Dear Theo

140 characters just aren't enough for two women on a mission, to make the workplace accessible for parents, those with illnesses & disabilities and older people who aren't quite ready to retire. Please take a moment to read about the idea behind Occasional Assistants and we hope that you will feel that we are worthy of the #SBS retweet that would mean so much to our growing business.

Freelancing has worked for us for some years and we're passionate about introducing it as a realistic option for people who are unable or unwilling to work in a more traditional manner. There's an army of experienced and capable individuals out there who can't work in a contracted or full time role but whose skill-set is immense. We want to help them back to work by advertising their services in one giant free-to-access online database.

With the economic climate as it is, we have identified so many small businesses who may not yet be ready to take on permanent staff but who would benefit from an experienced marketeer / book-keeper / admin assistant who they can call on as and when the need arises. Better still, we don't charge any agency fees so they're free to contact their Occasional Assistant directly, with no additional costs.

Thanks for your time & have a great week,

Sarah & Beckie
Occasional Assistants
 
 
As some of you will have read earlier in the week, we were delighted that Stacey Renphrey, who features on the Occasional Assistants' website, won the coveted Theo Paphitis Small Business Sunday Award this week.

Stacey Renphrey, the real life ‘Monica’ of Horsham, and founder of Stacey’s Admin Solutions www.staceysadminsolutions.co.uk, achieved her long term ambition on Sunday night. She won a sought-after Twitter re-tweet from Dragon Den’s star Theo Paphitis.

It confirms Stacey’s saying ‘never under estimate the power of Twitter’, and she is now part of the exclusive Small Business Sunday (SBS) group. 

The SBS event is run by Theo Paphitis on Twitter every Sunday evening.  Small businesses must tweet him with details of their business including the #SBS tag. He gets hundreds of tweets each week during the window of 5.00-7.30pm, and he then chooses his top 6 for the day.

At around 9.10pm Stacey had her dream realised when the dragon hit the re-tweet key with her tweet “@theopaphitis#sbs
Been busy supporting growing businesses all week, it will make my Sunday if I get a
#RT from you! http://www.staceysadminsolutions.co.uk
 
Stacey says of her win “To be part of the SBS group is an amazing feeling and I am still in shock that I won! I had been tweeting Theo since around Christmas in the hope that one day I would win, but when it happened it felt surreal! I, like so many others, were especially keen for this week to be my week, as it was the last chance for a win before the inaugural SBS winner’s event this Friday. I feel like Charlie from Charlie & the Chocolate factory and I have won that‘golden’ ticket! The acknowledgement of the service I provide from such a well-respected and astute business man is really the icing on the cake and has given me so much drive to move my business forward”.

Stacey with that much sought after ‘golden ticket’ is now going to be joining all the other SBS winners of the past year at
its inaugural event this Friday 30th March at the Edgbaston Stadium, Warwickshire.  Theo Paphitis will be giving a short talk and then open up for a ‘questions and answer’ session for the winners to learn from each other and help the dragon progress the SBS movement.

Stacey’s Admin Solutions was started in June 2011 and provides essential support to both old and new businesses around the country. The tag line ‘admin in a mess, call in the SAS’ has been a huge success; however, Stacey provides much more than just admin support. SAS help their clients with all aspects of moving their business to the next level and she especially enjoys the social media side of her work.  

Stacey has also joined forces and is now co-working alongside a well-respected member of the VA community, Helen Eade of  www.like-clockwork.co.uk and is supporting her in her Property Portfolio Management work which she finds incredibly interesting and rewarding.

To access Stacey's profile page and direct contact details on Occasional Assistants, please click here.