Office supplies like paper, toner, pens, and folders are an important part of your business. Without those things you won’t be able to do what you need to do each day. Taking the time to drive to the office supply store and choosing what you need uses valuable time that you could be using to grow your business. Who wants to waste their time doing that when they could be coaching a client or helping a customer with a purchase?
The solution to this problem is to have your Virtual Assistant take care of it for you. She can help you make the purchase by either calling the store near you or placing the order online. Most office supply stores deliver so she can set that up for you. If they don’t, they’ll usually pull what you need and have it waiting for you to stop by and pick up.
There are a couple of ways to handle your office supplies. You may need to do both depending on your situation or one may work just fine. Think about your business and your needs and go from there.
One way is to have your Virtual Assistant place a weekly or monthly order based on things you use daily or regularly with your business. If you use folders with every customer or client and go through a specific amount each week, this may be one of those products she can order for you on a monthly basis. If you print things daily and you always go through the same amount of paper and toner, you can have your Virtual Assistant set a reminder to order them at a certain time each month or every two months.
If that doesn’t work because you don’t have a routine for these items, you should consider creating a Google Doc for office supplies and share it with her. Update it each time you run low on something. If you use the same things over and over, you can include detailed information about the item and that will help her in placing the order. It’s a good idea to set a specific day of the week or month to place the order. This will help you to know when it will be done, and it will help her to have the same day each week or month to handle it.
Running your business is a must in order to reach success, but if you have to stop to make a run to the office supply store you’re wasting valuable time. When you have your Virtual Assistant handle it for you, you’ll have the extra time you need and your business will continue to grow.
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