Positive Thinking

There is so much talk lately on the power of positive thinking and The Secret.

I truly believe that we can empower ourselves to rise to the top with a positive mind set.

Keep negative thinking out of the picture and focus on the positive and good in everything in life.
Those who are successful understand that there is power in their thoughts. Power to draw positive results, create realities and tear down the walls that are holding us back. There is true power to overcome the challenges we face each day. Don’t focus on the barriers that seem to stand in our way, eliminate them by focusing on what you dream of and what you want to achieve.

Your mind is a wonderful tool, use it to positively impact the changes that you want to see in your life.

Network to Build Relationships

I belong to several group forums, such as: VANA (Virtual Assistant Networking Association), CVAC (Canadian Virtual Assistant Connection) and The Revolution.

There have been quite a few posts lately from newbies on how to build a Virtual Assistant business.

I am such a strong advocate of networking. I believe that networking is the key to building any business.

Networking is about building relationships and that takes time, as does any solid relationship, whether it be personal or business.

I remember a couple of years ago, there was an entrepreneur who attended a couple of network events in the hopes of gaining business. This was a very talented lady and she could be very personable, but her attitude about networking was very poor. After the second time she attended this particular group, she announced that she wouldn’t be coming back as there wasn’t a business represented there that could afford her services.

Needless to say, this person is no longer in business and has since joined the work force again.

The thing is, these were businesses that were growing. These people were in several different network groups. The very thing that this person could not see was, that although, they may not have needed or could have afforded her services at that time, they may have down the road. There was also a very good possibility that they may have known someone who could have definitely used her services.

Networking is definitely key and so is attitude!

Build relationships, this is the foundation on which the rest of your business will flourish.

Virtual is spreading like wildfire!

“Virtual” is spreading like wildfire. There are so many businesses today that are looking at the “Virtual” way to do business, including lawyers, coaches, project managers, property managers, Realtors and the list goes on and on. With rising gas prices, high rents for office space etc. more and more business owners are looking for alternatives.

 

As a consequence, rising costs of hiring staff, including paying benefits, overtime, sick leave and holiday pay, not to mention the overhead of computer software and updated office equipment, more and more business owners are realizing that there are alternatives and so a lot of them are downsizing their offices and now outsourcing to Virtual Assistants.

 

The benefits of outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant are numerous. A VA as we are called can do all the things that their office staff would do and more. VA’s can answer client phones, answer e-mails, handle customers inquiries, keep databases for their clients, set up their websites and maintain them, make their travel arrangements, do their shopping, mail out special campaigns, design their flyer’s and other marketing material, type letters, pay bills, do bookkeeping and the list goes on and on.

 

A typical day for a Virtual Assistant is not so typical. For instance a client can be in a different Province or Country so a VAs typical day, due to time differences would dictate when they would be working. A lot of times this can work to the VAs advantage and to the advantage of the client. The client can give the VA some work to do at the end of their day and when they arrive at work the next morning the job is completed. They don’t have any down time and the VA just works as if it was an ordinary day.

 

There are times when a client needs something done urgently and so the VA will work sometimes into the early morning hours to get the work completed for them or even on the weekends, whatever it takes to get the job done. The benefit to the client is that they aren’t paying overtime to an employee to get this done, and they are getting professional services and professional work done on otherwise off time.

 

A lot of clients pay by the hour for work that they need done. Sometimes a Virtual Assistant will be hired for a small one time project. Other times they may work for a short time on an ongoing project. Some VA’s have clients that contract them on an ongoing basis. As you can see there are certainly lots of advantages outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant.

What is Your Time Worth

I was asked to speak at a Women’s Network Meeting a few weeks ago and I thought I would post a snippet of my presentation here as I will presenting this same topic again in a couple of weeks at another Women’s Entrepreneurial group.

So what is your time worth?

If you check out some VA websites, including my own, they will give you some pertinent information as to the value in hiring a VA versus a full time Administrative Assistant.

I want to go beyond that right now and ask you a simple question, what is your time worth?

As business owners you are busy building your client base. There are some areas of your business that need to be addressed in the day to day activity of your business. There are the phone calls, the building of your database, the answering of e-mails, sending out those flyers, writing letters, and on and on it goes.

Now I want to ask you a simple question, what is your time worth?

If you were to hire a Virtual Assistant to handle all these little details of your business, what would it cost you? What would you gain?

I want you to think for just a minute, if I wasn’t spending X number of hours doing all the administrative tasks that are necessary in growing my business, how much more money could I save and how much more could I make?

Your business, no matter what it is, is your pride and joy, something that you are passionate about, something that you love to do. So how many hours are you spending doing the tasks that you could outsource to someone else?

Realistically, if you were spending that time on a client or that project, how much money would you actually be making? Now I ask you if you were to hire a VA to help you with those tasks, say at approximately $30.00 per hour, how much money would you still be making?

Now I ask you another question, how much is it costing me to not outsource those tasks?

Hello world!

Welcome to my new Blog site which is coming soon.  I’m busily working at getting things set up.

I look forward to meeting you all,

Warmly,

Caroline.