I hear you on the late nights after the family goes to bed. I was up last night rewording my website and doing a Facebook ad at 1 am. With a 2 year old and 4 month I have been pushing things off to the last minute. Things are finally normalizing with the biz and family life, so it’s time to get back into a routine.
This coming season my wife is going to be answering the phone and scheduling. She’ll be spending less to-no time in the field. With two kids under two years old she has her hands full.
Let me know what structure you come up with if you don’t mind ?
Wanted to resurrect this thread.
I am thinking about hiring my close friends wife to handle the phones and scheduling, as well as inputting financial data. I am considering paying a daily rate of $80, 5 days a week. She has a 2 year old son and is a stay at home mother with help from her own mother to watch the kid. Anyway, I want to make sure that whoever it is, they are available MOST of the time to take calls and if not, would call back ASAP. We probably only get 5-15 calls a days during our busy season, but it’s the scheduling and desk work (customer profiles, taking down ALL the customers information) that I need to be consistently dialed in and updated throughout the day, which she can do when she’s free. I just don’t want to hire somebody who sits around all day on a slow day.
What are your thoughts on a set amount per day for a “flexible” office assistant instead of hourly for this situation? I trust her and know her well and have no doubt she will take it seriously. I would also like to give a 5% bonus for work that totals over $500 per residential job. We get a lot of repair calls that I turn into window and blind cleaning jobs if I have the time, so the up sell potential is definitely there.
Thanks
think id want someone who will do other stuff at the same time ,and who switches quickly without prompting to doin the other stuff on the quiet times. that other stuff might be washing and drying rags, running the facebook page ads , doling out flyers , cooking food
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That’s exactly what I’d be looking for. I want to do a flat rate though. I would be nervous about somebody spending my marketing money, but if that’s something they would be interested in, Facebook advertising is fairly simple to do and maybe I could text a photo from a job or two throughout the day with some text for them to post on social media. Things I don’t want to do after working all day.
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i hope you take her on, the leap of faith. i tell u for why…
about 3 yrs ago i had a friend offer me something very similar,wanted to work for me [office style]
i hesitated and then said nooo. ever since iv wondered where id be IF id took her on. IF ONLY
and im still takin all the calls myself 
I still think this is the most important person to staff. This should be your first hire. This is a position that takes away so many mundane tasks that you probably don’t do well anyways.
My kids are getting involved in multiple activities and my wife developed many processes to run the office and we just hired someone to take her place. She started yesterday. My wife will work 5-10 hours per week assisting the new hire, doing accounting, payroll and hr stuff. But other than that everything else will be handled by the new hire.
Now if we could just get some more techs I’d be set! Lol.
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Does anyone have a training manual for their office staff (doing estimates, emails, scheduling, etc.) they would be willing to share or sell? Not looking to “recreate the wheel”
Were you able to get a hold of an office staff training manual? were currently having issues with our staff.
I’m building one now - hired a couple of va’s with past office management/training development experience
it seems that its a fine line with what tasks they can take care of. in your opinion, how much should be delegated to them? what topics should they and should they not be able to discuss with clients?
Any recommendations?
My receptionist started this week and is killing it. She uses The Customer Factor like a pro and it’s been soooo nice to just have a quiet couple of workdays. She gets to stay home, take care of her kid and take a few calls a day for $60. Not a bad deal for either of us.
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That’s great to hear!
We use gabbyville - did quite a lot of research when we started with them last year and found it was a good fit when comparing price and value
I suppose it all depends on who they are, if they are in the u.s. or overseas (Philippines is the largest for international va’s), and what skill sets they have. They can handle phones/emails, putting together estimates for residential properties that don’t need to have in-person estimates, building training materials for technicians and just about any other task you need done. I wouldn’t give a va access to a bank account but you can give a company prepaid card and have them make purchases.
Awesome. Thanks for sharing!
60 per day?
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Yes sir.
