Case Study No.2 – Lifestyle
Lifestyle and additional VA help
One of the great benefits of having a VA is that you don’t only have to hand over business tasks. For example, my clients have given me lifestyle projects as well, so here I’m going to explain a few and how this helped them.
Travel & Accommodation
One frequent task is to source flights/ trains/ hotels/ Airbnbs. This can be as simple as finding the best deals for a single person going to meet a client for one or multiple days, or on the slightly more complex side booking a team of people for an event.
For example, I had one client send their entire team to Anuga in Germany who provided a set brief and budget. I found 4 hotels in the city where the exhibition was being held, however due to the event, prices were incredibly high meaning the attendees would only have had a 2-star hotel. I decided to look at nearby locations (30-minute commute) and managed to find 4 more in Dusseldorf which were 4 stars. Needless to say, they were far happier with this option and slept far better because of it. Who knows they may have even achieved superlative results.
Note: Due to recent Covid-19 events this has recently turned into a rescheduling/ refund task. Thankfully I made sure all bookings had insurance on them well before the pandemic announcement (13th March 2020), meaning all near future bookings were easily reimbursed.
Private events
In a few cases, I have helped clients organise private events. This has quite a wide spectrum, on one end it is a matter of calling a few restaurants/ venues and seeing if they can fit x number of people on a specific date and getting quotes.
Note: This can be quite fun as I can often negotiate a few deals on additional benefits based on a certain amount of people attending/ budget we have available.
At the other end of the spectrum, I have organised elaborate birthday celebrations, in one case I had to help sort out my clients 50th. She wanted to rent out a field for a mini-festival. This involved looking through a number of potential locations and passing them over, pulling together a list of necessities which everyone would need (toilet roll, water, food the basics), writing the invitation email and sourcing local DJ’s / entertainment which fitted her brief. The day after I was informed everything went swimmingly and I have gained invaluable trust from my client.
Presents and Birthday Cards
It is a given that any business clients will have key people they want to send a goodwill gesture to, such as a nice gift or Birthday Card. However, in a couple of scenarios, I have been asked to do this for my clients personal family or friends.
This would involve receiving a brief outlining their interests, budget and timeframe. I proceeded to dive through the internet and compile a list of links/ ideas which would suit the individual and send them over for the client to confirm. In this case as the person in question was quite active I got them a bouldering day ticket for them +1 to try out. I very much enjoy these opportunities as they provide me with a great way of delivering personal support.
Note: Unless the client tells the person this is always confidential and in essence an invaluable way to save time whilst keeping those close to you feeling treasured.
Researching a subject of interest
Ever had a topic come up which scratches your interest but you don’t have the time to research it? Well, this is a common request from time-poor individuals. Depending on the nature of the subject this could be a high or low high priority.
For example, in one case my client had to attend a networking event where he would be meeting a number of business owners/ C level executives. A few of which he had a particular interest in and wanted to make sure his first impressions were spot on. With this in mind, he asked me to research their key interests and find him articles which would elaborate on these areas further and highlight the best parts.
Help to learn a language
Believe it or not, we even assist with helping to learn a new skill, or this instance a language! Here I had one client who wanted to master Spanish as she found the majority of her business came from countries speaking that language.
Therefore after getting timings and budget, I found a number of viable options, from one to ones, group, online lessons and of course free apps to use alongside in the evening. In this instance, she actually ended up using all the different methods and as a personal touch, I made weekly reminders to practice outside of lessons so she had some time set aside to focus on learning Spanish.
This was incredibly valuable for her as it showed her clients that she cared, thus when it came to business transactions/ face to face meetings or contracts being signed the buyer felt they were going to be looked after. Though the client is yet to see the ripened results of this, we’re both confident it will create long-lasting relationships.
Why this benefits my clients
In a nutshell, the above tasks aren’t too difficult to complete but they are and can be very time-consuming. For the most part, my clients give me these tasks because they are incredibly busy. A lot of their life is spent making decisions so having a few low-risk ones taken off their shoulders helps massively. We all know that feeling when we have something just sitting at the back of our head.
So instead of them spending their valuable time, I will sift through the internet and pull together a variety of options based upon a brief and budget. They can then choose through these instead of the 100’s that they find online. To my clients, this is money well spent as they can focus on more important aspects of their business or just getting on with their lives whilst I spend my time drying my eyes out on comparison websites.
If you would like any assistance such as the above or have any questions on best practices please feel free to get in touch via oliver@olivera28.sg-host.com.