Let it Snow!!

Hi everyone!

The Personal Side 

As I’m sitting here nice and cozy inside my house with a nice fire going and a cup of coffee on my desk while it’s snowing outside, I am once again reminded how much I just LOVE this Virtual Assistant thing!  I turn my head for a moment to gaze out the window at the beautiful winter wonderland and once again thank God for lots of things:  my health, my family, a roof over my head – and most of all – that I still have the peace of mind to take that moment to look out the window and appreciate the beauty of nature.

Why so happy this morning?  Well, not all that long ago I would have been up early (same as now), but ran outside to shovel, clean off my car, let it run to warm up and waste gas, and then hope and pray some idiot on the road was not driving if they didn’t know how to in this weather.  All to get to a work environment that was run inefficiently, the employees unappreciated, the boss subject to temper tantrums – just to finally get back home feeling wiped out and frustrated because of all of the above.  Don’t get me wrong – I actually love pressure and time deadlines.  That’s when I’m my most efficient, so I didn’t mind the daily deadlines and the long hours.  It’s when you know everything could be run so much more efficiently, you see the wasted money and no one will listen to your suggestions – either because they feel they know best or maybe they just feel threatened if someone else knows best?  I’m not sure, but I think some of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about.

But here I am – warm, safe and snug sitting here at my computer.  And as you’re reading this, I sincerely hope that anyone driving in snow this morning made it to their destination safe and sound.  And I hope you get home before the freezing rain starts!

The Business Side

You already know what I’m going to say.  Did your in-house staff make it in this morning?  If they did, will they stay until the end of the day or will they leave early to make it home before the ice gets too bad and the ride home is a nightmare?  And how much time will be wasted talking about the drive in, the drive home and the weather in general?  And will you pay them for the whole day?  (Of course you will – you’re not an ogre!)  How much actual work was done for the day? 

I’m not telling everyone they don’t need office staff in-house in certain situations.  You may need a receptionist, a file clerk (or combination) to handle the physical paperwork in your office.  But what if you really had something you needed done today and your administrative assistant couldn’t make it in?  What would you do?  If you had a Virtual Assistant (like me), not only could I pick up overload work for your in-house assistant and work with her, but today wouldn’t even be an issue.  One telephone call or email with instruction and it would be taken care of in an efficient, cost-effective manner.  You would pay me for actual work done, and it would be returned to you by the end of the business day – to your office or your home – wherever you are and wherever you need it.  I have to put in a disclaimer here:  you can’t give me a 3-hour project to do by the end of the day at 4:00.   I’m not a magician – but if it were an emergency you could most likely have it by the next day.  That’s why the best clients a VA can have are clients that communicate and work WITH their VA.  It’s a wonderful thing!

Just Because

I recently went to see Cyrano at the Academy in Philly.  It was wonderful!  The actors were great and I loved most of the voices.  Not to mention it was a favorite childhood story of mine.  But what I really wanted to let you know if that if you’re ever in the area, please stop in for dinner at Estia – directly across the street from the Academy.  We walked in without a reservation – it was a Wednesday night – and we were warmly welcomed by the hosting staff.   (Almost all of the hosting staff – but I did get the one hold-out to smile with my outgoing charm 🙂  )  The restaurant was decorated very tastefully and was not overdone.  We were ushered to a table next to a wooden rail, up a step from the rest of the restaurant.  With our bird’s eye view we were able to casually watch everything going on a bit below us.  The wait staff was very cordial and professional. 

Next to us on our little riser were stone columns with flowing-type material covering the lights above which gave a beautiful billowing appearance as if you were outside on a perfect day with a slight breeze.  There was no breeze, of course, but that’s what was created in your mind’s eye.  Our waitress was absolutely wonderful, handing me her little flashlight so I could read the menu – yes, I forgot my glasses AGAIN!  As if that weren’t enough to make your dinner wonderful, then came the exquisite food.  I ordered calamari which was stuffed with different Greek cheeses.  You were served 4 whole calamaris on a beautifully decorated plate – plenty for an appetizer.  Then came the Mediterranean salad – which we shared – also wonderful with the feta and olives.  For dinner we each ordered Chilean Sea Bass (I know – you’re not supposed to order that any more because we’re eating too many of them and killing them off – but this was special!)  each prepared differently.  One was prepared with a red sauce and vegetables; one just grilled with a delicate lemon and herb taste – I don’t want to say “sauce” because it was not a sauce – on wilted spinach.  I wish I had the words to describe to you how delicious the fish tasted – it melted in your mouth and I wanted to make every single bite last as long as possible to appreciate every flavor it encompassed!   I would highly recommend this eating establishment – stop by if you’re in the area and give yourself a real treat.

That’s my restaurant critique.  Who knows when I’ll visit a restaurant that I love that much again.

Oh, and for those of you who remembered I was supposed to be blogging on VPN’s, my computer person has not had a chance to get the information to me yet.  I promise it will happen eventually.  Thanks for keeping up!

Oh, and no – my kitchen cabinets are not finished yet (sigh) – so I’ll let the HGTV.com site up for awhile yet – it may be up here quite some time actually.

 Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

www.ptconciergeservice.com

Email Management

Emails – A Technological Miracle / A Technological Nightmare

The Personal Side

 I LOVE emails!  I love getting them from friends, clients and colleagues . . . I love how fast communication has become.  Why, I can pose a question to a friend or colleague about anything and have the answer back right away!  My business runs on emails – I can complete a project or task and  ¦send¦ – off it goes!   I can type faster than I can write, and if I type something and then change my mind or think of a better way to say it . . . ← ← ←    AND anything can be said in an email with a higher comfort level than if you were to say it in person or on the phone because of the editing factor.  What a great mode of communication – I just LOVE it!!

And then there’s spam.  When you were listening to Monty Python singing the spam song (spam, spam, spam, spam . . . it’s going through your head now, isn’t it?), did you ever think that one day the word spam would bring such an angry response from within the very depths of your soul?  I personally wish the most tragic of fates to spammers – how do they sleep at night?  I have two email boxes.  One for my business, of course, and then there’s the personal one.  Why oh why did I respond to that ad to do a survey?  It’s got to be them that sold my email address, and then THEY sold my email address, and so on and so on.   They said they wouldn’t!  I now get over 200 junk emails a day which thankfully go right into the junk email box – but I still get over 100 emails that make it to my inbox.  So I ignore it for a couple of days.  Bad move.  Eventually I’ll have to look through it and delete, delete, delete – it seems like hours!  I REALLY don’t have the time to spend going through it – I have other things to do!  So now the thing I absolutely love becomes a nagging ritual of the worst kind.  My business email – YEAH!!!  My personal email – MERDE!!! 

The Business Side

So here you are – you get to the office, get your coffee and sit down for what you believe will be a fantastic, productive day!  Why you’ve got your Virtual Assistant all lined up to take up the slack, you’re feeling refreshed and are ready to take on the world.  You turn on your computer, you go to your inbox . . . and the day just took a turn for the worst.  By the time you sort through and respond to all these emails, the morning will be half over!  You can’t ignore them – what if there’s something time sensitive or something important you’ve been waiting for?  And amongst all these emails are spam that got through, email ads that may be interesting to you, and customer/client inquiries that you need to answer.  But what if when you went to your inbox in the morning your emails were already sorted for you –  the spam cleaned out, the easy customer inquiries answered, the emails of possible interest put in a folder awaiting your review in your own time, and the important emails put in a folder for you to review first.  Some of these emails you need to answer yourself – no way around it.  But wouldn’t it be nice if you could jot a note in response and have someone else put it in a professional-looking format?  That’s what I do.  ANOTHER great thing about VA’s!!  So before you’re in the office ready to go, the evening/overnight emails are sorted and all ready for you.  With instruction from you, the easy factual questions have been answered and you need only look at your “important” folder if that’s what you want to do right now.  The other stuff can wait until you have a moment.  When you find the right VA for you, it’s a working relationship – the same as if your assistant was sitting right next to you.  Questions!!  I KNOW you have questions!  Give me a call or email me – I’ll respond!

Next up:  VPN’s

Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

nickeyh@ptconciergeservice.com

http://www.ptconciergeservice.com

484-919-0637

Productivity – Don’t Leave Home Without It!

pro·duc·tiv·i·ty       (prō’dŭk-tĭv’ĭ-tē, prŏd’ək-)  noun

The quality of being productive.  (sigh)

pro·duc·tive      [pruh–duhk-tiv]  adjective

having the power of producing, generative, creative:  a productive effort

 HAVING THE POWER . . .

That is absolutely the truth – YOU have the power to be productive.  It’s your business – what do you want from it?

 The Personal Side

After having observed the corporate world for over 20 years, I’ve made a few common-sense observations.  For one, it seems to me that people in management positions sometimes forget how they got there and that they were once the people under them.  Not the really good ones, of course, but unfortunately a fair amount.  I believe productivity suffers when management forgets to utilize the talents they have sitting there in front of them.  They get so hung up on the word “managing” that they mentally pass by the team aspect of their job.  They start to dictate to their team and fail to recognize that their team has great ideas, too!  A good Virtual Assistant is just that for their clients – a team member with great ideas!  I recently met with a client at a Panera’s Bread – a halfway point for us.  (Yes, I will meet with a client if it’s convenient for the both of us.  If not, we can IM to chat.)  He took the time to sit down with me and explain not only what he wanted from me, but why and what he was trying to accomplish in the end.  What a difference that makes!  Expected Research + Extra Research Ideas Because I Understood the End Result = Happy Client.   THAT’s making my clients’ businesses more productive!!

The Business Side 

In your own business, you have goals, aspirations – and tons of things you need to get done!  Do you have the time to do everything yourself?  A smart business entrepreneur knows that he or she needs an assistant to help them get their business off the ground and continue to climb.  It is simply impossible to do everything it takes to start and grow a profitable business by yourself.  If you take the time to develop a working relationship with a VA (just as you would with a non-virtual assistant), you are immediately giving your business the boost it needs with all the cost-effectiveness we’ve talked about before.  Take the time to explain not only your expectations of the work to be done, but also the end result you’re looking for.  You will then have a valuable relationship with a VA that understands your needs.

For example, you say:  I want you to find me NY bankruptcy attorneys.  I would get you a list of NY bankruptcy attorneys with their contact information.  However, if you say:  I want you to find me NY bankruptcy attorneys in the southern counties because they generally charge less who would be willing to work with me on a matter where my client has a case (summary of the case), etc., the information provided would be very different.  We would discuss the matter between us and realize the best way to handle this would be for me to call the attorneys I’ve found and ask them if they would be willing to speak with you about being co-counsel in a matter, etc., etc. – and provide you a list of attorneys waiting to hear from you.  What a difference THAT would make in your time management and productivity!  I could go on with examples like this one that occurred between me and one of my clients, but you have work to do – and so do I!

Next Up:  Email Management

Nickey Hollenbach

Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

http://www.ptconciergeservice.com