Where would I be without Emma? Having a nervous breakdown! My workload was becoming overwhelming and I knew I needed help. A friend suggested Emma, and I’m so glad I started working with her - it was the best investment I made to keep me sane! She stays on top of admin, works on editorial copy for me and sorts out my bookkeeping amongst other tasks. She’s way more organised than I am, hence working with her, and is very proactive and genuinely wants to help. Plus she is just a lovely person!
Emma Coxon is a professional, hardworking and vital member of my team. From day one she has shown incredible initiative to lead projects, as well as astonishing speed and accuracy in her work. She has an amazingly varied skillset, from writing and editing, to a wide range of digital skills such as CMS, social media, video editing and newsletter creation. She finds it easy to pick up new digital and editing skills and is always willing to put her hand to and learn new creative and digital skills. Emma is also an incredibly kind person and is a true team player, with no ego and always with the greater project goals set as her priority. She is always ready to help and find ways to solve problems. She strives each day to get her own work and the team’s larger projects completed with ease and professionality. She is a true asset to any team.
Emma Coxon has worked with me for over ten years. When I ran my own coaching business, Emma project managed the whole back end of my coaching business - from loading content on to my website to invoicing to booking clients in my diary and managing my coaching associates and their appointments. When I moved over to Psychologies magazine, Emma came with me, enabling me to run my coaching practice for one day a week, while editing Psychologies for four days a week. All I had to do was show up to my coaching sessions as Emma ran my company for me in the background.
When Big Leap Life Ltd, my company, started producing all the content for Psychologies magazine, Emma became one of our freelance writing team and Living and Food Editor. She is a brilliant curator of books, products and ideas for Psychologies and always delivers on time and to budget. She was one of the powers behind our Real Eco-Awards and project managed the whole thing alongside our Eco-Editor. Emma is kind, supportive, positive and a joy to work alongside. She's a key player in my team and I doubt whether I could have done what I've done without her steady, hard-working presence.
I've worked with Emma as my VA for over five years now and she's made a real impact on my business. Emma has been particularly helpful in setting me up with an online database to help me manage my large client base and keep track of everything we do. She is so good at setting up systems to ensure that everything runs smoothly and has helped me with a multitude of tasks including regular liaison with my freelancers, sourcing images for my online writer's club, chasing leads and researching the market. The best thing about working with Emma is knowing that I can always trust her to do a superb job and that leaves me more freedom to focus on developing and growing the business.
Emma is an angel. Her mature attitude, her enthusiasm and patience has been invaluable to me and my business. She's allowed me to free up my time to concentrate on the other things I need to to do to grow my business. She's a safe pair of hands; so effective and efficient I don't know what I'd do without her!
I reached out to Emma when I was feeling I was spinning too many plates on my own - I had been working solo within the Health & Wellbeing industry for twenty years and I knew it was time to get outside help so I can run a more efficient ship. Emma takes care of the front end of my business: advertising, answering queries and dealing with the bookings for all of my courses. Her proof-reading skills are a god-send, and her skills in this area have included my website, business literature, monthly newsletters, and more recently, a book I have been writing about meditation. Her eye for detail has been crucial, ensuring all my communications are of a high professional level. Just knowing I have Emma in my team brings daily relief and it means I can focus much more on connecting with my clients and providing the service they deserve. Emma has a kind and generous spirit, and I feel she cares about ensuring my business continues to be a success. Everyone, in business, should have an Emma!
From the beginning, Emma had a strong understanding of my brand, and passion for independent & creative businesses so I knew we would be a great fit. Her communication with customers is both professional and personal, which I really value, meaning I'm confident taking breaks away from the business knowing she is keeping communication going behind the scenes for me. Having Emma on my team is giving me more freedom to do the creative work that I love, as well as take on more commission work, as she is able to work on the communication and admin side of my bespoke work. As a conscious, seasonal living advocate herself, she truly understands what my work is about, and I'm very thankful for the brilliant work that she does for me.
Emma’s support is fundamental to the growth of my business. She has a uniquely brilliant combination of skills. She is a highly organised, flexible, collaborative project manager with an eagle-eye for the detail. This, combined with her talent for marketing and PR skills, and her ability to tackle complex projects with vision, verve and creative thinking makes her a huge asset to any SME. She has made a massive difference since she started supporting me and I wholeheartedly recommend her work.
Working with Emma has transformed my business. Knowing that Emma has my back is invaluable to me! She picks things up when I have dropped them and is always happy to do the jobs that I just don’t have time for. My clients benefit from my working with Emma as it means that they get more of me doing what I’m good at!! It also means that I can switch OFF when I am on holiday which is utter gold dust! I would recommend Emma to anyone looking to create more time & less stress in their day.
Emma helped me enormously during our time working together. She used her exceptional organisational skills to help sort through the chaos in my inbox (and my head!) and worked proactively to set-up new systems/workflows to streamline different elements of my day-to-day work. She has an extremely professional and personable manner when dealing with clients and was always a joy to work alongside. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her to anyone who is feeling a bit snowed under!
Deciding to take Emma on as our VA has been one of the best decisions we’ve made for a while. It has freed us both up to focus on running our business, not getting involved in the detail of it. We can make the most of our time, confident that Emma is handling the other aspects of our business which are very important, but don’t require us as Founders to be involved. Initially, I didn't think I'd have much for her to do but within two months we’d doubled our hours, and I can see that growing again soon. I think any serious business owner or entrepreneur should be using the services of a VA, otherwise you’re just responding to the next thing that comes through the door, and not operating strategically. Talk to Emma!
I absolutely love working with Emma, her support is invaluable. Having Emma’s help over the last year has enabled me to take my business to the next level and also allows me far more quality time with my family. Thank you Emma, you really are a star!
Emma came along at a perfect time for me, allowing me to analyse the areas of admin and organisation that were taking time away from the creative side of my work. By taking that on with such a proactive and super efficient spirit, I was able to concentrate on what I do best. Having worked alone for many years, it has been a great boost to have her working away quietly on side, always ready with suggestions to make things work better or move forward.
I am so grateful that I found Emma. She has made an amazing difference to my business - and dramatically reduced my stress levels and work load. She has made it possible for me to concentrate on the things that I enjoy doing and leaving the multitude of administrative tasks to her. I had never had a VA before and am not a technically minded person so was not sure how it would all work out. But having worked with Emma for almost 3 years I cannot imagine how I would manage without her. What she can achieve in half hour would take me all day! She is incredibly efficient and multi skilled. She deals directly with my clients, over sees the various routine weekly and monthly tasks involved in running my business and also happily takes on specific projects from PR for promoting my app to helping me run my on-line training courses.
Emma has been an absolute godsend for Temple Field Property. She picked up our systems quickly and without fuss, and has taken over many important admin jobs, leaving us free to find and refurbish investment properties for our clients and generate all-important new business. Emma just gets on with it - she is professional, friendly, and reliable, and invariably achieves a huge amount in a short space of time. We definitely think of Emma as a part of the team - we don’t know what we’d do without her!
Emma is an absolute star and has been a huge support to Gazelle Partners as we move from a start up to a more established business. Her organisation, efficiency and initiative has had a significant impact on easing our admin burden at a critical time in our development. We initially thought Emma could just help us on a short term project but we have been so impressed and have such trust in her that we are not going to want to let her go! Emma is a delight to work with and I cannot recommend her more highly.
Emma is a brilliant VA. She is super organised and efficient with her time, I just don’t know how she accomplishes so much! She is also such fun, a really lovely person to deal with, and with very high integrity; so important when finding someone to work with closely in your own small business.I have recommended Emma to friends, clients and contacts who were looking for admin and project management help, with great success, and I cannot recommend her highly enough.
Emma has been a god send over the last couple of years. The efficiency, ease and friendly manner she carries everything out with was brilliant. It is such a treat to know that she is behind you, supporting you, catching some balls and reminding you of what you should be doing, which for me personally was invaluable amid a hectic work and home life. I highly recommend Emma and the fact that I have never met her face to face doesn’t matter a jot!
I couldn’t recommend Emma more highly. I have thoroughly appreciated her input and efforts into my business. She is always there if I really need it, and always has a positive can do attitude. Professional service with passion and creativity!
It has been such a relief to be working with someone who understands the way a heart-led business works and can balance that with superb organisation and efficiency. From excel accounts to social media, Emma has it all under control with a light touch and is an absolute pleasure to work with – which has given me more time to work on my businesses instead of getting waylaid with admin. For conscious entrepreneurs Assistant Guru has the perfect combination of skill, professionalism and heart to guarantee excellent results for your business.
I used Emma to help me with some marketing work that I'd been putting off forever. She did it enthusiastically, and was super organised, fast and efficient. She always did things when she said she would and kept me updated on everything she'd done. It was such a relief to be able to cross all those things off my to do list and if I have any other projects In future I will definitely use her again. She was recommended to me, and I would definitely recommend her to others.
Emma is someone I feel privileged to have working with me. Multi-talented, she is a superb organiser, writer and techno-whizz. With a lovely, warm, sunny personality, she also understands, fundamentally, both the business angle and the ethos of my yoga practice. Emma has extensive professional experience of businesses in the holistic, complementary and natural products field. She also embraces personally and with considerable knowledge, connected interests and activities. It is a joy to have this unusual combination and someone who understands the strictures and opportunities of a small business. My business is not a desk job and it is vital that someone is at “base camp” to handle administration, preparation, follow-up and the running of events as well as enquiries and the multitude of tasks, social media etc. I simply do not have the time to do – nor frankly, am I any good at. Emma has my total trust. I know she will pay great attention to detail, manage her time well and provide excellent suggestions for efficient working. She has also produced excellent and attractive documentation when creative presentations and images are needed. Altogether? Quite fabulous (and fun!)
Emma crossed my path just when we needed someone to soothe our growing admin headaches. With her perspicacity and deft understanding of what we needed we were able to devolve tasks to her quickly, meaning we can now spend our time on doing what we should be doing, focusing on our clients. Taking Emma on has been a straightforward, cost saving move. She treats us with care, dedication and attention, is not just supportive but also creative, bringing suggestions and ideas to make things work even better in our business. She is part our team, a delightful person to work with, focused, efficient and great to share a coffee with!
Services & Packages
Ongoing admin & project support
I have a wealth of experience working with businesses both large and small to manage the day to day running of admin tasks and projects. This has included supporting freelance editors of national magazines who are not only providing editorial provision for some top publications, but are running their own business too. I like to work with clients on a long-term basis so that I can get to know what they need help with so that they can thrive in what they do best whether that be writing, coaching, creating, speaking, editing magazines or providing other services for their clients. Some of my clients have business coaches helping them with marketing and PR strategies, systems, client management or developing new services. I help them implement whatever it is they need to do to move their business forward.
My aim is always to make people's lives easier with my support, so that a business can run with more ease and less stress.
Some of the support I offer is detailed below:
- Researching business and marketing opportunities
- Client liaison and onboarding
- Community engagement and management including on social media or online groups
- Diary management
- Project management - liaising with a variety of teams internally & externally to ensure the smooth running of projects within budget and specified deadlines
- Designing visually appealing presentations and other materials via Canva
- Collating and uploading content to online learning platforms
- Sending out newsletters on a regular basis
- Blog writing including picture research
- Organising events or coming up with ideas for new events
- Updating website information
- Image research
- Managing CRM systems to ensure client information is up-to-date
Packages start from £500 per month depending on requirements.
Marketing support services
We all know how important it is to keep the content of our website up-to-date and to communicate regularly with our followers. But, finding the time to do this is an issue I hear from clients all the time. I provide a range of marketing support services to help you reach your audience on a regular basis and keep your content fresh. Packages I offer include a combination of blog writing (along with sourcing royalty-free images or from paid platforms if you prefer) and social media management. I worked with the Social Media Manager at Psychologies magazine for just over a year scheduling all the content for the magazine across their social media channels, so have experience of doing this on a daily basis:
Marketing package 1 - £550 per month
- 1 x blog or article per month
- 1 x email newsletter per month
- 1 social media post per week
- 1-2 social media platforms
Marketing package 2 – £1250 per month
- 3 social media posts per week
- 2 social media platforms
- 2 email newsletters per month
- 2 blogs or articles per month
Social media support - from £1500 per month
- Creating social media graphics to go with your captions
- Scheduling social media posts
- Monitoring comments on social media accounts
- Replying to comments on client’s behalf
- Monitoring social media inboxes
- Replying to messages received via social media
- Maintaining social media accounts
- Blocking trolls
If you have a particular marketing task you need support with, that isn't listed above, do get in touch and we can discuss a bespoke package.
Editorial services
Over the past 6 years I have worked with a number of top national magazines. I began my work for magazines as Psychologies magazine’s Food & Living Editor, and Features Writer. I also supported former Editor, Suzy Walker across various aspects of the publication. Suzy was a freelance Editor so required support managing her business providing editorial content for the magazine. Her work included interviewing high profile names including as Ruby Wax, Brené Brown, Katie Piper and 'The Iceman' Wim Hof and I supported her with finding guests to interview, and liaising with them on timings and logistics.
I also currently work with Editor of Top Santé and Platinum magazines, Katy Sunnassee (I also worked with Katy when she was acting-editor of Women's Fitness magazine). Again, Katy is a freelance Editor and I support her with various aspects of her business, including some features writing and collation of top picks shopping pages featuring new product launches in the health and wellbeing sector.
I offer an Editorial Services package for Editors or clients that require these bespoke services. But, if you require some but not all of the below, please do contact me and we can discuss a more tailored package:
Editorial Services package - £1500 per month
- Research for articles
- Sourcing prizes from PRs for competitions/letters pages
- Collating and compiling top picks and shopping pages
- Sourcing recipe books for features and editing recipe content
- Sending contributors/PRs a PDF of their features
- Sourcing images from contributors or from stock image platforms
- Managing contracts & invoices from contributors
- Liaising with PR agencies for content on specific themes
- Sending out media requests for features
- Researching celebs to be featured and liaising with freelance journalists and agents
- Researching other experts to contribute to magazine features