It’s that time of year when those of us in Australia are just about to start our summer holiday season and head off on our annual break. I’ve previously posted taking about How a Virtual Assistant could help with your holiday preparations and How a Virtual Assistant could help with travel both of these posts detail some of the things a Virtual Assistant can do to help you to have a stress free break.
Here are five things to get your Virtual Assistant to help with so you can have a relaxing annual break:
1. Email
There are a few ways to handle email:
- An out of office message. Although that may mean urgent issues are left until you return. Which may cause issues for clients with a genuine emergency.
- An out of office message with a secondary email address and/or phone number for urgent queries. Because what is urgent a client may not be urgent in the universe the rest of us inhabit. By having a secondary email address for emergencies with a message along the lines of “please contact my Virtual Assistant at [email protected] if your query is urgent” will allow your clients to contact someone if they feel there is an emergency. Your Virtual Assistant will then be able to either solve the issue themselves; contact you if it is a genuine emergency; or let the client know the issue will be worked on once you return.
- Give your Virtual Assistant access to your emails. They can flag non-urgent matters for your return and handle as much as possible. Basically the same as the above. Except everything comes through to your Virtual Assistant and you come home to an inbox that’s relatively empty.
2. Social Media
Sure, you can continue to do a bit of social media while you’re away. But isn’t the point of a break to have a break? If you want to get away from it all, but still give your company social media exposure, develop a content calendar with your Virtual Assistant. They can schedule some interesting articles, messages that you’ve pre-written, photos, seasonal wishes etc. And don’t forget to make sure your Virtual Assistant is monitoring all your accounts. That way you won’t miss something important you need to deal with.
3. Seasonal messages
If you send your clients gifts or cards your Virtual Assistant can handle the purchase and sending of both. Your Virtual Assistant can make sure that your clients know when you’ll be away and what procedures are in place in case of emergency. They can make sure your website, email responses and social media accounts are all updated with your holiday hours. And make sure they’re removed once you return!
4. Point of Contact
Your Virtual Assistant can be a point of contact for clients, suppliers, co-workers, travel agencies and any other stakeholders who may need to contact you while you’re away. Your Virtual Assistant can probably resolve many of the “urgent” issues without disturbing you. That way anything that does come through to you will come with a full back story, details of what’s already been done and the possibility that you can solve it with a minimum of fuss.
5. Plans for next year
If you want to hit the ground running in the new year – you should definitely have been thinking about your plans for next year already. Whether you’re just making a few small changes or even updating things such as your content calendars, marketing plan & business plan, or you are planning major changes for the upcoming year – it’s as good a time as any to get things documented and added to your corporate documentation. So get together those notes, ideas in need of further research and information sources and let your Virtual Assistant get them organised, collated and ready for your return.
So that’s a few ways your VA can help you have a relaxing annual break. As always you should make sure you discuss the issues that worry you the most. There are no set rules, just discuss your needs with your Virtual Assistant and see what they can come up with to help you. Alternatively, click here to book a complimentary 30 minute catch up to discuss how I could help you.
