http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/ The latest Blog feeds from www.strictlysavvy.co.nz en-us Sat, 12 Sep 2026 18:48:09 +1200 Rocketspark http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/169876/what-week-one-and-week-two-actually-look-like-when-you-hand-a-role-over/ You've finally made the big call. Your admin and accounts work, that you've been doing yourself for months, is being delegated to someone else - and part of you is relieved. But there's another part that's wondering how anyone new is going to pick everything up properly, and how long you'll be stuck double-checking everything before you can fully let go.It's a fair worry. Some hires will take months to find their feet, and you've got a business running in your head that nobody else has ever lear... Wed, 09 Sep 2026 14:54:27 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post169876 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/169540/if-your-last-va-experience-didnt-work-heres-what-was-probably-missing/ You might have tried a virtual assistant before. Maybe through an offshore platform, or a freelancer that came to you through a referral. You probably handed over a list of tasks and hoped for the best, but within a few months you were back to doing it yourself. Now you're booking your own meetings, chasing your own invoices, and managing your own inbox, because trying again with outsourced support feels like more trouble than it's worth.Does this ring any bells? If your last attempt cost you ti... Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:10:04 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post169540 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/169136/is-958-a-week-really-enough-to-cover-a-full-time-role-heres-the-maths/ You've been meaning to hire for months. Every time you sit down to actually write the job ad, you get as far as the salary line and stall. The number looks fine at first. Then you start thinking about everything else that comes with it, and the number stops looking so simple.Somewhere in the middle of all that, you might have come across the idea of a fully managed role for $958 a week and thought: that can't be right. A whole role, covered, for less than you'd pay just to fill the vacancy prope... Tue, 25 Aug 2026 18:42:26 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post169136 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/168853/if-theres-a-whole-team-behind-the-scenes-who-am-i-actually-dealing-with/ You've read the pitch. One weekly rate, a role fully covered, no recruitment process to run. And somewhere around the part where we mention a Role Manager backed by a wider team and some smart automation, a question forms that we hear a lot: if there's a whole team behind this, who am I actually dealing with?This question usually comes loaded with a specific memory. Perhaps an offshore VA arrangement where every message seemed to land with a different person, and nobody quite owned the outcome. ... Tue, 18 Aug 2026 16:21:30 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post168853 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/168470/youre-hiring-one-person-to-do-five-jobs/ Every time someone leaves, or a business owner finally hits the wall doing everything themselves, the same job ad gets written. Looking for an organised, proactive team member to support day-to-day operations. Must have strong communication skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities.It's not wrong, it's just so broad it could describe almost anyone. And what the business actually needs, if you sat down and got specific about it, usually looks nothing like that sentence.... Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post168470 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/168656/youve-been-meaning-to-hire-for-six-months-heres-whats-actually-stopping-you/ Six months ago, you decided you needed to hire someone. You've thought about it most weeks since. You still haven't written the ad.If that sounds familiar, you're not being lazy and you're not disorganised. You're just too deep in the work that role would take off your plate to also find the hours it takes to describe that role properly on paper. That's the trap, and it's a common one for owners who've grown past what they can manage alone.... Tue, 11 Aug 2026 19:39:16 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post168656 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/168285/four-years-of-knowledge-in-two-weeks-notice/ Your admin person just handed in their notice. They've been with you for years - long enough that they know things about your business that you've both stopped thinking of as knowledge, because they've become automatic.They know which supplier to call when a job runs over, which clients want a phone call rather than an email, and how to time the invoicing follow-ups so they happen before a payment is late enough to make things awkward. They know when to hold a quote and when to nudge it, and whi... Tue, 04 Aug 2026 19:40:31 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post168285 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/168017/why-hiring-staff-isnt-always-the-answer/ When a business gets busy enough that the owner is carrying work they shouldn’t be carrying, the instinct is usually to hire someone, which makes sense on the surface. But hiring has got significantly more expensive in New Zealand, and for a lot of business owners right now it might not be the most sensible way to solve the problem. Because the problem is rarely "we need a full-time employee." The problem is that a role needs to be filled, and filled properly. ... Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:19:05 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post168017 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/167398/new-to-managing-people-heres-whats-coming/ There's a special kind of overwhelm that comes with stepping into a leadership role for the first time. You're suddenly responsible not just for your own work, but for the performance, wellbeing, and day-to-day experience of an entire team. And in most cases, nobody actually sits you down and tells you what that's going to feel like.Here are some of the things that often catch new managers off guard (and what to do about them) from our General Manager, Teesha.You don't have to know everythingOne... Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post167398 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/post/167803/the-difference-between-a-good-virtual-assistant-and-a-great-one/ We talk to a lot of business owners thinking about virtual assistant support. Some of them have even worked with a VA before – and when we ask them was that was like, their response is usually along the lines of: it was fine, tasks got done, things moved off their plate, it helped. But it didn’t change their business in any meaningful way.  We always tell them that there's a real difference between a VA who completes tasks and a VA who genuinely supports a business, and it comes do... Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:29:25 +1200 http://www.strictlysavvy.co.nz/blog/#post167803