Responsibilities for an Office Manager

[Pittsburgh Stone83]

I am looking to incorporate a full time Office manager this year. Has anybody used one in the past or currently? I putting a list of services that this positoin could provide. Any ideas beyond the obvious?

[Duekster]

Follow up calls to new clients as well as period calls to existing clients. Manage the quarterly news letter. Track your new leads and how they found you.
That is the main things besides the obvious.

[larryinalabama]

Make coffee

[maelawncare]

Release stress on the owner.

[Duekster]

Originally Posted by maelawncare

Release stress on the owner.

That is the job of a head nurse

[32vld]

Originally Posted by Pittsburgh Stone83

I am looking to incorporate a full time Office manager this year. Has anybody used one in the past or currently? I putting a list of services that this positoin could provide. Any ideas beyond the obvious?

There was another poster that complained what a bad job his office manager did. Couldn't keep the books straight.
He wanted to know how to hire a good office manager.

What he needed to do was hire a good book keeper and do all the billing. That could also intelligently handle the phone and do any needed corresponding.

You don't need an office manager to handle or direct sales calls unless your business is that large and you have full time salesmen.

As a small business owner when the customers call they should get you to answer the phone. You are the business, you are one in the same as the business.

Do people need to or expect to speak with the CEO of GM or Ford to buy a car no. Then your business is not on that scale.

If you have more office work then you can handle at night then it is time to hire a crew leader that you can send out without you. Now you have the time to deal with customers, phones, managing, free you up to estimates quicker.

Now depending on how much time book keeping you probably can get away with a part time book keeper first.

[adam.neusbaum]

One huge help for me is an answering service.

[Sean Adams]

It depends on whether or not you want an office manager or an overall business assistant.

An office manager manages the office - answers the phone, takes messages, keeps a schedule for the owner, opens and sorts the mail, data entry, billing, maybe even handles payroll, or at the very least reports payroll numbers each week to the payroll service being used.

A business assistant is more involved. That person could handle all of the tasks listed above and then some....such as:

preparing estimates/proposals, paying bills, communicating with clients, communicating with vendors, scheduling, routing, dealing with employee issues, customer complaints, assist with marketing and advertising, assist in the budget process, etc...

Obviously the more you expect, the more qualified the person will need to be - not necessarily with previous landscape business experience, but certainly being an integral part of running a business and you can obviously expect to pay this person more as well.

Whether you want this to be the case or not, their personality and demeanor will matter as much as anything, because if you are looking for a business assistant/manager, you will be spending a lot of time with this person and not always seeing eye to eye.

[lawn_jockey]

Sean basically summed that one up for me as well good job.

The only additional thing I would say on top of his comment is the business assistant or
Office manager should have a real devoted passion for growing the business along side you.

If the person is there for the paycheck and that is it, then they will never reach the full
potential you wish they had.

[jsslawncare]

Update their Facebook status every 15 minutes. Make sure they return all personal phone calls.