Friday 16th September 2022
In my blogs I talk about the services virtual assistants provide and who they can help. But I also understand that sometimes, it can feel hard to relate to abstract facts. That’s why I’m going to be adding occasional case studies to my blog series. These articles are designed to put a real face to the question “who needs a virtual assistant?”, and you might even find you read and recognise yourself in the sectors, challenges and solutions of some of my clients.
In this post we’ll be starting with Mario Otvos, a busy and successful entrepreneur with multiple ventures. He says of himself “I have lots of fingers in many pies” – and with a background in catering and hospitality, this is an apt description!
Mario’s Challenge:
“I felt like I wasn’t able to spend enough time with my family and realised I needed to free up some time to really concentrate on other things.”
Mario is enthusiastic, driven and energetic and has an incredibly positive outlook, all advantageous characteristics for a busy entrepreneur. But even those with tremendous energy and a growth mindset have their capacity limits, and over time Mario had identified that his time management was becoming affected, which was having a knock-on effect on his personal life balance.
Hiring MN Virtual Assistant:
It was important to identify a key area of the business that Mario could hand over. The best tasks to delegate would be those which Mario’s involvement didn’t add significant value to, and which weren’t the jobs he wanted to be dedicating time to. Obviously, it’s also important that these tasks were time consuming, and that outsourcing would yield a noticeable timesaving. Mario decided to involve me to take on all elements of his invoicing.
What was involved:
My role was to aggregate timesheets across 3 different catering businesses and use these to create invoices using the correct event codes, matching these with the relevant purchase order numbers. These would then be distributed to the correct clients along with the relevant timesheets, and from that point I’d liaise with the financial administrator to make sure the invoices had been received, dealing with any queries that arose from them. Due to the nature of Mario’s catering businesses and the different contracts (from local landlords to local authorities), it is essential to keep on top of differing due dates. Asides from everyday invoicing, I also handled payments over the phone for customers who could not pay online.
The result:
“One Martha knew what was needed it was an absolute walk in the park for her. I had previously dedicated a significant amount of time to invoicing and making sure everything was aligned and accurate. I used my newly freed up to meet new clients, recruit new staff and grow the business.”
Mario’s Testimonial:
“Finding Martha on a personal level was great and she’s very approachable and built the trust up straight away. I find it very easy and straightforward to pass tasks on to Martha and don’t have to explain what needs to be done on numerous occasions. It’s an absolute relief when you know you can leave a very important part of your daily work with someone and that you don’t have to supervise or micromanage them. If I’m spending an extra few hours on something the pressure builds up, and that’s taking time away from my kids and family. Time management is crucial and that’s what Martha helps me with. I’d definitely recommend her to anybody.”
If you’d like to discover the benefits a virtual assistant can have, freeing you up to increase productivity, get in touch at martha@mnvirtualassistant.co.uk. I’d love to be part of your own roadmap to success.