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Laura Nicole: 0:02

Welcome to your Virtual Assistant Coach, the podcast for moms who want to make money from home on their own terms. I'm your host, laura Nicole, a successful, six-figure earning VA and coach, who replaced my college professor salary in just five months back in 2020, after my daughter was born, and I have never looked back. I'm here to help you build a profitable, flexible VA business that fits into your family's lives, so you no longer feel like you're living just to work. Let's dive in. 

Email management is one of the most popular services that you can offer as a VA, whether you are a total beginner or a seasoned vet, because literally every small business owner needs this service.

Laura Nicole: 0:48

And here's the thing: Answering emails is not hard right. Your clients absolutely could do this on their own. They simply do not want to. Answering emails and keeping up with the inbox is something that is an unnecessary drain on their time, and that is exactly why they are completely thrilled, so freaking happy to pay someone else to take it off of their plate so that they don't even have to think about what's going on in that inbox. So in today's episode, y'all, I am going to share how to set boundaries when you're offering this service, so that you're not glued to your clients' inboxes 24-7, and also some time-tested and proven tips and tricks to manage your client's inbox like a total pro. So inbox overwhelm is a real thing for almost every business owner, right, because every small business, especially when they're online businesses, they have to have a way for current customers, potential customers, past customers, anybody who has a question. They need to have a way for those people to reach them and, because they are small businesses, 99.9% of the time that's going to be through an email address and not a phone number, and so there's going to be a lot of different things coming into this email inbox.

Laura Nicole: 2:11

And, again, answering emails is not hard, right, but each individual email is going to be different. It requires decision-making and it truly is draining time and focus from high value work that the business owner could be doing. That needs to be done by them, right? There are other parts of the business that actually have to be done by the business owner. Answering emails is not one of those things. Answering emails is something that is actually very smart for them to be outsourcing. So when they are outsourcing their email, right, they're reducing their stress, they're increasing their time. They have to focus on other aspects of their business because they have more brain space. It's not just about removing the time right from their to-do list of physically going in and answering an email. It truly reduces their mental load to not have to constantly be thinking like, oh shit, when did I last check my email? Oh crap, I still got to go reply to that person. And, honestly, not all of the emails that come in are fun, right? Not every customer, not every person, is happy, and maybe they want to let you know they're not happy, or maybe they're requesting a refund, and those things also take a mental toll on the business owner. And so when they don't have to be fielding all of those emails and taking all of that in, that is a massive win for them. Right?

Laura Nicole: 3:35

Your clients are not paying you for complexity when it comes to answering their emails because, again, it is not hard. They are paying for relief. They are paying for stress reduction and they are paying for time freedom. They literally see outsourcing their email management as buying back their time and mental energy and protecting their peace, and that is why they're so happy to pay you $25, $30, $35 to take care of their email inbox for them. But we do want to make sure that there are some boundaries in place, right? Just because you are managing someone's email does not mean that you have to be on call nine to five during business hours to answer every single email the second it hits the inbox.

Laura Nicole: 4:20

What I always recommend, and what I have done with my clients for the past five years, is I implement a 24-hour turnaround window for responses, and what that means very simply right, is that any email that hits the inbox, it is going to get a reply from me within the next 24 hours. Granted, that does not include weekends, because we reply to emails Monday through Friday. But the 24 hour window is good because it's a win-win, right. It's a win for the client because they know what the expectation is. They know that their people are going to be getting very timely and thorough replies. But you also know that you don't have to be sitting there staring at your computer just waiting for it to ding that there's an email in the inbox, right, you can set time. So what I do is I check in the morning at some point, I pop in, I clear the inbox and then I do a lot of work at night after my daughter has gone to bed, so I pop back in at that point in my day and do another quick check and clear the inbox. So with that system, for me typically people are getting a response within 12 hours, but they're definitely getting a response within the 24-hour window. And to help ensure that that 24-hour window is well received by the customers and the people who are sending the emails in, you always want to put up an auto-responder that is going to reply to literally every email that hits the inbox. Okay, and it can be very simple you just want the auto-responder to obviously thank the person for reaching out, letting them know that you are going to get back to emails in the order in which they were received and that emails will be replied to within 24 hours, monday through Friday, and that any email sent on the weekend will be responded to on Monday. By implementing this 24-hour turnaround window again, it's keeping you in control of your time while still providing great service to your client and letting them rest assured that their people are getting timely responses.

Laura Nicole: 6:20

And a couple of tips that I have for y'all to manage an inbox efficiently. Number one is to use folders so that after you answer an email and it has been complete and done, you can file it away into the appropriate folder and then if you ever need to pull it back up, it'll be a lot easier to find. And make sure you use the folders okay. Don't just put them there and then let read emails stay stacked in your inbox. It can be really easy to do, but you are going to feel less overwhelmed when you open that inbox if it is just nice and clean and only has the unread email sitting there. So once an email has been answered and everything is complete on it, make sure you file it away in the folder and get it out of the inbox.

Laura Nicole: 7:05

I also want you to create templates. We want to work smarter, not harder. I am always here for any opportunity to make that happen, and in pretty much any email inbox, especially in Gmail, which is really common for people to use in their businesses you can turn on templates in the advanced settings and then you can create templates that anytime you're responding to an email or you're composing a new email, in that bottom toolbar you can literally click templates, select which one you want and it'll auto-populate into the body of your email. Obviously, a lot of times you'll have to make little tweaks right that are specific to the person that you're replying to, but the bulk of the writing and the work will already be done for you and you can just personalize it. If your client that you're working for does not yet have any templates set up in their email, that is fine. Ask your client for a list of FAQs that they get and have them help you write out their preferred response to those FAQs and then turn those into templates. And then a lot of times it'll happen just in different phases of your client's business that you'll start seeing other frequently asked questions and once you're like, okay, I've seen this pop up like three times in the last month, I'm going to go ahead and make a new template for it. Templates are just so helpful because they can really speed up the time that it takes you in that inbox and it also helps you to provide consistent answers to people who reach out to the business across the board. Right and consistency in the brand is really important.

Laura Nicole: 8:35

My third tip when you're managing an inbox is to always keep the email positive right. There are a lot of times when I'm answering emails, that it's probably a good thing. The person who sent it can't see my face because I am grinning and bearing it. Right Like, if you have ever worked any kind of customer service job in your life, you know what I mean. Right, like, sometimes the things that people say are just a little wild, if I'm being completely honest. Right, but we do not ever want that frustration or that annoyance or any of that to come through in our tone of the email. So, obviously, keep it positive. Even if we're delivering bad news to somebody like maybe they requested a refund and they don't qualify we always want to make sure to close an email out professionally and also with warmth. We do not ever want to come across as like cold or brash. Right, remember, when you are answering these emails, you are representing your client and their business and even if someone's not getting the answer they want from us in that email, we still want them to feel like we cared and we took the time to respond kindly.

Laura Nicole: 9:45

I also always recommend having a very clear signature. So, for example, I have a client who I've been in charge of her inboxes for several years at this point and I close out every email by saying cheers, laura. And then the business owner's business name support team, right, so people know who they're communicating with. This is important for two reasons. Number one a lot of times people will think that they're actually going to get the business owner, and we want to make sure that they know it's not actually the business owner, right, so it's your name and then the business's name support team and it also again adds that kind of personal touch. I don't know about y'all, but I've had times where I get answers from customer service and it doesn't have a person's name and it just feels much more robotic, right? Like you're like oh okay, they cared a whole lot. Like I just got a random AI response, cool.

Laura Nicole: 10:43

So making sure that you have that clear signature is important, and my final tip for y'all is to always ask if you feel unsure. Your clients are paying you to handle their inbox, right, but that doesn't mean that they never, ever, ever want to be bothered with an email ever again. Right? They understand that things are going to pop up that you might not know the answer to or you might not know the best way to handle it, and I can guarantee you that pretty much any client, any small business owner out there. They would want you to run it past them first and get their input, rather than be too proud to ask for help and then send an answer. That is not what they would have wanted out there. Right, it's always going to be better to double check.

Laura Nicole: 11:29

So if you have something, come in, you're like oh, I think this is what I would say. Or sometimes you, just straight up, are like I have no clue. I have no clue what to do with this email. Forward it to your client and just say hey, I wanted to get your input on this. If it is something that you think you know how you want to handle, say this is what I'm thinking about saying, but I just wanted to make sure that that was in line prior to sending. Or if you truly don't know what to say, just say look, I just got this. I've never received an email like this. I am not sure what to say. How would you like me to reply? Clients are going to be happy that you checked with them first before sending something that they wouldn't have approved. But then you also need to pay attention to how they reply. Okay, pay attention to what their response was so that in the future, if you get questions that are similar in nature, you do have an idea of how to answer it without having to forward it to your client.

Laura Nicole: 12:21

Offering email management y'all is a literal goldmine service for new VAs because it is so easy to learn and implement and I guarantee you can already do this. You already handle your own email inbox. You already send your own emails. I'm sure you know how to add attachments to an email or put it into a folder, like you already know how to do this. It simply is just learning the client's business and their answers and they will walk you through that, they will teach you on it, they will show you what you need and it's a way to build trust very quickly with a client. It's a wildly easy kind of gateway service right, something that you can start with. That leads to higher level work and more hours with clients. And if you want to learn how to package services like email management together and also find other skills that you already have that we could be turning into services like email management that are incredibly valuable to potential clients, I would love for you to join me for the next live round of Discover your Superstar VA Skills that is coming up in just a few weeks In this four-day event that requires just one hour of your time each day.

Laura Nicole: 13:37

For those four days, I am going to show you exactly what services to offer based on the skills that you already have, and help you get your skills and services into a professional resume with the confidence to get out there and share it with potential clients. This event is about taking quick action and getting very strong, tangible wins and building your confidence in four short hours spread over four days. The women who have gone through it in the past literally rave about it, and it's an incredible opportunity to jump start your virtual assistant career. We do have limited spots available for this event, so I highly recommend dropping down, grabbing the link in the show notes and securing your seat before they're full. Thanks for hanging out with me today on your Virtual Assistant Coach. If you loved this episode, be sure to share it with your best friend, your sister or even your favorite coworker, who you know wants to start making a flexible income. I'll see you all next time.