Author: pollymyall

The real cost of trying to do everything yourself.

Running a business, whether as a sole trader, entrepreneur, executive or small company owner, often means wearing many hats. You might be juggling planning, admin, customer-facing work, content creation, event coordination, travel, procurement, and so much more. Doing it all yourself may seem possible, but it comes at a steep price; stretched time, reduced focus, and limited capacity for growth.

That’s where working with a VA makes sense. A VA isn’t just a “helper” – they’re a strategic partner who can carry out the time-intensive and often complex tasks behind the scenes. With a skilled VA, you free up energy to do what you do best; steer your business vision, build relationships, and deliver value to your clients.

What a modern Virtual Assistant can do (and what MK-Virtual Assistant offers)

The role of a VA has evolved far beyond basic administration. At MK-Virtual Assistant, I offer a comprehensive suite of services designed to meet the real needs of businesses and professionals — whether on a project-by-project basis or ongoing support. Some of the key services include:

• Executive & Personal Assistance – diary and email management, scheduling, meeting planning and follow-ups, client communications, research, document preparation — all handled with care, confidentiality and professionalism.
• Project & Programme / PMO Support – from scoping sessions and pre-project documentation to project planning and coordination, I help organise and structure business projects so they run smoothly.
• Event & Travel Management – whether it’s a small client dinner, a team away-day, a conference, or a multi-destination business trip – I can manage everything; venue sourcing, attendee coordination, AV setup, travel arrangements, itineraries, visas/accommodation, and on-the-day logistics.
• Branding, Presentations & Creatives – designing and formatting course materials, branded documents, presentation decks, newsletters, social media creatives, brochures — ensuring consistency and polished, professional output.
• Procurement & Business Support Services – from supplier research, quote sourcing and product/service procurement to creating templates and procedures — offering support across multiple business needs without needing a full-time overhead.

Who benefits most — and why

If you find yourself in any of these categories, a VA is especially valuable:

• Entrepreneurs & Start-up Founders – you might have a vision and big ideas, but limited time and resources. A VA helps you turn ideas into reality, manage the logistics, and free up your time for growth.
• Executives or Small-Business Owners – you need support at key moments — for project-based work, events, presentations — but don’t want the overhead of hiring a full-time PA. A VA gives flexibility and professionalism without long-term commitment.
• Training Providers, Coaches & Speakers – if you deliver events, courses or training, a VA can help with slide design, course branding, material preparation, event logistics — so you can stay focused on delivering value.
• Solo Traders & Consultants – when every hour counts and admin/busywork eats into time you’d rather spend on clients, a VA becomes your right-hand support for admin, organisation, and growth.

Why MK-Virtual Assistant: What Makes the Difference

What sets MK-Virtual Assistant apart is:

• Depth and breadth of experience – 25+ years supporting CEOs, Directors and Executives across businesses and industries.
• Flexibility and modular support – whether you need a one-off project, event support, short-term help or ongoing assistance, you only pay for what you need -no long-term commitment or overhead.
• Professionalism, discretion and business insight – delivering with confidentiality, quality, clarity and an eye for strategic value.
• Creative and practical support – from branding to presentations, from travel to procurement and from admin to project-planning – you get a “one-stop shop” for business support.

What happens when you delegate – the “Freedom to Focus” effect

By partnering with MK-Virtual Assistant, you give yourself space to:

• Focus on high-value work – growth, strategy, client relationships, innovation.
• Avoid burnout, stress and overwhelm – especially when juggling multiple responsibilities.
• Execute organised, professional projects (events, travel, presentations) without the admin burden – delivering quality outcomes while you stay focused on your core business.
• Scale your operations flexibly – without the commitment of a full-time hire or overheads.

Final Thought: A VA is not a cost – it’s an investment in efficiency, growth and peace of mind

Your time, focus and creative energy are your most valuable resources. Every hour spent on minutiae is an hour not spent on business growth or strategic work. With MK-Virtual Assistant, you don’t just outsource tasks – you reclaim time, clarity, and momentum.

If you’re a busy executive, business owner, coach/trainer, or solo entrepreneur juggling too many roles – maybe it’s time to consider working with a VA. Not just to lighten the load – but to unlock what you can achieve when you have the right support behind you.

To Do List

First thing at the start of each day take time to organise what you need to achieve, in priority order.  It’s okay if it all goes to pot, but at least you’ll have a plan to start with, as the saying goes no plan survives contact with the enemy!  Every day has enemy gremlins who steal your time, attention and head space. That’s okay, it happens, but if you’ve started out with a list of actionable items which are prioritised, then you can keep referring back to it. 

Plan

Are you seeing the big picture or are you rushing from one fire to another, consistently feeling like you are only just making it there in time and then rushing to the next job.  Do you have a big picture plan of what’s happening now and what’s coming down the pipeline?  Spend time once a week or month to take a step back and see what’s happening and reprioritise if needed.  If you can see your big picture you can make informed decisions as to what needs to be done next, rather than reacting when it’s urgent.

Prioritise

Have the discipline to work through the list in priority order, I know the exciting sexy task you really want to do is calling your name, but that boring tax return or invoice processing needs to be done first.  Do those tasks quickly, efficiently and first, then you can spend the time on the good stuff, without that nagging feeling in the back of your mind.

Productivity

Work no more than 2 hours in one sitting.  You lose productivity if you sit still for any longer.  So, take a comfort break, go on a short walk, grab a drink, check in to see how colleagues are doing – especially if you are the boss, get out there and be seen.  Say hi to your team.  10 minutes doing this will pay dividends in the long run.

Organisation

Find a way of working which helps you to maximise your work space for you.  Do you like paper, then have plastic wallets with clients / projects names on the front and keep all your files in a file organiser on your desk.  It’s to hand, neat and ensures you have any paperwork you need all together.  Work on one folder / file at a time and put it away when you’ve finished with it.  Have a separate file organiser for long term projects and closed / finished ones elsewhere.  So what is to hand is the current needed regularly ones. 

Keep your inbox neat and tidy, if you have subscriptions get them sent directly to a reading folder, then they aren’t a distraction when you are reviewing your emails, plus you don’t have to search for them when you want to read them.  Have a cc’d file, anything that you’ve been cc’d in to goes directly to there.  That was you should be left with emails that you need to read and deal with. Set some time aside once a day / every couple of days to review your cc’d folder and catch-up.  If it’s important they’ll send it directly to you.   

Stress

Take the time to look after yourself, make sure you take proper holidays and switch off completely.  Try to not have you phone on for a particular part of the weekend and when on holiday ensure you have hours where you aren’t on it.  Just stop completely and recharge those batteries. 

Chaos

Running your own business(es) can be fraught with chaos and that’s ok, it’s how you deal with it which impacts your ability to work through it.  Have goals to each day and stick to them with flexibility (that’s the hard bit).  Rigidity doesn’t work here, being flexible around how you work to your goals and achievements will allow you take embrace the chaos when it’s at it’s worse and help you to steer yourself towards your goals.  Do you need input from others to see a way through, or time to reassess or space to clear you mind to think clearly to see your way.  Speak to someone, do a different task or take a walk to clear your head.  Bounce ideas / thoughts / problems off your VA and see what input they can provide.  They will see things differently than you and can help you to generate a clearer solution to an issue, then they can help you to achieve it too.

Batch “Bake”

A great way to be organised is to batch “bake” your work, e.g. set aside a particular day of the month where you issue all your invoices, do that first thing in the morning.  All at once, you’ll get into a rhythm and before you know it, they are all done for the month.  Or write all your social media posts on a Tuesday afternoon in one go, you’ll get your creative post writing juices following and may find that you are turning out several posts in a lot less time (in total) than when you were writing them individually.  Also, what a great way to write a series, as your thoughts are all collected as you work through it all at once.  There’s a reason way mass production is highly used, so embrace it and mass produce work pieces. 

Delegate

Letting go, especially of a part of your business is so hard, will that person care as much as me, can they do it as well as me, will they get it right?  All questions that every manager / business owner has asked themselves time and time again.  The Harvard Business Review provides a process to help you become a great delegator:

• Understand why you’re not delegating already
• Measure how you’re doing with regards to the work
• Choose the right people who have the skill-set and capabilities to do the work required
• Integrate delegation into what you already do, so that it’s your first option not last
• Make yourself accountable for delegating, allow others to advise you that it’s something that can be done by someone else
• Release the work, don’t micromanage or hover, give clear instructions, set boundaries and allow the delegate to do the work
• Learn from experience, what could you improve next time you delegate

Ask yourself the following questions and if the answer is yes, then delegate it and go back to managing your business, not doing your business!

• Do you dislike doing it?
• Is it an easy to do, process-orientated task, that is time consuming?
• Do you struggle to do it?
• Is it getting in the way of growing your business?
• Will it increase cash flow?
• Is it something that someone in the team needs to learn to do?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, then delegating those tasks so that you can concentrate on managing your business rather working it.  Consider working with a VA who can provide you with the support you need to maximise your efficiency.  If you don’t have the time, it isn’t efficient or you lack a skill-set to do something, then hire in a solution.

I have recently been awarded Approved Status for the Society of Virtual Assistants.  There is no governing organisation for VA’s, so I am delighted to be part of their Approved Status, offering my clients the best possible service with assurance that I am confirming to decent standards within an unregulated industry.

When I was setting up my business, what I needed to do and where I might find many of the different software, applications and providers that I would need to do so, was a mine-field.  The Society proved incredibly helpful in highlighting pitfalls and providing information which enabled me to really get to grips with the things that I needed to do to set-up my business. 

I thoroughly recommend having a look at their website to see what they do and how they work with VAs to bring a high level of professionalism to our fledgling industry.

I made a video advert. I am so excited that it’s out there, not just because it’s a way to generate new clients, but because it was something I learnt to do.

I decided that I needed something more than a picture advert and investigated what solutions I could use and now it’s another feather in my cap, as I can offer this solution to clients too.

This is something I really love about working for myself. I’ve had to learn new software and packages for clients’ work and I’ve found solutions for new ideas I’ve wanted to do, like the advert. Working for yourself can be a bit scary, as you have to set your own goals and learn to push yourself further to develop and evolve, often without input from others. It would be easy to stick to the known and keep developing what I am already good at. Where’s the challenge in that! I want to learn & develop and go on a journey with my clients.

I really enjoy finding a solution to fit a puzzling issue, working things out and taking a chaotic mess of ideas or even paperwork – bringing it all together to seamlessly work.

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s my video advert which has been showing on LinkedIn, Facebook & Instagram.

If you haven’t read my introduction, please link here before proceeding.

I’ve said this before in a previous blog, with they way the world is right now we can find ourselves very much alone.  Especially if we run our own businesses or work from home.  Whilst I am happy as a homebody and am content working from home on my own, even I do miss the interaction which we took for granted until it was gone from our lives.   

What that highlighted to me is that when we want to achieve greater things, we do need other people.  People to talk to, people to work alongside with, people we can trust to have our backs and be there for us.  Throughout my career that is probably one of the hardest to define, but most important roles I have performed.  When you work with a PA you need to know they are there for you, loyalty and discretion are one of the key attributes.  Therefore, when you work with MK-Virtual Assistant you can be reassured that they are an intrinsic part of my make-up and ethos for the business. 

With this in mind, it’s a great place to start our relationship from, I absolutely have your back, my business is built on delivering work to the highest standard, but also you can work with me secure in the confidence you give me. 

When working with a VA we build our relationship remotely and over time. The work we can do to help within your business is an integral part of empowering you to deliver your targets, achieve your ambitions and evolve your business.

Throughout this series of blogs, I haven’t given specific details of what support you could obtain from MK-Virtual Assistant for your business, as this varies from client to client.  I would like to refer you to my services page which talks you through an outline of the services offered and also contains a printout “what do I need help with?” which is useful to spend a few minutes making notes on it to start to get a clear picture of the sort of work you need help with, then we can have a chat about what you would like support with, please use my contact page to decide the best way to make the connection.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Helen Keller

If you haven’t read my introduction, please link here before proceeding.

I’m part of a very small group of people who are extroverted introverts; simply put I really don’t like being the centre of attention myself, but am not off-put by it. However, I love making the person who is an extrovert look amazing and don’t feel upstaged by them. I am, at heart, someone who thrives on supporting others.  I am most gratified when the work I do helps someone else move forward and without blowing my own trumpet, I’m really good at what I do.  I have a great ability for taking someone’s idea and bringing it to life for them and I take unmitigated chaos and turn it into a structured solution.

Do you give a lot of presentations; are you a public speaker, do you run courses or training; if so then I have fabulous skills and utilise market leading software and design tools to take any current presentations and bring them to a superb level to really engage your audiences visually. 

Do you know what you want to say to your clients, but just cannot find the time to make it look good visually for social media or e-newsletters; I am able to design your publications to represent your business to the highest possible standards.   

Are you overwhelmed by all that needs to be done and don’t have enough hours in the day to do it all; I have years of experience organising, implementing new ways of working, creating new procedures and policies and bringing structure to the chaos.  

Utilise my skill-set and capabilities with your ideas; together we can do great things.

I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot.  Together we can do great things.

Mother Theresa