by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jan 12, 2017 | Entrepreneur, Executive Administration, Small Business, Time Management, Virtual Assistant
Greeting the day as an overwhelmed entrepreneur has become part of the norm for many first-time business owners. The hats we wear are numerous and can present unexpected challenges in our day-to-day operations. It can be suffocating trying to figure out where to turn or what to do next.
Becoming more productive and being able to free up more time and leveraging your existing time, is one of the most skills that can literally multiply your success. Tor Refsland
You are an executive who worked hard, paid your dues and now you are sitting in the seat of responsibility. With responsibility comes an increased need to manage your time effectively. You cannot spend hours of your time formatting documents, writing business letters, building forms, writing and responding to emails, and editing or proofreading marketing material. Your decision-making, client relationships, and management of the company’s fiscal responsibilities take precedence. Hiring someone full-time is just not in the books yet.
What can you do? Is there a simple solution to help you achieve more by doing less?
Delegating
The purpose of delegating is to enable you to focus on your core genius, the tasks and projects that ONLY you can do; the revenue generators.
If you are being busy with many of the back end, admin tasks, you not using your expertise to the best of your ability; thereby further impairing your business advancement and opportunities. You’re potentially hindering your own growth which is counterproductive to starting your business. Let go to grow.
Tracking Hours
How much valuable time is used for follow up emails, searching/scheduling social media posts, writing/editing content, travel planning, document reviews, calendar reminders, project management, or presentation prep, just to name a few?
Track your time for the rest of the week, including the project, time on task, distractions, task completion, new additions to your list, items that were dropped to a lower priority or simply forgotten and how you felt at the end. In your review, what tasks clearly represented your core genius? What tasks were a low value?
Infinite list of responsibilities
All of the above are just a few of the basic yet necessary components to your business operations. It can be exhausting and frustrating to manage all of these tasks on your own. Unless you’re a super hero, it’s nearly impossible to be all things, to all people, all of the time.
In his blog post “The Way To Measure Your Productivity As An Entrepreneur”, Dan Martell suggests you:
- Create 4 buckets of activities: Admin, Work, Mgmt, Strategy
- Measure each with a monetary value: $10, $100, $500, $5000
- Focus on moving your way up the value chain (working ON vs. IN)
Measure each activity for what it is, then tally up your time for the day to get your daily value creation score.
The goal of these activities is to nudge you to work ON your business, rather than IN it. Typically, the IN does not generate revenue but keeps you busy. Busy isn’t necessarily productive. Busy can be frittering time. You don’t have time to waste.
When you love what you do, you want to do more of it!
Delegating gives you the flexibility you need to keep the company momentum going. Unburden yourself of these time consuming, the low payoff tasks/projects that keep you from the core of your business.
Stop doing stuff that isn’t valuable. So much of what people do in attempting to be productive involves just trying to fit more low value tasks into the same amount of time. Being productive means accomplishing more with the same or less effort. Mark Shead, Productivity 501
ACTION STEP
What’s on your To Do list right now that you’re ready to outsource? Do it and discover for yourself why so many other entrepreneurs embrace the power of delegating. What do they know that you don’t?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 20, 2016 | Delegation, Entrepreneur, Time Management, Virtual Assistant
Let’s get real about time management. Sure, scrolling through social media and completing daily to-dos are satisfying, but will they translate to success? Likely not! These activities are like sidekicks, important to keep the business chugging along, but they won’t be the superhero bringing in the major cash.
What is the best use of your time and expertise?
Your core genius: something you love to do, is effortless, creates a sense of joy and contentment, generates a fire within and time disappears. It could be coaching, writing, graphic design, speaking, leading, selling, training, motivating, marketing or whatever your passion is. When you are focused on your CG, you are alive, vibrant, and producing outcomes.
As an entrepreneur, when you can maximize your potential by focusing on your core genius, you not only follow your passion but can devote your time ON your business rather than IN it. You become more productive and efficient. While many daily business tasks require attention, it doesn’t necessarily have to be on your time. Delegating the lower return projects and tasks gives you back your time to build your business, develop strategy, nurture relationships, foster loyalty, seek partnerships, and focus on your bottom line.
Compare the individuals, the business owners, who dedicate their time to every task, every project, even those that they don’t like, don’t truly have time to do, or the ones that are more menial “time robbers.” These people are taken away from their core genius and focused on the back end, admin-type projects instead of building their companies and concentrating on income-generating projects.
“Most entrepreneurs spend less than 30% of their time focusing on their core genius and unique abilities. In fact, by the time they’ve launched a business, it often seems entrepreneurs are doing everything but the one thing they went into business for in the first place.” Jack Canfield
Everything we do is an investment of our time. When you choose to watch television or engage on Facebook that is an investment of your time. In many ways, time is more valuable than money, as you always have the opportunity to make more money, but you cannot recreate lost or wasted time. It is gone forever. If you think of time as a commodity and all of your actions/choices as an investment, it may change how you approach your daily activities.
Think about the return on your time invested. In a recent article by Anthony Iannarino, “Return On Time Invested,” he suggests measuring each activity, the time you spent, and the return. If there was no return on your time, then you must realize that that task or activity is not worth doing. A better use of your valuable time is to focus on those activities that produce a desired, profitable, and rewarding outcome.
Leveraging your time and effort is a fundamental strategy for success. There are only so many hours in the day that you can work and by only using your time, you can only accomplish so much. When you choose to utilize other people’s time via delegation, you intensify your productivity and efficiency to an extraordinary magnitude. It feels great to do more in less time.
- Eliminate unnecessary activities
- Prioritize so you focus your energy on those tasks that provide the highest rate of return
- Set long and short-term goals with action steps, motivating you and keeping you on target
- Learn how to effectively delegate
- Outsource non-core tasks/projects
Action Step:
- Identify the daily activities that are devouring your time by keeping a journal: logging activities, projects, and time spent
- Build a plan to delegate the time robbers that are taking you away from your CG
- Call Ace Concierge to discuss your delegation strategy and project timeline
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 10, 2015 | Delegation, Virtual Assistant
Whether you are a budding entrepreneur or an established business, you can’t do it all yourself. Who can possibly wear all of the hats required to operate a successful viable business? Not many that I know of. It takes a cohesive team to manage each division of your business. You may already work with an attorney, a CPA, or even a graphic designer, but what about the balance of your everyday business operations? The daily administrative and backend details that keep you flowing, productive, and focused on your core genius?
A virtual assistant can change your life, giving you back your day so you can work on the tasks that will take your business to incredible new places. Brandon Turner
Partnering with a Virtual Assistant is a low cost, high payoff solution to enable you to work ON your business rather than IN it. This is such a cliche, but it holds true. If you are buried in the everyday, mundane activities then you don’t have the time or energy to focus real efforts on business development, client retention, troubleshooting or building relationships. And, as you know, your online presence depends on developing a human, touchable brand.
What can a Virtual Assistant do for you?
This is the simple shortlist of what you should delegate to a virtual assistant. There are literally hundreds of tasks and projects that you do within your business that aren’t the key drivers to generate income and don’t represent the best value of your time. If you’d like to see where your time is spent (not invested), keep a daily log of what you do, how much time you spend on tasks, and what is accomplished. You may be surprised at the end of the week to realize that you are more “busy” than productive.
“As all entrepreneurs know, you live and die by your ability to prioritize. You must focus on the most important, mission-critical tasks each day and night, and then share, delegate, delay or skip the rest.” Jessica Jackley
Take back your time to scale your business with a Virtual Assistant partnership.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 17, 2014 | Delegation, Small Business, Virtual Assistant
Owning and operating a scalable business takes a team to fortify the back end, the daily routines, the foundational systems, and processes, let alone the everyday task of social media. After you’ve done it all yourself day after day and you’re ready for a business lifeline, take heed of my client’s advice to other business owners and start-ups. Cultivate the business mindset for growth and profit. You don’t have to go it alone, nor should you.
Humbled and honored by a client’s written word, I’d like to share his opinion about our long-time valued partnership.
Besides transcribing shows Suzie helped organize timelines and tasks for my books, edited and proofed them, served as a sounding board giving much-needed feedback, she found online collaboration tools to help facilitate an easier process, she’s schooled me on social media tools, made introductions to other resources and been an avid cheerleader and friend.
Her role has been a key factor in reaching my goals.
You’re hiring a partner, a coach, an employee, even a boss when you hire the right virtual assistant. If you hire the right virtual assistant, your life is made easier and more productive.
Have you truly got the time to build your business, generate revenue, and manage ALL of the necessary components of your company? Single-handedly?
Take some time to investigate your options for growth. If you haven’t already, write out your goals, both short term, and long term, including action steps and a timeline. List every hat in the company with about how much time you SHOULD invest and DO invest in each. Are there places that are falling between the cracks? Projects or responsibilities that never seem to get finished or even started?
Upon review, are you a superhero with a magic red cape who can do it all and be it all to everyone? Make an honest and sincere assessment of your organization? Can it withstand just one person at the helm or would you benefit from a co-pilot? A little scrutiny goes a long way toward your successful longevity.
If you’re still not sure about delegating, here is another client exchange:
I actually found Suzie from internet/social media, her posts and activity was something we were trying to do so I figured if she could do it for herself she could do it for us. Suzie wasn’t my first attempt at a VA, the 1st one didn’t work out mostly because our styles didn’t fit together.
My personality is that I know what I don’t want more than what I do want ….so people who work with us have to be able to think things thru and come up with solutions. I’m not good at giving detailed specific instructions. I tried Suzie on a couple of ugly projects and she worked thru them, she pushed me when I needed pushing and she made the decisions when she knew she was right.
Suzie could do the specific projects faster than we could do them, get them done on time better than us and all though my cost per hour for Suzie vs some of my employees is much higher, I found that it takes Suzie less time and it takes no supervision from me.
Don’t get hung up on a comparison of hourly costs and don’t think a VA is for the grunt work. Hiring a VA is a way to get another smart person on your staff at a low overall cost.
Delegating allows you to:
- Focus on your core genius: Do what you must do: the tasks and projects that ONLY you can and should be doing. The mainstay of your company.
- Increase your productivity: You can work on more high-level business operations instead of the routine and mundane day to day necessities.
- Eliminate distractions: There are many daily tasks that don’t require your immediate attention. Moving those off of your plate diminishes notifications and multi-tasking.
- Be client/company centric: You have more time to dedicate to building your business structures and relationships.
- Reduce your stress: You’ve got a vested partner working behind the scenes to ensure that everything is efficient, successful, and administered in a timely fashion.
- Bolster your work-life balance: The more you are able to move off of your desk, the more time you gain for your personal life. Nix the nights and weekends.
These are some time-saving and life-saving benefits for the entrepreneur. The gift of time is something we all need more of. If you want to seriously focus on what is important, rather than on what needs to be done, delegating might just be the tool for you.
When you do less, you achieve more.
If you’re ready for a few upgrades in 2015, contact us for a free consultation.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Apr 24, 2014 | Organization, Productivity, Time Management
How many times have you thought that you need more hours in your day or an extra pair of hands? You know the feeling, looking at your desk, your calendar, your Smartphone, your inbox…. Ugh, it is overflowing with things that need your attention. You can’t torch it. You can’t ignore it, but you can implement a few systems and processes to help you better manage the overwhelm and chaos, moving you to increase your productivity.
For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned. – Anonymous
The Notorious To Do list
The first step toward success is to be cognizant of the level of disturbances which you allow into your day. It could revolve around the daily notifications you receive regarding text messages, emails, news alerts, phone calls or any other immediate interruption that diverts your focus from the task at hand.
- Are you able to turn off or lower the volume of the notifications?
- Can you schedule 3-4 times throughout the day to review/respond to emails?
- Do you need to respond immediately to each byte of data that crosses your desk or your Smartphone?
Tips
- Prioritize and set deadlines.
- Know which projects require the most time and your undivided attention.
- Create your boundaries for working hours and “publicize” them.
- Tune out distractions.
- Stay on task.
Is Your Inbox Abundant with Clutter?
In 2011, it is estimated that there were 3.146 billion email accounts and 2.8 million emails sent and received every day. Wow!
Email has become the most predominant mode of office communications whether it is a quick hello or dissemination of corporate materials, contracts, projects and data. It is a necessity that we cannot live without.
Some inboxes can look like a nightmare of messages and To Dos if not properly maintained or left unchecked for an extended period of time. We are all busy working and managing the flow of information and business operations that it can just become an inconvenience to take the time to delete, file, schedule or otherwise take some form of action with each email. If you continually shy away from inbox management, it not only becomes unruly like a bad hair day, but it fosters a lack of productivity and organization. Who can afford that?
Have you ever spent wasted minutes or hours feverishly searching for an email that contains an important document? It becomes a frustrating unproductive endeavor that is a gross misuse of your valuable time AND time is money.
PING!! A new email is awaiting your attention.
- Schedule time to check your email at various intervals
- Make sure you have appropriate folders and filters for filing.
- Is it urgent?
- Can it be completed in 2-3 mins?
- Can you flag it to read later?
- Have you set up rules/alerts
- Delete it if it isn’t necessary and won’t add any value.
- If there is an attachment, download it and save it in the appropriate document folder
- Forward it with instructions to your virtual assistant
- If it is an appointment, drag it to your calendar
- Have separate email addresses for personal and business use
My Documents
You are inundated with digital paper that requires action and filing. Creating folders is a simple task to ensure your documents are organized and easily found. It can prove very time consuming if you have to scroll through one larger receptacle looking for a needed document. Sure, you can do a broad search but when proper file management is established, you can save a great deal of time and aggravation. Let your digital filing system mirror a physical filing system.
Tips:
- Create folders and sub-folders
- Use short names
- Be diligent about filing
- Separate current and completed works
- Archive older, unneeded documents – store in a separate folder, USB or cloud storage
- Create shortcuts or links to documents you use more consistently. Maintaining a single copy ensures you are always using the most current version.
- Delete unnecessary files
- Create shortcuts of your most used documents and save them on your desktop.
- If you routinely share documents with a group, consider using Google Docs, Teambox, Dropbox or another online sharing tool for collaborating.
- Save your data and make sure you always back up your computer
Taking the time to organize and streamline your office operations, even if it is just your email and documents, will help to increase your efficiency and productivity – which saves you time and money. The less time you must spend rummaging through folders and emails, the more time you have to devote to the your vital business operations and daily procedures.
Have a time and place for everything, and do everything in its time and place, and you will not only accomplish more, but have far more leisure than those who are always hurrying. – Tryon Edwards
Make organization a habit, not a one hit wonder. Get into a rhythm everyday and stick with it, just like you would with any lifestyle habit.
