Posts Tagged ‘business plan’

I invited Donna to blog today because I felt her message could be transposed to many industries not just Virtual Assistants. There are many industries where clients and business owners have similar relationships, and this is great advice!

Guest post by Donna Toothaker, CEO, founder and coach of  Step It UP VA Coaching

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The phone rings.  It is who you think it is, calling AGAIN.  How many times has it been today?  Three?  Four?  You know you should answer, but you dread the conversation.  You slump in your seat and sigh.  Is that an e-mail from her now?  Is this a headache coming on?  You can no longer avoid the inevitable.  It’s break-up time.

Just about every VA has had a client who presented challenges that proved too much to deal with for too little payback.  These challenges were not about difficult projects or tasks, but about difficult people, making the issues more personal, and therefore harder to resolve.

You may be afraid of confrontation, or of losing income; however, as in a dating relationship, the worst thing you could do for your business would be to stay with the wrong person.  Continuing to let such a conflict persist will sour the way you feel about yourself, and your business.  So, if you’re involved with one of the following client types, come clean about your feelings, and if you can’t make it work, make a break!

Control freak.  Your client is an entrepreneur who, until now, has had the reins on every single aspect of her business.  Unfortunately, over the past few months, you have discovered they have no plans to hand them over.  Why did they bother hiring you, anyway?  Micro-managers are time- and energy-vampires who display little respect for your time and abilities.

Needy. Another sort of time- and energy-vampire, the needy client does not micromanage, but requires a lot of hand-holding and constant communication throughout the course of a project, sometimes expecting you to take on more than your agreed upon workload.  Needy clients require extra boundaries.  Discourage telephone calls with the needy type.  Keep it a strictly online relationship if possible, so you have control over how and when you respond to questions and requests.  If that doesn’t work, it’s not worth keeping the client.

Inattentive. The opposite of the needy client, this client makes it difficult to get anything done because of their lack of communication.  They’re often wondering why a project isn’t getting done, when all the while it’s because you can’t spend your days chasing them down for answers, information and approvals.  You shouldn’t have to jump through hoops and spend excess time trying to do your job.  If communication is a one-way, dead-end street, it is probably a good idea to reverse direction!

Penny pincher. This is the client who wants to cherry pick your services, or negotiate you down from your hourly rate or minimum monthly hours.  This client will make your life very difficult, nit-picking, disputing bills and expenses, or asking for you to do extra, all the while taking extra time to pay your bill!  If you sense a potential client is a penny pincher, take hourly rates off the table, and offer only package services.  If you are currently serving a penny-pinching client, consider letting go.  Their money issues are holding you back from enjoying a prosperous, fun business.

Establishing boundaries with clients early in the relationship AND becoming clear on who is an ideal client for you will help to eliminate having difficult clients but some will sneak through on occasion, and these difficult clients will eat up your time, energy and passion for your business…but only if you let them.   Identifying these behaviors early on will give you the chance to either ask your client to make some changes, or get out before they take a toll on you and your business.  Do not be afraid to let go.  You’ll be freeing yourself from negativity, and opening up an opportunity for better clients to come in.

Donna Toothaker is CEO, founder and coach of Step It UP VA Coaching. These highly sought-after VA coaching programs have been created for established, successful VAs who wish to now create the 6-figure business of their dreams. Visit www.stepitupva.com for a free report, The Top 3 Mistakes to Avoid in Creating a 6-Figure VA Business.

Technorati Tags: business plan, efficient business, Small business

Here it is the end of December and I am in the organizing mode again… happens every year to me.
Through the busy-ness of the year there are some things that keep getting left on your to-do list and they build up.  You get to a point where you HAVE to deal with them so they are no longer a distraction.  Time on Task surpassed my expectations this year, my first full year in business and now I find that I will use my time over the next couple weeks to take stock of ME!
It might be an out of date expression – taking stock, but I am definitely one of those Year-end, gotta get everything in order – types of people.

My plans are to:

• Look over my business plan – which is about a year and half old now and make changes and updates. I know I have moved into a couple different areas than when I wrote this plan, plus I will look back at what I projected for the first two years and see how I did. Hard to move forward unless you know where you have been.
• Brainstorm some new ideas for business and changes that I want to make, in a week I will be launching an eBook I wrote – Talking on Twitter – meant to help people learn to use Twitter themselves.  I have another book in my head waiting to get out on paper as well as several other ideas that need to be written down and logistics worked out. New plans!
• I clean out my filing cabinet, shredding what is no longer needed and filing away my taxes and other files that must be kept for a certain amount of time.
• and this year, I plan to torture my husband (hehe) and work through a plan together for the future.  I bought a book earlier this year from Dr. Ron Arndt, a Dental Management Coach who has a Couples Planning Kit.   As a couple, we rarely sit down and talk about finances and plans for the future – personally, for business and for the family.  This year we are going to do just that using Dr. Arndt’s book as a guide. I have already peeked through it and it covers almost anything you would think of to plan for your lives together.

Well, those are my plans… what have I missed?  What areas of your life do you find yourself taking stock of at this time of year?  Leave a comment here so others can get ideas from you!

All my Best to my readers for a Happy and Prosperous Year in 2010!

Technorati Tags: business plan, Entrepreneurs, Organization

As many of you know, I have been busy lately finalizing my business plan and taking workshops on running my business. Many of the workshops focused on making a plan – whether marketing, business, setting goals etc.

Last night the workshop was presented by Tyler Hayden, a fantastic speaker! His goal was to help us set our  Strategic Goals by taking apart our mission statement, objectives, long term goals and putting them into more of an action plan with all the steps required to achieve those goals.

Through his energetic and funny stories, Tyler helped up rip apart our goals and turn them into a plan to get our businesses (and in some cases personal lives) moving along with purpose.

Once done, it is something you need to keep referring to as, it is a lifelong plan… many things may pop up and change your original objectives, which means your overall plan will also need tweaking.

So, have you looked at your objectives and goals lately?  Are you following a plan, or just moving along hoping all will fall in place as it should.  Do you have time to do this?  Are you spending your time on the strategic areas of your business, or are you so busy with the day to day tasks that you have no time for strategy?

You can always check into hiring a Virtual Assistant to help with your tasks – get a few more hours each day or even each week – you’ll  be amazed how much your efficiency will increase by outsourcing the little things – stress levels tend to go down as well!

Check our website on the benefits of hiring a VA or you can also check out VAnetworking for lots of  impartial information on the benefits of VAs for businesses.

Technorati Tags: business plan, strategic goals, VAnetworking, virtual assistant