The Floating Assistant

Celebrating some wins today, happy customers make me very happy 💕

I’ve been setting up a new CRM for a new client, with a new domain achieving good email deliverability can be tricky 🥴

I advised on best practise and followed my own advice to warm the domain, I also researched and curated an email list of highly suitable clients. This has resulted in 100% of emails delivered, 70% open rate and 33.3% click through rate 🤯

Those stats are HUGE even for a known domain with warm leads, for cold leads it’s actually incredible so for once i’m actually blowing my own trumpet and giving myself a little pat on the back 🎉

✨ Today’s Tool: Project Management Apps! ✨

There are loads of project management tools out there, and many offer a free plan—perfect for solopreneurs or start-ups! 🚀

The big names? ClickUp, Monday, and Asana. These are some of the most popular and well-known platforms.

💡 My take?
✔️ For my own projects (and when working with clients), I prefer Asana—it’s intuitive and keeps me organised.
✔️ But many of my clients love ClickUp for collaborative work!

So, what’s the best one? It depends! I recommend trying a couple of different platforms to see which one feels most natural to you—that’s the one you’ll be most productive with. ✅

Which project management tool do you swear by? Drop it in the comments! ⬇️

Of all the lovely places I get to work from while we reside in this marina this is one of my absolute favourites 👌 Hubby needs to get into some cabinets as we have a leaking stanchion so I’ve escaped to focus on work without being in the way! On the agenda today client meeting, some research, some training, update social (tick 😂) and continuing a website build I started last week (this one is proving to be a lot of fun to do as the subject matter is cute and fluffy - literally!)

As promised Q&A:

Q1: What do I do?
I work as a tech VA - a virtual assistant with a tech bias. I learn your pain points and issues and try to find the most efficient way to address them, ideally eliminating the busywork through the use of automation. If that's not possible, I can take on those tasks that you dislike.

Q2: How do I work from a boat in the ocean?
At the moment, we're coastal cruising in the Mediterranean, so it's actually quite straightforward (mobile coverage is significantly better than in the UK across almost all of our cruising grounds.) I use a local SIM card and hotspot from my mobile. When we're making big crossings of 2–3 days at sea, I let my clients know in plenty of time that I'll be temporarily unavailable, I also try to time it over weekends where possible. If we ever decide to go further afield, I will likely invest in a Starlink system. I've only ever had one instance of patchy internet access combined with a last-minute, urgent task from a client. If needed, we would have moved to a different anchorage, but as it happens, running my mobile phone up to the top of the mast worked a treat!

Q3: What is my favourite task?
I actually have two joint winners. Firstly, I love doing automations - that's basically building a robotic process that says, "When this happens, do X, Y, Z." A very simplified example is: if someone fills in a contact form, you might want to send them an introductory email and perhaps follow up later with a discount offer. Rather than doing it manually, an automation would handle it for you, merging in the person's contact details, addressing the email to them directly and following up at the specified time, so you don’t need to remember. Automations can be simple or complex, but either way, they are incredibly powerful!

Secondly, I love building online training courses and ensuring they work seamlessly and look aesthetically pleasing. 😊

Those are the questions I get asked most often. If you have any others, feel free to ask!

Shameless plug:
If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner who wants to embrace tech but doesn't know where to start—or even what's possible—then feel free to reach out for a chat.