Important Lessons I Have Learned Along the Way …
As Virtual Assistants, so many of us forget that structure within our business is vital to our success. We spend so much time just producing the client work, that we forget that it is important to work on our business and to set aside time to make that happen. As soon as I implemented structure within my business, my days became more productive and my business grew almost overnight. Here are three essentials to a well structured business that I attribute to my success:
GOAL SETTING
You have to have a purpose and a vision to strive towards. How can you decide if your business is everything you want it to be if you don’t know what it is that you want? When setting your goals, set both short term and long term goals and make sure you put them in writing. The thing that I have found helpful is adding pictures and rewards to my goals. For example, when I reach “x” goal, I will give myself “y”. Then you put a picture of “y” on your bulletin board as a reminder. My son has even adopted this ideal and recently cut out a picture of a dog and put it on his bulletin board. His goal is to get straight A’s in school this year and his reward will be a dog. Every night as he does his homework he looks at that picture and is reminded of his goal.
SET A SCHEDULE
When we set a schedule, oftentimes we simply set the hours we will work and call this a schedule. A good schedule will actually schedule time for everything including me time, family time and work time. The work time will be defined by such areas as billable hours, marketing, business development, etc.. The more structured your schedule the better. I find myself that even scheduling time for reading and answering emails has helped exponentially with being more productive in a day.
TO DO LISTS
As our businesses grow it is easy to forget tasks. Having a written to do list helps to keep everything straight. There are several on-line programs that can help with keeping your tasks from getting lost in a busy day!! Two things that I would stress about to do lists is the importance to prioritize and also to leave room for unexpected emergencies!!
I am positive that when you begin to implement structure in your business, your productivity will increase and even more importantly, you will feel and become more successful!!
Taking Care of You
There is more to business than business
As many of us go about setting up our businesses, we’re extremely conscientious to make sure we have all of our “ducks in row”, so to speak. We write a Business Plan, the Financial Plan. We put Disaster Recovery and Marketing very near the top of our thoughts; we look forward to the influx of clients we just know are waiting for us to tell them we’re ready to begin working with them.
However, one or two crucial tasks, often neglected, ought to be considered, too
When setting your sights on working from home, and when writing your Business Plan, you may want to include a chapter, or at least a verse, on how you will “take care of you”!
Now, you know, we grow up learning about the many elements of the important food groups, and how drinking enough water to almost drown ourselves is somehow good for us. Some recent studies have changed the “drinking 8 glasses of water” thing to a fallacy so that you’re good to go if you just “drink water whenever you want”; thankfully, they’re leaving out the drinking until “soggy” and “completely saturated” part.
The reality is your physical and mental well-being are just as important as your ability to pull in prospects and capture ideal clients. In fact, if you are feeling up to 100% or very near to it, you’ll feel more like tackling anything that comes your way. You’ll also have more stamina to look a 24-hour day in the eye!
Instead, though, you become a victim
You accidentally “just” discover it.
Where did you go wrong?
It seems like it was just yesterday (more like two years, actually) that you were walking in the mall, running down the street, huffing and puffing or “preening” at the gym, taking the stairs two at a time, or using the treadmill for a trip to wherever your imagination or your stamina would take you.
Now, you’re experiencing a twinge here or maybe a “crick” there.
It’s known as an occupational hazard, and one that seems to be compounded when working virtually at home! Alone! Completely by oneself, for extended periods of time!
It’s become somewhat of a “marriage” between you and your chair!
Now don’t get me wrong. I, too, love my computer. I love my internet business. I love what I’m doing. I love that I stick to projects and stay on task and turn out really stellar products and services on a regular basis.
But inactivity, I love…not so much!
What happened to you?
You’ve noticed how your jeans might be a little bit tighter. But that’s because the new dryer has a much better heat setting than the last one and most likely shrunk them, you rationalize.
Or when you go up the stairs you experience a huff-and-puff at step number 4 that you didn’t a week or so ago. But that’s because you are carrying a feather duster.
Business Plan – “Any Movement” Major, in Part II
You need a divorce. From your chair!
Each day or week, as you put together your goals or “to do” list, include some time for regular activity. The activity can be as simple as getting up from your chair and leaving the room—except not heading for the kitchen.
Bust a move!
Get up and dance!
Touch your toes 10 times.
Too hard?
Then perhaps you can sit in your chair and lift your legs, one at a time, straight out in front of you; 10 times each leg.
Or try this!
Lift your arms out to your sides, horizontal to the floor. Uhnn, you know, don’t you, that your mouse is not going anywhere so it’s okay to let go of it?
Really it is!
The point is to get your body moving
It’s a well-known fact that exercise releases endorphins that invigorate your mind and play around with your happiness and your ability to lose weight (or to keep the excess away in the first place). In fact, regular exercise of 20-30 minutes three times a week can get you happy and put you on a nice little high.
So listen to your body talk. But if it says it would rather eat chocolate than get you up out of your chair, put it on “ignore”!
In the end, with such diligence, no doubt, you’ll be fitting into those jeans again in no time
Contents are a great way to create a buzz
And The Networking Masters are at it!
There’s still a bit of time left to create buzz about it and be entered to win an iPod touch!
For all the details, check it out here
And while you’re at it, think about how you can create a buzz for your blog…
Is there a way that you can host a contest similar to this one?
Put on your thinking caps! How can you draw attention to the content that you want people to see?
What are some of the best ways that you’ve brought traffic to you website or blog?
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
“10 Things I Hate About You…”
“3 Little Words…”
“99 Bottles of Beer On the Wall…” Uhh, okay–maybe not that one!
It’s all about the numbers
How do you go about writing an article, or a blog for that matter?
This can be done in a number of ways. There are those that will just sit down at the computer and start writing. Some will use pencil, or pen and paper to give it a go. Still others may first make use of an audio device for recording their thoughts.
In short, there is no right or wrong way…but rather, it’s what suits the individual composing the message.
A popular, effective beginning to an article or blog, much like mine above, is to use “numbers” or “how to” items like “Ten Things to Consider When Building A Car”, “Seven Tips to Teaching Your Cat the House Rules”, “Five Secrets to a Fancy Web Site”.
Let’s try it with Five!
1. Your topic
When utilizing any method, whether it’s of your own making or that of the general article/blog writing population, you must select a topic. And then stay focused enough to get your point across.
As you write, consider the general make-up of your readers. For instance, if by vocation you’re a geo-physicist but your topic this day is to inform others about your second love–“fruit flies”–you probably won’t begin by describing “the interrelation of geological systems”.
2. Your message
Whatever you choose for a topic, one of the points for writing your article or blog is to develop a rapport with your audience. In essence, you want them to turn to you for your knowledge and expertise. One of the ways to do this is to be sure that the message you relay to your readers about your topic is current and accurate. Especially so, if you are endorsing a particular product or service! Inaccurate statements can quickly come back to haunt you.
Then there goes your reputation!
3. It’s all about the words
What is the point of your article or blog post? If your dream for your blog or article is to make you visible to your target market, to sell more ebooks, then a good way to do that is to use several keywords in your title. Now, these are not just any words, but rather they ought to be keyword-rich and related to your blog, your article, your product. Creating a short, catchy, relevant title will also draw the attention of those just out skimming.
4. So you can see clearly now
Because items posted on the Internet become a “global affair”, the potential audience for your blog is not limited to any one sector. So, along with carefully selecting the words for the title of your blog, the same consideration should be given to the body of the actual posts you create. This then translates to your posts or articles. What you write is best if it is simple and easy to understand.
5. A “genie” in your pocket
One of the quickest ways to turn someone away from your blog or your article is if it’s littered with misspelled words or words that have absolutely no meaning to the context of the article. In other words, you neglected to run spell check or to proofread what you’ve written.
Spell check, of course, is not always reliable, particularly when it comes to same sounding words like “there”, “their” or “breaks”, “brakes”, “male” and “mail”, and even pronunciation or the meaning of words is confusing, like “bandage the ‘wound’” and “the clock was ‘wound’ tight”.
But spell check does provide a more than passable pre-monitoring for what you plan to put “out there” on the Internet. Therefore, taking the time to run your efforts through spell check may ward off an embarrassing moment or two.
In fact, sometimes a second pair of eyes will do wonders for a body of work.
Best foot forward
Although the foregoing suggestions for blogging and article writing are not all inclusive and there are many others to be found if you do your research, adhering to some of these suggestions will enable you to present an effective case to your readers about your subject.
At the same time, they’ll serve to put you in front of your readers on a regular basis.
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