Still doing your quotes at 11pm?

It's gone eleven. The van's unpacked, the kids are down, and you're sat at the kitchen table writing the quote you promised someone at half four. You're knackered. The quote could be sharper. And there are three more behind it.

This is the part of the job nobody warns you about. You didn't start the business because you love paperwork. You started it because you're good at the actual work, the wiring, the brickwork, the planting, the pipes. The admin just turned up uninvited and made itself at home.

The admin isn't free. It's just hidden.

Here's the bit that stings. Sage looked into this and found the average small business effectively works thirteen months for twelve months' pay, with roughly two days of every month swallowed by financial admin like chasing invoices and sorting payments. Other research puts owners at around sixteen hours a week on admin, a good chunk of it done in the evenings and at weekends because there's nowhere else to put it.

But the bigger cost isn't the hours. It's the jobs you lose without ever knowing.

A customer can't tell whether you're a better electrician than the next bloke. They can't judge the work before it's done. So they judge the one thing they can see: how quickly you got back to them. The quote that lands the same day wins. The one that slips to "I'll do it tonight," then tomorrow, then Friday. By Friday they've booked someone else. Someone who isn't better than you. Just quicker to reply.

That's admin costing you money, quietly, in the background. And no app fixes it on its own, because the app still needs you to sit down and use it at 11pm.

"But you're in Peterborough and I'm not"

Doesn't matter. I'm based in Peterborough and I work remotely with people right across the UK: trades on the tools, plus the odd therapist, coach and consultant who've found me along the way.

Local enough to know the area and talk like a normal person. Remote enough that none of it depends on me being in your van or your office. You give me access to the bits I need, and I get on with it from here. Most people are up and running inside a week.

So if you're in Peterborough, grand. If you're in Plymouth, also grand. The work's the same either way.

What I'd actually take off your plate

Three things, mainly. The stuff that keeps a small business ticking but never makes it to the top of your list.

The inbox and the diary. The messages you keep meaning to answer. The quotes that need sending while the customer's still warm. The appointments, the follow-ups, the "did we ever get back to them?" I keep it moving, so you stop losing work to a slow reply.

The quotes and the chasing. Quotes out the same day, in a format that looks like you mean business. Invoices sent on time. Late payers chased properly, politely, and without you having to be the bad guy. Sage reckons nearly half of small business owners lose four hours a week just to payment faff. That's an afternoon. Every week.

The tech nobody else will touch. This is the bit most VAs steer well clear of, and it's the bit I actually enjoy. The contact form that's been quietly broken for months. Your emails landing in everyone's spam because SPF, DKIM and DMARC were never set up right. A website throwing errors, or a hosting move that needs doing without your site falling over. Twenty years in tech support means I usually fix it, rather than shrug and tell you to ring someone else.

Not sure your email's even landing? There's a free deliverability checker on the site. Run your domain through it and see for yourself.

"I'd just be faster doing it myself"

You might be, on any single task. That's true of nearly everyone. When owners are asked why they don't hand admin over, the two most common answers are that it feels faster to do it themselves, and, oddly enough, that some of them quite like it.

Fair enough. But "faster once" isn't the same as "faster every week for the next year." And that maths only works while you've got the evenings spare to do it. Most people don't, for long.

The other one I hear is "I wouldn't know where to start." That's fine too. You don't need a tidy list. Tell me roughly what's doing your head in, whether that's the inbox you've given up on, the quotes piling up, or the newsletter that never quite goes out, and we'll work out what makes sense from there.

A few straight answers

Can a virtual assistant help if I'm not in Peterborough? Yes. I'm in Peterborough but work remotely with clients all over the UK. Where you are makes no difference to the work.

What does a virtual assistant actually do for a trades business? Answers the inbox, sends quotes and invoices, chases late payments, manages the diary, and, in my case, sorts the website and email tech that most VAs won't go near.

How much does it cost? Inbox, diary and admin, and email marketing, are £35 an hour. Tech and website support is £55 an hour. Monthly retainer, fixed price, or ad-hoc hours, whichever suits. No tie-ins.

How quickly can we start? Usually within a few days. I get the access I need, and we're off.

Is my data safe? Yes. I'm ICO registered, fully insured, and I take it seriously. Boring, but it matters.

Get your evenings back

You don't have to keep doing the quotes at 11pm. That's the whole point of me.

Tell me what you've got going on. A rough description is plenty. We'll have a free thirty-minute chat, no pitch and no hard sell, and work out whether it's worth doing something about it.

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Based in Peterborough. Working remotely with small business owners across the UK.