We have been using Melanie for about a year now having recently set up our small business. Right from the beginning, Melanie quickly got to grips with the complex nature of our business and has provided invaluable support across a wide range of administrative services from meeting organisation and minute taking through to managing our accounts and reporting.
Melanie is clearly well-organised (which we need!) and provides the necessary prompts to ensure we keep on top of our actions. She is also proactive and takes the initative and makes positive suggestions, which is a bonus. I would wholeheartedly recommend Melanie’s services.
Jon Poole, Chair of SALSA Scheme Limited, September 2024
Melanie is fantastic. As my small business is growing I realised I needed someone to help with admin and scheduling. Blue Skies VA was recommended to me and I am extremely happy I contacted Mel. She has speedily and efficiently taken on a number of tasks such as managing the team schedules, client liaison, researching and dealing with suppliers , copy editing and polishing documents. This has enabled me to free up time to develop the company and reclaim my life outside work! I was not sure how easy it would be to delegate, but as Mel is so competent I was able to quickly trust her to take on and manage a range of business support responsibilities. I would wholeheartedly recommend Blue Skies VA to any business who needs support.
Claire Fry, Director, Spencer & Fry Limited, May 2022
"We started working with Mel in 2021 whilst setting up a brand new business STOIX. The plethora of tasks that we needed to cover across administration, compliance, contracts and filing whilst trying to deliver on the business we had fought hard to win and to continue to drive future revenues and pipeline, meant we decided we needed external support from an experienced Virtual Assistant. Mel has ensured we could dedicate time to our most value-adding activities. Mel has taken a huge weight of work off us and given us much more space and time to spend with our clients and candidates and to important work on more strategic and commercial issues.
This has included creating a central filing system, reviewing and creating contracts, developing a key information pack and other general PA and Administrative tasks on an ad hoc basis. Mel has also taken over the vast majority of our weekly bookkeeping and accounts tasks and associated administration, including liaising with our contractors and clients, which has also freed up our time. This has proven to be absolutely invaluable to us and we would highly recommend Mel's services if you are a Business Owner looking to free up your time. On a personal note Mel is highly personable, happy to make recommendations and very easy to work with."
Neil French, Co-Founder & Director at STOIX Group Limited, March 2022
"Melanie has been my virtual PA for nearly 6 years. She does the majority of the day-to-day admin including the bookkeeping, sending out invoices, liaising with clients, email and diary management etc, which increases my productivity and revenue. We enter into say 5 contracts per month where we have to use our client's contract. Melanie reviews them, checks and negotiates the key important terms (such as price, any restrictive covenants and confidentiality and non compete clauses). She does a short review flagging up the key points with any areas of concern, negotiates terms on which I sign off and the contract is then agreed and signed. She spends about 8-10 hours a month on this (at a cost of £224-280), but I get back 8-10 hours of time to do fee paying work generating net £2,000-£2,500 extra per month. She also deals with client onboarding procedures which can take hours, which I find frustrating and which I just don't have the time to do. On one occasion we needed an environmental policy to tick the right box. Melanie found a suitable template, adapted it and we got the work! It took her about 2 hours at a cost of £54 saving me over £500 in lost turnover if I had had to do it. Melanie doing the day-to-day paperwork also frees me up to concentrate upon the work and to think and plan. She has also developed excellent relationships with my clients and contacts and keeps everything running smoothly. She is well organised, completely 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 very 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 June 2021
"I have worked with Melanie on a one off project. She was very detailed in her approach and provided a well thought out and accurate report that was way above my expectations. The work was done quickly and I considered her to be exceptional value for money."
Robin Hayhurst, Managing Director, Court Homes Construction Ltd September 2020
" 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
"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. The cost was £250 for 10 hours work. If I had had to do it it would have taken me twice as long and not looked as good. Even if I had managed to do it in 10 hours I would have lost out on client work of £450 so using her definitely saved me money. 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
"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, Co-founder of the 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
"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 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
Melanie is clearly well-organised (which we need!) and provides the necessary prompts to ensure we keep on top of our actions. She is also proactive and takes the initative and makes positive suggestions, which is a bonus. I would wholeheartedly recommend Melanie’s services.
Jon Poole, Chair of SALSA Scheme Limited, September 2024
Melanie is fantastic. As my small business is growing I realised I needed someone to help with admin and scheduling. Blue Skies VA was recommended to me and I am extremely happy I contacted Mel. She has speedily and efficiently taken on a number of tasks such as managing the team schedules, client liaison, researching and dealing with suppliers , copy editing and polishing documents. This has enabled me to free up time to develop the company and reclaim my life outside work! I was not sure how easy it would be to delegate, but as Mel is so competent I was able to quickly trust her to take on and manage a range of business support responsibilities. I would wholeheartedly recommend Blue Skies VA to any business who needs support.
Claire Fry, Director, Spencer & Fry Limited, May 2022
"We started working with Mel in 2021 whilst setting up a brand new business STOIX. The plethora of tasks that we needed to cover across administration, compliance, contracts and filing whilst trying to deliver on the business we had fought hard to win and to continue to drive future revenues and pipeline, meant we decided we needed external support from an experienced Virtual Assistant. Mel has ensured we could dedicate time to our most value-adding activities. Mel has taken a huge weight of work off us and given us much more space and time to spend with our clients and candidates and to important work on more strategic and commercial issues.
This has included creating a central filing system, reviewing and creating contracts, developing a key information pack and other general PA and Administrative tasks on an ad hoc basis. Mel has also taken over the vast majority of our weekly bookkeeping and accounts tasks and associated administration, including liaising with our contractors and clients, which has also freed up our time. This has proven to be absolutely invaluable to us and we would highly recommend Mel's services if you are a Business Owner looking to free up your time. On a personal note Mel is highly personable, happy to make recommendations and very easy to work with."
Neil French, Co-Founder & Director at STOIX Group Limited, March 2022
"Melanie has been my virtual PA for nearly 6 years. She does the majority of the day-to-day admin including the bookkeeping, sending out invoices, liaising with clients, email and diary management etc, which increases my productivity and revenue. We enter into say 5 contracts per month where we have to use our client's contract. Melanie reviews them, checks and negotiates the key important terms (such as price, any restrictive covenants and confidentiality and non compete clauses). She does a short review flagging up the key points with any areas of concern, negotiates terms on which I sign off and the contract is then agreed and signed. She spends about 8-10 hours a month on this (at a cost of £224-280), but I get back 8-10 hours of time to do fee paying work generating net £2,000-£2,500 extra per month. She also deals with client onboarding procedures which can take hours, which I find frustrating and which I just don't have the time to do. On one occasion we needed an environmental policy to tick the right box. Melanie found a suitable template, adapted it and we got the work! It took her about 2 hours at a cost of £54 saving me over £500 in lost turnover if I had had to do it. Melanie doing the day-to-day paperwork also frees me up to concentrate upon the work and to think and plan. She has also developed excellent relationships with my clients and contacts and keeps everything running smoothly. She is well organised, completely 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 very 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 June 2021
"I have worked with Melanie on a one off project. She was very detailed in her approach and provided a well thought out and accurate report that was way above my expectations. The work was done quickly and I considered her to be exceptional value for money."
Robin Hayhurst, Managing Director, Court Homes Construction Ltd September 2020
" 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
"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. The cost was £250 for 10 hours work. If I had had to do it it would have taken me twice as long and not looked as good. Even if I had managed to do it in 10 hours I would have lost out on client work of £450 so using her definitely saved me money. 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
"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, Co-founder of the 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
"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 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
