Archive for the ‘Small business’ Category

My friend, client and role model, Tawnya Sutherland of VAnetworking is hosting a fabulous workshop tonight for small business owners to learn about using a virtual assistant:

Learn how to Outsource your business tasks to a Virtual Assistant

She also has an opportunity to network and meet some Virtual Assistants – virtually of course!

If you have a business and are feeling stressed, overworked and feel you never get everything done that requires your attention then …this FREE workshop is for you!

Tawnya Sutherland is VA Outsourcing Expert and founder of the world’s largest online Virtual Assistant Social Network. She will  share with you the knowledge, tips, tactics and secrets she’s accumulated over the last 10 years on the right way to hire a Virtual Assistant and make it work!

Join Tawnya tonight (Wednesday July 7th) at 6pm EST (along with many other Virtual Assistants, including me) to learn:

• How to gain more time in your business day and in your personal life
• How to become more profitable by working smarter
• How to rid yourself of that extra long to-do list that never gets done
• How to delegate your tasks to a Virtual Assistant

You can do this all and you can learn how tonight!  Simply visit this site to register for the call. You can also pick up a copy of her ebook – Finding the Ultimate Virtual Assistant for your Business.

Virtual Assistants who are VAinsiders will be on the networking session at 7pm EST (If you are not one yet, you can be by tonight – visit here to learn what being an Insider can do for your Virtual Assistant business)

Hope to see you there, whether a business owner or a VA!

Technorati Tags: efficient business, how to find a VA, virtual assistant, WAHM, Work at Home

After being a work-at-home entrepreneur for over 2 years, I can say that the toughest item on this list for me, personally, is learning to say no to potential clients or customers. It’s a scary thought isn’t it?  Saying no to new business.

When you work for yourself – especially in the early days – you’re not always sure where that next pay cheque is coming from. Even when the customer roster is full this month, you can’t be positive the same will be true next month or the month after, this creates the habit of  taking on more work than you can comfortably perform. After all, isn’t a few nights of burning the midnight oil well worth the benefit of having a little more padding in the bank account?

The problem is, working too much to stay ahead causes us stress and job burnout – and it also makes spouses and families a tad angry! So you just exchange one stress point (finances) for another (overwork and family pressure). There is a solution, although you’re not going to like it.  Set a limit and stick to it. I learned this well from a  colleague, Yvonne Weld

I know, I know, this is easier said than done – trust me I have been working hard to achieve the balance with my Virtual Assistant business. But I can honestly say that I’ve never had a customer or client disappear into thin air when I told him or her they had to wait a few weeks or months to work with me. In fact, it often shows that you’re in demand and that you can pick and choose who you work with, and when. That’s a valuable trait.

How do you make your limits?

Set a plan for all types of work; decide how many products you’re going to release, how many interviews you’re going to do, how many coaching clients you’re going to work with, how many articles you’ll write, or how many hours you’re going to work per week for clients, and then stop. That’s it – no more. (Of course, keeping in mind your most valuable clients are your present ones and they deserve top notch service – but you can still maintain your boundaries with them).  All the parties must be made aware of the boundaries as well in order to be fair and for it to work.

One of the best ways to keep your work commitments at a tolerable level is to make a commitment to your family. You can start with committing to attending every hockey game, every football game, and every piano recital. You can promise dinner each evening, or read out of a chapter book every night to your children.  This will make you accountable to your own scheduled work day. You may feel a momentary pang of regret or anxiety when you tell a potential client “no” or “wait.”  I’m willing to bet it will soon fade when you realize how much less stressed you are on a day-to-day basis, and how much happier your home life is!

You are the boss of your time.  Does your family know that?  There you are sitting at your desk in your home office, available to everyone – kids, spouse, neighbors, friends – at a moments notice. You wanted to work at home so you COULD be available to your family, but you will need limits to make it work.

What kind of limits work for you?  Feel free to comment and share as this is always an area where new ideas can help everyone else out!

Technorati Tags: efficient business, family, home office

A friend sent an email the other day, panicking about whether people were getting her emails or not?  Her reason for thinking they were not going through?  She was not getting the ‘read receipts’ back.

I laughed so hard!  I am one of the people she is always sending these read receipts to and every time when it asks me if it’s okay to send a receipt I say No.

Why?  I guess I feel it’s an invasion of my privacy.  I feel it’s no one else’s business when I read the emails sent to me.

It’s not like I avoid my inbox.  It pretty much rules my life as a virtual assistant and without I would have a very hard time working with clients.  I have a schedule for that as well as time and work every day.

When she and I spoke about it and she was trying to understand why I always hit no.  I realized that it always came back to the privacy issue.  Nothing else…

What is your take on read receipts?  Do you click yes or no?  I’d love to know if I am the only one with this viewpoint.

Technorati Tags: email management, virtual assistant

I realized the other day after finishing a consultation with a new client, that my business has grown almost 40% since completing a certification course this past April.  It was kind of a wake up call on how important training is to growing your business.

Of course training is always beneficial in that you gain new knowledge and skills. As small business owners,  we sometimes forget that it is these very items that make us more valuable to our clients.

Bringing in new ideas and abilities helps clients, and in my line of business the primary goal with any client is to help them get their work done, no matter the task and doing so in a way that saves them time and money.  For most the goal of having a virtual assistant is to free up time to devote to generating more revenue or in some cases to having more time for family and life.

What training did I complete? A Certification course for Social Media Marketing. The course from VAclassroom gave me deeper insight into this type of work. Social Media Marketing is quickly turning into my niche, or niche, as some people say (…sorry, I couldn’t help that, so many people pronounce that word differently!)

This training taught me how to focus on my clients, their targets and goals; creating a strategic plan for them.  It helped me clarify and define a process and system with my work in social media. I discovered how to be as efficient as possible for my clients and to be always thinking of new ways to use social media in order to help my clients grow their business.

Will I stop at this course? No way, as more opportunities to learn arise, I will sign on! This past year I have taken a bookkeeping course, have taken weekly seminars at VAnetworking and joined in many other courses that saw me making improvements in how I  manage my own business or work for my clients.  I’m even going to lead a class myself on July 16th as part of a Summer Speaker Series. I will be teaching others – exciting and scary at the same time!

There is always more to learn to improve yourself, your work and your business – and by doing so you will  grow and prosper your business.

————————————–

If you’d like to partake of 28 Seminars for $27 this summer, please check out the VAvirtuosos site. The topics are varied and very applicable to many types of businesses.

If you are interested in taking VAclassroom’s Social Marketing Training, it is a self study and open to anyone. If you use the coupon code SUMMER09, you can save $100 off the course.

Technorati Tags: efficient business, Small business, Social Media, social networking, virtual assistant

Last year James Mielnik of the Halifax Area Chamber of Commerce asked if I was interested in becoming a Charter Member of the Nova Scotia Come to life program. I jumped at the opportunity for two reasons;

1 – I love Nova Scotia and talking about how great it is to live, work, study, invest and play here is very easy for me (Just ask any of the recent participants at the Forum on Virtual Assistance ~ Everyone who attended now knows something about Nova Scotia.  No one left there wondering where I came from, though technically it is Alberta!)

2 – It seemed a good way to do some more networking, which I truly enjoy.

That opportunity presented by James has turned into many more; a networking event where we signed a ‘charter’ document with the Premier of Nova Scotia, a day of media training, as well as meeting other contacts which has lead to new clients for my business. I also ‘gave back’ by helping the Come to Life staff customize their Twitter profile and showed them how it can help connect their program with more people.

Recently, I was contacted by a journalist, Marie Weeren of 10th floor Solutions. She was assigned by the Come to Life program to “Tell my Story”.  It was slightly daunting being interviewed for this; complete with tape recorder, notepad and all.  However, my story has now been told and is published on the Come to Life website should anyone like to take a read.

Thanks to the people who helped Ms. Weeran with by providing background information about me for her story – Tawnya Sutherland of VAnetworking , Donna Toothaker of 1stVA and David Eisnor from the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Education & Development (CEED).  Your time is also appreciated!

For any business, joining in similar type programs (although this one is very unique) may take a bit of time and effort, but you’ll always find rewards in  the end!

Technorati Tags: be thankful, Entrepreneurs, Nova Scotia, reward, Small business, virtual assistant