by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | May 17, 2016 | Delegation, Virtual Assistant
Entrepreneurs are accustomed to doing it all from changing printer ink, uploading tweets, proofing blog posts, and ordering supplies to curating content, creating images, travel planning, retweeting, and sharing content, and testing the latest social media apps. Owning and operating a scalable business takes a team to fortify the back end, the daily routines, the foundational systems, and processes. It’s not a solo act to grow your business.
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”.
When you keep yourself buried in the day to day minutia, this is time you are not working ON your business. If you aren’t, then who is? With only one person at the helm, there is only so far that you can scale. While it isn’t easy to relinquish some of your daily demands, it is a tremendous benefit to free up your valuable time and avoid burnout.
Entrepreneurs have great talents but many times they think they can do it all. That can really stall the growth of the business. By outsourcing the day to day back-office tasks, the business owner has more time to focus on generating income. Laura Lee Sparks
Identify the essential and eliminate the unnecessary
Delegating will help 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.
Effective Steps to Delegating
DETERMINE WHAT YOU CAN OUTSOURCE
Typically, at Ace Concierge, LLC we assess the type of tasks associated with your business functions and daily management. They might fall under two categories: highly repetitive tasks, such as data entry, social media management, and blogging; or more specialized knowledge, such as accounts payable or web design. To help determine your delegation list ask yourself the three questions below.
- What are THE most important core business activities that I should be doing?
- What generates revenue?
- What leverage points produce the greatest results?
CREATE A PLAN AND EXPECTATIONS
Clearly plan, understand, and outline for accountability and outcomes, keeping all lines of communication open. We try to stress the importance of a strategy to ensure that all needs and requirements are met or exceeded. It is often difficult enough to give up what you have always done so it’s vital to create a solid foundation with dialog, expectations, and feedback.
RELINQUISH CONTROL
The hardest step business owners tend to have is relinquishing control and letting the person or business you’ve hired do their job. Remember, you’re outsourcing for a reason. You need to focus your time and energy on other more important, high payoff activities relative to your business. It doesn’t make sense to outsource a project or task and then micromanage it. Trust and release.
For some entrepreneurs partnering with a virtual assistant is unfamiliar territory and you may not fully comprehend the wide scope of work that can be efficiently outsourced to help free up your time. You may create mental roadblocks or perceived hurdles to prevent yourself from seeking assistance with your business. These alleged barriers can be easily overcome with a little in-depth thought and evaluation to conquer your objections.
A greater fear to consider is how much are you actually holding on to that is stopping you from focusing on the core of your business? What isn’t getting done? What is being shuffled under the rug?
Embrace delegation, don’t run from it. It is a low-cost high payoff tool to help you scale your company and focus on the core of your business – what ONLY YOU can do.
Delegating is a key management strategy that will benefit you and your company.
In order to grow a successful business, it’s important to let go of some perfectionism and delegate certain tasks so you can focus on your strengths. Diana Adams
Are you ready to grow? Contact your Ace today to start the dialog.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 24, 2016 | Productivity, Small Business
Productivity isn’t rocket science by any means but it does require a little bit of discipline and commitment. If you run your day by the seat of your pants, without any planning or strategy, then your end results may suffer. In keeping with the KISS principle, this brief post (very brief) will hopefully ignite a spark to think where you could make a few changes.
You have 1440 minutes/day or 168 hrs/week; they are priceless bytes of time
- Establish and stick to priorities; you’ll get ahead much faster
- Time block your day
- Create your daily and weekly goals; add action steps and be fully accountable
- Understand your core genius; embrace it; value it
- Focus on income producing work
- Engage in the most vital structures of your business; delegate the rest
- Forget mindless busy work
- Don’t waste your time; it’s too precious
- Construct systems and processes; they add value to your day and your business
- Understand your personal energy rhythms: use them to your advantage
- Turn off distractions and notifications
- Don’t get sucked into the social media abyss. It kills brain cells
- Invest in a timer; stay focused on task
- Pledge to read more; challenge your knowledge and brain power
- Don’t stagnate: plan for personal growth; spiritually, physically and emotionally
- Nature heals; turn off the TV and devices – GO outside
- Schedule appointments with yourself
- Set boundaries for work life balance (or fit)
- Exercise every day: a fit body is a fit mind
- Never skimp on nutrition: eat crap – feel like crap. This ruins your day
Yup, that’s it. There’s no more to this post! Now it’s up to you to evaluate your day, your business and your potential based upon how you operate and tackle each moment.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 25, 2015 | Entrepreneur, Productivity, Small Business, Social Media
No, not a financial burden imposed by the state, but the tax social media can have on an entrepreneur can feel like a huge time-sucker.
Dictionary.com presents 5 ways to define the word tax, the best fit for this article is:
Too Many Hats
An entrepreneur has a lot to do in a bootstrapped business. They are the person performing the customer service or generating the product they deliver to a client AND they are also every other department such as marketing, creative design, accounting, sales, talent management, and more. Their passion is clear and focused on the service and product, but it can begin to dwindle with the burden of necessary duties to support that business.
Social Media Visibility
Add to this, there is an expectation that all entrepreneurs are online at all times providing continual content to build a loyal audience and that content must live on Social Media platforms. After 6 months to a year of generating content, responding, being conversational to build relationships, and doing everything they can to rise above the noise and be noticed, they grow weary of it all. I heard one woman entrepreneur state that because of social media, she needs a wife, an assistant, and a design team because the weight of her business does not fit into the 24 hours she is given. Some days it feels like a heavy tax and burden on an entrepreneur’s day.
The Anchor
The message seems to be, if you are not on social media, you don’t exist. Yet many feel that being tied to the responsibility of social media keeps them from living, much less working on their business. They want to be there interacting with the people who need their business, but it doesn’t always feel like they are reaching an audience when using social media. It is a tough balance, entrepreneurship, and all it entails. However, there is a strategy that can be implemented to ease the load on a business owner’s time.
Delegation. Plain and simple.
Delegating is the simple act of entrusting authority to another person. While you can’t or shouldn’t delegate every task or responsibility in your business, you should move some of the non-essentials off of your plate. The ones that are the most time consuming, don’t generate revenue and take you away from the core of your business.
According to VerticalResponse, 23 percent of CEOs and business owners spend between six to 10 valuable hours each week on social media.
In a Constant Contact market survey, they found that:
- Small business owners spend at least 20 hours per week on marketing
- 82% market their business using many different platforms, including email, e-newsletters, social media
Wow! That is a big chunk of time to give up. I bet this doesn’t even include those hidden hours when you are sucked into the black hole of searching and link clinking. Before you know it, the day is over.
Who nurtured your business and your clients?
Yes! Your social media efforts represent the architectural structure that leads to brand recognition, credibility, a positive customer experience, brand advocates, increased web traffic, search rankings, and word-of-mouth marketing. There is absolutely NO question that you do need an online presence. It is vital in today’s super socially connected world. Everyone does business online; searching brands and companies, reviews, social proof, connections, tips, tools, apps, and addresses. It is only going to continue to expand.
BUT…..
What about the commitment to your business beyond social engagement?
Are you ready to apply for your social media tax rebate and get back to building your company??
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jul 29, 2014 | Content Marketing, Social Media, Time Management
Turning on your computer or your phone is similar to opening the floodgates of hell for information overload. With daily bombardments of blog posts, news and websites, it is no wonder our brains haven’t exploded from over consumption. You can spend exhaustive hours reading, processing and filtering information every single day while just sitting at your desk or local coffee shop. It is an abyss or a dark hole that sucks you in and tightens the grasp on your brain. Fingers of words encapsulating your every thought, every move to retain your attention and drive you to take some kind of action.
The seduction and lure of content is the possessive lover of our society. The soft caress of the enticing paragraphs tickling your mind to keep you reading, distracting you as the hours tick by unnoticed. Until the end of the day when you wipe the sweat off of your brow, wondering where the hours went.
“Information overload” is one of the biggest irritations in modern life. There are e-mails to answer, virtual friends to pester, YouTube videos to watch and, back in the physical world, meetings to attend, papers to shuffle and spouses to appease. A survey by Reuters once found that two-thirds of managers believe that the data deluge has made their jobs less satisfying or hurt their personal relationships. One-third think that it has damaged their health.” The Economist
This may seem a little melodramatic, but think about the time you actually spend consuming all of this intel. It is the nature of the beast in your digital environment, trying to garner the newest, the latest, the greatest, the biggest, or the best, for your business, yourself, your clients and your community but heck, what a job in and of itself.
How would we conduct our businesses or gain knowledge and insight into social media without the research and reading? We need it. We do it. But at what cost?
With each article or piece of content, you must consider what to do with it next: like, comment, share, purchase, join, blog about it, bookmark it, or even search more about the topic. When you share it, you will think about where you will repost it and not just your own social channels but what about places like bizsugar.com or inbound.org? The possibilities are numerous.
Researching and reading isn’t just a simple process in your online world. There is more action to be taken which helps to build your engagement and community. It’s strategy and tactics. Sure you enjoy reading the content and probably learning something new, but it is what you do after that which counts even more.
You have a business to operate and make successful yet you must operate online as well. How much time can you invest or do you invest in maintaining your presence, building your reputation, connecting, networking, sharing, reading, commenting and engaging?
You know the drill. It is an extensive, arduous process that takes you away from truly focusing on your core business. While all of this is a “requirement” for your business, you need to develop some systems and processes enabling you to balance your time and efforts to be more productive and efficient.
Tips for Romancing the Data Overload:
- Make a list of the blogs, platforms, thought leaders and news aggregators you like to visit on a daily basis. Keep track of any daily content alerts you receive – more data to be consumed. You hopefully have created targeted lists or groups on each of your social media channels so you can easily locate those thought leaders and colleagues whose content and engagement you value most.
- Create a schedule of when you will interact, search, curate and share content. Allot yourself a specific amount of time so you don’t get sucked into a worm hole of reading and distractions. Use a timer if you must.
- Stay focused and resist the temptation to jump around from one platform to the next. Multi-tasking your reading and activities is not only a time waster but harmful to your health. Bookmark posts or use a “read later” tool like readability.com if something really sparks your interest. Add it to your swipe file if you feel it is a great idea generator for a later blog post.
- Unsubscribe from content that is no longer of interest or just clutters your inbox
- Set clear boundaries on your time – tune out and stop crunching the content
- Understand that it is physically impossible to read and digest every byte of data that is pushed your way. You are constantly inundated with new content every nanosecond. Can you really process it all? No and you don’t have to.
Staying current is important for your knowledgebase and success of your business, but if you are buried in the content surplus every day, then who will run your business? Your clients?
Managing your social media, online reputation, digital space, community and marketing is a full-time job, BUT so is running your business. Your laundry list is a mile long to effectively manage each of them and it is pretty much a catch 22 to be able to marry the entities together without being a drain on your effort. Don’t let your data overload seduce you away from your company, your life or your goals. Learn to filter what you need and when. Execute an effective plan with time restraints and a set strategy.
It’s time management. It’s teamwork. It’s about creating a balance.
The systems and processes you design for your business and social media workflow are key toward scaling your company as well as creating the optimum online community.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jul 9, 2014 | Delegation, Small Business, Social Media, Virtual Assistant
Do you feel as though your day flies by without a minute to spare? Maybe you even missed lunch, got home late, or forgot to pick up something at the store? Gosh, I am sure you know the feeling. You are constantly on the go and doing something BUT is that “something” productive and getting you closer to your goals? Simply being busy isn’t results oriented.
Being productive means getting things done. As in you’ve actually accomplished something, not just filled out a fake status report marked “complete.” Learn how the work you do makes it to the finish line and how it adds to the bottom line of your company. Craig Golightly
At the end of the day have you reviewed your long laundry list and found that you still have a lot of washing to do? Well, you are not alone. Your entrepreneurial spirit is driving you to do it all and be it all, no matter what the cost. No matter what the activity.
You should seriously consider the busyness and the low payoff tasks versus the real core drivers of your business that produce the income. The tasks and projects that ONLY you can and should do.
If you are entrenched with 10, 20+ hours a week on social media management, curating content, writing, editing, proofing and scheduling blog posts, calendar management, writing newsletters, creating documents and templates or acting as the project manager, then WHO is operating your business?
Value your time!
Honor your skills!
As I mentioned in: “Leveraging Time and Your Core Genius,” when you are able to maximize your potential by focusing on your core genius, you become more productive and effective. While there are many daily business tasks that 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.
I received an email from an exceptionally valued long-time client who shared her To Do list with me. She stated: “These are just a few of the things I need to grow my business – and I am failing at doing them, but when I do, it totally pulls me away from the work I NEED to do that is billable.”
Her statement firmly relates back to leveraging time and focusing on what you do best to build and cultivate your company.
The following are some of the tasks and projects that she must faithfully devote her time doing in order to continue to expand her business. What an expansive undertaking! Remember: Time is money! Invest wisely.
Are all of these her core genius? Certainly not, however; they are must do activities for business development and progress.
- Keep my Social Media up to date for all these areas:
- Links, research, updates
- Linking to all other things I do – I.E.: when I write a blog post, making sure it is pushed out to every single place.
- Doing key word searches in Google to make sure key wording is in every article for the most relevant search terms.
- Document management systems – keep all my documents on the shared drive (in the cloud) up to date and in order by first cleaning up the mess I have going now… – including but not limited to:
- Client files
- Website files
- Corporate files
- Marketing materials
- Research documents etc.
- Source potential clients in my geographical location who are in start-up to med-sized businesses, active in Social media and who may or may not need idea sessions to get their business further along
- Requesting a meeting for me
- Setting it up
- Reviewing and updating my calendar so I keep better track because I always fail to put things in calendars
- Meet with me via Skype once a week to see what needs to be done and doing it
- Use my contract template documents for me and update them for each new client as it takes me days to get to these.
- Review and edit all files sent to all clients or outgoing parties
- Do all my research for the topics I write about so they can be backed by data
- All invoicing and receipts for clients
- All sourcing of industry related expert themes
- Managing my LinkedIn polls
- Creating my surveys for clients
- Creating templates for all my follow-up reports for each facilitated session
- Taking all of my current documentation and finding ways of repurposing it
- Taking all of my product development efforts and interviewing vendors
- Responding to and dealing with all incoming email from all websites with initial contact to let them know I am here and I did get their email, and when I will respond
- Setting up of appointments with clients, prospective clients, peers
- Researching all speaker opportunities and sending out my speaker packages and filling out the applications
- Researching all clients who have recently undergone a merger or acquisition and sending the change management brochures out to them
- Develop templates for my processes so I am not reinventing the wheel every time I work with a new client
- Updating my BIO on every single software site I have it listed (and tracking where that is) so I can ensure it is always consistent every time I change it
- Updating the company project software for me at the drop of an email – because I cannot always log in
- Managing the company project software and following up with deadlines of contractors
- Using your network to get them to post my quotes on quote sites so I continue to build credibility
- Sourcing the least expensive book editors to edit my writing of each chapter of the book I never have time to edit.
- Kicking my butt and making sure everything I say I “want to do” becomes an actionable item in the company product software and is due to YOU to review for me – rather than my leaving it in there without a date and just “wishing” it would happen
So, after reading this list, how many of these tasks do you hold on to that keep you working IN your business rather than ON it? We sometimes don’t realize all of the day to day activities that go into growing our companies, as they have become second nature while we are on autopilot.
All of these tasks and projects are NECESSARY but divert your attention from the most important facets of your company which ONLY you can do. These are the low payoff, non-income generators that aren’t the best value of your time.
ACTION ITEM: Record every single task, project or activity for one week, noting which line items are income producers, core genius or something that was a time robber and should have been outsourced.
Come back to me in one week and share your list. Let’s talk strategy and outcomes.
“One of the most critical was the ability to learn how to effectively delegate. It is a skill that every upstart entrepreneur must master if they wish to grow their business. Without delegation your business will be limited by your own time and energy.” Matthew Swyers
