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Posts Tagged ‘Business’
Focusing on Positive Thinking to Guide Your Business To Success
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So, after the last article I wrote, I may have left you thinking, “how does positive thinking relate back to marketing, or even to owning and running your own business?”
As I see it, it has a huge impact on how you run your business, and whether or not you receive and grow your client base through your business.
Positive thinking and doing gets you noticed! Proactive thinking and doing also gets you noticed and in a good way! Planning for the future and goal setting gets you noticed in a good way! Putting positive systems in place to help grow your business gets you noticed! Plus these things have a really positive impact on your life, and how you do business.
As a business owner positive thinking is a ‘personality trait’ that you want to have! If a business does not focus on positive thoughts and actions, then how might you expect for your positive personality to shine through to its clientele?
To think positive thoughts, and focus on positive talk and action you are setting up your business for success. After all, positive people attract positive business. Positive people also attract and implement creative and very innovative ideas.
So I hope that I have inspired you in these last two articles to focus on and foster positive thoughts, and in doing so open the doors even wider for your business success.
If you haven’t already done so, you might like to head over and have a read of the previous article I posted, The Question of Positive Thinking.
Admin & Time Management for Business
I found the definition of Time Management on Wiki to be quite interesting. I also found it to be a bit long-winded and partially confusing when I was reading through it. Is it really that complex? I think it probably is!
The time management methods that one person might use aren’t necessarily right for the next person. Also, those methods used seem to be forever changing, because it is continually evolving as people learn and implement their new ideas. Books about both how to grow our business and life balance seem to emphasize time management as being a key skill that needs to be learned and mastered. When the book or coach does not speak directly about time management; for example they might speak about leadership, or marketing, or lead generation…, but the mechanism that makes these models either successful or non-successful I would have to say is the overarching administration or management of each of these methods.
So what am I saying? That if we are looking at developing a model of leadership, or client fulfillment, or a marketing method, we should also look at our time management skills, and we would need to develop a good administrative system in view to maximize the opportunity for these models to work effectively.
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10 Tips for More Effective Time Management
1. Record how you currently spend your time to give you an idea of how you can utilise your time more effectively.
2. Use the time log to help identify what time of the day is your “prime time” so that you can plan those more important tasks around this time.
3. Plan Your Work. Work Your Plan!
4. Set a bit of time aside each evening to plan for the next day, you might;
- Check you diary to see what is coming up.
- Get your things together for that meeting you will be attending, or the presentation you will be giving the next day.
- Plan what you would like to achieve for the day and allocate times to achieve those items.
Think of it this way; that small amount of time you spend this evening will go a long way towards you feeling more in control for tomorrow.
5. A question to ask yourself when you start something is “Why am I doing this right now”. This will help for you to not waste your time, or another persons time. If you are procrastinating then it will help get you back on track.
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Continually Growing and Developing Your Skillset
I am learning that the number one thing in business is to make sure that we continue to grow and develop our skillset. Life is a journey, and we can choose to do big things (bigger that we can even imagine), or stand still for the time. As I see it, without the personal development and evaluation of myself and my business, I am not going anywhere – actually things for me will stand still… completely stagnant, or it could possibly even go backwardmaybe. So what sort of things should we be doing?
- Making the best use of our time
Evaluate how we currently use our time, and how we might make even better use of our time. Evaluate how much time we spend on planning, marketing, technical etc. Start setting up processes and streamlining things if we haven’t already. If we streamline those items that will come in contact with our client, then we must make sure that the service still continues to be personal to them. Establish a routine, especially if there is a family to look after. There are plenty of things that we might look at when we talk about making the best use of our time, hey.
By the way – sometimes the absolute best use of our time is to take some time out to relax. We absolutely need to schedule in some downtime so that we can refresh in readiness to get moving again. Oh, and I find that some of the best inspirations come to me when I am relaxing! This is something that I do struggle with this as a Mum, because I think that “Oh I should be doing this,” or “I should be doing that,” but I have to tell myself “Hey, no you don’t! You need a rest the same as everybody else!”
Virtual Assistant in Niche Areas
Developing a niche area can be a really good marketing tool for not just Virtual Assistants, but for all business owners. If you haven’t already, you might like to read the article ‘What is Niche Marketing?‘ where I covered why and when business owners should establish a niche area.
This article is especially focused towards Virtual Assistants. It provides you with a comprehensive list of ideas for niche areas:
- Affiliate Marketers (assistance to)
- Appraisers (assistance to)
- Architects (assistance to)
- Association Management
- Authors (assistance to)
- Bankruptcy (assistance to bankruptcy firms)
- Blog Design and Maintenance
- Bookkeeping
- Business Writing
- Churches
- Coaches
- Concierge
- Conference and Event Organization
- Confidentiality (a Virtual Assistant who places special emphasis on confidentiality)
- Construction Industry
- Copywriting
What is a Virtual Assistant?
A Virtual Assistant (VA) is a highly trained independent entrepreneur who provides a multitude of administrative support services via the internet to meet the growing needs of entrepreneurs and small businesses worldwide.
Previously a Virtual Assistant (VA) might have been considered to be similar first to the office secretary, and then to the Personal Assistant (PA); the main difference being that a VA works from their own office to provide these services virtually and as a contractor. This description and role has and continues to broaden, because Virtual Assistants around the world continue to find new and innovative ways in which they might branch out to sometimes never heard of, or never thought of areas of expertise. Virtual Assistants have branched out to areas such as graphic design, web design, ghost writing, bookkeeping, blog design and management, shopping cart… amongst other things. As Virtual Assistants often allow for time and funds to be put towards training and development – so many Virtual Assistants are able to offer qualifactions in the area that they market as being their ‘niche’ or specialty area.
Today virtual assistance is a widely accepted industry; it is becoming more and more mainstream and well known with each and every day. This solution has become increasingly popular for small business owners who are too busy to get everything done on their own. It provides small business owners with an opportunity to engage the services of a high quality assistant, without having to provide office space, a permanent wage, or other oncosts that might come with hiring an employee, permanent or casual.
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What is Niche Marketing?
Niche marketing can be pretty much summed up by your refining a specialty in your business. It is usually, but not always, something that the person establishing the business/blog is good at, maybe has a love for. It could be a hobby, it could be something you enjoy, or something that you are really good at, maybe you are a professional and have done a degree in this particular area. The selection of niche areas possible is huge; larger than anyone can ever imagine. Actually I am certain that their are currently niche areas that haven’t been recognised yet, especially in areas such as science and technology where knowledge and hardware are continually developing, changing and growing.
Some people starting out in business know exactly what their niche is going to be. Some example might be an Business Accountant, or a Web Marketer, or Environmental Consultancy, or Association Management… the list goes on for miles and miles and miles! Others will most certainly start out broader and then eventually they will refine the niche area for their business.
Why Establish a Niche Area?
Establishing a niche is a marketing tool for telling the world that you are a specialist in that particular field.
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Successful Work At Home Mums and Dads
A couple of good examples of some really successful Work at Home Mums are below:
The Online Resource for Christian Work at Home Mom’s founded by Jill Hart who is also the co-author of So You Want To Be a Work-At-Home Mom (Beacon Hill Press, 2009). Jill has an excellent newsletter that she sends out to her subscribers actually.
A Clayton’s Secretary, owned by Kathie Thomas, who started a Virtual Assistant when her children were of school age. Kathie is still going strong in this industry today. Through her life experience Kathie has written two books, the first one was titled Worth More than Rubies and was written keeping in mind her experiences as a work from home and the second book being It Happened by Design which she finished more recently, this second book is about true life experiences of God’s design on lives. Kathie Thomas provides ongoing support in the Virtual Assistance Industry and to her clients in numerous ways, but the two that stand out to me the most are the 10 Week Training Program to start or enhance your VA business (probably stands out as I am a VA Graduate) and the ‘For Clients‘ section of her website as she provides a positive result for both clients and her members, by connecting available Virtual Assistant members with new Clients.
WAHMtastic! – The best Work at Home Mums & Dads in Australian Business.
Although I haven’t really had a proper look around the site, it looks interesting and I will be heading over there soon to have a peak. An excerpt from the site, which tells us what WAHMtastic is all about:
“WAHMtastic exists to get you connected with quality work at home parents with proven quality in their offerings and customer service with real, validated reviews from professional reviewers, previous customers and hunt participants.”
I know that there are stacks more business run by work at home Mums or Dads, these are but a few…
Tips On Establishing Good Habits for Work At Home Parents
Following are 12 tips for establishing good habits for work at home Mums and Dads. Hope they are helpful to you!
GOOD PRACTICES
1. Flexible Routine
The aim of the very first habit here is to allow you to put your personal and family needs and wants first, put them on a pedestal so to speak. Yeah sure, business and career is important – but what’s the fun in life if you can’t share these experiences with your family?
You might be saying here ‘this isn’t a habit, this is a one off thing to get me on the right track, get me started’. Actually I do this particular exercise at least once a year, sometimes more often if there is a need to. I find that I get things rolling along real smoothly in life and then the next day something changes, and I have to reevaluate again. A healthy life and work balance is one of my visions and goals for my business, so I feel that it is a necessity that I review where I am at regularly, to make sure that I am focussing on what is most important in my life.
So how do you establish a flexible routine? You plan the hours you want to work around your own and your family commitments. To do this you should prepare a weekly (Monday to Sunday) calendar with no dates included. First add all those things in your day that are a must, and cannot be missed. Include on the the flexible routine any Favourite TV shows, sports, chores and any other things that might impact on your time – mark your personal and family commitments in one colour. Once you have added in your current commitments you will see the white blank areas, these are the areas where you can do some work if you choose to.
Oh, by the way, keep your eyes peeled. I have a template that I use for this purpose, and are hoping to make this template available for you to use real soon. Read the rest of this entry »
Balancing Kids and Business
The beauty of working from home is that a business can be built into what we, as parents, want it to be! It can be as big as we want for it to be, or as small. It can be as flexible as we want it to be, or as rigid. Some parents would prefer to work in the evenings when their children are tucked up in bed asleep. Other parents might prefer to work while their children are either preoccupied, or taking a nap, that way they can spend quality time with the family in the evenings. This is all about figuring out what works for you, what makes your family run smoothly, what is right for your particular situation and your family?
I have heard people say that ‘quality’ time is the important thing when you have kids, in fact I’m pretty sure that these exact words have managed to make their way from my lips at some point. Yes I agree, this is true, but fact is that quantity is also up there in importance. If we spent 15 minutes in each day with our child, but made sure that the child had our absolute full focused attention in those 15 minutes, would this be enough, would the child’s needs be fulfilled? I don’t think so! I am finding more and more that as our children grow they need more and more focused attention.
Following are two things that immediately sprang to mind when I thought about being in business. These are things that have constantly come up at every stage of my business, at start up stage, as I started working for clients and also as my business has developed and become what it is today:
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