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.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Apr 22, 2014 | Delegation, Entrepreneur, Small Business
Entrepreneur, solo-preneur, small business owner; while each comes with its own clarifying distinctions, one quality remains significant, the opportunities to build and scale your business are better performed with a team.
Your team is available to listen, brainstorm, collaborate, build, generate, troubleshoot or otherwise help you to achieve your dreams a little faster than if you remain a single entity.
“As the business owner, your time is extremely valuable, and you should be focusing on the items that only you can do! If you have the resources, consider hiring a virtual assistant to take care of these administrative tasks that are holding you back”. Brett Relander
Scale Your Business Beyond Yourself with Jason T. Wiser and Rebekah Radice highlights the benefits and value of partnering with a virtual assistant to effectively grow and manage your business.
This isn’t anything new to you, nor is it rocket science. Partnering with a virtual assistant is a simple solution to enable you to expand your company more cost effectively than hiring an in-house team. Where else can you find an entrepreneurial spirit that doesn’t cost you insurances, benefits, office space, training, taxes or supplies? Think of how much that alone will save you on a yearly basis.
However, the world has changed, you don’t need to hire a regular full-time or part-time employee. You can leverage a virtual assistant (VA) for a fraction of the cost. Time Management Ninja
You only have so much time in your day; when you leverage the power and expertise of a virtual assistant, you have just added more hours to work ON your business. More hours to engage with your audience, clients and prospects. Toss the tedious and time consuming to do more of the work you love. The real core and guts of your company.
You can’t do everything that you need to do on your own. It’s impossible. There are not enough hours in a day. And as a business owner, your main focus should be on your clients and customers, how to obtain more of them and networking so you have a growing list of leads to nurture and eventually convert to future clients and customers. M. Shannon Hernandez
Why fill your day with menial administrative and day to day operations that gnaw on your precious time? If it doesn’t produce revenue, consider delegating it.
Can you afford to be buried in;
- Social media management
- Content curation
- Scheduling posts
- Editing and proofing your blog
- Optimizing blog posts
- Drafting content
- Calendaring and appointments
- E-newsletters
- Brand monitoring
- WordPress updates
- Image search/creation
- Daily business management
These are just 12 of the necessary business “nuisances” that you may be doing on your own but don’t generate any income for you. So could they actually undermine your hard work and efforts?
Consider this, each time you are involved in one of these tasks, how many times do you encounter some sort of distraction or roadblock? Are you sidetracked? Does something else come up, like a software or tech issue, and you end up spending even more time on the project which means less time ON your business, building relationships and speaking with clients?
Honestly! Is this the MOST productive use of your time?
In a recent online survey of more than 460 small business owners, proprietors and CEOs, 63% said that they spend 1-5 hours on social media every week. The rest are spending much more, with some business owners spending 21+ hours a week on social media alone – that’s HALF of the normal working week – how are they getting anything else done? Chris Ducker.
Ready! Set! GROW!
Let’s hear your thoughts on building a remote team and taking your business to the next level.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Apr 8, 2014 | Entrepreneur, Productivity, Small Business, Social Media, Virtual Assistant
It’s me! I’m not talking about Siri or Google Now. I’m real. I’m live. Not some plug and play doll, but a real human being, and educated executive with a vested interest in YOUR business success.
A Virtual Assistant is similar to an in-house team member but we help you manage your daily business operations and tasks from our office. We give your back your time to focus ON your business rather than IN it. All of the back end daily administrative and social media management can be a real time suck, which takes you away from your core business acumen. Your job is to run your business and not get bogged down and buried by routine tasks and lengthy To Do lists.
The Bonus of a Virtual Assistant Partnership?
You don’t have to pay for additional overhead, office space, training, insurances, vacation time, taxes, supplies, or furniture.
You only invest for the time spent working on your projects.
As a Virtual Assistant, I outsource as well, helping to increase my productivity, business development and efficiency. If I want to continue to scale my company, I know I can’t go it alone.
M. Shannon Hernandez of The Writing Whisperer,
“I knew that in order to grow my business, the way I envisioned from the very beginning, I needed a support team from the get go. When I am speaking with new business owners, or ones that can’t seem to find the time to get everything done, the very first piece of advice I offer is to partner with a virtual assistant. And once you do, you should embrace this person and her unique skill sets and treat her like a key player in your business.”
After Michael Hyatt left the role of CEO of Thomas Nelson, he rejoiced in the freedom of being his own boss with no more office politics and he was able to follow his passion. We all know that feeling. But soon enough,
“I was spending the bulk of my time responding to email, managing my calendar, booking my own travel, and handling the hundreds of details that go with running a small business. This went on for about three months. I felt like I was drowning. I was running out of hours—and energy. I had to do something.”
Michael created a team of Virtual Assistants!
“None of them work full-time for me. None of them are employees. Together they have enabled me to create a debt-free, highly-profitable, rapidly-growing business. I simply could not have done this without the use of virtual assistants.”
Managing your business and your online presence takes effort, hours, consistency and dedication. You know it is a 24/7/365 day a year journey. Not something part-time. Not a hobby. It is your passion to create and grow a thriving company. Can you do it ALL yourself without sacrificing quality and effectiveness?
“I believe every entrepreneur should be utilizing the sheer power of hiring and working with virtual staff. Back in 2010 when I made the escape from my office, I was doing it for my personal reasons. However, since then I’ve realized that my virtual team has helped our company to grow in not only an efficient way, but also in a much faster manner.” Chris Ducker.
What Can You Outsource to a Virtual Assistant?
The list is limitless!! Here’s a few ideas.
- Content research and curation
- Blog post creation
- Editing/proofing of blog posts, websites, documents
- Blog commenting
- Ghost writing
- Social media management
- Social bookmarking
- Directory submission
- Article marketing
- Web design
- Landing page design and set up
- Bookkeeping
- Calendaring
- Appointment scheduling
- Email management
- E-newsletters
- Customer follow up
Outsource Anything That
- Doesn’t directly generate revenue
- Isn’t your core genius
- Represents administrative tasks
- You don’t like to do
- You don’t want to do
- Is too tedious
- Takes up too much time
- Provides a low payoff
“The whole transition from working in the business to working on the business means letting go of what you’re comfortable doing. You always need to be thinking big and challenging yourself.” Mary Jo Gorman.
Tips to Working with a Virtual Assistant
After you have chosen your vested virtual partner be ready to experience outstanding results.
- Understand your daily processes and business operations
- Be well aware of your core genius and high payoff activities
- Clearly outline your goals
- Know what you want to outsource: for example, content curation, proofing/editing/uploading of blogs, email and calendar management, social media and project management
- Outsource one offs, projects, administrative tasks and daily business operations
- Establish your workflow
- Define specifics, desired outcomes, expectations and deadlines
- Prepare documents to support the processes you use to complete tasks. You may also discover that your VA has some other efficient tools and ideas as well. Be open for discussions
- Accountability and communications are a must for success and satisfaction
- Provide valued, honest feedback
- Trust the VA you have chosen – avoid the need to micromanage
- Expect to participate in monthly strategy calls to brainstorm, share ideas and talk about your business
- If they are to interact with your clients or vendors, create an email address for them at your domain
- Recognize that you are part of a TEAM, investing in your partnership and business
- Every month, review what is working and what isn’t. Consider outsourcing additional operations management or projects while you may decide to pull back others
- Continue to foster and nurture your relationship just like you would with an in-house staff member
Does this all sound enticing?
Do you ever wonder what or how your competition grows their business? If you are ready to scale and spend more time focused on your business core, then the time is NOW to think about partnering with a Virtual Assistant.
Reach out to Ace via our contact page and let’s get the discussions going.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Mar 25, 2014 | Delegation, Productivity, Small Business
Part of being effective during your work hours is the discipline to spend time on what is truly important even if other things try to steer you off course. Efficiency is learning about your awareness to, acceptance of and ability to determine your real work, the actual tasks and projects that propel you forward versus time suckers, bad habits, procrastination or other low payoff activities that take you away from your personal and professional aspirations. It is a continual building process and without a strong sturdy foundation, you may find yourself with a few cracks, leading to disaster, lost time or missed opportunities.
What are you putting off today and WHY? There are things we hate to do or aren’t all that much of a priority, but what happens when you continually push things under the rug? For one, your To Do list multiplies to such great lengths that some activities just get buried at the bottom.
Procrastination List or To Do list?
Go look at your list, your calendar or wherever you record your tasks and projects. I’ll wait.
How long have some of the items been on the list? Are there any you just file in your head to do, but never make it to a list to get done?
Be honest!! What are you going to do about it? And WHEN?
Stop running away from your lists and responsibilities.
Learn to take action and manage your procrastination.
Melanie Benson Strick, America’s Leading Business Optimizer gives you tips on how to SQUASH your procrastination habits. They are very simple and easy to implement today! Read what she has to say and see if you can’t change up a few of your activities and get more important things done.
“When you find yourself procrastinating high payoff activities because you don’t have time or don’t enjoy doing them, its time to activate a more powerful approach to getting things done.
Here are the four ways to squash procrastination and get her important tasks done:
Delegate. My favorite way to handle tasks that must be done but that drain my energy is to delegate those activities to someone else who enjoys doing them. My motto is if someone can do it better, faster or cheaper than me, get it off my plate.” Melanie Benson Strick
Click to learn about Melanie’s other three suggestions: successconnections.com
What are YOUR tips to manage procrastination?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 25, 2014 | Small Business, Social Media, Virtual Assistant
I have been a long-time supporter of the partnering with other like-minded entrepreneurs and understanding the value they bring to the table. An entrepreneur is a different breed especially when considering building a virtual team to support and scale your business. It isn’t a hobby or a passing fancy – it is a passion we live and breathe every waking moment.
In Mark Harai’s recent post “Entrepreneurship is an Art,” he wrote:
“Entrepreneurship is an expression of every thought, imagination, hope and dream that drives your life and makes you “who you are.”
Entrepreneurs take the visions in their mind – the breadth, the depth, the magnificent colors, and bring them to life in the real world.”
When considering partnering with a virtual assistant, you do have many decisions to make that are beyond just wanting to move tasks off of your plate.
- Do you want a task master who only goes from point A to point B or do you desire someone who is truly interested in your success and your goals?
- Someone to brainstorm and consult with?
- An individual who delivers values, solutions and outcomes to your greatest pain points?
An established virtual assistant will do this and more while a call center is for one offs, the simple tasks to push off of your desk. A reputable, time-honored Virtual Assistant is a highly trained professional who MUST keep current on business management, social media, digital marketing and every other component of operating an online business. In order to keep up with the changes and trends of social media and the digital world, we must constantly read and absorb to be able to translate this knowledge to our client’s business, as well as our own.
We aren’t just here to collect a paycheck and get the job done. We run that extra mile for you because we want to. Because we treat your business as though it was our own. When you are mining for an executive virtual assistant to help take your business to the next level, keep in mind the qualities of an entrepreneur, how you live your day to day, and what you expect from a dedicated partner in your business. This mindset is a key driver for success.
Delegating enables you to scale your business, focus on your core company objectives, removes you from the daily back end details, and enhances your time management and productivity. When considering virtual assistance, think about creating a long-term partnership – not just checking off items on a To Do list. Partner with an entrepreneur and you will see measurable results.
“As the business owner, your time is extremely valuable, and you should be focusing on the items that only you can do! If you have the resources, consider hiring a virtual assistant to take care of these administrative tasks that are holding you back”. Brett Relander
Rebekah Radice and Jason T. Wiser produced a fabulous interview about being able to scale your business by working with virtual assistants. There were many valuable take-aways from the detailed discussion. It was wonderfully supportive of the industry as well as very educational for business owners who are strapped for time, help and needing to grow their companies.
Scale Your Business Beyond Yourself highlights the benefits and value of partnering with a virtual assistant to effectively grow and manage your business. I hope you will take the time to watch this 33 minute video, thinking about your business, goals and how you would like to expand your company in addition to creating a deeper more cohesive online presence.
Jason T. Wiser: “It’s time to stop trading hours for dollars.”
Your actions steps for right now:
- Review your tasks, projects, and goals (both short and long term)
- Recognize what can be outsourced
- Think about a true team partner for you and your company
- What do you value most and need?
- Reach out to Ace Concierge to discuss your pain points, project management and desired virtual outcomes.
Let’s get started before half of the year has gone by and you are still in the same place, doing the same things, needing more time to focus ON your business rather than IN it.
