Minky is on holiday this week and he really needs a break. Mrs M has told him that if he takes his laptop it will be going in the pool, so we are looking after his business for him for the week. These are just some of the things we are doing to make sure he gets a well deserved rest.

• taking his phone calls for him
• responding to any enquiries from new clients, so that they get a professional first impression
• booking appointments for him ready for when he’s back
• chasing his customers for payment
• sending out a marketing email
• updating his blog

So, while he’s monkeying around on the beach, his business is ticking along without him.

You will always be the best person to run your business, but could we do this for you for a few days so you can recharge your batteries? Just drop us an email…

No, I’m not going to crack a dodgy joke about your mother’s mother…

I must admit, I am a little prickly on this one – the odd typo is one thing, but when an “expert” in their field can’t get their own technical terms right then surely we have to question both the education system and their own ability and standards. When their field of expertise is supposed to be administration, I really get worried – a surgeon with shaky hands perhaps shouldn’t be a surgeon, so should a VA with poor “English” (or any other language they choose to work in) be thinking about a career change? I was given a “stationary” price list today from a local printer – good thing too, I don’t want the thing running around the office!

Whenever you publish something with words in, whether on the web, in an email or in print you WILL be judged by the quality of the work. If it’s badly written with spelling mistakes and poor grammar then your business will appear to be unprofessional and shoddy. On the other hand, a piece that has clearly been prepared with care will portray you in a favourable manner and may well win you extra sales, especially if it gets read by someone like me!

I’m not perfect by any means and I certainly spot other people’s mistakes better than my own, but I know the difference between your and you’re, stationery and stationary, affect and effect. I could go on…

Is it because I’m getting old and crusty? When I was at school spelling, punctuation and grammar mattered in all subjects – if my Chemistry homework was factually correct but littered with spelling mistakes then it came back covered in red ink, usually accompanied with a “See me” comment. However, my two stepsons, who I don’t think are classed as being anything other than pretty average are, in my opinion, rubbish at spelling and nobody seems to think it’s an issue! So perhaps I am being too hard – after all, if nobody tells you how to use an apostrophe then I suppose it’s all downhill from there really.

I know lots of people who work from home very successfully – they can shut themselves away, not get distracted by the washing up and lock their office door when they’ve finished and forget about it until the next day.

I have tried working from home. I did it for a few weeks (after my op I started working from home the day I got out of hospital – no 6 week rest for me) but then something changed. I started cooking every day (much to hubby’s delight) and worse – tidying! If I didn’t get back into a proper office I would end up ironing for goodness sake!

No – I needed an office. Thankfully I have one, I signed up for it 3 days before I got my op date, typically! It’s all set up and ready to go, I even have a couple of pictures.

Then yesterday, my landlord (who is also a client) came up with an idea – he’s got a large office that’s just become vacant and thinks he might use it as a “hot desk” office – with tenants using it either occasionally and booking a desk as they need one or having their own desk in an open plan office, depending on how much they want to spend.

My initial thought was “great – I could do that and save a fortune! – I don’t need a private office!”

But do I? What about secure storage and client confidentiality? Am I just too messy to work in an open space? Now I’ve got some peace and quiet do I actually want to give it up, even with the cost savings?

On the other hand it would be nice to have some company once in a while – they are a friendly bunch here but I only tend to bump into people in the kitchen – unless someone needs me I can go all day without seeing anyone, even in here. Also, with my business the more visible I am the better, so perhaps being in the middle of an office would get me more clients? I could rent 2 desks permanently and still save half my rent…

I have a nice space and can grow my business without moving for a while. But I can see the benefits, it would be a great half-way point for a lot of small businesses…

He’s still thinking about it, so if it sounds good to you and you’re local let me know – if his hot desk office is as popular as the rest of his business centre it won’t be vacant for long!

As Adam and the Ants once said! (Sorry if anyone under the age of 35 hasn’t even heard of them)

Been having great fun this morning trying to connect people on Facebook, but I think we’re all sorted now…

This particular exercise was social but it has got me wondering just how much use all this social networking is for business???

I have a Twitter page, a Facebook profile, an Ecademy profile and post to umpteen forums on all sorts of topics. I quite enjoy it and find it useful for GETTING information, but just how useful is it for GIVING information??? Is anyone really interested in what I had for lunch??? Or am I just old???

It’s easy to spend hours on social networking (ask any teenager!) but is it a productive use of business hours??? I’m trying it out – partly because I actually have time at the moment while recovering from my op. I’ll let you know how I get on…

Minky gets about a bit, so if he comes across anything worth sharing we’ll post it up here. This could be useful business tips, opinions on the news or the things that annoy him.

He’s also been asked about his hourly rate and what his customers can expect to get for their money. We charge almost all of our services “by the hour” so this got us thinking – What can we do for our clients in about an hour? We have decided to do a series of posts where we hope to give you some ideas of the kind of things we do.

Register to get notifications of new posts as they happen about every 2 weeks – Minky doesn’t like spam…

Just Bananas and nuts!