YourOfficeAngel— From the Beginning

YourOfficeAngel is a brand new business emerging from Barnoldswick. YourOfficeAngel was an idea
born back in early 2007 by Nicola Ayrton, who has lived in Barnoldswick since birth. After attending
Gisburn Road and West Craven High schools, Nicola moved into office work at Carlson Filtration in the
town, she stayed there for 11 years moving her way around the offices from Receptionist/Office Junior
to Sales Office Supervisor, leaving the company in March 2002 to work for a busy Harrogate owned
company from a local home based office of the owner. With the company relocating back to their
renovated warehouse in Harrogate, Nicola decided to look for alternative employment rather than
travelling the 300 miles each week over the notorious Blubberhouses to continue with her employment.

Alongside looking for another suitable job, Nicola also considered going self employed. She had the
idea of a home based freelance Secretary/PA (Personal Assistant). Researching ‘virtual office angels’ on
the internet (home workers who provide secretarial support by email/internet) she gathered
information on pricing, the main reasons why someone would use a freelance assistant rather than go to
a temp agency or take on a full time staff member and listed down the services that she would be able
to offer someone. Sitting down to write a list of reasons why clients would need or use her service, and
then looking at the a possible customer base, she realised just how good a service she would be able to
provide for clients, particularly the independent businessmen and tradesmen of the area.

From experience, we all know how time consuming it is to ring around a long list of tradesmen from the
Yellow Pages to be constantly greeted with no answer, or an answer phone. Not only does this frustrate
the caller, it generally loses a potential customer when the caller just moves on to the next listing and
the next until they speak to an actual person. This was the first thought and the start of the business
idea. To provide a service where people can transfer calls to a manned number, to a secretary who can
take a message for you, who may have access to your diary and can make appointments etc, or just pass
messages/enquiries on for you. Following on from this, she can then be given appointment details and
phone the customer back the next day to arrange. The list of YourOfficeAngel services started with
this point.

The next point following on from this was the amount of time you then waited, after having had
someone come out to look at your job to quote, to actually receive the costs. Nicola has previously had
tradesmen come out to view the job, phone her with details of what is required, and then never send in
a price. The secretarial service would be available for clients to ring in on site, or immediately after
visiting, and dictate quote details over the phone to be typed up there and then, and available for
posting out the very same day. This means that the client has peace of mind that that enquiry has been
visited, priced and the quote issued all within a matter of hours or a day or two, and a piece of
scribbled note paper doesn’t go home to be placed in the infamous ‘in-tray’ to be deciphered and
written out at the end of the week or weekend when there is more time.

Tradesmen lose a minimum of 2 days a month on paperwork, ringing around, chasing money etc. This
means taking quite a loss of income to deal with all this, including having made Clients wait for quotes,
and possible wait for work to be carried out an extra couple of days. This all then has a knock on effect
on getting jobs invoiced. Invoices should be raised immediately on completion of a job to ensure cash
flow continues smoothly. Waiting until the end of the month and raising bills in bulk has a negative
effect on cash flow, immediate invoice issue ensures a constant stream of income.

The next thought evolving into a service offered is the way some quotes, invoices etc are presented.
Working for a construction company and seeing badly presented or hand scribbled quotes or invoices
coming in – some of which related to work on million pound plus country estate renovations – the image
they put across was very poor, therefore offering the design of a simple but effective stationery set –
letterheads, compliment slips, business cards, quote and invoice templates – in addition to offering a
simple low cost website option, setting up of an email account, monitoring emails, setting up of a
paypal account to accept credit/debit card payments, promotional leaflets etc, anything that gives a
client a better first impression. A good first impression gives a company more of an edge in attracting
new business.


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www.YourOfficeAngel.co.uk
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