New blog

I am excited to announce that the Wordpress installation has been successful and the new blog is ready.

Please go take a look and bookmark the new site.

Look forward to seeing you over there.

Emma Walker
CKPA Office Solutions

Another award honour

I am really excited to announce that I have been awarded the VANA Blog of the month award by my peers for this blog.

I am just glad that people enjoy it and hopefully find some useful tips that they can implement in their businesses.

Thanks again to everyone at VANA!

Until next time,

Emma Walker
CKPA Office Solutions

How can a Lifestyle Manager help me?

I am launching a new service on 16th July, Lifestyle Management, to compliment my Virtual Assistant business. Thought the following article would explain a little bit about how you could utilise this service.

• Do you work hard and want to play hard?
• Have a never ending to do list for your personal life?
• Too busy at work to even think about home?

Are you one of the growing numbers of cash rich, time poor individuals who never seems to be able to get anything done in their personal lives?

People today are working longer hours at work leaving little or no time to sort out their personal lives - their personal to do list is not really a priority.

If this sounds familiar, then this is where a Lifestyle Manager can help.

In essence, you get a Personal Assistant for your personal life and they can help you with a whole range of tasks including:

Home improvement project (building work, decorating, garden landscaping) - your Lifestyle Manager could become the Project Manager and deal with everything

Family and friends important dates - use the reminder service and receive text message / email / telephone call to remind you of birthdays, anniversaries etc

Family holidays - liaison with Travel Agents to ensure the family holiday is perfect

Household staff (Cleaners, Nannies, Au Pairs etc) - your Lifestyle Manager can recruit and manage the staff taking away any hassle for you

Restaurant bookings - let your Lifestyle Manager know where you want to eat and they will take cae of the arrangements

Event management - arranging a wide variety of events leaving you to enjoy yourself

Selling or purchasing property - your Lifestyle Manager can be the point of contact with all parties and co-ordinate all arrangements

Relocations - let your Lifestyle Manager handle everything from finding the house to researching schools etc

Vehicle maintenance - your Lifestyle Manager can schedule all necessary service / MOT appointments, deal with insurance renewals and car tax etc

Pregnancy / new Mum support - help with everything you need from pregnancy bump to new arrival (equipment, child care, home help etc)

Want to find out more and put your name down on the waiting list to start with a Lifestyle Manager on 16th July, then please contact us.

About the author

Emma Walker is the owner of CKPA Office Solutions Ltd, a UK based Virtual Assistant company that specialises in helping Entrepreneurs, Business Coaches and businesses in the construction / property sector make more money by freeing up their valuable time from administrative and secretarial tasks.

Until next time,

Emma Walker
CKPA Office Solutions

International Virtual Assistants Day

Have you wished your Virtual Assistant a Happy International Virtual Assistants Day?

For those of you that haven't engaged the services of a Virtual Assistant (or VA), then why not contact me to find out how you could gain an extra 3 months each year to focus on doing what you do best.

To all the VA's out there, enjoy our day as we all deserve it!

Until next time,

Emma Walker
CKPA Office Solutions

What an honour

Can't believe I have not posted this great honour received from VANA - please read news item taken from my website.

MD receives award from networking group (14th March 2007) - Emma Walker has been awarded The VAccolade Business Entrpreneur Award for March 2007 from Virtual Assistant Networking Association (VANA). Speaking of this award, Emma "is proud to receive this recognition from her VA peers and is thrilled to be part of this wonderful organisation".

Until next time,

Emma Walker
CKPA Office Solutions

Pretty quiet

It has been very quiet here at CKPA over the last couple of weeks because I have just had my daughter Megan Tayla on 2nd December and have been focussing my efforts on getting to know her - after she was too comfy to come out (17 days overdue).

So this is last post for 2006 and will be back to normal come January.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and happy New Year. Here's to a successful 2007!

Until next year,

Emma Walker
CKPA Office Solutions

Happy Birthday - to CKPA

Well on Wednesday, I celebrated my first year birthday of operating CKPA full time. I established the company in May 2005 whilst working full time but I was unfortunate enough to be working for a company and boss who weren't very nice. However, I will always be grateful to them! Why, because they gave me the motivation to do what I am doing and see first hand how NOT to run a company!

Well, 12th July 2005 was the day I said enough was enough and left. I then began the journey of running CKPA full time trying to gain clients.

12 months on and I have some great clients, started writing (this Blog and some articles to be published soon), expanded my service offering (Virtual Receptionist), am happy and about to become a Mum for the first time in November.

So Happy Birthday to CKPA and well done to me for running a successful business that makes me happy.

Until next time,

Emma Walker
CKPA Office Solutions

It's official - VA's have their own day

The Virtual Assistant (VA) industry started in USA around 1996 and has become a popular alternative to working in the corporate environment. VA's are huge in USA and are becoming more popular but it is a different story here in the UK as not a lot of people know what a VA is.

I was really excited to hear that our colleagues across the pond had established our very own International Virtual Assistants Day taking place tomorrow (19th May) in recognition to VA's across the globe.

What a great way to promote our industry to clients and I hope that us UK VA's can start to get the recognition we deserve from our continued efforts in educating the public.

So if you are a VA, have you took advantage of this? I must admit that I haven't but will definately include it in my marketing plan for next year.

Until next time,

Emma Walker
CKPA Office Solutions