Industry Magazine Grand General Agency Spring 2016 | Page 15
The Fundamentals
have small purchase limits (for instance, Fancy Hands will only make a
purchases up to $100).
Fetch has no limits. If your credit card can take it, so can Fetch.
They’ll securely store your preferred payment method, shipping
information, and preferences for things like frequent flyer accounts
and airline seat selections. Fetch assistants are skilled at finding
coupon codes, low prices, and generally saving you money.
Fetch is more than a buying assistant, they are your complete
purchasing concierge. I run all of my purchasing through them at this
point which means that if I EVER have a problem with a purchase, I
just send a quick text (yeah, you can do that) to Fetch, tell them what
happened, and then they deal with the return process. It’s that simple.
Six months ago, Fetch purchased a new refrigerator from Home
Depot for us and when the water dispenser stopped working, I sent
Fetch a text and they got it fixed. How much time did that whole
process take me? About 30 seconds.
Best of all?—Fetch will run you about $10/month.
4. Rev
Audio transcription is a tedious and inefficient process for most
VAs, particularly if there are multiple speakers.
Rev is a simple service that does one thing, transcriptions.
Whether you need a podcast transcribed or just want to record the
next chapter of your book while driving to work, Rev will do it for $1/
minute and get you an accurate transcription within 24 hours.
Rev also has a really cool Zapier integration so you can automate
the entire process, turning a recording on your phone into a document
that then gets placed in your Evernote, Dropbox, or posted to your
WordPress blog automatically.
5. Amy
Did you know the average number of emails required to schedule a
meeting or phone call is 8.1? That’s an absurd use of email and, worse,
your time.
Scheduling was the bane of my existence—then I met Amy.
Put [email protected] in the CC field of any email and Amy does the rest.
Amy knows your availability, office location, Skype ID, and favorite
coffee shop. Most importantly, Amy knows better than to schedule
back to back meetings that are at opposite ends of town.
Amy will get in contact with the other party (or their assistant), find
a time, place, and schedule the event.
Honorable Mention - Cloe
Cloe is my text concierge buddy and I’ve never seen a service deliver
so much by SMS.
Cloe provides people with personal recommendations of places to
go or things to do.
A month ago I was meeting a friend for dinner and texted Cloe “we’re
on the corner of 15th and 3rd and I’m with a friend, we want Mexican
food.” The response about 90 seconds later “Hey Ari, nice to hear from
you again, well it’s a little bit of a walk but La Lucha is in the East Village,
it’s a great spot and you HAVE to try the Carnitas Tacos.”
The speed, accuracy, and delivery of such specialty knowledge
cannot be replicated by a virtual assistant pouring over Yelp reviews.
The only knock on Cloe?— she’s only available in New York, but look
for that to change soon.
SPRING 2016
SUPPLEMENT
Brandscaping:
CONTENT
Unleashing the Power of
Partnerships
BY: ANDREW DAVIS
Brandscaping is a big,
infectious idea—a new
marketing methodology
that begins with one simple
observation: a rising
tide lifts all ships. In this
groundbreaking book, media
and marketing visionary
Andrew Davis shows you how
to partner with other brands
and undiscovered talent to
create content that drives
demand for the products and
services you sell. Davis dishes
up dozens of case studies showing how all types of
individuals, companies, and brands have tapped into the
power of brandscaping to achieve unparalleled success,
often using resources already at their disposal.
Teams of Teams
New Rules of Engagement for a
Complex World
BY: GENERAL STANLEY
MCCHRYSTAL
In this powerful book,
McChrystal and his
colleagues show how the
challenges they faced in
Iraq can be relevant to
countless businesses,
nonprofits, and other
organizations. The world
is changing faster than
ever, and the smartest
response for those in
charge is to give small
groups the freedom to
experiment while driving
everyone to share what they learn across the entire
organization. As the authors argue through compelling
examples, the team of teams strategy has worked
everywhere from hospital emergency rooms to NASA.
It has the potential to transform organizations large and
small.
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