Virtual Assistant Blog

Virtual Assistants Today

Posted by Mica Harvey / Virtual Assistant Companies

Virtual Assistants Today (VirtualAssistants.today) is a US-based virtual assistant company based in San Francisco. Their virtual assistants are based in Mexico and are bilingual speaking both English and Spanish.

The company has been operating for 2 years and specializing in supplying virtual and sales assistants to businesses of all sizes.

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About Virtual Assistants Today

The company is a subsidiary of Jonajo Consulting, and is run by the founder and CEO Kristian Widaja, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who graduated from Stanford University with a Masters in Computer Science

Virtual Assistants Today facilitate interviews between clients and VAs, allowing you as the client to interview and select the assistant that you feel best suits your needs.

(Alternatively, you can communicate your requirements and business needs to one of their project managers and let them find the best suited assistant for you.)

Virtual Assistants Today have some good processes to help keep you and your assistant in contact and build a strong working relationship.

For example, when you sign up for a plan you’re assigned a project manager as a point of contact to help keep the communication flowing smoothly between you and your assistant or handle any queries you may have.

Services

They group their assistants into two categories; virtual assistants and sales assistants.

Their virtual assistants’ core skillsets include:

Managing your email and calendar
Handling phone calls
Creating and managing reports
Performing online research
Writing and proofreading
Website maintenance

Their sales assistants are on-hand to help boost your sales with core skillsets that include:

Providing customer service
Generating and following up leads
Identifying potential customers
Handling sales calls

They have some online tools to help you track the work your assistant is carrying out for you. You’ll also be assigned a local US phone number so all you need to do is pick up the phone for a direct line of communication with your VA.

Plans and Pricing

Virtual Assistants Today has three different pricing options for their virtual assistants:

Basic – $34.99 per month. This plan includes 5 hours of assistant’s time per month ($7/hour).
Professional – $89.99 per month. This plan includes 12 hours of assistant’s time per month, 100 US phone calls, a toll-free US phone number, inbound and outbound US phone calls ($7.50/hour).
Complete – $199.99 per month. This plan includes 25 hours of assistant’s time per month, with unlimited US phone calls and all the services included in the Professional plan ($8/hour).

They also offer the option to create a customized plan. Just contact a member of their team and discuss your requirements.

They have 4 pricing plans for their sales assistants as follows:

Start-Up – $649 per month. This plan includes 80 hours of assistant’s time per month.
Growth – $1,199 per month. This plan includes cover for business hours throughout the month.
After-hours – $4,500 per month. This plan extends coverage over nights and weekends as well as business hours.
Full – $5,500 per month. This plan ensures you have coverage from assistants 24/7.

Virtual Assistants Today Alternatives

With hourly rates of around $7-8 per hour Virtual Assistants Today offer more competitive pricing than some of the larger, more established companies based in the US. This is due to their Assistants being based in Mexico rather than the US.

For a popular and well-established Central American alternative, check out Uassist.me, and if it’s the sales support that has caught your eye, you might consider Prialto.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Virtual Assistants Today? If so, please be sure to leave a brief review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Shiftgig

Posted by Mica Harvey / Freelance Virtual Assistants

Shiftgig is the leading mobile platform that connects businesses with reliable, high-quality workers on demand. People use Shiftgig to discover short-term work opportunities when, where and for the businesses they prefer.

Shiftgig was founded in 2012. Their headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois, and they have additional offices throughout the US.

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About Shiftgig

The company is run by eight key executives: Wade Burgess, Chief Executive Officer, Eddie Lou, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Rick Bowman, Chief Technology Officer, Jill Erickson, Chief Revenue Officer, Michael Yoch, Executive Vice President of Product, Jay Lenstrom, Senior Vice President of Experiential, Andrea Wagner, Vice President of Sales, and Jack Murphy, Vice President of Finance.

Shiftgig has raised $59 million in four rounds of investments and grown to more than 230 employees since starting operations in 2012.

The company directive is to provide a streamlined way for businesses to connect with hourly workers through their mobile marketplace. Saving businesses time and money recruiting staff and giving them the flexibility to fill as many hours labor as they need.

At Shiftgig, they call their workers “Specialists.” There is an interview followed by a several-step screening process before Specialists are added to their database and made available to clients.

Shiftgig provides Specialists for some of the country’s largest brands across a range of industries. They have been listed among Business Insider’s, “25 Coolest New Businesses In Chicago.”

Their target customers are businesses of any size in need of additional labor hours, needing to expand their workforce, or looking for a cost-effective way to complete work demands exceeding their current capacity.

How Shiftgig Works

Services

From the client perspective, you start by talking to a member of Shiftgig’s team to assess your needs and set up an account.

Once you are set up with an account you have access to their app and can watch in real time as pre-qualified specialists pick up the shifts you have made available.

You can communicate, track event progress, make changes to your available shifts, and more, all from the mobile app.

If you want to work as a Specialist for Shiftgig they say they are always accepting applications, however they try to balance the number of shifts they have available with the number of applications they accept.

You will go through a pre-qualifying process and interview to assess your skills. If you’re selected for the next step there is a screening and group orientation session.

If you pass this stage you can download the app and browse the available shifts that match your skills and experience. Simply apply for shifts and when you’ve completed the work you can log your hours through the app and get paid at the end of each week.

Plans and Pricing

There are no setup fees, monthly subscriptions, or any hidden charges. You only pay for the hours of labor your specialists complete for you.

Shiftgig does not have any set or tiered pricing. For a quote, you will need to contact them directly as the price will vary based on the skillset of the specialist you hire.

Shiftgig Alternatives

Although Shiftgig is squarely taking aim at traditional staffing agencies, if you have one-off tasks or would prefer to find your own dedicated freelancer you may be able to find someone on Upwork. The downside is that you have to sort through applications and vet the freelancer yourself.

Otherwise there are various virtual assistant companies in the US that will help you find an assistant matching your requirements, TimeETC and Boldly are two of the highest rated companies.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Shiftgig? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

Hired

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, Technical Assistants

Hired is a US-based company specializing connecting clients with engineers, designers, data scientist, and product managers.

Hired uses intelligent AI to match clients with talented candidates in their database. The results are delivered straight to your mailbox to browse in just a few hours.

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About Hired

Hired was started by three successful entrepreneurs; Matt Mickiewicz, founder of 99Designs and Flippa, Douglas Feirstein, founder of LiveOps, and Allan Grant, founder of Curebit.

They have been in business since May, 2012, and received a Seed Round of $2.7 million in funding in January 2013 from a group of investors.

The company is based in San Francisco, California, and also have an office in London. They have more than 500 employees, with most working from their San Francisco offices.

Their target customers are companies looking to hire engineers, designers, data scientist, and product managers, as these are their specialist areas. These aren’t your typical “virtual assistant” roles, but could be important positions to fill on your growing team, and you can hire remotely on the platform.

How it Works

Hired say that more than 70,000 candidates complete a profile every month, with less than 5% being accepted.

The accepted candidates have their details mailed out to prospective employers, it’s then up to the employers to make contact if they want more information on the candidate.

Their main objective is to speed up the recruiting process. Hired say they decrease the time-to-fill by 38% over conventional hiring channels, with clients filling their positions in an average of 25 days for full-time employees, and 10 days for contractors.

Using their marketplace employers also decrease their cost-per-hire by 27%. You are given visibility over the salary ranges of competing companies so you can make an informed and compelling offer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnKinmxWwec

Services

Hired operates a marketplace for employers to find skilled staff.

You can find full-time, part-time, or contractors and their AI sends you prospective candidates within hours of you making a request.

As a job seeker, you’re able to apply to be added to the Hired database using your LinkedIn profile.

Each week Hired approves the candidates they feel are most suitable, they are then coached by one of their Talent Advocates through the processes they have in place to be noticed by employers.

But here’s the kicker for solopreneurs and other boostrapped business owners: companies recruiting through the Hired marketplace must be either publicly traded or venture-funded.

Based on the skillsets of the candidates specified they are sent a list of the best fitting candidates.

Hired also also give transparency into offers from other companies so employers can make an informed offer, benefiting both the employer and the candidate.

Plans and Pricing

Employers using the Hired marketplace to recruit have the option to pay a one-time commission fee of 15% of their new hire’s annual salary, or they can pay a fixed monthly fee and hire as many candidates as they wish.
The rate of hiring temporary employees is 30%, and 15% for independent contractors.
For exact pricing you need to contact Hired directly.

Hired Alternatives

Upwork is the largest online marketplace for freelance talent, although you have to do all the vetting of candidates yourself and it’s more geared toward project work vs. ongoing employment like Hired.

There are various US-based virtual assistant companies that can offer full or part-time assistants on a long term basis.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Hired? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

Delegate Solutions

Posted by Mica Harvey / US Virtual Assistants

Delegate Solutions is a virtual assistant company based in the greater Philadelphia area. All of their virtual assistants work from their homes across the US.

The company started operations in early 2017, and to-date have already taken almost 8,000 hours of work off the hands of busy entrepreneurs and business owners.

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About Delegate Solutions

The company was founded by Emily Morgan. Emily has a wealth of experience in the virtual assistant space — she speaks publicly on the topic, has been featured in The New York Times and other publications, and has published a book called VA Training Camp.

Their target customers are highly successful entrepreneurs and executives. They say they are looking to work with clients who, “Understand the leverage that delegation provides, and are clear on their goals they are trying to achieve.”

Something that separates Delegate Solutions from the way a lot of virtual assistant companies work is that you’re not paired up with the same assistant for the duration of your relationship.

Instead they utilize the brainpower of their entire team to tackle your tasks if need be. Some people may prefer building a strong working relationship with the same assistant, but there are definitely some pros to using collective heads.

Delegate Solutions Services

Delegate Solutions provide virtual assistance to entrepreneurs and business owners, and as such can handle just about any task that can be performed remotely.

To give you an idea of the areas they specialize in, they group their services into the following categories:

Corporate
Executive Support
Social Media
Asana Deployment
Consulting Services

Pretty broad, right? I think it might make sense to reach out if you have a specific role in mind to see if the service is a fit.

Delegate Solutions Plans and Pricing

Delegate Solutions do not currently have set pricing or plans to choose from, which you know means it ain’t gonna be cheap.

After a consultation to establish exactly what your requirements are, they will work out a customized quote. They have three different types of arrangement:

Projects – If you have specific short-term tasks you will be assigned to their project team. Project arrangements start at 10 hours.
Reservations – If you have a varying volume of monthly workload their reservation plan uses a monthly tiered fee and allows you to reserve hours for the busy months.
Retainers – If you expect a similar monthly volume you can commit to a certain number of hours per month and get a discounted rate. Retainer arrangements start at 20 hours per month.

Delegate Solutions Alternatives

There are plenty of US-based virtual assistant companies to choose from. ClearDesk, Worldwide 101 and Time ETC are three of the longer established companies with a good amount of positive feedback.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Delegate Solutions? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

Design Productive

Posted by Mica Harvey / Graphic and Web Design Services

Design Productive is a subscription-based graphic design service. They have been in business since 2016 and offer competitively priced packages with unlimited revisions.

The company is based in Hong Kong. However, they have staff based remotely all over the world enabling them to provide 24/7 service across different timezones.

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About Design Productive

The company is headed up by Fawn LaBrie. After working in media, marketing, and design for 15 years, Fawn saw an opportunity to simplify the process for small businesses to outsource design tasks.

She started Design Productive to provide a simple solution to the ongoing design tasks needs of a business or entrepreneur. With a flat monthly fee, global timezones, and not charging for revisions.

“Working for and with creative agencies I’ve seen so much wasted time on revisions, quoting for revisions, halting design work while revision costs are being approved by clients, it’s crazy inefficient,” Fawn said.

Design Productive cite their target customers as anyone with three or more design needs a month, as this means you get ongoing value from their monthly pricing plans.

They offer dedicated assistants to carry out the work, and have turnaround times of between 1-3 days depending on the monthly plan.

How Design Productive Works

Services

Design Productive’s design team are ready and waiting to take on any small design tasks.

It’s easier to say what they don’t do. They don’t support heavy manipulation tasks, large scale projects, 3D or motion graphics, or any tasks expected to take longer than their projected turnaround time.

Common requests from clients include:

Business cards and stationery.
Flyers and posters.
Basic photo editing.
Presentations.
Merchandise and t-shirt designs.

They state their area of expertise as, “Quality graphic design, quick turnaround, unlimited fee revisions.”

Plans and Pricing

Design Productive currently have three pricing plans ranging from $149 to $449 per month. The differences in the services included in each plan are as follows:

Mini Graphic Design Package – $149/month – You can submit 3 design tasks per month, have unlimited revisions, one brand, and tasks are turned around in 3 days.
Small Business Design Package – $249/month – You can submit unlimited design tasks, have unlimited revisions, one brand, and tasks are turned around in 2 days.
Unlimited Graphic Design Package – $449/month – Same as with the Small Business Package you can submit unlimited tasks and request unlimited revisions.

Virtual Assistant Assistant Exclusive: Use promo code VAA10 and get 10% off ANY Design Productive plan for life!

You also have access to a dedicated design team, can submit tasks for unlimited brands, and have a 1-2 day turnaround.

All packages come with a 14-day money back guarantee and no fixed contracts. So, you can break away if you’re unsatisfied in any way.

The only restriction on the “Unlimited tasks,” is that you can only submit one task at a time. Based on a 2-day turnaround time, that translates to about 10-15 tasks per month.

Design Productive Alternatives

Looking at the other subscription-based design companies offering comparable services and pricing Design Pickle and Unicorn Go are worth checking out.

If you don’t anticipate having an ongoing need for fresh graphics, a crowdsourcing platform like 99designs or DesignCrowd might be better suited. And for one-off graphics, there’s always Fiverr, where you can buy multiple gigs to see which one comes back best, making it “the poor man’s 99designs,” or the DIY option with a service like PicMonkey.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Design Productive? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

Remote Workmate

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, Philippines Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

Remote Workmate is an Australian-registered virtual staffing solutions company that puts a spotlight exclusively on outstanding Filipino virtual assistants.

The company has been known to some since 2008 when Australians John Paul Grant and Matt Canty, who were then based within the Philippines, started offering multiple forms of virtual assistant services to entrepreneurs and business owners.

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About Remote Workmate

In 2014, Darwin-based Chris Whitrod, the current company CEO, bought the name Remote Workmate from Paul and Matt and focused on providing long-term, dedicated virtual assistants with ongoing support as the company’s main form of service to entrepreneurs and businesses primarily from Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Europe.

Remote Workmate Services

Remote Workmate provides virtual assistant recruitment plus ongoing client support with no lock-in.

Their recruitment process requires 1-2 weeks or until the client is happy with their selection. Remote Workmate provides unlimited HR support and payroll management while the client takes care of the virtual assistant task delegation.

If in the unlikely case that the client is unhappy with the performance of the person they hired, they can ask for a replacement for no additional processing or recruitment cost!

Remote Workmate aims to work on roles specific to their client needs as opposed to the pre-packaged role descriptions. If they think that the expectations that clients have are quite impossible, they make recommendations on how to make it more realistic.

Based on their past experiences, here are some of the most usual type of roles that they have helped clients fill:

Social Media Marketing Specialist
SEO Specialist
AdWords Expert
Content Writer
Virtual Administrative Assistant
Telemarketer/Appointment Setter
Real Estate Virtual Assistant
Property Management Assistant
Graphic Designer
WordPress Expert
Business Development Specialist
Customer Service Specialist
Recruitment Specialist
Bookkeeper

All Remote Workmate virtual assistants are working from home and comply with certain equipment standards like minimum internet connection speed and ideal computer specifications. They work for a minimum of 20 hours per week promoting better and longer working relationship with their clients.

How it Works

Remote Workmate’s hiring process is pretty straight forward. The company works closely with their clients from the discovery call and allows them to take part in the recruitment process as much as they want.

After the discovery call, the recruiting specialists hit the trail and try to find the best possible candidates from their network. They’ll present those assistant profiles to you, and you can schedule interviews with the ones that look most promising.

Plans and Pricing

Remote Workmate does not have a “one-size fits all” pricing plan. As the company strives to have experienced virtual assistants take interest in open roles, the rates are then driven by their skillset and years of experience.

On their website, Remote Workmate gives a rough idea of the average rate for each type of role, in USD:

Social Media Manager $7.00 – $8.50
Graphic Designer/Web/PHP Developer $9.00 – $11.00
General Virtual Assistant $6.00 – $7.50
Marketing Assistant $6.50 – $7.50
Content Writer $6.50 – $7.50
SEO Specialist $9.00 – $11.00
Customer Service Specialist $6.00 – $7.00
Payroll Officer/Bookkeeper $6.00 – $8.00
Content Writer $6.50 – $8.00
Real Estate Virtual Assistant $6.00 – $7.50

If you’d like to have an idea of what the ballpark rate would be for a role specific to your requirements, you can email them at hire@remoteworkmate.com.

So what’s included in the rates?

The recruitment process
The replacement process (if requested)
VA Pay
HR & payroll management
Client consultant (client’s go-to person)
Time tracking software

Each client receives one billing invoice per month on a pre-payment basis. Payments are done via bank-to-bank transfer, Transferwise, or Paypal.

Why Remote Workmate?

One thing that stands out with Remote Workmate’s service is the freedom to end it if you are unhappy for any reason at all. That speaks volumes as to how confident they are with the quality of service they can provide.

Since they have quite an extensive recruitment process, with 3 out of 4 stages allotted to it, you can rest assured that they won’t stop trying to find a VA you’ll be happy with until you say so. By the time you are working with a VA and you feel that you’ve selected the wrong one, you always have that free replacement to fall back to.

Remote Workmate Alternatives

Remote Workmate is an interesting model that falls between the:

do-it-yourself recruiting model of OnlineJobs.ph (where you’ll pay a small upfront fee to access the job board, and likely a lower monthly rate ongoing)
straight-up recruiting service of Virtual Staff Finder (where you pay a bigger upfront fee and likely a lower monthly salary ongoing)
a managed VA company like VA Staffer (where you’ll pay a higher monthly fee in return for a dedicated office facility and on-site infrastructure)

Your Turn

Have you worked with Remote Workmate? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below and help others with their decision.

Lightboard

Posted by Mica Harvey / Graphic and Web Design Services

Lightboard is a Seattle-based graphic design company offering on-demand design services. The company has been in business since 2015 and all of the staff are US-based.

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About Lightboard.io

The company is run by CEO Brad Bouse and CTO Dave Foley. Both have extensive experience working with startups and agencies, they decided to start Lightboard because they feel everyone deserves access to great designers.

Their target customers aren’t narrowed into any niche. They work with everyone from entrepreneurs and small business owners, to large businesses.

If you need graphic design work done but don’t have a designer in-house, you can outsource the work at a lower cost than hiring a full-time designer.

The process couldn’t be any easier either. When you submit a job one of their project managers will contact you with an estimate for the work within a few hours.

If you are happy with the estimate and give them the go ahead they will assign a designer and start work within one day of receiving your proposal.

Services

Lightboard’s graphic designers are able to handle any form of graphic design work you request. This includes:

Presentations
Websites
Illustrations
PDFs
Display Ads
Custom designs

They aim to turnaround projects within 1-2 business days.

Plans and Pricing

Lightboard currently has two hourly rates depending on the experience and expertise needed for the job:

$85 per hour for their senior designers.
$65 per hour for their junior designers.

Their senior designers are best suited for creative projects, creating new designs, layouts, branding etc.

Junior designers take on the production work, such as implementing templates, resizing, etc.

When you submit a job you are assigned an account manager. They work with you to make sure they understand exactly what you want, assign the best-suited designer to the job, and give you an estimate.

They will budget for three rounds of revisions. If you have a strict budget in mind for the job make sure you communicate this upfront and they will do their best to stick your budget.

Lightboard does offer a subscription plan for clients who need have a higher volume of work. this is worked out on a custom basis per client however and you’ll need to contact them direct for a quote.

Lightboard Alternatives

For smaller design projects, you might consider a crowdsourced service like 99designs or DesignCrowd.

What separates Lightboard from other graphic design companies in the space is their flat hourly rates, and is perhaps best-suited to companies with larger design projects.

Most other firms have shifted to a productized model, like Deluxe, with flat project fees based on what you need done, or a monthly subscription model, like Design Pickle, which is best-suited if you have lots of different smaller design tasks each month.

Your Turn

Have you received design work from Lightboard? If so, please leave a brief review below of your experience to help others with their decision.

Cloudstaff

Posted by Mica Harvey / Philippines Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

Cloudstaff have been in business since 2005 and provides virtual assistants to businesses and entrepreneurs across Australia, UK, USA, China, and are soon expanding to cover the Middle East.

They have several offices in the Philippines and manage their assistants in-house. Their headquarters is in Pampanga, Clark, and they have offices in the business districts of Makati, and Ortigas.

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About Cloudstaff

The company was founded by Australian entrepreneur Lloyd Ernst. Originally, Cloudstaff was a tech company and they still cite tech and being their strongest area. However, they work with businesses from all industries.

In an industry that has a high staff turnover and sees a lot of companies come and go, Cloudstaff says they have a monthly staff turnover rate of just 1%. That’s a vote of confidence if you want to build a long-lasting relationship with your VA.

They provide virtual assistants to entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes. Their mission statement best explains their goal:

“We help businesses be more efficient by providing the resources to do the time-consuming, repetitive tasks that stop your core staff from focusing on the things that are really important.”

Being based in the Philippines this also means they are able to offer competitive rates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLjXvPds0Uw

Services

When signing up with Cloudstaff one of their team members will communicate with you to fully understand your requirements and find the best suited virtual assistant to assign to you.

You are also assigned a dedicated account manager to communicate with if you have any questions, problems, etc.

They have some good tools to help keep you informed on how your assistant is progressing. There is a communicator app that allows you to view screenshots of your assistant’s PC, you can request daily updates, and the set performance KPIs.

You can expect support for all just about any remote tasks you are looking to outsource. However, to give you an idea of their assistants’ skillsets, they group their services into the following:

Accounting and finance
Back office
Creative and marketing
Customer service
Development
Engineering and drafting
Software QA
Technical support

Plans and Pricing

Cloudstaff do not have any monthly plans or hourly rates. To work with them you need to tell them about the tasks you want to outsource and what you’re expecting from their assistants and they will provide a custom quote.

When I pressed them for an idea of what clients can expect to pay, they said, “Prices can range depending on skills and experience needed, so maybe around $1,300 to $3,000 per month.”

They also added that there is a, “One month advance deposit, plus one month (refundable) security deposit, and a one-time setup fee of $760.”

Cloudstaff Alternatives

There is no shortage of virtual assistant companies operating out of the Philippines. It’s always wise to get a quote from more than one company and check out some reviews from clients.

If you’re attracted by a more transparent hourly or monthly pricing model then check out OnlineJobs.ph or TaskBullet, two highly rated VA companies also based in the Philippines.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Cloudstaff? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

Tammy’s Office Solutions

Posted by Mica Harvey / US Virtual Assistants

Tammy’s Office Solutions is a virtual assistant company based just outside of Richmond, VA. Most of their virtual assistants are based in the US, with some across the border in Canada.

The company has been operating since 2008. They provide a wide range of virtual services and mostly work with small-to-medium-sized businesses.

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About Tammy’s Office Solutions

The company was founded by Tammy Durden. After becoming disabled due to an illness in 2001 and finding it increasingly difficult to work outside of her home, Tammy started offering virtual assistant services from home.

It wasn’t long before she had a larger workload than she could manage on her own. Tammy started employing staff and Tammy’s Office Solutions was born as a company.

Being disabled herself, Tammy knows all too well how mobility can be an issue for the disabled community. That’s why she’s proud to help others in similar positions the opportunity to work from their homes.

She said, “Most of our team are either disabled themselves, or mothers of disabled children.”
Targeting small to medium-sized businesses and business owners, Tammy said they work especially well with coaches and speakers.

If you are spending too much time with the day-to-day tasks of your business and can’t find time to carry on growing your business Tammy has assistants on hand waiting for your call.

Services

Tammy’s Office Solutions group their services into the following areas to give you an idea of the kind of tasks they specialize in:

Bookkeeping – Bank reconciliations, expenses, monthly P&L’s, balance sheets, etc.
Digital Marketing – Social media marketing, branding, content creation, multimedia, etc.
General Virtual Assistant Services – Email management, website maintenance, preparing presentations, customer service, etc.
Writing Services – Website content, blogging, ad hoc writing, ebooks, etc.

When you sign up you will have a consultation with Tammy to discuss your requirements and find the best package and assistant for you to work with.

Plans and Pricing

There are 4-tier pricing plans for their bookkeeping, digital marketing, and virtual assistant services as follows:

Tammy’s bookkeeping plans start at $269/month for their Setup Package, and their Platinum package tops out at $459/month.
Their Digital Marketing packages start at $276/month and range up to $569/month.
General virtual assistant services start at $400 for 10 hours a month ($40 per hour). That rate drops to a $35/hour equivalent if you go to 40 hours a month ($1400/mo).

Pricing for the writing services are available on a project-by-project basis or you can task your general VA with content creation.

Tammy’s Office Solutions Alternatives

Some of the highest rated US-based virtual assistant companies worth checking out include BELAY and Worldwide 101, both of which also offer bookkeeping and marketing as part of their service packages.

If you have ongoing content writing needs, you might consider a specialized writing service like Copywriter Today.

When I asked Tammy what sets her company apart from the competition, she explained, “the ability to have all of your business needs met in one place, through one company, and talk to one person.”

Your Turn

Have you worked with Tammy’s Office Solutions? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

5 Ways to Be More Effective and Satisfied at Work

Posted by Mica Harvey / News

Being productive isn’t just about getting more stuff done; it’s about getting more of the right stuff done.

Busy doesn’t always mean effective!

So how can we be more intentional, proactive, and destination-driven with our days, instead of just reacting to everything life throws at us?

Today I want to share 5 ways — 5 key habits — I’ve found that will help you be more effective, excited, satisfied every day.

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1. Determine and Track your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Life/Business

Your KPIs are the metrics that have the biggest impact on your overall operation.

In my business, for example, the primary KPIs I track are:

Email subscribers
Podcast downloads
Website traffic

One reader recently asked me, “Well, isn’t profit the only real KPI that matters?”

And while I agree that profit is important—the business can’t survive without it—and it is something I track almost daily, I’ve found it to be a lagging indicator compared to these other metrics.

What I mean by that is if I can get those other numbers to increase, the profit will follow.

Your KPIs are the levers you can pull on to create real change.

What Makes a Good KPI?

The best KPIs have two characteristics in common.

First, they are numbers you have influence over. It might not be easy, but with effort, you can change them.

Second, they make a meaningful impact on your bottom line or quality of life. And this part is important because in big data era, you can get data anything and everything, but is it really important? That’s the question.

How to Determine Your KPIs

Let’s look at some examples.

If you’re a freelancer, the two things you’re probably paying most attention to are the flow of quality leads coming across your desk, and your ability to deliver results to clients.

In terms of KPIs, you might decide to track discovery calls, proposals sent, or average job value. These are things you have direct control over and will make a meaningful impact to your business.

In my painting business, the flow was:

Lead generation (usually from door-to-door cold calling)
In-person estimates
Booked jobs
Deliver the work

But the biggest lever to pull was lead gen, so the KPI for that summer was just hours spent knocking on doors.

In e-commerce, you might track your cost to acquire a new customer, the lifetime value of a customer, or your conversion rate.

Changeable and impactful.

Every business is different. The numbers that matter most to you might be:

New client leads
Cost per lead
Words written
Revenue per pageview
Profit margin
Net promoter score

The key is to figure out the metrics that matter most to you, test ways to improve them, and track them over time.

2. Set Short-Term “Sprint” Goals

New Year’s resolutions or 12-month goals often fail because they’re too easy to procrastinate on.

I’ve found I’m most effective when I’m working toward a short-term project goal, like launching a book, or building a course.

On the flip-side, when I’ve failed to name a sprint goal, that’s when I’ve found myself in maintenance mode, not really moving anything forward. I need something to focus on!

Now if you do have longer-term goals, that’s totally OK, but what I suggest is breaking them down into more bite-size milestones so you keep motivation. Then, break down those milestones into the smallest actionable steps.

My best example is when I was working on Buy Buttons, I mapped out a detailed progress timeline of what I needed to get done by when. It was a million times more effective than just looking at my to-do list and seeing “write book”.

And of course bonus points when those goals align with, and positively impact, your KPIs.

3. Name your Top Priorities for Tomorrow Each Night (and Record What you Accomplished Each Day)

For years I’ve had a nightly “I done this” habit, where I’d write down everything I did work-wise during the day.

It’s a simple way to acknowledge you actually did something, and to take a moment to recognize that effort. It also builds satisfaction and measure your progress toward whatever goal you’re working on.

But what I’ve added to the “this is what I got done today” habit in the last few years is the practice of itemizing out my top 3 priorities for the next today the night before.

This helps me focus on my most important work and helps me limit distractions. If I can do just these 3 things, which are aligned with my goal or goals, that day’s a win.

This is super simple and you may already do something similar, but I’ve found it really effective for clarity, focus, and productivity.

4. Establish and Track “Too Small to Fail” Micro Habits

Every month I come up with a handful of micro habits I want to test out. These are usually 1-5 minute activities (that’s the too-small-to-fail part), and usually I have a combination of personal/health stuff and business stuff.

In the past, I’ve tracked micro habits like:

meditation
flossing
doing pushups or kettlebell swings or burpees
keeping the phone out of sight when I’m with my son
making the bed
taking a cold shower
writing 50-100 words
reading 1 page of a book

Where I believe the magic is, is in the tiny feeling of accomplishment in having done them. It’s like a mental hack; I said this thing was important to me, I said I’d do it, and I did it.

I think that can build momentum to bigger and better things, because you’ve taken that first step in convincing yourself you’re the type of person that takes action, follows through, gets it done.

5. Practice Gratitude

The science is clear: a daily gratitude journal habit is proven to improve your happiness. Just the small act of thinking of a few things you’re grateful for today is super simple, but surprisingly effective.

I’ve done this off and on for years, but when I do it consistently, I feel better.

Tying it All Together

So how do I tie all this stuff together?

These are 5 habits that I know make me happier and more effective, but my implementation of them has historically been sporadic. My tracking was spread across multiple platforms — some digital, some analog — and I’d start and stop.

That inconsistency comes with a real cost.

I feel stagnant, like I’m stuck in “maintenance mode.”

Like I’m working, but not on important things.

Like I’m staying busy, but I don’t feel super effective.

Like I’m just not making progress.

And that “progress” word is key. In fact, Tony Robbins says that progress is the one-word secret to happiness.

When I heard that, it just clicked. It’s so true.

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