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:09:37 +0100

Only 41% of exhibitors at Kent 2020 have a Twitter account. Are you one of them?

Whether you're part of the majority who don't have a Twitter account of the minority who are ahead of the game, OfficeHounds can offer you a low cost, high impact service to help promote your stand at Kent2020.

Kent2020 Marketing packages for non-Twitter users

Kent 2020 Twitter Starter Package - £75
- Set up of your Twitter account
- 50 scheduled messages including a link to your website, your stand number & the #kent2020 Twitter event tag. On the day of the event, tweets will be scheduled every 30 minutes with your stand number.
- Follow the other 84 Kent2020 exhibitors on Twitter

Kent2020 Marketing packages for Twitter users

Kent2020 Targeted Followers £10
- We will follow 150 Twitter users who have expressed an interest in Kent2020.
- We have a list of nearly 1500 Twitter users who have expressed an interest in Kent2020. (These may be potential visitors you can attract to your stand.)
- We can follow as many as you want, but if you order more than 150 we will stagger when we follow these users to ensure we safely comply with Twitter's policies.

Kent 2020 Twitter Event Package - £50
- 50 scheduled messages including a link to your website, your stand number & the #kent2020 Twitter event tag. On the day of the event, tweets will be scheduled every 30 minutes with your stand number.
- Follow the other 84 Kent2020 exhibitors on Twitter

Kent2020 Targeted Followers £50
- We will follow 1000 Twitter users who have expressed an interest in Kent2020.
- We have a list of nearly 1500 Twitter users who have expressed an interest in Kent2020. (These may be potential visitors you can attract to your stand.)
- We can follow as many as you want, but we will complete this task over 7 days to ensure we safely comply with Twitter's policies.

Order your Kent2020 Package today

How to back-up and recover documents with Cloud Storage

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:36:13 +0100

Do you have to manually back up your documents? Have you ever accidentally forgotten to save a document with a different name, overwriting the old version you also needed to keep?

If you you answered yes to either of these questions, stop messing about and sign up for a free Sugarsync account. You get 5GB of online storage for free!

If you're a Mac user, you may be used to Dropbox. Sugarsync has some great extra features.

Share folders - sync with your other computers team members. (You won't have to download the shared files each time!)
Login to access your files anywhere
Forget about backup. Sugarsync backs up all of your files automatically without you having to use a single brain cell. Woo-hoo
Version control - Old versions of documents are saved in the cloud. If you accidentally delete a file and empty the trash on your computer, a version will remain in the cloud! Document recovery without calling IT Support. Nobody will ever know you made a mistake! Double Woo-hoo!

I was inspired to write this blog, because I accidentally saved a file with the same name in the same folder. I needed the old version. I panicked for a second. Then I logged into my Sugarsync account and recovered the old version.

Stop messing about and set up your Sugarsync account! Trust me, it's worth it!

How to make more sales through your website

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:28:55 +0100

One simple step you can take to make more sales through your website. The best part is it won't cost you a penny to try it. Listen and take action.

Maggie Langley
Virtual Assistant

How to use a telephone answering service to get more done

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:05:28 +0100

Interruptions are the enemy of productivity. Email is our to do list's most persistent rival, however this is followed closely by our telephones and mobile phones.

Are you disciplined enough to not answer the phone when you are focussed on a task? Do you stop what you're doing, every time your phone rings?

True, your phone calls are important. A new lead might be interested in buying your product or service. People don't like leaving voice mail messages, especially when they're still at the fact finding phase of the buying process.

The solution is to use a telephone answering service. When you're concentrating on important work, your calls will be diverted to your call answering service. No more interruptions from sales calls or contacts who do not respect your time.

Never lose a lead to voice mail. Respect your time by returning phone calls during set times during the day. All of the messages will be emailed to you, so no more scrabbling around to find a phone number on a bit of paper.

Get more done with a telephone answering service.