Why You Should Learn to Delegate

Learning to delegate doesn’t come easy. We want to control our businesses – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but one day you will realize that it’s impossible for you to do everything. Impossible to do everything while trying to grow your business; impossible for you to do everything and have a life outside of your business. When that day arrives – hopefully sooner than later for your sake – you will be looking to delegate certain tasks in your business. A Virtual Assistant (VA) may be the right solution for you.

Hiring a VA

Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) is one of the best ways to delegate effectively. Remember, the right VA will be a business person just like yourself and will understand that delegation is key to running an efficient business. A VA can assist you in your business virtually – there are VA’s who do admin tasks, bookkeeping, website design, travel, social media, marketing, copywriting – and everything in between! And there are multi-VA companies that have a team of VA’s that can be your one-stop office support system as well – for the same price as a single VA. The benefit is that you have one source for everything you need.

Virtual Assistants enable a solopreneur, small, medium or large business to get all the work done necessary to run a business – the back-end stuff – so the business owner can work on growing the business.

What Are the Savings?

A legitimate VA is a 1099, which means you don’t pay payroll taxes or benefits; no need to provide an office space for an in-house assistant, no purchase and maintenance of equipment and best of all – only paying for the work that is actually done!

If you already have an in-house assistant, you can utilize the services of a VA when you have extra work without having to hire another part-time or full-time assistant. We work with quite a lot of businesses that have down-sized and thinned their staff. Unfortunately, many times the workload is just too much for the remaining staff, but it doesn’t quite justify hiring more in-house staff. The businesses that are asking more of the remaining staff are setting themselves up for problems. If you overload staff, something is going to go wrong eventually.

Take this story, for example: A business started downsizing their staff. Eventually there was one faithful employee left, but now she had to do the work of the other employees that were laid off in addition to her own. She spent her days putting out fires and was never able to get to the day-to-day work of the business. Although she put in long hours every day, it was just impossible for her to ever get caught up. She got burned out and they lost her; and because they couldn’t bring in someone to do everything she did, they had to bring in three people to do what she was doing – but they were all new and didn’t know the business like she did. The business suffered greatly, and may not recover for a long time.

What could they have done? They could have hired a VA to assist her, so she would have been able to delegate tasks to the VA(s) so she could take care of the tasks that had to be done by her. It would have cost the business more up front, of course – but less than the price it ultimately cost the business.

Finding a VA

It is not always easy to find the right VA for you and your business. Word of mouth is great, but that is not a guarantee that the VA your friend recommends will work well with you. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that feel the prerequisite of being is VA is having a computer to work with from home because they’ve lost their job.

An option would be to visit TheRightVA.com which is a matching site for VA’s and clients – no more going through the arduous process of submitting an RFP and then getting all kinds of responses from VA’s that you really don’t know anything about. The VA’s on the site must possess some stringent qualifications, ensuring that they are experienced professionals and cream of the crop.

Where to Start

If you’re not sure where to start to delegate, I recommend that you keep a list for a week of everything you do. Keep a pad and paper with you for an entire week, jot down notes on your smart phone, keep your notepad open on your computer – whatever method you would like – but keep a list somewhere. After that week, assemble your list in one place and look at it. Put a check by every single item on your list that someone else could do for you. Then narrow down that list to the top three most important items that you do that need to get done – but not by you. Then ask yourself: 1) How much of your time is wasted by doing tasks that someone else could be doing for you? 2) How much is your time worth? 3) What will you be able to do with the time that you’ve found by delegating?

The Recap
Learn to delegate.
Realize the savings.
Find a professional VA that you can work with.
Delegate.

You can do it!

What Steps are You Taking to Grow Your Business?

             Business plan: check

             Update business plan: check

             Update updated business plan: check

Does that sound like you? Updating your business plan is the key to continual growth in your business, but only if the updates are actually working towards that growth.

Whether you’re a retail store, a professional, an online business, a contractor, restaurant or cafe – every business is unique. Except in one important way: every single business needs help with the day-to-day operation of the business so the owner is free to work ON the business.

Depending upon your business, you may have to hire employees. You may need to have a receptionist greeting your patients or clients; if you’re a brick and mortar retail store, you need sales associates to assist customers that walk through the door; if you’re a restaurant or café owner, you need employees to cook, clean, and serve your customers. That’s a clear choice that an owner needs to make – hire employees because the owner of these businesses would certainly not be able to do all these tasks.

But what about the backend of a business? The bookkeeping, the website maintenance, social media strategy and maintenance that’s so necessary in today’s world, marketing, calendar management, purchasing, customer relations – the list goes on and on. And this is where business owners tend not to see the clear choice: that they need to hire someone to assist them with these tasks as well.

I believe that the backend of a business is where some business owners feel they should be working. But the clear decision is to look at how a large, successful corporation is run. Do the CEOs do any of those backend tasks? No, they absolutely do not. Successful CEOs know that delegating all other tasks except for growing the business is a necessity. CEOs are the face of the business, the strategists of the company and are solely responsible for the growth of the company.

Depending on the business itself, hiring more employees may be the answer. Before you decide that hiring more employees is the only course to take, ask yourself a couple of questions:

1. Do these tasks need to be done in an office I provide for an employee(s), where I must purchase and maintain equipment for the employee(s) and pay benefits, payroll taxes and expect there will be sick days and time off?

OR

2. Are these tasks that can be done virtually – from someone else’s office with someone else’s equipment?
Almost everything that is done in the backend of a business can be done by an experienced, professional virtual assistant. Better than that – a team of experienced, professional virtual assistants!

Imagine having your own team of experienced virtual assistants proficient in everything that you need help with, available to work with you whenever you need it. And the absolute best part? You pay them for exactly what it is that they do for you – you’re not paying someone to sit there all day and hope that the tasks you have for that person happen within the 9 – 5 realm (if you can find someone that is proficient in everything).

Welcome to virtual assistance with a multi-VA company.

PTCS assembles a team of assistants, hand picked for exactly the task that the business needs. Sound expensive? Working with a multi-VA team is no more expensive than working with a single assistant!

In the past five+ years as a Virtual Assistant and business owner, I’ve learned a lot from all types of business professionals and business owners. But the one thing I’ve known all along from working as a legal assistant with all types of businesses, is that while every business is unique, the problems they encounter in running their businesses are very similar.

As business owners, we are responsible – solely – for our business. That creates control issues in a good percentage of us and we try to do too many of the things that we should be delegating to others. Once we learn that delegation has nothing to do with losing control of our business, life gets easier very quickly, and it frees us up to grow our businesses.

I’ve seen that a lot of entrepreneurs plod along until they get stuck: their business plans that they keep updating aren’t looking very updated and they are not attaining their goals. The smart, driven entrepreneurs get a coach to help hold themselves responsible as well as help identify and work toward the goals they’ve set. And almost every time, that coach will tell them that they need to delegate certain tasks to someone else so they can expend more energy working toward their goals. Most don’t want to spend the money to get help; the successful ones know that you need to budget money for all essential parts of their business such as marketing, website design and maintenance, administrative tasks, bookkeeping, social media … and other tasks that may be unique to their individual business.

And let’s not forget work/life balance. If your family doesn’t remember the last time you were home and not working, you need to delegate. The one thing in the world money can’t buy and you can’t get back is TIME.

Why not give us a call and see what we can do for you. Life is too short not to get the help you need.

 

Personal  Touch Concierge Service, LLC

Virtual Assistance with a Personal Touch

www.ptconciergeservice.com

info@ptconciergeservice.com

 

How Much is YOUR Time Worth?

I was talking to a couple of entrepreneurs the other day, asking them the question: What would you say is the greatest benefit about hiring a virtual assistant? They both unanimously said – freeing up my time so I can grow my business.

I then asked them what their greatest struggle would be in hiring a virtual assistant? “Being able to delegate effectively.”

I’ve also spoken with business coaches in the past, and they say one of the most important things they try to impart to their clients is that they need to delegate more in their business, which can be extremely difficult for some business owners to do.

As business owners, we are responsible – solely – for our business. That creates a perfect storm for having control issues. “No one can do it better than me,” ” No one will take my business as seriously as I will,” and so forth. FACT: It is IMPOSSIBLE to do everything yourself, correctly.

Delegation did not come easy to me; it took me a good couple of years to grasp the importance of it and how it leads to a better work/life balance. We all think we’re superheroes in our business, and I was no exception. If there is one piece of advice that I’ve learned the hard way that I can pass along to the new business owner, it’s to get help and learn to delegate sooner rather than later.

How Do I Delegate?
Now that we’ve driven the delegation point home, the next question is how. Unless you are a website design business, you’ve already delegated the creation of your website to someone else. This is a type of virtual assistance. See? Not as scary as you thought!

Now what else should you delegate? My advice has always been to write a list of EVERYTHING that you do as you go about your week. Take a look at that list and place a checkmark on every single item that you don’t HAVE to do yourself. Now look at that shorter list and decide, in order, what the easiest thing is to delegate to someone else. Now you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant.

Finding the Right VA
There are many different types of virtual assistants who specialize in various tasks. There are website designers, graphic artists, admins, travel consultants, bookkeepers, data entry specialists, transcriptionists, social media strategists and managers, marketers – truth is, you can be assisted virtually with just about every task in your business.

There are also multi-VA companies which I believe is the smartest way to go. Yes, it’s true that I have a multi-VA business and my team is made up of specialists in all of the above areas. And that’s precisely how I know it’s the smartest way to work with VA’s. The reason I recommend a multi-VA company is that you may start with hiring a VA for one task, but once you see how easy it is to work with a VA and the burden is taken off your shoulders, you’ll be looking to turn more and more over to your VA. If you’re working with a multi-VA company, you’ll have all the resources you need right at your fingertips.

In addition, when working with a multi-VA company that is structured properly, backup will be in place and the transition to another VA – whether temporarily or permanently – will be smooth in the event of a vacation, an illness, an unforeseen family matter, etc.

Another reason to hire a VA company vs. an individual VA – does that individual meet the requirements of a 1099 or down the road will it be determined that they are actually your employee? Ouch!

Following are a list of items you should look for in hiring a virtual assistant:

They own their own business – this shows that they are serious about being a virtual assistant and are not just “trying it out to see if they like it”

Are they insured? Again – are they serious about their business? Do they have insurance in place to protect your business?

How long have they been in business? Are they an established business? If not, will they be there for you, or will they decide it’s not for them and you’re stuck starting over; re-hiring, re-training, etc.

Experience

What type of experience do they have performing the task(s) you need?

What was their background before they became a VA? Yes, there are now classes that are forming to teach becoming a VA which can be beneficial in learning technology; however, I firmly believe that experience in the workforce is a key advantage for the right VA.

Benefits to Working with a VA vs. an In-house Employee
In our model, you pay for exactly the time spent on your task, when you need it. You are not paying for bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, personal phone calls, computer games, etc. You don’t pay for benefits, payroll taxes, equipment or equipment maintenance.

So how much is your time worth? Are you working ON your business or IN it?

Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

http://www.ptconciergreservice.com

info@ptconciergeservice.com

 

Do You Love Cool Tools?

Not unlike Chris Grundy on DIY’s Cool Tools, we Virtual Assistants LOVE cool tools – it’s just that ours are virtual!

And as Virtual Assistants, we’re always top of the best tools to make it easy to work with our clients.  We’ve listed below fax and online screen sharing tools for you to check out or just ask your VA which service would work best for you.

As you may know, a Virtual Assistant, also known as a VA, is an independent contractor that provides business support to clients from their home office. Clients include businesses, entrepreneurs, startups, executives and individuals. Professional virtual assistants establish their own business based upon their years of ‘corporate’ experience, education and/or sharp business savvy.

Fax Service

Faxing is still a way to get paperwork to your VA safely and promptly.  If you don’t have an external fax machine, following are some of the most popular and respected online fax services on the market.

RingCentral Fax features a toll free or local number, dedicated fax number, receives faxes on your PC, via email, or with our mobile application, sends faxes by email and from your PC from any application.

MyFax allows you to send and receive faxes through your email, the web, or smart phone. It also features a local or toll free fax number, no software download required, saves sent and received faxes online for one year and can personalize your faxes with your logo. MyFax provides the capability to fax from up to 5 different email addresses.

eXtremeFax is an online fax service that uses technology developed by RingCentral, Inc. You can choose a toll-free or local number to send and receive faxes from around the world. eXtremeFax also allows you to send and receive faxes by email, either from your PC or your phone, receive notifications by SMS, email, and on your PC, whenever you get an incoming fax.

Nextiva Fax highlights includes sending and receiving faxes by email,  directly from Microsoft Apps and by cell phone. Nextiva also allows you to keep your fax machine for convenient sending of paper based faxes.  In many cases you can keep your current fax number.

eFax is an internet fax solution offering the largest selection of local and toll-free fax numbers in over 3,500 cities and 48 countries around the world.  It features lifetime storage, local and toll free numbers, enhanced security, to send or receive faxes as email attachments and fax from up to five email addresses.

TrustFax’s monthly plan includes a US local or toll free fax number, capability to send/receive 250 pages per month, free account setup, faxes sent to your email, digitized signatures tool, secure online fax storage and international faxing.

Screen Sharing

Below is a list of popular tools used for screen sharing.

Skype allows you to share your screen with anyone on Skype for free. There is also group screen sharing but it is currently only available to Skype for Mac.

Join.me is a simple screen sharing tool perfect for impromptu meetings. This free tool gives you the ability to share your screen with up to 250 views.  You may also share control, chat and send files. For additional features you can upgrade to Join.me Pro.

Vyew (pronounced “view”) is a free and easy online collaboration and web conferencing service with unlimited use with up to 10 people. It is an ad supported service. Vyew allows you to meet and share content in real-time or anytime. You can also upload images, files, documents and videos into a room. Users can access and contribute at anytime. It is compatible with PC, Mac, and Linux users.

CrossLoop is a free easy-to-use software application for desktop sharing with unlimited sessions. It is also available in 21 languages. CrossLoop is simple, safe and quick.

QuickScreenShare is the simple and free way to share screens with anybody with no registration required. There is absolutely nothing to install. It is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux. It allows you remotely control the mouse and keyboard.

FreeScreenSharing is a free online meeting service designed for screen sharing, web conferencing, product demonstrations, webinars and more. FreeScreenSharing features free unlimited meetings with up to 96 participants, audio conferencing and your own lobby.

How Having Your Own VA Saves You Money

We have already established that VA’s are business owners and  not employees. They are responsible for their own operational expenses and taxes – and should carry professional liability insurance as well.  You do not pay for any employee-related taxes, equipment-related expenses, benefits or insurance, and VA’s work from a fully equipped home office.  Although many virtual assistants work on retainer basis; others offer services on a project or an as-needed basis. This allows you to pay only for the time used for that specific project or task.  Others look to cultivate long-term working relationships with their clients and bill at an hourly rate.

Working With a VA Saves Time

Another great benefit of working with a VA is saving time by delegating tasks that you lack expertise or do not enjoy. Saving time with a VA allows you to dedicate time to other priorities such as running your business, networking and family. As we say in the industry – we give you back the time to work ON your business – not In it!

Need to find the right VA for you?  Go to www.TheRightVA.com and know you’ll be matched to an experienced, professional VA.

Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

“Virtual Assistance with a Personal Touch”

www.ptconciergeservice.com

info@ptconciergeservice.com

Is Your Time Priceless?

“Time is free, but it’s priceless.  You can’t  own it, but you can use it.  You can’t keep it, but you can spend it.  Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.”

It seems we are obsessed with time: it flies by —  where did it go? — can you believe it’s the middle of July already?  I never have enough hours in the day…

We’ve all heard these statements – and have probably said them ourselves.  The one thing that is constant and unforgiving is time – you can never get it back or make more of it.  So the only way to manage time is just that – manage it!  Delegating is a fantastic way to manage your time, and it takes a strong business person to be able to delegate effectively.

Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) is your best bet to delegate effectively.  Remember, the right VA will be a business person just like yourself and will understand that delegation is key to running an efficient business.

Here are just a few ways VA’s can work with you to return precious time:

• Manage your schedule remotely and follow up on appointments just as easily as an onsite employee

• If you’re spending loads of time formatting your newsletter, hand it off to a VA; they can manage your newsletter in a lot less time

• Manage your blog and post new content on a regular basis

• Keep your social media profiles updated

• Track and manage your company’s online reputation

• Database management

• Travel arrangements

• Prepare program materials for your next event

• Article Submission to Ezine and other sites

• Write the press releases and articles to submit

• You want to sell products on your website; a VA can set up a shopping cart and monitor sales reports

• No more wasting time with data entry and bookkeeping; have any report at your fingertip

• Your VA can also send out your invoices and help with follow-up and collection of those invoices

• Keep your website up-to-date and looking fresh

• Help you keep up with your personal life as well; i.e., finding the best plumber/electrician/handyman, etc., and scheduling an appointment; keeping track of and sending out birthday/anniversary cards; ordering flowers, gifts

I could go on and on …

There is the right VA out there for everyone, so don’t put off finding that VA any longer!  Contact me for your FREE consultation to see how we can help you – and if we can’t, we’ll recommend an experienced, professional VA just for you!

Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC,

a Multi-VA Company

nickey@ptconciergeservice.com

484-919-0637

Are You Running Your Business, or is Your Business Running You?

We, as business owners, run our businesses. We tend to protect it closely as if it were one of our children, and may truly believe that no one can do anything in our business as well as we can.
If this is ringing true with you, chances are you are performing tasks in your business that you should be delegating to someone else. If you are allowing your business to run YOU by not delegating, you may become one of the many businesses that fail because the business owner becomes burned out.

I know, I know – it’s hard to let go! But let yourself dream for just a second … what would it be like if you had a trusted assistant – on call – that you could depend upon to complete the tasks you don’t have time for, you don’t particularly like doing and are keeping you tied up when you should be growing your business?

Feel free to contact me to discuss how a VA can help and AND your business.

 

Nickey Hollenbach

http://www.ptconciergeservice.com

484-919-0637

@Nickeyh

Are You Stressed?

     Did you know that

     “Stress has been called ‘the silent killer’ and can lead to heart disease, high blood pressure, chest pain, and an irregular heartbeat.”

     Knowing that, and knowing the stress involved in running your own business – or for that matter working for a company that’s stressful – you would certainly want to alleviate that stress, right?

Enter the Virtual Assistant. 

     Virtual Assistants are a cost-effective way for businesses and entre¬preneurs to ensure that they have the help they need to successfully run and grow their business. With no payroll taxes to pay, no benefits to provide, no office space or equipment to purchase and maintain, it’s a wise choice for today’s busy and stressful world.

     An experienced, professional VA takes your business as seriously as her own, and your business’ success is her business’ success. VA’s work with solopreneurs, small to mid-size businesses, and even large companies are jumping on the bandwagon and using Virtual Assistants. 

     Virtual Assistants have been around for more than 10 years, but the industry has grown exponentially in the last 4 years.  The important thing to remember is to find an experienced, professional VA — someone who is taking theirVA business seriously and not doing it as a hobby.

Next post:   Tips on how to find an experienced, professional VA

 

 

Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

info@ptconciergeservice.com

Another New Year’s Day

Every single year on New Year’s Day I try to do everything right; I clean, exercise, eat right, work a little, and do everything I feel I should as a way to ensuring a great year to come by doing everything the “right” way.

Today I woke up feeling less than well.  You know, the typical sick, body aches, stuffy head hoping we have some Nyquil in the house for tonight.  I did manage to walk the dog, go through some old mail, read some old Newsweeks, look at my email once – missing a client request – and made soup.  Other than that, I slept most of the day.

Briefly I went through the head trip – oh no!  I didn’t do everything perfect today – what will that do to 2011?  You know what it will do?  Nothing.  Nothing I don’t do this one day will change how well this year will go for me, my family and my business.  It’s what you do every day – every day when you wake up and decide that today will be a GREAT day and you will do everything you need to do to improve your life.  Every single day is a new day and you have the chance to improve your future – and that’s what I will do – starting tomorrow.

Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

info@ptconciergeservice.com

How to Get the Word Out About VA’s

We virtual assistants know what VA’s are – and we have nothing to do with the Veterans Administration!!

But how do we get the word out to people who immediately think of veterans and who may not be tech savvy?

Your ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

nickeyh@ptconciergeservice.com

www.ptconciergeservice.com

What do you do?

Here’s how the conversation goes:

“What do you do?”

“I’m a virtual assistant.”

“Oh.”  (polite head nod)

“Do you know what a virtual assistant is?”

“Well – no, actually.”

“A good virtual assistant can do anything that a non-virtual assistant does, except from her own home, with her own equipment over the internet and email, at a huge savings to a business owner.”

“Oh.   So what do you do?”

(polite smile)

If you’re a VA, you’ve heard this same conversation many times.  I think we lose sight of the fact that because we’re on the internet and virtual, we see people every day who know exactly who we are and what we do and how we do it. 

I belong to a networking group and we meet every week.  Every week I do my 30-second commercial  and every week I see the blank stares of people who really don’t know what I do.  Maybe I’m not clear; maybe I should just list everything my company does, but … well… I just couldn’t do it in 30 seconds!  So I say things like – whatever you would have an assistant sitting next to you do, we do.  More blank stares.

To practice, I’m going to list everything my company and team members do:

• General admin
  • Typing correspondence, documents
  • Transcription
  • Client contact
  • Scheduling
  • “Make things happen”
• Legal assistance; i.e., working for an attorney – not providing legal advice 🙂
• Travel arrangements – vacations to complex business itinerary
• Personal assistance
  • Doctor’s appointments
  • Find a plumber, etc.
  • Research on anything you need; i.e., new car, vacation spot, etc.
  • Post an ad; i.e., Craig’s List, eBay, etc.
  • Plan a party
• Email and calendar management
• Event planning – personal and business; small or large
• Bookkeeping (see http://www.BookkeepingVAs.com)
• Website design, management and maintenance
• Database management and maintenance
• Social medial marketing and management
• Research
• Proofreading / Editing
• Copywriting – website content, articles, press releases
• Email newsletter creation and management
• Article and press release distribution
• Logos and rebranding

I could go on, but will you remember?  My task:  finding out how to get the word out.  I am open to any suggestions! What would YOU do to get the word out?

Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

NickeyH@PTConciergeService.com

@nickeyh

Skype:  nickey.personaltouch