by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 18, 2012 | Entrepreneur, Life Thoughts
Feeling like you live in a shadow but dream of success requires that you don’t merely step out of your comfort zone, but you LEAP, JUMP, SCREAM or otherwise take some real concrete actions to ensure your aspirations become realities. Sitting on the sidelines with an “oh poor me” will NOT take you to the mountain top.
You must decide what is it that you truly want! Something definitive and tangible.
If you have been floating within mediocrity, feeling just reasonably comfortable but suddenly realize there is more. YOU WANT MORE! Well, what are you willing to do for it? What will you commit to?
There can be some harsh revelations during the eye opening beginning. Learning what you did wrong, to teach yourself what you can do right.
What you can do better!
Some of us may not want to admit mistakes or past errors, but until you see the failures, it is more difficult to plan your successes.
You may see other industry colleagues thriving, flourishing, while you are only treading water. You know your legs are tiring from the constancy of monotony.
Your recognition needs to act as a positive upsurge, your motivator. Create your strategy; your plan to achieve your goals.
Envision your end result and work backwards with a detailed outline of how you will make it all happen. Record timelines, players, procedures, activities and any other structures or elements that will drive you toward your end result.
- Make a vision board
- Partner with your task force
- Seek a mentor
- Create a daily schedule/To Dos
- Write out your processes
- Enlist “industry experts
- Enhance your skill-set
- Measure or track your successes/failures
- Have a deadline
It is your playing field and if you want that touchdown you must write the playbook to score.
Now get in the game.
Learn the action steps, the stakeholders and commit to creating the life you want and deserve.
”Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes… but no plans.” –Peter F. Drucker
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 2, 2012 | Life Thoughts, Small Business
Smart entrepreneurs plan because they recognize that it will increase their probabilities for achievement. Important issues are less likely to fall through the cracks with formal outlines, processes and action steps. It’s a valuable tool that can make a substantial difference in the success or failure of a business or personal dreams.
Business development is about creating your dream of self-employment and spinning it into reality. A business plan is the document you produce when you take have an idea for a marketable endeavor and work through all the dynamics that will have an influence on the startup, operation, and management of the business.
Formulating your plan will help reduce time-wasting indecision and increase the likelihood of success. Without knowing where you’re going, it’s not really possible to plan, or make inroads toward goal achievement. Take a moment and look around, thinking about all of the things in your present environment, from the chair you sit on, the pen you use, the computer, your car or even the food you eat; they all began with a plan, a blueprint.
Dumb Little Man: ”A mansion will not come out as grand and as breathtaking as it is unless there’s a good plan behind its construction. Same goes with the great and amazing things you want to obtain in your life. Plan, and plan well. Make sure your plan is feasible, doable, and effective. Also, it pays to think and plot an alternative plan or a plan B, in case your initial plan does not work.”
Managing our own lives and businesses is hard enough but without written goals and action steps, we are just going through the motions, yearning for success and growth. It is important to visualize what we want and expect. It is from this starting point that enables us to map out our plan to facilitate action and forward movement.
There are many options to formulating your plan of action, from spreadsheets, mindmaps, flowcharts or just a word document, but whichever tool you choose should be one you will faithfully utilize and implement otherwise, it will be an exercise in futility and there aren’t enough hours in the day to justify wasted time, energy or effort. Your plan can outline all of your goals, action steps, timelines and a To Do list to help drive your dreams to the finish line. c into a reality but instituting a thought out functional strategy will.
How will you launch your inspirations from a concept to a tangible outcome?
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 | Aug 28, 2012 | Entrepreneur, Life Thoughts
Timely commitments speak volumes about your intentions. If you are consistently missing time limits or deadlines, delaying outcomes or otherwise just holding off on completing promised projects, what message are you giving to the recipient?
“When you find someone who you think is an ‘A’ player and effective, you should go back and see if they were an A player and effective previously. And if you can see that he or she was accountable, collaborative and inspiring in his or her previous work, you can expect the same kind of performance going forward.” Jim Schleckser
As business owners, we are inundated with unlimited requests for our time and expertise but when you overcommit or plainly don’t back up your word with actions, you are shortchanging yourself, your clients, partners or colleagues. Consider the nonverbal communication you are sending when you don’t deliver the promised results in the appropriate timeline.
Meeting your demands in timely manner is good service on deliverables. It demonstrates your committed resolve to get the job done; a dedication to responsibility. If you can remember a time of disappointment or frustration when you were waiting for a response, final product, contract or any other form of collateral and you perceived an extensive delay, what thoughts consumed you about the contributor?
“Do unto others as you would have them do to you.”
As said in the Freelance Switch article 14 Essential Tips for Meeting a Deadline, “Your reputation as a freelancer is pretty much the only thing you have to go on — your bread and butter.” As we continue to build and foster relationships, both online and off, your reputation will become a predictor of future business and partnerships.”
While we may hit a few roadblocks in the process: technical issues, data requirements, brain-cramp, logistics, team members faltering, with proper planning, insight and time padding, you should meet or beat every deadline, whether explicitly implied or merely an unspoken exchange of expectations.
When you evaluate your “proficiency” for meeting deadlines, you must also review your level or reasons for procrastination. Putting something off only perpetuates additional anxiety and stress. We all may procrastinate on occasion. It could be a chronic issue for some while for others; it’s only a problem in certain areas of their life. Procrastination is continuously frustrating because it creates a domino effect in wasted time, lost opportunities, disappointing work performance, and generally a bad perceived feeling of self.
Procrastinating allows less important tasks to usurp your time and space when you should be more focused on projects that take a higher precedence. Most people don’t have a problem finding time for the things they want to do, but once a task is presumed challenging, time consuming, or boring, procrastination takes over.
If procrastination produces negative results, then why do we allow this behavior? Procrastinating actually reinforces itself in two ways. 1. It is difficult for most to institute change or accept that a real change is required. We tend to divert our attention away from a task to do something we want to do, something that is more desirable. 2. Procrastination can help to feed ego when the deadlines are met at the very last minute and you or others pat yourself on the back for getting it done. If the project isn’t as acceptable as you had wanted, you blame it on time restraints. Either way, you are reinforcing the habit of putting things off.
University of Cambridge states: “Often we try to disguise our avoidance by being very busy doing things that may be interesting, and even useful, but don’t contribute towards the main goal – even doing something we normally hate – rather than writing, for example, just before an essay deadline!”
Recognizing your behaviors and tuning into the purposes will guide your future actions and reactions. Learn what drives you and if change is needed, then start with simple steps. Persevere, knowing that change is a positive tool affecting your personal and professional relationships.
- Honor your words, unspoken guarantees and anticipated recipient results
- Plan your time and projects with dated action steps
- If required, seek assistance early on, don’t wait until the last hour
- Over deliver
- Don’t keep someone waiting or wondering
- Correspond and update as needed
Harvey Mckay: “Deadlines aren’t bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it. And meeting deadlines successfully is one of the best motivating factors out there.”
