Email Management, how can you get your Virtual Assistant started

Email is something we all have to contend with.

It takes time and focus.

One business owner shared with me that she missed a HUGE opportunity to meet with a massive potential future client because she missed an email.

It was mixed in with all the other lower importance emails and she missed it!

This is just one of the reasons email management is one of the main things business owners ask for their Virtual Assistants to support them with.

And although there are many ways to skin that cat.

Here are three things that you and your Virtual Assistant can do to start to get your email under control.

Get rid of your old emails

If you haven’t looked at them in say a month, then you can probably give them the heave ho.

Decide on a time frame (I recommend no more than a month) and ask your VA to move all the emails older than that into a folder for all your ‘old’ emails.

That way you can still search them, or find that receipt if you need it later. They are not gone forever, just gone for now.

Add automatic filters

Take a look through your emails and find those that you want to read, but they don’t deserve to be hogging in your inbox.

For example, Maureen is subscribed to a whole heap of holiday emails and she loves looking at them when she is in the mood, but she doesn't want one popping into her inbox at 2pm on a Wednesday when she is needing to focus on other things.

For these sorts of emails you can ask your VA to set up automatic filters so that it goes directly to a folder and does not go into your inbox. Eg. If it is from qantas, send it to the ‘travel dreaming’ folder.

Unsubscribe from stuff that is no longer serving you

I don’t know about you, but I go into rabbit holes.

One week I might be fascinated by setting up a podcast and the other next week it might be about cycling and add myself to lists accordingly. This is great as I get served all sorts of amazing content.

But now my podcast is set up and I am in my groove with cycling, I don’t really need all this content in my inbox.

This is why you should ask your Virtual Assistants, to go through the emails you have received over the last month and write a list of everything that you are subscribed to.

You then go through this list and decide which things you still want to be subscribed to.

Your Virtual Assistant can then unsubscribe you from the rest.

Of course there is SO much more to email management from your Virtual Assistant learning how to answer queries, take actions as a result of emails (eg update your CRM) and so much more.

And this is all possible.

But if you start off with the three tips above, at least you have a clean slate to start working with.

Phew…a clean inbox feels so good!

P.S. If you get a Virtual Assistant with us we help you on your journey to work out how YOU and your VA are going to manage your inbox to give you the biggest leverage. It’s pretty cool stuff. To talk to us about getting a VA and our support to make it work you can?organise a time here.