Have an image but the background is white or coloured? This tutorial will show you how to make an image background transparent using an unlikely tool, the humble Microsoft PowerPoint.

It can be frustrating sometimes when you have an image that you need a transparent background for but don’t have the expensive software to remove the background with ease.

Well, don’t despair! Watch this tutorial to see how simple it is to make an image background transparent using PowerPoint. Yes, Microsoft PowerPoint!

Here is a tutorial that I made back in 2017 using a now past clients product image. We needed transparent backgrounds to easily add her product images to her social media posts and ads.

Note: This tool is so handy, but isn’t so fabulous on fine detail images or objects with heaps of edges.

Try it for yourself! It’s such a great tool and so quick and easy to access, right in PowerPoint!

For more help with Admin, visit our Services page to see how Simplify Admin and Events can support you.

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Want to use the Mail Merge feature in Microsoft Word but don’t know where to start?  Here is a tutorial showing you step by step how to create a mail merge in Microsoft Word.

This tutorial walks you through from start to finish just how simple it is to create a Mail Merge document in Microsoft Word.

Try it out for yourself!

Mail Merge documents are great for sending a large amount of correspondence but are also handy for things like welcome packs, or a standard letter.

What will you use the Mail Merge function for?

If you would like assistance in creating a Mail Merge document, or other Admin support, check out our Services page. Or you can contact us via our Contact us page for more information.

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Did you know that there are 3 simple formulas you can use to change the text formatting in Excel?

It’s true!

Excel is a great tool which was originally created for numerical spreadsheets.
Although it’s great for keeping data, it can fall short in its abilities with things like grammar, spelling, and formatting.

That’s why this handy tip to help you change the formatting of your data, particularly when working on large amounts of data at a time, is so helpful.

Watch the below video on how to change the format of text in an Excel spreadsheet quickly and efficiently.

So that is how to change the text formatting in Excel. I have written down below the formulas I’ve used in the above video for you to easily refer to.

Make sure you watch the video to see how to copy the info from the cell to replace the original text so you no longer have the formula in the background of your spreadsheet.

To format text to have the first letter of each word with a capital letter:

=proper(cell)

To format text to have all letters upper case:

=upper(cell)

To format text to all be in lower case:

=lower(cell)

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You’ve started your own business and things are going great, but your diary is getting crazy busy and you’re losing track of appointments? Then here’s the low down on all the appointment scheduling tools available to help you find the best one for you.

Keeping on top of all your appointments is essential for your brand and your reputation. Miss too many meetings with clients or potential clients and you’ll get a (bad) rep for being unreliable and uninterested.

But never fear, there’s a simple solution waiting just around the corner! Implementing an appointment scheduling tool into your diary management is the easiest way to have you back on schedule and rocking up to every appointment you’ve set.

So what’s the best option for you? It really depends on how you work, so here’s the low down on the most popular appointment apps going round to help you pick the right one for you.

Full disclosure, I haven’t used all of these apps myself, I’m a Calendly girl, but I have researched these for you and have heard from other VAs about the others on the list.

Calendly

Calendly works by syncing with your existing calendar and checks your availability to help you schedule meetings.

You can organise 1:1 meeting’s, group meetings and events like webinars.

Calendly will: send notification and reminder emails; it can add a buffer before and after your meeting (great if you want to accommodate for travel time); you can lock down how soon in advance someone can book a meeting with you (aka. they can’t book in for a meeting today or tomorrow); you can set a max number of meetings a day (say if you only have the capacity to speak with 4 clients a day) and can even deal with time zone differences.

Calendly also includes a payment platform, so if you have paid appointment times, Calendly can manage the payment of those sessions prior to your meeting with that person.

Don’t take my word for it, watch this video by Calendly on how it all works:

Calendly has a free 14-day trial. 3 pricing structures available: Free, Premium $8USD a month; and Pro $12USD a month.

For more info, visit www.calendly.com

Acuity

Acuity is a great scheduling tool with a heap of integration options.

You can: share your calendar across multiple social media platforms; customize the Acuity interface to include all your own branding; sell gift certificates; embed your calendar on your website and accept payments for appointments.

You receive a notification when a new appointment is booked, you can check your schedule from your smartphone and it sends email or text message confirmation and reminders. It can also manage offices and teams so you can have your staff all using Acuity instead of your mailing programs calendar function.

Acuity has a free 7-day trial. 4 pricing options: a free option; Emerging for $15USD a month; Growing $25USD a month; and Powerhouse $50USD a month.

For more info visit www.acuityscheduling.com

You Can Book Me

You can book me reminds me a lot of Calendly and I really like the look of it.  It allows you to customise your availability and control when people can book you for an appointment. Integrates with Zapier, you have complete control over the look and feel of the platform, allows scheduling of 1:1 meetings or team meetings, mobile booking and sends appointment reminders.
Set up a regular weekly schedule of when you’re available, modify the duration of appointment availability and padding for travel time if required. It will also manage time zones for you.

You Can book me will also send follow up emails for you to thank people for meeting with you and can outline the next steps.  Also, a nifty feature is that you can decline meetings people book in, so they come in as tentative and you confirm if you’re available (just in case something’s come up that isn’t in your calendar).

You Can Book Me has two options, a free version or a paid version, which is available on a monthly, yearly or 2 yearly plan.

Don’t take my word for it, watch this video by You Can Book me on how it all works:

For more info, visit www.youcanbook.me

Simply Book

An English based booking program, with multiple languages available, Simply A booking system designed to suit a multitude of industries, it’s a great option if you’re looking for a booking system.

Simply Book allows for: re-occurring meeting appointments; reminders via text or email; accept’s payments for appointments; can manage event appointments; membership bookings; and even classes.

Simply Book will integrate with your calendar to ensure that times when you’re not available, will be reflected in your availability for people to book an appointment with you. The booking site is also completely customisable to match your branding.

Simply Book also allows for multiple location sites, so if you’re based from a few offices, people can book in with you at various locations.

A free demo is available by visiting their site.

Pricing structure: a Free plan; a basic for $9.90 a month; Standard at $29.90 a month; and Premium $59.90 a month. A free one month trial of the premium available.

For more info, visit www.simplybook.me/en/

Schedule Once

Built for service based entrepreneurs, Schedule Once is a robust platform which seems to offer all the features you’d want from a scheduling tool, including direct integration with Zoom.

Schedule Once integrates with your existing calendar, can manage time zones and will send reminders. Plus is able to manage multiple event types.

With a customizable theme, payment integration and the ability to handle teams (people can book who they’re booking in with, which is great for offices with multiple practitioners), it’s hard to fault this scheduling platform.

A free 14-day trial is available.  3 pricing structures: Basic $7.50USD a month; Professional $15.80USD a month; and Enterprise $32.50USD a month.

For more info, visit www.scheduleonce.com

Appointment Core

Designed to integrate with InfusionSoft, Appointment Core is a sophisticated scheduling option.

Appointment Core will: add appointment information into InfusionSoft directly; you can generate personalised links for existing InfusionSoft contacts; allows you to select what appointment options people can book from; buffer before and after meetings to allow for travel; and will adjust to show when you’re not available based on your existing calendar appointments. Appointment Core can handle timezones with ease, along with teams. Also integrates well with Zoom and GoToMeeting.

A Free 30-day trial is available. Pricing packages: Personal $27 per month; Team $47 per month; and Professional $87 per month.

For more info, visit www.appointmentcore.com

Have an appointment scheduling app you use and love that isn’t on the list? Leave a comment below and let us know all about it!

 

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What does “At Capacity” look like for you?

Have you been there? That point where you just can’t take on one more thing?

What about above capacity? It’s not fun is it.

That moment where you realise that even if you work through the night, don’t stop for dinner, you still can’t possibly get it all done in time.

“Somethings gotta give”

And generally, that something is you.

Knowing what your “At Capacity” looks like can be a tricky thing to figure out, and the goal posts may always be changing.  But knowing what happens when you reach your capacity threshold, may help you to know when your close and help you to pull back or outsource so you can keep all those balls in the air.

So what happens when you’ve gone over “Capacity”

Everyone is different, so these may not all apply to you, however here is a list of common things that happen when people go past their ‘capacity’ threshold:

Things start to get missed

Be it emails, work, deadlines. It’s the stuff you just keep not getting to every day, that eventually, it’s a big deal and you suddenly find yourself way behind.

Goodbye Quality

A common sign that things aren’t going well and you’ve taken on too much is when your quality goes out the window. Those typo’s, that email to the wrong person, that document you didn’t actually finish before you sent it to someone? Yep, all because you’re past ‘capacity’. When people start coming back to you and telling you you’ve done something wrong, then you need to re-assess how much you’ve taken on.

Things around you start falling apart

When times get busy in business and we spend all our time in our business, other parts of our lives start to suffer. The washing starts pilling up, the dishes go un-washed, more take away meals because it’s suddenly too late to cook, or because there’s just no food in the house because you haven’t gone food shopping in way too long.

What family time?

When your kids start nagging you and your partner says they have forgotten what you look like? Yep, that’s a big sign that you’re spending way too much time at your computer. Remember, you started this business to spend MORE time with your family, if they aren’t feeling the benefit, then you need to re-assess the workload.

Stress

If you’re feeling stressed about everything you need to do, if you’re snapping at family, or hiding under the sheets because you can’t possibly do it all, then it’s time to look at your work levels. When we feel stressed, it’s our body telling us that we’re not coping. Temporary stress is ok, stress to reach a deadline, stress because your day is running out, but if you are feeling stressed more than anything else, then your workload is out of wack.

Lack of Sleep

If you’re sleep is starting to be affected by the amount of work you have on, because you can’t sleep thinking about work, or because you’re not getting enough sleep because you’re staying up late every night to get through it all, then you’ll start to notice the above, because we can only go for so long without enough sleep and when you’re not getting enough sleep, you’re not on your A-game.

But all is not lost!

So we’ve talked about the signs of being ‘at capacity’ but we haven’t talked about what to do about it. Rest assured, there is a solution.

If your at capacity for just a short time, then you may not need to make any adjustments right now, if you’re coping. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel and you know that this is just temporary.

But if this is the status quo, you need to make some changes, because you can’t keep running yourself into the ground, you’ll eventually hit the floor and it’s a lot harder to get back up again than it is to stop yourself from falling.

So here’s a few suggestions. These may not all work for you and that’s a-ok:

Scale back your workload

If you’re finding that you just can’t do it all, then it’s time to re-assess how much you’re doing. Scale back where you can and get your workload to a manageable state again.

Up your work days

Can’t scale back? Okay, well what about upping your work days? If you have an opportunity to work an extra day, then you might need that one day to stay on top of everything.

Review your processes

Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is to review how we do things. simply, if you’re not coping with your workload, look at what’s taking you the most time, what is the most time consuming part of your processes and see how you can change this to make it better. What steps in your process can you condense, what can you make electronic, to help you speed up the way you do things and in turn, make them take you less time.

Outsource

When you outsource to a Virtual Assistant, you are outsourcing to a fellow business owner who has your best interests at heart. You are there client and they want the best for you. Find someone in their zone of genius, give them the tasks you hate doing, or even the ones you don’t mind doing, but just never get to because they’re so far down the to do list.

Once you outsource these tasks, even though it may not change your workload (in the case of outsourcing the jobs you never get to) it will change your mindset. That stress of never getting to that job that needs doing? Gone.

You’ll have support and guidance from a professional.

Ask for help

If you are struggling, ask for help. Be it from family, friends, anyone. Reach out and let people know how you’re feeling and that you’ve taken on too much. The ones who care about you will want to help you and may come up with practical solutions to help you fix the overwhelm.

What would you add to the list?