Independent consultants and freelancers of all stripes—and many small business owners—must by necessity wear many hats. In a single day you might find yourself standing at a podium offering up your expertise; fixing the printer; balancing the account books; purchasing office supplies; fetching lunch from the deli; and sweeping the floors. Even the most energetic of us sometimes wish we had an assistant, someone to take over the nettlesome little tasks that must be done…but in the doing take so much time. And in business, as we know, time = money.
Here are four services that provide those assistants. Three offer virtual assistants; one offers actual assistants. And while our fifth entry doesn’t provide a service, it does offer a free, time-saving utility.
Timebridge Scheduling Assistant: Scheduling meetings with busy people—trying to find that one day and hour where everybody can meet either virtually or in person—can really be a frustrating mess. But, happily, that’s where Timebridge Scheduling Assistant can come in handy. This innovative web service works across time zones and different calendar systems; it networks calendars to see everybody’s availability, proposes the best time to meet, issues invitations, and collates responses (no calendar details are shown; merely blocks of free and busy time). You can also conference online. Timebridge is free, although its Web meeting feature is not.
uReach: Another helpful service is uReach, a kind of virtual receptionist who handles all your messages, be they email, voice, or fax. All incoming messages go into an inbox, accessible by you from anywhere, and manageable by phone or PC. You’ll get your own toll-free number, making it easy for friends, family, and customers to contact you. A bit more advanced is the Small Business solution, which provides an office PBX system; your callers hear a voice menu that provides personal greetings, call routing, and extension mailboxes. Additional solutions and features can solve a variety of business needs. Price depends on services and ranges from $11.99 to $24.99 per month.
Shoeboxed: If your job takes you on the road, then chances are you’re drowning in business cards, expense reports, and receipts, right? Sure, you keep meaning to sit down at the scanner and feed everything in, but somehow you never find the time. No problem! You just need a nifty outfit like Shoeboxed to help out. Pop those bits of flotsam and jetsam into the mail, and, after scanning and categorizing them, Shoeboxed will turn the whole shebang into a format of your choosing and deliver it to you in a safe place online. Formats include Excel, Quickbooks, Freshbooks, PDF, Evernote, Quicken, and CSV. Four price tiers range from a limited (DIY) free account to $49.95 per month)
TimeSvr: If you need more office support than Shoeboxed can offer, consider TimeSvr. “We provide virtual assistants to help you save time everyday,” the company’s tagline states, but in fact the assistants are not virtual—they’re actual human beings, equipped with the knowledge and technology to do research, make reservations, etc. TimeSvr Personal, at $69 per month, offers unlimited basic tasks (phone calls, reminders, reservations, and bookings) as well as up to 8 hours per month for more complex tasks (transcribing, long web searches, etc.). TimeSvr Dedicated, at $850 per month, allows you 48 hours per week of personalized attention from an assistant who has a minimum of 3 years experience. If you’re intrigued, TimeSvr offers a no-commitment 3-day trial.
Shinkuro: Last, here’s something nice for the real geeks out there. Shinkuro is a nifty piece of software developed by Steve Crocker, who helped create the original Arpanet protocols—the foundation for today’s Internet—back in the 1960s. Shinkuro allows the secure sharing of files across enterprise boundaries, keeping folder contents on each machine in sync. It uses heavy-duty encryption and authentication to ensure that access is safe and protected. Shinkuro also includes secure instant messaging and secure screen sharing, to give you a complete collaboration environment. Shinkuro’s lightweight technology works easily with all applications, and runs on Windows 2000 and XP, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. BTW, the word Shinkuro was imported into the Japanese language some time ago; it means “synchro” or “synchronize.”