by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 27, 2012 | Virtual Assistant
Tight schedules, daunting To Do lists, endless commitments, overload of emails, phone calls, appointments and an ever expanding digital world makes it extremely difficult to effectively and efficiently manage our busy lives. We all know how important delegation is in relation to the success of our businesses. It is virtually impossible to execute all aspects of our daily grind, expecting gargantuan growth, innovation and revenue. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to focus on the back end admin tasks in addition to business development, forward expansion, generation of revenue, or creating the sought after customer experience.
“So unless it’s possible for you to get 10x more productive or work 10x harder, it’s physically impossible to grow your business without more people. Your business requires the hours that only more human beings can give you! Delegation is essential for hyper growth in a business.” Laura Roeder
Have you ever considered keeping track of every task or project that you work on during the week? How many of these represent your core genius or your passion? Do they generate income or are they simply some of the necessary tasks, marketing, social media or administrative duties that are part of your daily business operations?
Seriously, are these the best use of your time? Do you need to be uploading your blog posts, scheduling your e-newsletters, proofing/editing documents, responding to all emails, searching for article content, creating PowerPoints, calling vendors, confirming appointments, or managing all aspects of your social media posts? You know that this is just the tip of the iceberg of the activities that must be managed on a daily basis – all part of marketing, online reputation, visibility, customer engagement, loyalty building and so on. BUT, as vital as they all are, YOU don’t need to be doing them all. These activities are time consuming, sometimes tedious and certainly take you away from your core objectives.
Everybody needs a team to thrive and prosper. “The fact is this: Delegating tasks to others can save you a great deal of time and allow you to focus that time on the highest value-added tasks,” states Dave Lavinsky in Do Less, Achieve More: The Beauty Of Effective Delegation This excellent article posted on Fast Company clearly reiterates the fact that as an entrepreneur, you should be focusing your time on the tasks that ONLY you can do and outsource the rest. All of the low payoff day to day things are not a valuable use of your time. With only one person wearing multiple hats, there is only so far you are able to evolve.
“If you are the one consulting, you need someone else to handle client expectations, emails and scheduling. It’s always sticky if you are the one who is answering questions, invoicing and dealing with the smaller details. It can not only be disruptive to your work, but it can give the impression that you’re wearing too many hats.” Angela Jia Kim in How a One-Person Show Can Look Bigger to Clients. “You can hire a virtual assistant for just an hour or two a day to check customer-service emails, follow your process of welcoming new clients and issue invoices. If you go this route, set yourself up as if you are already a bigger firm.”
“Delegation doesn’t come naturally to many small-business owners. However, if we want healthy, sustainable business and personal lives, delegation is a critical art to master.” Nellie Akalp, “6 Tips to Master the Art of Delegation.
As mentioned above, spend one week recording every task or project you worked on and the time required to complete it. Along with that, note if it was a direct income generator (IG) or simply a day to day activity (D2D). Tally up the hours for the 2 categories IG or D2D and think about what should have been the best use of your time. What could you have delegated? If you had spent 8 hours on low value projects, imagine what you could have accomplished in that time.
What is your strategy for growth? How will you institute change for 2013?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 8, 2012 | Virtual Assistant
I am so glad you asked.
The life and times of a Virtual Assistant (VA) offers a very diverse day of managing numerous tasks and projects. While some VAs have chosen to work with only one specific niche market, I prefer to partner with different types of entrepreneurs, ensuring a sundry of daily operations: keeping it fresh, challenging and exciting.
The Holiday Inn Express ad campaign, “Stay Smart” depicts people doing extraordinary feats after being a hotel guest. While I haven’t averted a nuclear disaster or wrestled with a great white shark, I have been given the great opportunity to enrich my mind on a myriad of topics and industries that I never would have otherwise stopped to read or study.
I am sincerely grateful and honored for each and every client that has partnered with Ace Concierge. As noted in a prior post, I am living my passion of giving back to others – this isn’t just a job or paycheck. I thrive on helping my client base with their time management, productivity, work life balance and stress reduction, all in the form of remotely managing their projects and daily business operations.
Whether creating a document, searching for social media content or proofreading blog posts and websites, I have had the great fortune to improve or enhance my knowledge on many subjects and honestly some are absolutely fascinating!! Some of the topics I have read/researched are:
- Tissue engineering
- Biotechnology
- Regenerative medicine
- Organizational development
- Intellectual property rights
- Personal Injury Insurance
- Graphic illustration
- Leadership
- IV therapies
- Juicing
- Raw foods
- Start-up planning
- Business growth planning
- Venture capital
- Angel investing
- Cosmetic surgery
- Social media
The list continues to expand on a daily basis and I love every second that I am asked to read, write, report, post or edit. Being a Virtual Assistant IS like staying at the Holiday Inn Express. Never stop reading and expanding your mind – I know I won’t.
What have you learned lately?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 11, 2012 | Delegation, Time Management, Virtual Assistant
As an entrepreneur, your success depends on you, your time and your efforts. Yes, you have heard me say this before, but when we choose to manage every task or project that comes across our desk, we become less efficient, effective as well as stressed out because things are not getting done. Our high priority tasks fall by the way side while we end up doing busy work or more mundane tasks that are essentially a waste of our valuable time.
The actions you take today determine the outcomes of tomorrow.
Delegating the non-income producers is a sure fire way to strike up your productivity and output, generating a spark in your bottom-line. Your virtual assistant can be a tremendous asset to you and your company. Starting with a strong foundation and understanding is key your mutual success.
When partnering with a virtual assistant:
- Know your core genius and delegate other low payoff activities, leveraging your valuable time on essential business functions
- Share your long term and short term company goals as well as those for your VA partnership
- Provide a clear outline of project details, expectations and deadlines
- Define your most desired and effective means of communication
- Utilize your virtual assistant as a brainstorming partner, your own personal sounding board
- Understand that a virtual assistant is not an employee but a business colleague, a collaborator, helping to ensure your business goals are met
- Don’t be afraid to ask about other service solutions just because your need is not listed on their website
- Be prepared to use a variety of web-based tools that will help streamline your communications, social media and project management
- Develop a rapport and positive working relationship with open communications and accountability
- Provide feedback on all projects
Your turn!! What do you feel is most important when working with a virtual assistant?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jun 6, 2012 | Virtual Assistant
If you had asked me when I graduated from college with a degree in psychology if I was going to be a virtual assistant when I grew up, my response would have been: “huh?” Way back then, eons ago, this industry did not exist, at least not that I was aware of. I began Ace Concierge back in 2002; it was known as Allegiance Concierge and Errand Services.
It wasn’t long after my sister died of breast cancer that I realized two things:
- I needed a career where I could give back to others (I had been the caregiver for both my mom and sister as they fought the fight of the Breast Cancer Warriors).
- I didn’t want to punch a time clock for the rest of my life. I wanted to be my own boss.
I spent many months on the Internet and the floor of bookstores, searching for a business that would enable me to live my passion for giving and helping others, as well as generate income. I discovered the world of the personal concierge. How exciting it was to be a solo-preneur and “hang my shingle!” As the business grew, my client base became more diverse and I gravitated toward the corporations, offering services to companies and executives. Many of the tasks were effectively managed online versus out in the field.
This was the beginning of my virtual life. I am very much everything that someone in your front office is – yet simply, I am within access to tools that technologically allow me to be virtually in the same room with you. Coffee?
Falling head first into social media, my online world exploded and I become 100% virtual but I am still a real person, not just a figment of your imagination. Really… I have been pinched so I know. Social media has widened the gap, creating a small microcosm of a new community for me. From clients, to friends, to colleagues, and even where to move to in North Carolina, I am grateful for my engagement in social media.
The point of writing this? Not to fill up more space in the never ending stream of information coming your way, but rather to engage and enlighten you on how what I do is all about cleaning out that never ending deluge of data and providing help in keeping your work life in order. I love what I do and do what I love: those business tasks and projects keeping you from feeling the same way, are what I am here to help you with. It is all about you and my ability to assist you with your personal or business tasks and projects. It isn’t just WHAT I do for you. It is what YOU gain from delegating to your Ace. The payoff for me is your success and satisfaction. I have many clients who call just to share their good news and successes because of the additional hours that were created in their week via outsourcing.
My goal is to give back my clients, ease stress, enhance time management, productivity, work life balance and efficiency. Solutions to every day pains and stressors are eradicated or at least minimized.
Is this a get rich quick scheme? Hardly. Like any business I started small and have grown organically as my skills, clientele and reach grew, and there are ebbs and flows of the work. Down-times and good times in every business requires 150% devotion and dedication. There is no easy way out. You put in your all IF you want it all.
Have I had some “crazy” clients? Just one. I soon discovered Mr B. Baad was not on the “up and up.” He had a few requests that I knew were not something that resonated with my values and personal morals. I did fire him saying we weren’t a good match. He had asked me to fill out a license to carry permit in the state of NY. Upon reviewing the application, it asked for more of a crime related and legal personal history. He told me to: “make shit up.” Needless to say, I refused to complete the task and a few others. The beauty of working for myself is the ability to say NO to requests that do not resonate with my values, my mission and my purpose. (Especially the kind that may place me in a compromising situation.)
Wondering about the picture in this post? My mom had given it to me when I was a very little girl and now it still hangs in my home, validating that I am living my passion of helping others. I can assure you that when I was six, 12 or even 22, that this Emily Dickinson poem was just a beautiful verse. It wasn’t until I took care of my mom beginning at the time of her diagnosis at my college graduation and then my sister, that I realized my “calling.” Those 16 years of intense round the clock care-giving and being a parent set the course for my journey to being a virtual assistant.
Are you living your passion?
