Having worked for ten years as an Executive Personal Assistant, I started Joanne Manville Virtual Assistance in 2015. We support growing businesses by giving managers and founders the space to concentrate on what they do best. I was honoured to to win the award of UK Outstanding VA 2020 and 2019 and Small Business of the Year in the Devon Women in Business Awards in 2022.
How to set up your ‘Out of Office’ in GMail If you are going off on holiday or will be away from your emails for a while, setting an ‘Out of Office’ is good customer service. I feel it is only good manners to let your customers know when they can expect a reply from…
10 questions for 2015 Before celebrating the end of one year and the start of the next, reflect on the past twelve months and what you have achieved. Congratulate yourself on what you have done – you deserve it! Here is a quick look back at my 2015. 1. What did you do in 2015…
How to grow your small business in 2016 A quarter of small businesses will grow in the coming year, according to research by Close Brothers Asset Finance. Will your business be one of this 25%? If not, why not? “around 1.35 million small and medium size businesses plan to expand over the coming months”. One…
How to make goal setting less daunting Goal setting was the subject of a recent meeting I attended with Mumazing Success. We all know that we need to set goals if we have any chance of achieving them, but what is the best way of going about this? The group founder Lucy, a Professional &…
Calendar decisions – paper or electronic? At this time of year, the shops are full of calendars and diaries, with pop up shops all over the high street, And they’re busy! In this age of smartphones and computers, it is interesting to see how the paper diary and wall calender still have such a following.…
Social Media – preparing for 2016 Have you started preparing for 2016? It is that time of the year when everything, except Christmas shopping (which incidentally I haven’t really started yet!) stops. You can’t get appointments with your solicitor or bank manager as they’ve finished for the holidays. No one will make an appointment to…
What is Rapportive? In an earlier blog, I talked about how I manage my contacts and referred to a tool which I use which links to my Gmail and gives me access to the contact’s social media profiles. This wonderful little tool is called Rapportive. Rapportive is a Google Chrome Extension which shows you a…
15 sales tips to grow your business In the early days of starting my business, I attended a business sales course with Monkey’s Paw, based in Exeter. Although I have a background in sales, having been a Mortgage Consultant for part of my career, I found it very useful to attend this course to refresh…
Essential smartphone apps for busy people Like many of you, I have utilised the flexibility and functionality of my SmartPhone to ensure that I have to hand everything that I need to make my life easier. I am a massive fan of the apps available to help me do this, and as a Virtual Assistant…
How to manage your contacts – tips from a Virtual Assistant How to manage your contacts I have generally found that after attending networking meetings, I often come home with arms full of business cards. What to do with them is the next question? Do you keep them all in a little box, beautifully organised…