Virtual Business Management
MelSa Productivity Assistance delivers a combination of administrative and management services to help release the burden of the background admin tasks that tend to slow small businesses down.
I take a ‘big picture’ approach to supporting you, providing you and your team with fluid support, gentle direction, and intelligent problem-solving in line with your overall business strategy and compliance requirements.
Download a Summary Leaflet of MelSa’s Virtual Business Assistance Services
Day-to-day tasks may involve:
Operations
- Executive assistance for the leadership team - diary management & scheduling, inbox management & gatekeeping, meeting preparation (agendas and research), and travel coordination
- Organising, maintaining and reviewing the contractual relationships with existing service providers and external suppliers
- Overseeing existing mailing lists, databases and workflows
- Client service management - contracts, billing and escalation issues
- Correspondence management, including drafting official correspondence
People
- Carrying out new hire onboarding processes, payroll and other general HR-related tasks
- Hiring core team members and/or sourcing new contractors for specific project work
- Managing the team calendar, and coordinating team meetings and local events
Projects
- Setting up and managing shared virtual workspaces - i.e. G Suite (Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms), Office365 (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote), Slack, project management tools (Asana, Trello, etc.), virtual document storage (Dropbox, OneDrive, GDrive, Egnyte, etc.), video conferencing (Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, etc.), CRM systems, Canva, Evernote, LastPass, Doddle, WordPress, etc
- Creating and implementing new operating processes
- Corporate events management
Financial
- Bookkeeping and financial reconciliation (outsourced)
- Budgeting and financial planning
- Team expense management
- Supplier payments
…and many more specific tasks.
I am fortunate to have picked up an interesting mix of skills, experience and qualifications from my varied professional background.
For that reason, what I offer you can also simply be a question of: “what can I do to make your life easier?“
Fees
MelSa Productivity Assistance offers four service levels tailored to varying business support needs:
Bronze
Best for solopreneurs and independent consultants.
£1,000 + VAT
Silver
Best for very small teams (less than 5 people) or very busy solopreneurs.
£2,500 + VAT
Gold
Best for small teams (less than 15 people) or very small teams looking to scale.
£3,600 + VAT
Platinum
Best for larger teams and/or those with complex operations that require simplification.
£6,000 + VAT
Not sure which level you need?
Start with an initial discovery session (£160 + VAT).
If you then decide that the service is not quite right for your business, there will be no obligation to proceed with a monthly service after the session – if you do decide to go ahead, the discovery session fee will be offset against the total cost of your initial invoice.
For an illustration of how these fees compare with a traditional, salaried office manager role, please visit the blog.
Good question!
There are few reasons for this, which I’ve summarised for you below:
- Each service level is priced according to my experience of how much of my resources are likely to be required, so there are no arbitrary time restrictions (subject to reasonable use). There are, of course, exceptions to the rule – but good communication should avoid any misunderstandings!
- With a fixed fee, you know exactly how much your services will cost each month, which helps with budgeting and avoids the uncomfortable ‘nickel-and-diming’ that sometimes comes with hourly rate bills.
- A fixed fee is an investment into your business, on both my side and yours. You gain an engaged team member instead of an ‘optional resource’, and I focus my attention on adding value instead of tracking time.
The Tidy Inbox Service
As an additional offering, the Tidy Inbox service provides the one-off creation of a coherent and user-friendly email filing system to help you find the relevant client information and keep you close to ‘Inbox Zero’.
Think of this almost like Marie Kondo-ing your emails (except that most emails don’t spark joy and it’s probably not wise to delete them all!)
By providing an organised and streamlined process of dealing with your previous client correspondence, it makes it much simpler to keep track of what’s happened and with whom – you can then move onto a structured CRM system to automate the process, going forward.
Due to its ad hoc and personalised nature, the Tidy Inbox service is subject to consultation – please book a call to discuss your requirements in more detail.
Fees start from £250 + VAT