From ‘so-long’ to solo

After 22+ years, today is my last day as an employee. I am leaving LawSkills to focus on my own Virtual Assistant business, Target Admin, that I started on a part-time basis at the back end of 2019.

I am looking forward to growing my client base, learning new skills and meeting new people – more of that later….

But first, a word of thanks. It has been a pleasure to be part of Gill Steel's Law training and consultancy business, LawSkills, since 2000 and before that, in '98 as a secretary to her law practice. The role back in the day encompassed mostly secretarial work but included making loads of travel arrangements as Gill became more and more in demand as a key trainer in Wills, Probate, Trust & Tax matters for law firms up and down the country. My role developed into a multi-faceted one as befits that of a Personal Assistant and, as the business grew and I learned more about the Private Client legal field, I enjoyed supporting clients and the day-to-day management of the office whilst Gill was on the road.

It’s hard to remember a day when a company didn’t have a website but, yes, in the late nineties this was only just becoming ‘a thing’ and consequently my role expanded to include learning more about the online world and developing the skills needed to administer the Wordpress site day to day. With the excellent help of Craig Killick of Rewind Digital, LawSkills website continues to grow and is now a major player in the private client training arena. Over the last 5 years or so there has been an explosion in the use of social media and email marketing both of which are important for all businesses as they fight for attention in the digital world. I’ve had to learn fast and seek out experts to help when my knowledge was stretched.

So thank you to LawSkills and to Gill Steel for the last 22 years.

The future – working with a Virtual Assistant

I’m excited to be at the threshold of my new working world. I’ve bagged lots of experience as a PA working in IT, publishing, healthcare, horticulture and latterly legal training and now I have capacity to work with more clients. Could you be one of them?

Why outsource?

As a VA I can often save you money because I only charge for the work completed and you don’t have to pay for all the ‘extras’ eg. office space, equipment, and the statutories eg. tax, NI and pension.

Not sure what to outsource?

The best tasks to outsource are those which will save you the most time and which are repeatable ie tasks that you do daily, weekly or monthly.

Then again there might be tasks that you keeping putting off. We can all find ourselves procrastinating from time to time but sometimes the work just has to be done. Think about entrusting these tasks to a VA; after all you probably didn’t go into business to dream of doing the ‘administrivia’ as the Society of VAs call it.

Time for a chat?

I’m a very approachable, level-headed individual who loves helping business people get organised. Get in touch by phone 07810 746669 or email sue.sheppard@targetadmin.co.uk and let’s see how I can help you and your business.