Case Studies

FAMILY AND LIFESTYLE

The Rossi family came to Buy Time, through ‘word of mouth’ recommendation, looking for a Domestic Secretary to support their personal life. They specifically wanted their Personal Assistant to become fully integrated into their household and family life.

Mr Rossi is a private investor and his wife a marketing executive. They have 4 children and multiple properties to manage, without enough time to do so. Their buy time PA works from 1 pm until 6 pm each day from Monday to Friday, handling all the day-to-day administration; household management including the recruitment and management of staff; travel; events; gifts; property maintenance and organising absolutely anything that crops up. Working predominantly from the family’s London home, it is a proactive role requiring a driving force, yet a warm and gentle personality with a big character and bags of energy and initiative to tackle every aspect of life that may be thrown at her. She also supports the full time nanny when the 4 children are in different places, needing different things, which is often!

The Rossi’s Buy Time PA travels with the family on holiday, and also on their behalf, managing their properties worldwide and even researching new overseas property for them to buy.

Home-Based Business

Lady Clissold came to Buy Time in 2011. Her son reached out to us feeling that his mother was in need of administrative & organisational support. Lady Clissold was reluctant to ask for help as she had always gotten by on her own, but she accepted the support and hasn’t looked back since.

Her Buy Time PA would make the weekly drive to her house just outside of Cambridge. Tasks included email and computer management; tidying up her machine, creating folders and downloading useful packages. From there, she manually transferred her entire address book and diary onto an online address system. Her PA also taught her about mail management, how to carry out travel bookings, event reservations and how to pay bills online.

From here their relationship grew from strength to strength. In addition to administrative support, her Buy Time PA would help with events, sorting and de-cluttering the house, charity drops and the recruitment of household staff. She also supports Lord Clissold now and the role is continuously evolving and growing.

Business Assistant

Chris Adams has been a loyal client of Buy Time since 2010. He heard about us through a private members club we work in partnership with, located in the West End. He came to us looking for flexible virtual support for his business, a high end luxury brand.

Chris required a PA to manage and coordinate his diary; prioritising appointments as appropriate, dealing with all phone and email enquiries, travel and accommodation arrangements and constructing emails and presentations on his behalf.

To begin with the role was a pure PA role, taking away the day-to-day management of his business and personal life so that he could concentrate on growing his businesses, exactly where his focus should be directed.

Chris’s PA rapidly became his right arm. As their relationship grew so did the role, evolving into a fully functioning business relationship. His PA attended meetings on his behalf, escalating decisions and queries where appropriate. She took over full control of his social media accounts, including LinkedIn and Twitter, also complete website, brand and event management. His business went from strength to strength simply because he now had the time to focus on business development, all other sides of the business now in the control of his PA.

The testimonial below sums up the service we provide and how invaluable it is for a business.

“buy-time offers the most extraordinary service whether PA work or business support. buy-time gives my business the invaluable freedom to scale up the level of resource as and when needed”

Home And Business

Miss Yeates came to us over 5 years ago in desperate need of support for her home based business. She was an independent writer and was in the throes of writing her first novel, concurrently writing her ongoing weekly column for a lifestyle magazine. Her life was chaotic to say the least. Her personal and business life intertwined and her home no longer felt like a manageable place to relax or work in.

We assigned her the perfect PA, someone to show her how to manage both elements of her life in a productive and simplistic way. She needed a helping hand, and we provided her with this in the form of a proactive and imaginative Buy Time PA.

The first task undertaken was to sort out the mass of paperwork and filing that had accumulated over the years. Her PA installed the perfect system which could be easily maintained. She got the house in order, from a complete spring clean to some light painting and decorating to give the space a lift. This all helped to clear Miss Yeates’ head and give her the space she needed for her creativity to flow.

From this initial ‘clear out’, her PA would make weekly visits to the house to keep on top of all the paperwork. This included the filing, paying all bills, dealing with HMRC and undertaking research projects in aid of the novel and column writing. She also took sole charge of her social media accounts, making sure the world was in constant contact and had full knowledge of her work at all times!

Property Management

James Courtenay has been a loyal client of Buy Time since 2006. When he came to us 8 years ago he was in desperate need of a Virtual Assistant and was directed towards our service by another of our clients. James was a single Englishman, living in Hong Kong and working for a top Law Firm. Although he had recently relocated to Hong Kong, he still had a top floor riverside apartment and a high powered sports car in London and needed someone to look after these for him. This is where we came in.

We paired him with the perfect Buy Time Virtual Assistant for his needs; someone who had the experience and love of Property Management, and of course someone willing to drive a high-powered sports car on a weekly basis, a request that was highly sought after by the team!

We took on the management of his property entirely, saving him from extortionate agency management fees. From finding a trustworthy and reliable tenant and managing the maintenance and upkeep of the apartment to complete utility payment control and the weekly collection of his post, his VA handled everything with complete efficiency and precision.
The car was very dear to James. He instructed us to keep an eye on it and to take it out for a weekly spin to keep the battery alive. A task his VA took great pleasure in! He would return to London every so often and when he did, his VA would pick him up from the airport in his car and drive him into London. She would also handle the upkeep of the car, from yearly MOT’s and regular services to making sure it was always kept spotless inside and out.

Even though they were a few thousand miles apart, James and his Buy Time VA had an incredibly strong working relationship. It quickly became apparent that his VA was invaluable to him.
Eight years down the line and their relationship is as strong as ever. James got married a year ago and his VA now also looks after his wife’s apartment in West London, while they set up home in Hong Kong together. She recently helped with the complete redesign and restructure of the bathroom and visits the flat on a weekly basis to water the plants and check all is in order.

We know this is a strong partnership that will continue to flourish.

Corporate Business

We have been working closely with a Tech company based in Bristol for many years now. After endless failed PA’s on their team, they came to us in search of a highbred. Time and time again they hired full time PA’s to join their team and each time they’d been let down by the quality of work they received. This meant they weren’t only wasting time in training and recruitment, but the cost of employment and re-hiring was also extortionate.

So we provided them with the accomplished and savvy assistant they were after. A virtual, efficient, proactive, corporate PA to primarily assist the CEO but also on hand to help out the team with anything they needed. Based virtually, at the Buy Time offices in London, she was set up with a company email address, had access to all their internal files and folders, and was fully incorporated into the life of the business even though physically she wasn’t there.

Needless to say, the set up worked seamlessly. She had full access to their diaries and would arrange all meetings and travel arrangements. She would undertake research projects, carry out telephone interviews, take on sales calls, organise company trips and type up documents and contracts. She would also attend monthly meetings where she would take the minutes.

They used the professional and reliable service as and when needed and haven’t looked back since!