Virtual Assistance

Been a very busy few days for me. I’m looking at a few Virtual Assistants to do some subcontracting on projects that I’d like to charge less for, so I need to find someone to do it for less. What I’m noticing though, is that it is somewhat difficult to find someone that I don’t have to really double check all of their work. Don’t get me wrong, as much as I’d like 100% accuracy, this is probably not going to happen. But I’m noticing what should take someone 5-10 hours depending on their rate of speed, is taking 17-30 hours. In the long run this doesn’t really help me out, I could do it in the 5 hours, charge my normal rates, and still be ahead of the game.

If you’re a VA and perusing this blog from a link from VANA or some such, take heart. Are you being fair to your client? Are you giving your best effort, or “eh, it’s enough” effort?

If you’ve perhaps looked at Virtual Assistants and weren’t wowed – keep in mind, in some ways it’s just like hiring an assistant, there are some you gel with better. If you’re not happy and the issue has been addressed, keep looking. We can do so much to get your organization back and your administration flowing better off site.

Ask for referrals from happy companies, but ask about a situation where a client wasn’t happy with the work – listen to the answer. (And “oh all my customers are always happy with me” may or may not be true, but ask for at least a frustrating experience to see what the issue was at what you may have to look at going forward.” )

Why

As I’ve mentioned before I have a young child. I can’t quite tell if I hear “NO!” or “Why?” more in any given day. The easy answer is “Yes, and do it now”; or “Because I said so”, but I know that for my child to understand I need to address the question, and then point her in the direction of productivity; which puts me back into a productive mode. But I don’t want just busy work, I want to be productive – whether itis marketing my own business, or doing work for one of my clients.

I came across this article that talks about the Power of Why, and consequently why – whys are important to us. (Say that four times fast) Some interesting things are covered in marketing and why we do what we do, actually the whole site is fairly interesting – take a minute or two to check it out.

http://www.psychotactics.com/artpowerofwhy.htm

Now onto a humor break if you are a mom, or if you’ve had a mom you may very well enjoy this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VlY8STkhopc

Recruiting Thoughts

One of the hats I wear is recruiting. Mostly, I recruit for a Furniture Licensor–they have opportunities nationwide for people who want to buy their own dealership.

One of the things I’m surprised by is how passionate people are – they either absolutely want to own their own business, either right now, or a perhaps little down the road; or they absolutely don’t want to own their own business.

A comment I hear over and over again is “well, I’d rather it be someone else’s money to see if it works, and then if it is I may be interested in buying, but I’m not going to put my savings into it until I know for sure. ” I think this may be a useful question asked even of people that are applying for work in a regular company. Are they a go-getter who trusts their judgment; or is it someone who just wants to get by.

Now, I understand that not everyone wants to own their own business, and there’s a lot of good reasons to not want to, and many good reasons to work for someone else. But as employers do you create an environment where the employee can own something? Or do you want people to just do the work and not be passionate about it?

I always look for that person that is passionate about something. Younger employees may need to be taught how to harness that passion while at work, but it’s terribly sad to see the experienced employee who has no passion left in their eyes.

If you’re a small business starting out…do you remember why and what your dreams were with starting your own business?

Don’t forget we can’t all do it on our own, there are many qualified VA’s that can help. If you need help with recruiting or other Human Resources headaches functions, let us know and we can provide you simple, easy and effective answers for your growing business and your employee capital.

And by the way, if you’re reading this and want some information on the furniture dealership opportunities, send an email to info@totalresourceconnection.com

Disneyland Thoughts

We went to Disneyland for the second time in 2 months yesterday. (One of the pluses of having out of state friends, and living 30 minutes or so from the most magical place on earth.)

I have memories of Disney that date back at least 30 years. Somehow they keep the magic alive for the newer little ones, and make it fun for the “old hands” of Disney as well.

What I was most amazed at, was how long the line pathways are. (And here’s a hint, go the week school is back in session, we didn’t wait in line for anything except the Toontown roller coaster, and the Dumbo ride the whole day). Those lines though, in busy days, are chock full of people in great expectation of the rides that they’ll be taking. Most of the time lines are longer than the actual ride.

What do we do in our businesses to keep our customers happy and eagerly awaiting other services we may offer? How else do we get out the word? Do we keep them informed along the way? “Thanks for your order, we’ll be processing and sending shortly” or “This project should take about a week” and they hear from us on day 7 that it’s almost but not quite complete?

We are obviously not Disney, and most of us aren’t in the entertainment industry, but I was struck at the evolution over the years. I used to eagerly await Disney to go on the rides. We seldom saw any characters except Mickey or Goofy once in a while. Now, you know where to go to find the characters you’d like to see, and if you don’t want to stand in line or want to ride the rides you can have non-personal time but still see them up close at the parade.

Are you available to your customers on your schedule or their schedule? If your service or business makes it too hard to reach you for personal service, you’ll lose out. That’s one of the ways that a virtual assistant can be of service, we can be a point of contact, sort through customer requests, tell your customers we remember their special days, or be their first point of contact by sending mailers, or other information to them and of course we can always take some of the other things off of your desk that will keep you from your customers.

Mom-preneurs and Moms who work from home

I thought I may have made up a new word today – mompreneurs. It described how I view what I do.

I was brought up in an entrepreneurial family. My parents always had their own business, and it was also a family affair. My brothers and I can do a perfect impersonation of our mom “your going to hurt someone with that!!!” but we can also tell you that any welt from our rubber band fights were gone within an hour or two, despite our best efforts. I’m also pleased to tell you that not once did a rubber band land in a sibling’s eye.
I sometimes laugh as I try to get my daughter to be quiet and stop singing while I’m on the phone, as I recall my 5th grade printing and handwriting, later typing, and finally using computers to do our invoicing. My parent’s clients always knew it was a family business, after all during the summer we were all present while they were working. Yet, I find myself trying to keep it quiet that I’m a work at home mom, or saying sheepishly to someone on the phone “Well, I’ll apologize in advance if you hear a bit of 3.5 year old background noise.” I wouldn’t apologize if I were the HR Manager and talking to an employee with manufacturing going on in the background. I’m choosing to enjoy working at home and lighten up about background noise (as long as it’s background and not terribly distracting).

At any rate, it doesn’t appear that I was so creative as to have thought up a new word – so with full credit I’d like to introduce you to their site. http://www.mompreneursonline.com/

Another new to me site is http://www.workitmom.com/ This thought provoking article is by the woman who created Work It, Mom! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nataly-kogan/the-mommy-stigma-well-_b_51561.html .

I chose to go into Virtual Assistance and Human Resources Consulting because of my daughter; I provide awesome virtual assistance and HR consulting because of my experience in the corporate world before my daughter. If you’re a solo, mom, entre, or any other kind of preneur and you need someone to help you with your marketing, employee or administrative tasks that are taking way too much of your customer or revenue building time, send me an email and let’s talk about how we can take the frustration out of administration for your venture.

And dads and single entrepreneurs no worries, I’ll find some great networking and article sites for you soon – or drop me a line on your favorites and I’ll include them soon.

Saving big bucks in business expenses each year -

One of the best resources I’ve found for Virtual Assistants is the Virtual Assistant Networking Forum. There are lots of opinions, suggestions, questions and everything in between. I came across this comparison analysis and thought it was interesting enough that I wanted to share it.

Full-time Employee vs a Virtual Assistant Cost Comparison

Want to SAVE over $60,000 in business expenses this year?
If you answered yes, read on …

A cost comparison for a full-time employee
versus a Virtual Assistant

COST COMPARISON	Full-time Employee	Virtual Assistant
Hourly Rate of Pay	$20.00	$35.00
Fringe Benefits @ 35%(Health/Dental/Life Insurance, Retirement Plans)	7.00	None
Overhead Rate @ 50%(Office Space, Equipment & Office Supply expense, UI Insurance, Worker’s Compensation, Overtime Pay, Administration Costs)	$10.00	None
Total Effective Rate of Pay	$37.00	$35.00
**Hours Per Year	2,080 hrs.	480 hrs.
TOTAL Annual Labor Cost	$76,960.00	$16,800.00

Difference = $60,160.00 per year

By hiring a Virtual Assistant…You SAVE over $60,000.00 per year!

Although the Virtual Assistant’s hourly rate
is more than the employee’s rate in the first place, you save the cost of benefits
and overhead that would have to be applied to the new employee’s wage. And,
because Virtual Assistant’s are usually more experienced, more efficient, and
better connected than the employee, you’ll need to devote far less time to the
project to get the same results, only 480 hours a year versus 2,080 for the
new employee.

**Remember,
with a Virtual Assistant, you only pay for the time on task by the minute! No
more paying for socializing, hour long lunches or frequent trips to the washroom.

Your employee’s 8 hour day can be
crunched into 3-4 hours with a Virtual Assistant.

Simply put, you should contract with a Virtual
Assistant because it’s more cost-effective and Virtual Assistants go above and
beyond the normal assistant’s duties to impact your own productivity. No task
is too big or small for a Virtual Assistant to handle. Even if you only have
1 hour of work a month for a Virtual Assistant to do, a VA can (and will) do
it.

For more information – email info@totalresourceconnection.com

*Souce: Virtual
Assistant Networking Association (VANA) Cost Comparison

The Largest Global Network Online for Successful and Aspiring Virtual Assistants