Virtually Smart Ltd 2018 review. We take time to reflect on the successes of 2018 & our vision for 2019.
Wow! What a year it has been for Virtually Smart Ltd. When Helena Parrott – VA/Director of Virtually Smart Ltd started Virtually Smart Ltd in October 2017, she had one vision in mind: to provide expert, efficient & proactive business support & solutions to a varied clientele.
Wow! What a year it has been for Virtually Smart Ltd. When Helena Parrott – VA/Director of Virtually Smart Ltd started Virtually Smart Ltd in October 2017, she had one vision in mind: to provide expert, efficient & proactive business support & solutions to a varied clientele.
With over 20 years PA/EA/business support experience to her name, Helena Parrott knew she had the skills set to be able to support businesses. Whether at the beginning of their journeys with setup procedural policy reviews & executive support or established businesses with corporate structural & financial support; Helena Parrott knew she could help those in business with her accumulated knowledge & expertise in this field.
“I think it important for businesses to be flexible and grow into where their business takes them. In simple terms I want Virtually Smart to be a successful brand, offering support to varied clients, perhaps with a team of Virtual Assistants offering a wider range of skills.” Helena Parrott, April 2018.
As Virtually Smart Ltd came into 2018, Helena Parrott had already accrued a growing client base. Happy Bear Software Company, Seaford Scene, Ricardo Plc, Virgin Atlantic & Coding Craft were only the beginning of Helena Parrott’s varied client base.
One of Helena Parrott’s first corporate clients was Claire Cronin – CMO of Virgin Atlantic. Helena Parrott supported Claire Cronin through a series of EA/PA tasks, putting a workable structure in place for Claire Cronin.
This is what Claire Cronin had to say about the exceptional business support Helena Parrott of Virtually Smart Ltd provided:
“Helena is quite simply a machine – ultra efficient, a pleasure to deal with and fantastically pragmatic at seeing what needs to be done and getting it delivered at speed/to quality. She quickly scans the landscape, sees what needs to be done and uses her initiative to deliver it. Supremely cool, calm and collected – nothing phases her and despite supporting me with zero introduction to Virgin Atlantic – she quickly navigated our systems and networked her way across the business. She transformed my life and I was gutted I couldn’t poach her to come in-house and work for me permanently. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her to anyone who run’s a busy, global organisation” Claire Cronin CMO Virgin Atlantic, January 2018.
Throughout 2018, Helena Parrott has grown & developed her client base, with some sustained clients & others seeking her expertise for project assistance.
Happy Bear Software Company, relied on Helena’s proficient expertise, in particular her ability to provide outstanding support to a global team. Helena learnt the value of Trello while collaborating with Happy Bear Software & has since introduced the technology to several other clients when helping them streamline & re-focus their businesses. Helena supported the Proprietor of Happy Bear Software in a variety of ways, ensuring employee information was up to date, producing the weekly news updates for the global team, invoicing queries & participating in regular international Skype meetings.
The final support Helena Parrott gave to the Proprietor of Happy Bear Software, was support through his move to Japan. Seeking translators for key documents & being a key member of the team assisting in the closing of the company, enabled Helena to further flex her VA muscles & embrace additional layers of skills to be able to offer future clients going forward. Helena has since supported the startup process for one of Happy Bear’s former programmers, Hopper & Turing Labs Ltd, based in Lagos.
Helena has continued to support her long-term clients Seaford Scene, Ricardo Plc & Coding Craft & in addition was called upon by The Coffeepug & Brown’s Natural Pet Food to assist with documentation verification services throughout 2018.
As is the nature of being a VA, one never knows how a project & or booking may turn out. Sometimes bookings can be time precious or project specific, but one thing which is certain, being a VA certainly does bring with it layers of dynamic clients & work processes. It is with this in mind that we consider the development of the Dolphin N2 project.
Helena Parrott having already been employed by Ricardo Plc, was the natural choice to support spin off company Dolphin N2 during their first stages of development. As Helena had already worked alongside some of the engineers & Dolphin N2 CEO Simon Brewster, they were already aware of her proficient Executive Assistant expertise. However, as a business woman in her own right & Director of Virtually Smart Ltd, Helena has been able to let her business knowledge & ability add continued support & value to every process & procedure undertaken for the Dolphin N2 team. Helena Parrott has assisted the Dolphin N2 team by supporting the patent documentation processes & procedures: monitoring the teams calendar & diary of events, booking international flights & accommodations, booking international & national conferences, monitoring & highlighting email correspondence, helping to stream line & introducing the team to Trello & seeking ways to incorporate Slack. Helena Parrott has supported CEO Simon Brewster with Governmental meetings & national & international corporate investor preparations. This is only a snapshot of the vast amount of tasks Helena Parrott has undertaken & continues to undertake for the Dolphin N2 team.
In addition to the fantastic year of growth Helena Parrott of Virtually Smart Ltd has seen personally, Virtually Smart Ltd has also seen it’s first team member join in the shape of Katy-Jane.
With a good variety of clients & a substantial continuation with Ricardo, Helena Parrott realised in early February 2018 that she might need some help herself, as she was aware her social media presence needed some attention. A chance message from Katy Jane about seeking work, saw a meeting & collaboration begin.
Since joining Virtually Smart Ltd in February 2018, Katy Jane has populated & developed all of the Virtually Smart Ltd social media channels. She has created eclectic, challenging & informative website content & blogs, developed & nurtured Twitter & put Helena Parrott in front of leading business owners in LinkedIn, growing her connections from under 300 to over 500. Furthermore, Helena is now represented on YouTube & Instagram.
As we move in to 2019, Helena continues to develop skills, processes & procedures to ensure Virtually Smart Ltd can offer a plethora of skills & services to assist all business from startup’s, right through to corporate giants. With the addition of Slack in to the Virtually Smart Ltd repertoire, Helena is also embracing the vast versatility of the Slack app & how she can roll this out to all levels of business throughout 2019. The use of Slack as a business tool is a potential game changer for many businesses, enabling multiple user’s access to multiple layers of information, data, storage, instant messenger & remaining connected to a national or international team.
As 2018 draws to a close, Helena Parrott & Virtually Smart Ltd looks forward to the new & varied clients, challenges & changes 2019 will bring & to how we can hone, develop & sharpen our services to go above & beyond for the Virtually Smart Ltd client portfolio.
Written by Katy Jane on behalf of Virtually Smart Ltd.
