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.”
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?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | May 21, 2012 | Delegation, Organization
We are repeatedly bombarded by data overload via our push notifications, social media notices, text messages, phone calls, e-mails, Skype chats and news alerts on a daily basis. It is marvelous to always be connected, in touch and just a mere keystroke away. You are never alone and continuously up to date in both your personal and professional life. But there is a hitch and that is the negative impact it has on our concentration.
As a technologically in-tune society, we must learn to filter the urgency of our incoming communications in order to remain dedicated to the tasks at hand. The constant interruptions have a pronounced impact on our productivity and efficiency level, never mind time management. If we continue to allow outside distractions to compete for our time and focus, we are unable to give our absolute attention to our present moment and activities.
Computerworld reports that we are now living in a world of “interruption technology.”
Learning to unplug and tune out can present a challenge for many, but as an entrepreneur, it is paramount to your success, effectiveness and time management. Researchers at the University of Kent in Australia monitored the eye movements of 100 people using an eyeball-tracking camera. They asked the participants to read a section of text on a computer screen, before disturbing them with one-minute messages – like phone calls. The research subjects were then told to resume the original reading, while the eye-tracking camera analyzed how they did so. The investigators discovered that there was an average 17% increase in the total time it took to read the whole passage on the screen.
Psychology lecturer Ulrich Weger was quoted as saying: “I wasted time by reading emails whenever they came into my inbox. I noticed that once I had started reading the name of the sender, I read the first line of the text. Once I mastered that, I continued reading the entire message, and once I got to that point, I felt compelled to respond because there was no point in leaving an already half-finished task. Then sometimes I needed extra information to answer the message, so had to add other tasks.” Which meant it was harder to get back to the original task.
Now just imagine all of the alerts and communications you receive during the day; probably much more than what was instituted in the above research. If there was a 17% increase in the length of time it took to read the passage, can you imagine how your output is affected with a continual barrage of steady disturbances?
Here are a few tips to assist you in halting unnecessary diversions:
- Schedule time on your calendar to tune out and turn off
- Let others know you are “off limits” during certain working hours
- Close the door or put on earbuds
- Silence your Smartphone
- Just say NO to social media! (Facebook and Twitter updates are always accessible).
- Shutdown everything that notifies you of an alert, sound, or other announcement (your e-mail will still be waiting for you).
- COMMIT to your decision to focus and jump in with gusto
- Once your project is completed, come up for air, stretch, respond to voicemails, text messages and other communications.
- Grab an energy snack to refuel for your next session
Remember, being offline is an industrious act toward completing your projects, achieving your goals and remaining on task. You will see a considerable increase in your productivity as you continue to shield yourself from outside disturbances.
Turning off isn’t just for the business world. We are electronically tethered 24/7 and this crosses into our personal boundaries. It becomes too much when we allow technology to consume our time and energy away from the present moment, sacrificing the things that truly matter.
How do you tune out and limit distractions?
