" Melanie is efficient and effective. More importantly she is friendly and supportive. She has been a great between Optima-life and our clients as well as keeping me organised and sane!"
Simon Shepard, CEO Optima-Life Ltd
"A recent new enterprise needed a new website and, with all good intentions, we purchased a domain name and a 'do-it-yourself' hosting package. This proved cumbersome and time consuming to use so we asked Melanie to take over and sort it out for us. She was very responsive and thorough, wrote excellent content for the website and paid good attention to detail. Melanie delivered the website on time and we were delighted with the high standard of her work. It was exactly what we hoped for. We found Melanie to be approachable, reliable, attentive to our needs and cost effective and would recommend her to anyone who needing a new or updated website for their enterprise or business."
Marion Richardson, St Albans Medical Acupuncture Clinic,
"As any new business owner would appreciate, the endless to do list can be relentless at the best of times. I decided to take up Melanie's VA services for that very reason.
Melanie was a pleasure to work with. She was professional and efficient. She's a great communicator and highly perceptive. What I valued the most was was her professional insight and initiative.
Working with Melanie afforded me time to focus on the core aspects of my business. One of the tasks she was most instrumental with was the publication of my chamber of commerce e-shot. She also helped me to create a database of potential clients.
I would not hesitate to recommend Melanie’s VA services to any business."
Dr Wendy Molefi-Youri,
BM MRCGP DRCOG DFSRH
Herts Health and Wellbeing, St Albans, Hertfordshire
"I worked with Melanie during 2016 on a new insurance business project. She understood the requirements very quickly and made useful suggestions regarding the target market. She provided a fresh perspective on the legal aspects of the business model, which helped me to clarify how best to move forward with the project. Melanie is professional at all times and delivers an excellent and cost-effective virtual service."
Gordon Chambers, Managing Director, Intan Limited, 2016
" Melanie has taken over a lot of the day to day admin such as producing and sending out invoices, processing payments and expenses on my company's accountancy software and dealing with a lot of the day to day paperwork and detail, freeing me up to concentrate upon the work and giving me time to think and plan. She is well organised, reliable with great attention to detail and works well both with direction and on her own initiative. If I ask her to do something, I know that it will be done and I don't need to think about it again. I am happy to recommend both her and Blue Skies Virtual Assistant to any small business."
Dr Lisa Ackerley, director and owner of The Public Health Company Ltd,
"Melanie at Blue Skies Virtual Assistant is dealing with the day to day paperwork for our holiday let in Cornwall. She takes the bookings, sends out the confirmation letters and invoices and also does the basic bookkeeping with the monthly outgoings as well as keeping on top of the e-mail inbox. We are in the middle of a substantial renovation project so there is a lot of paperwork and receipts but I know that she is completely on top of it and has great attention to detail. She is personable, professional and easy to work with and can be trusted to just get on with the job."
Graham Murphy,
I used Melanie's services to build me a corporate style website for my massage and acupuncture business having said for a year that I must get round to it! Melanie was very professional, responsive, efficient and trustworthy and quietly but firmly organised me. She set herself deadlines and delivered much more quickly than I expected. I am delighted with the results and highly recommend her services. Melanie also gave me some excellent general marketing advice and was extremely approachable and helpful. In fact I am using her services again for another business that I run with a colleague. I don't think that you will be disappointed.
Steph Martin-Smith, SMS Therapies, St Albans,
"I have known Melanie since 1995 and consulted her both before and after I set up my business in 1999. She has excellent analytical skills, coupled with the ability to critique and look at issues from all angles, making her an excellent sounding board and problem solver. She constructively challenges and clarifies my thinking and always helps me reach better, more informed decisions. Her communication skills are excellent, she is very approachable and I am sure that she will be a real benefit to you and to your business.”
Jeremy Lazarus, Master Trainer of NLP. Founder, Director, The Lazarus Consultancy Ltd,
In my roles as Claims Manager, Financial Liabilities, and later as Director of Legal Services for General Accident plc and later CGU Insurance (now Aviva plc)I had the pleasure of working with Melanie many times as a solicitor. Melanie was instructed by General Accident to act both for them and their insured clients in complex professional negligence claims in the courts in England and Wales.
I always found Melanie to be extremely professional, organised and reliable, dealing with matters promptly and in a very efficient manner. She is excellent at analysing complex material and summarising the key issues, offering practical and cost effective solutions. She expressed herself clearly and coherently both verbally and in writing. Melanie is very personable and found it easy to relate to not only me but my colleagues and our insured clients at all levels of seniority.
I would not hesitate to recommend Melanie and I am sure she will be very successful in her new role.
Jane Currie,
Formerly Director of Legal Services
General Accident PLC
We had been trying to resolve a dispute with our buildings insurers and neighbours for 3 years. Melanie offered practical and helpful information and greatly improved our draft correspondence, focusing it upon the real issues quickly and effectively. The problem was resolved in our favour within a couple of weeks - a great result!
Shonagh King,
Simon Shepard, CEO Optima-Life Ltd
"A recent new enterprise needed a new website and, with all good intentions, we purchased a domain name and a 'do-it-yourself' hosting package. This proved cumbersome and time consuming to use so we asked Melanie to take over and sort it out for us. She was very responsive and thorough, wrote excellent content for the website and paid good attention to detail. Melanie delivered the website on time and we were delighted with the high standard of her work. It was exactly what we hoped for. We found Melanie to be approachable, reliable, attentive to our needs and cost effective and would recommend her to anyone who needing a new or updated website for their enterprise or business."
Marion Richardson, St Albans Medical Acupuncture Clinic,
"As any new business owner would appreciate, the endless to do list can be relentless at the best of times. I decided to take up Melanie's VA services for that very reason.
Melanie was a pleasure to work with. She was professional and efficient. She's a great communicator and highly perceptive. What I valued the most was was her professional insight and initiative.
Working with Melanie afforded me time to focus on the core aspects of my business. One of the tasks she was most instrumental with was the publication of my chamber of commerce e-shot. She also helped me to create a database of potential clients.
I would not hesitate to recommend Melanie’s VA services to any business."
Dr Wendy Molefi-Youri,
BM MRCGP DRCOG DFSRH
Herts Health and Wellbeing, St Albans, Hertfordshire
"I worked with Melanie during 2016 on a new insurance business project. She understood the requirements very quickly and made useful suggestions regarding the target market. She provided a fresh perspective on the legal aspects of the business model, which helped me to clarify how best to move forward with the project. Melanie is professional at all times and delivers an excellent and cost-effective virtual service."
Gordon Chambers, Managing Director, Intan Limited, 2016
" Melanie has taken over a lot of the day to day admin such as producing and sending out invoices, processing payments and expenses on my company's accountancy software and dealing with a lot of the day to day paperwork and detail, freeing me up to concentrate upon the work and giving me time to think and plan. She is well organised, reliable with great attention to detail and works well both with direction and on her own initiative. If I ask her to do something, I know that it will be done and I don't need to think about it again. I am happy to recommend both her and Blue Skies Virtual Assistant to any small business."
Dr Lisa Ackerley, director and owner of The Public Health Company Ltd,
"Melanie at Blue Skies Virtual Assistant is dealing with the day to day paperwork for our holiday let in Cornwall. She takes the bookings, sends out the confirmation letters and invoices and also does the basic bookkeeping with the monthly outgoings as well as keeping on top of the e-mail inbox. We are in the middle of a substantial renovation project so there is a lot of paperwork and receipts but I know that she is completely on top of it and has great attention to detail. She is personable, professional and easy to work with and can be trusted to just get on with the job."
Graham Murphy,
I used Melanie's services to build me a corporate style website for my massage and acupuncture business having said for a year that I must get round to it! Melanie was very professional, responsive, efficient and trustworthy and quietly but firmly organised me. She set herself deadlines and delivered much more quickly than I expected. I am delighted with the results and highly recommend her services. Melanie also gave me some excellent general marketing advice and was extremely approachable and helpful. In fact I am using her services again for another business that I run with a colleague. I don't think that you will be disappointed.
Steph Martin-Smith, SMS Therapies, St Albans,
"I have known Melanie since 1995 and consulted her both before and after I set up my business in 1999. She has excellent analytical skills, coupled with the ability to critique and look at issues from all angles, making her an excellent sounding board and problem solver. She constructively challenges and clarifies my thinking and always helps me reach better, more informed decisions. Her communication skills are excellent, she is very approachable and I am sure that she will be a real benefit to you and to your business.”
Jeremy Lazarus, Master Trainer of NLP. Founder, Director, The Lazarus Consultancy Ltd,
In my roles as Claims Manager, Financial Liabilities, and later as Director of Legal Services for General Accident plc and later CGU Insurance (now Aviva plc)I had the pleasure of working with Melanie many times as a solicitor. Melanie was instructed by General Accident to act both for them and their insured clients in complex professional negligence claims in the courts in England and Wales.
I always found Melanie to be extremely professional, organised and reliable, dealing with matters promptly and in a very efficient manner. She is excellent at analysing complex material and summarising the key issues, offering practical and cost effective solutions. She expressed herself clearly and coherently both verbally and in writing. Melanie is very personable and found it easy to relate to not only me but my colleagues and our insured clients at all levels of seniority.
I would not hesitate to recommend Melanie and I am sure she will be very successful in her new role.
Jane Currie,
Formerly Director of Legal Services
General Accident PLC
We had been trying to resolve a dispute with our buildings insurers and neighbours for 3 years. Melanie offered practical and helpful information and greatly improved our draft correspondence, focusing it upon the real issues quickly and effectively. The problem was resolved in our favour within a couple of weeks - a great result!
Shonagh King,