The work of a personal assistant can be as tedious and demanding as other jobs and it is pertinent that you are prepared to handle anything. May it be to respond to your superior’s needs, manage schedules, and arrange collaterals, being up-to-speed is almost always necessary.

To help you check if you have what it takes to be a skilled and proficient personal assistant, here are simple guidelines that you can follow.

Make an Intensive Skills Assessment

A very basic yet effective way in identifying your skills set is to simply write it down. Take time to reflect on what you can do and then list down all your strengths in a sheet of paper. Be as intensive as you can get. Here are some guidelines:

• Reflect with what you have done and worked on during your previous employment. It is always best to look up for your previous job descriptions and see which of those have you performed.
• Organize your skills and place each according to appropriate headings or categories as necessary. For instance, a broad category of technical skills may be broken down into sub-categories such as “computer skills”, “internet skills”, “software development”, “graphics design”, etc. This way, your skills aren’t mixed up, and it will be easier for you to identify which areas are you highly proficient, or otherwise.
• For a more comprehensive leveling of skills, mark each depending on how adept or proficient you are. For instance, you may rank them depending on your level of competency or years of experience.
• Remember to only include in the list skills that you are confident you can perform. Do not include skills or activities that you have only done once. The goal of this skills assessment is to know the things you can do. Do not attempt to make it longer by including items that are irrelevant.
• Do not forget to associate experiences, events, or activities corresponding to each skill. This is important so you will be able to share this with your employer as you go through your interview.

Also, it is always best to keep open communication with these professionals so that you can have an accessible support system should the need arises.

Set your Goals

After completion for your skills inventory, not only you are aware now of what areas you are good at. It also tells you which gray areas you need improvement.

What you can do for a start is to check on those weaknesses or skills with low expertise. Then, take extra efforts to train yourself to become adept at those. You can enroll in short courses that will teach you how to do it. You may also do a little research and take time to learn by yourself. In the long run, this will definitely benefit you.

Short online courses are always readily available for language training, computer skills development, and many others. In addition to that, there are institutions and offices that offer classroom training in many technical areas. All you need to do is look it up and enroll yourself.

However, you need not enroll in all courses you find. Not only is that impractical, but it is impossible for you to simultaneously cram all those skills into your head. Only select skills training that you think will be vital to your career as a personal assistant. This will ensure that you keep yourself up-to-date and up-to-speed.

Does this mean you shouldn’t pursue building your business? Absolutely not. The biggest challenge is figuring out where to focus your efforts to maximize your investment. Whether that’s an investment of time or an investment of money.

Are You new to the Personal Assistant business?

Don’t be discourage if you’re new to this line of work and finding it challenging to get ahead. Maybe you’re just getting your business started and aren’t sure of the exact steps. Don’t worry, everyone has been in that situation before.

It’s just a matter of simple focus and knowing where to start. If you’re fortunate enough to speak with someone that is experienced in the business you can also save tons of time and cut down on the learning curve.

What’s your biggest challenge?

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Start with  understanding what your clients time is worth. Unfortunately, many people view their time as being “free”. The truth is, everyone’s time is valuable. If your client were to take time away from work or a vacation day to run errands, what would that cost them? Their home time is simliar. Help them understand that by allowing you to complete a task, they may very well be saving extra money and gaining time.

As a personal assistant, you would be handling errands and running around town for your client. Doing so will save them the expense of Gas, wear and tear on their car and time sitting in traffic. All of this adds up. Saving your client time puts money back in their pocket as well. It allows your client to spend more time with family, work or doing something else they didn’t have time to complete before.

Keep a running tally of the time you have saved for clients. While this isn’t an exact science or formula, I have found it’s a nice way to help sell the your service. Typically I will bundle the amount of time into categories and put “driving time” in it’s own category. I can them present a weary client with number that show for a given month I saved my XX clients 7 hours of driving time, 3 hours of shopping time, 3 hours of time standing in lines etc. Numbers help clients put things into perspective. Attach a dollar value and you can see quickly see how much time really costs.

It would be nice to think that the companies on the leading edge of work/life balance programs are simply being good citizens and doing the right thing!  But, the fact is that these programs make good business sense.

In addition to increased productivity and employee satisfaction, companies can retain valuable employees in a competitive environment, and attract new employees with these programs. 

Every generation in the workforce today reports that work and life balance is one of the top issues for them and that they want to work in a company that supports their desire to have more balance in their life. 

Whatever the reason for the movement, we should be glad it is upon us. 

Who are the companies with programs, what do the programs look like and what results have they achieved?

You might be surprised to know that these companies cut across all industries in the private and the public sector.  Here are some examples of program components:

Ø      Elder care programs consisting of resources directories, counseling, elder care services and educational services

Ø      Expanded telecommuting and ‘telework’ programs that allow employees to work from home or other locations

Ø      Part-time and job sharing positions for employees come off disability or recovering from health problems, or for parents who wish to spend time at home with their children or with aging parents

Ø      Fully accredited child care centers in or near the workplace

Ø      Babies in the Workplace programs that allow a child to remain with a parent in the workplace until the age of six months or whenever the child starts to crawl

Ø      Alternative work schedules and FlexTime work schedules that allow employees to work hours other than 9:00 to 5:00 in order to better meet their personal needs

Ø      Family Advocacy Programs held at lunch-time on managing personal finances, parenting, stress management, anger management and elder care issues

Ø      Outdoor recreation, walking paths and fitness equipment for employee use during and after work.  Some companies even provide grills, row boats and other equipment for employee family use.

Ø      Support groups for elder care, new fathers, holistic health, spousal abuse, single parents,  adoptive parents, parents of teenagers parents of blended or merged families, caregivers, and grandparents raising grandchildren alone.

Ø      Nursing Mother Rooms for breastfeeding moms

Ø      Enforced scheduling and use of vacation and personal days to ensure that the employees takes time off from work

Ø      Cross-training in positions to ensure coverage so that employees can take time off without the company suffering

These are just some of the examples of programs in government agencies, hotels, banks, corporations and union environments around the country. 

Human Resource Management companies and universities study the effects of these programs and publish reports to support and encourage their growth.  And the really dedicated companies keep finding new ways to encourage balance. 

In many cases, this effort still has to trickle down into the company.  Older managers or those supervisors who feel they are being shortchanged on work may frown upon these initiatives and studies find that programs put in place without adequate manager and employee training rarely have the same impact as a program that includes communication via seminars, training, written manuals and frequent follow-up. 

Work/Life Programs benefit the company by increasing productivity and focus on the job, reducing job turnover and increasing employee satisfaction.  Employees will miss less time from work, because they will not be sick as often. 

Families will be more supportive of the employee’s job and company choice because they know the company supports the employee’s personal needs, and their efforts to sustain good health and to manage stress. 

Instead, a company will run better and will find it easier to attract and retain good employees.  Companies will get a lot of support and good press from employees and managers, alike – and the company may even end up in one of those University Case Studies.  A role model for others to follow!

In your efforts to attract new clients as a personal assistant, don’t rule out business whether small or large. Armed with the information I’ve provided above, you can put together a simple marketing plan that will attract businesses and keep their employees happy.

Start simple. If the company is apprehensive about using your services, offer a trial. Give them 2 weeks to try your services at a discounted rate. At the end of 2 weeks, have the employees that used your service provide feedback to you and report those comments to the company. Happy employees will help sell you to the company.

I have some really good news that I just couldn’t hold back any longer. Personal Assistant Resources is growing and in the upcoming weeks we are going to be adding some very special features. Plan and simple, we are going to begin providing a wealth of informatin, tips, tools and tricks that will help you grow your personal assistant business like never before.

Want to learn more? Simply signup for our Getting Starting as a Personal Assistant Guide. You may not be getting started, but instead growing. This guide will help you, but even moreso, it will help us tell you when the huge makeover is taking place. It’s something you will not want to miss.

I encourage all readers to signup soon because updates will be going out within the next few weeks and will not be initially posted on the site. Only the insiders will know about everything that is coming up.

See you there…

The holiday season is the number one time for personal assistants and concierges. Some people may not realize how they can benefit from a personal assistant and may not understand how affordable your help can be. Your first step for the upcoming holiday season is to tell potential customers how you can help them. Give them ideas.

To start, you may want to advertise through flyers or postcards and make sure you list some of the things that you can do for your clients. It will generally take 2-3 weeks for someone to actually respond to your advertising campaigns. Now is the time to begin those efforts.

Second, prepare you elevator speech and always have cards ready. Don’t be shy about telling people about your business. It wasn’t long ago that we were at a busy store standing in line behind a mother and her 3 small children. She had her hands full. We took a minute to make some small talk and suggest that we could possibly make her day a bit better by spending time playing with her children and enjoying her free time. She loved the idea, especially when she found out how affordable it was. We now run errands for her once a week.

When you get the chance to speak with a possible customer, you need to suggest to them how they can use your time. Many won’t know where to begin. Here are suggestions for the upcoming holiday season:

• Provide shopping services for the holidays. This would include gift shopping.
• Gift Wrapping. This is the #1 service we provide during the holidays. Our customers like a personal touch, more than you can receive at the busy malls.
• Event planning and preparation. Many people just hate to plan a meal, pick up the groceries and get ready for an event. While I don’t recommend being the event planner and doing the cleaning, you can easily take care of errands and picking up groceries to help your client.
• Holiday Decoration. Decorating for the holidays used to be a fun family event. Families are so busy these days that they just want things “done”. Helping with the decorations can save your client lots of time. This is also a great job that you can use your own assistants for.
• After the holiday cleanups. This would include packing up decorations, returning gifts and addressing thank you cards.

We’ve found that many of the clients we work for during the holidays continue to use us through out the year. Some have even become weekly regulars all because of the service we have provided for them over the holidays.

Gas prices are increasing each day and it is estimated that the price of gas will rise to $5.00 a gallon by the end of the summer. Much of a personal assistant’s business involves driving, delivering and picking up. So how can you still provide a cost effective service without passing too much of the cost on to your customers?

Schedule your week

One of the easiest changes you can make to your business without increasing your prices is to schedule your week. If you have repeat customers that have a schedule, try to make stops for all of your customers within the same area. For instance, make 1 stop to the dry cleaning store for all customers at once instead of multiple. If your grocery shopping, think about packing coolers in your car and shopping for all customers at once.(Be sure to carefully organize this process). Just this 1 change can significantly affect the amount you spend on gas.

Limit your days to “Zones”

If you have multiple clients in different parts of town limit your travel days to zones. For instance, if the far west end of town is 35 miles away, that is easily 70 miles round trip. Don’t make the journey more than one or two times a week. Instead, decide that Tuesday and Thursday is your “west end day” and handle anything in that area for those clients local to that zone AND any errands that need to be run for clients living in other “zones” to that area.

Outsource and get help

The summer time means that college students are available as well. You may look into hiring some college help that lives in further away areas or as I mentioned, “zones”. You will still need to pay them mileage and for their time, but you will also save money on not having to drive to that area your self.

These are just a few ideas that we have experimented with and have worked for us. You may want to try them yourself and see how well it works. Of course, this will require very good organization skills and time management, but that’s a trait that every personal assistant must have to be successful anyway.

Summer is quickly approaching and the kids are almost out of school.(At least here). While most people are getting geared up for some relaxing weekends, a Personal Assistant should be preparing for one of the busiest times of the year.  When the kids are home, working parents have less time to get things done, that’s the perfect time for a Personal Assistant to step in and help.

Here are 6 ideas for boosting your business during Summer

• Vacation Planning – Help your client plan the perfect weekend get away, with or without the kids.
• Vacation Errands – Right before the vacation, busy families have a million things to get done. Make sure nothing slips through the cracks by taking care of their errands or helping out.
• House Sitting – When the clients are away… watch their house.
• Errands, Errands, Errands – With the price of gas going up, families are going to be looking for alternative to driving all around town. You can make the best of it by knocking out several clients errands at once. Make sure you adjust your prices for the price of gas increase.
• Party Planning – What’s summer without a Bar-b-que? Put together the event for your client.
• Pack up for winter – If your clients are like me, I store my winter clothes and get out the summer clothes about this time, but I hate doing it. Helping your client store their Winter clothes and getting ready for summer is a something they would be greatful for.

Enjoy your Summer and stay busy!

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We’ve seen first hand that clients will often try to push that “line” just a little and if they succeed, will continue to push it. In most cases, we’ve seen this with childcare and babysitting. The client will often ask for just a few minutes while they take of something or as a favor. The requests then come in more frequently. Some personal assistant’s are fine with this sort of relationship and others are not.

So how do you tell your client you are not a babysitter and that your skills and services are in other areas? The first step is to plan your discussion. It is important to maintain the relationship with your client. As a personal assistant, you should also be prepared with a solution to the problem. Research nanny services, daycare or other reputible child care services that you can recommend. 

When the time comes to have the conversation with your client you need to be firm and honest. Explain that your services do not include childcare or the other services they are asking you to perform. Provide the information that you have researched and make your recommendations. If your contract specifically excludes those services now is the time to reiterate that.

Most clients will understand your concerns and thank you for being candid and honest. A few will not. Remember, the advantage of working for yourself is that you can choose your clients. If you and a client do not see eye to eye, it may be time to terminate your contract.

Good luck!