It’s a fair point. Cash flows, priorities and work loads change and it’s good to reassess your outgoings on a regular basis. The idea of working with another person can feel intimidating; ‘justifying’ working with someone can seem as though you’re saying you can’t handle it all anymore, rather than saying you know it’s sensible, profitable and responsible to outsource some if not all of the day to day admin.

Those that cling on to the excuse that they cannot afford me, usually, in my experience, have something else to hide. Possibly they don’t have my fees to hand, but more often than not there’s a different reason that they don’t want to work with me.

Signing off on a retainer can be daunting, especially when you’ve never met the person you are going to be working with (and quite possibly never will!). If it’s well and truly about the cold $$s, I try and resolve their reluctance by asking a few questions. I usually have the following to hand:

1. “If I don’t work with you now, what will it truly cost you?” Time does equal money. If you’re not on the road making sales because you’re answering emails and taking phone calls, how much will that cost you?

2. “Can you see yourself to being able to commit in the near future?” Often, this can make them realise that their situation may not change in the sort term, and therefore either they need you to help them (if your services will help with that), or they may then disclose the real reason.

3. “What can I do to make our relationship seem worthwhile?” I provide a bespoke service, so what is it that they need?

4. “If I lowered my fees, would this help at all?” Not to get a lower fee, but to try and find out what other costs they have to consider.

6. “Are there one or two services I can offer, instead of the whole bundle?” If money is really an issue, offering to work on one or two areas of concern is a great way into clients getting used to working with an off-site administrator and building trust.

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office isn’t the cheapest of services, but it’s value for money and then some!  Find out more

Once I get some time, I will transcribe this for those of you that prefer to read rather than to listen.

Too many ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ but I hope you enjoy it!

Red Box Virtual Office at BusiBuddies Pod Cast

Not long ago I recommended this time tracking software which I found from My Hours and which was free (& we all like free!).

Now, after being guided to it by a client, I am in love with the online time tracking software from Fourteen Dayz.

And what’s not to love? It’s incredibly easy to use, looks great and the downloadable reports come in Excel or PDF. This one you do have to pay for, from $5/month for up to 7 clients, but for a great, functional system that does what it says on the tin it’s well worth it. You can even give other team members or clients access to it, too.

This online time tracking system gets a 2 thumbs up!

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, a off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money.  Find out more.

I also manage groups on Linked In for clients, as well as managing the contacts for clients there too!

So I’m more than happy to recommend this great free Download from HubSpot.

There was a time that there seemed no way of avoiding this.  Many small businesses, especially in the ‘start up’ phase can’t afford a full time personal assistant.  However, as the business grows, the mountains of paperwork also grow and most business owners soon feel the frustration of having to work in their business, rather than on it.  For continued advancement, business owners need harness this growth and not feel overwhelmed by it.  With the introduction of technology, along came the idea and flexibility of the Virtual Assistant which allows business owners to take full advantage of administration support, only if and when they need it.

At first, it is probably not obvious just how much a virtual assistant can change your business life.  Run your eyes over this list and have a think about how many of these questions you answer yes to.

•    Are you throwing all your invoices and receipts in a folder to put into an excel spreadsheet later – when you have time?
•    Are your contacts’ business card sitting in a pile on your desk ready for your database you plan to create?
•    Have you been meaning to get to that letter you would like to send out to local businesses?
•    Have you got plans to run a seminar but just don’t know where to begin? And then there are invites, venue bookings, name badges etc.

These are just a few examples of the work I have been doing recently with my clients, all small business owners like yourself.  Make a list of all of the tasks that are robbing your time.  Which of these tasks, if you had support, would you be happy to hand over?  Your VA can even assist with these tasks as a once off, or can take over these tasks on an on-going basis.

It might be at only certain times of the year that you feel under pressure.  Maybe a few hours a week would give you that window of opportunity to work on growing your business.  Remember, a VA is totally flexible and not a permanent employee.  He/she only charges for the time they take to complete a task and for bigger jobs or on-going work, are able to provide an upfront project cost.

About the author:
Tina Litte is the owner of My Virtual Assistant, an Australian based virtual assistance business providing secretarial and administrative support for small to medium business owners.  To find out more about My Virtual Assistant please visit www.myvirtualassistant.com.au

If you’re not aware, I manage a group on Linked In for one of my clients.  I really like Linked In for its professionalism and ease of use and if you’re not familiar with it, you can find my tips for using Linked In here.

There are many groups you can join depending on your interests or job.  I am a member of lots of groups relating to Portugal as I want to develop my network here.

Three tips to help manage your Linked In group:

1. Check for new requests each day. I check for new requests, i.e. people who want to join the group, each day as waiting around for a response can be quite frustrating.  You may want to post a response to a message you’ve seen on a group, but can’t as you’re not a member.  By the time your request has been authorised, you’ve forgotten your point and moved on!
2. Check your Linked In in-box for messages from your group. If you’re managing the group the likelihood is that you will receive messages from group members enquiring about how to use the forum or from those wanting to join.  You may have rules about membership (my group members have to be members of an external organisation) or anyone may be free to join!  Answer queries and questions as quickly as you can and with good grace.  Remember, not only are you the face of your Linked In group, but you may also be the face of an external organisation and need to reflect that in your contact.
3. Regularly Check Posts – I hope it doesn’t happen to you, but you may have to remove someone from your group because of naughty behaviour!  Check what people are posting and discussing on your group and remove anything that could be seen as lewd or downright rude.  Of course, everyone has a right to their opinion and a right of reply, but there’s no need for anyone to go overboard!  You also need to keep on the good side of the Linked In Management, who have their eyes on what is published on their site.

Hope these help!

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money.  Find out how working with a Virtual Assistant can help your business.

All is well; I have drugs!

But while I was waiting to see the Doctor, I got to thinking what would happen to Lawrence and I if I was incapacitated for some time.  As a one-income household, what I earn is very important to us and while we have a nest egg, the nest’s not that big and only contains 1 or 2 eggs.

So this afternoon I’ve done some research.  I still need to speak with people here in Portugal (so if you know of anyone offering reasonable/low cost health insurance in Portugal, please let me know).  The information below is more than relevant if you’re in the UK or USA, are a freelancer or independent contractor and really ought to have insurance in case you can no longer work.

Where To Go?

For both UK and USA freelancers, your Chamber of Commerce is a good place to start.  They may have group policies that you can join and there is bound to be at least one other freelancer in your Chamber that is in a similar position.

In the ‘States, there is something called COBRA, which will cover your insurance needs for a fixed period of time after you leave paid employment.  This is great for short term cover whilst you get yourself sorted with insurance of your own.  There is also the National  Association of the Self Employed who will have information for you.

In the UK, the Business Link website has some great information about insurance and what you need for you and your business.

Who Needs Cover?

Look at who in your family needs to be insured.  Are other people relying on you and your income?  If so, you need to have health and death-in-service insurance.  These subjects are never easy to talk about, but it’s a far easier conversation to have than one your partner may have to have with the bailiff at the front door.

What Are Your Health Care Needs?

Your age, your general health, whether you smoke, are pregnant, have a poor medical history will all affect your health insurance payments.   Can you make some positive lifestyle changes before taking out a policy that will benefit your monthly payments and your health?

Pay for High Premiums

As a freelancer, it is difficult to arrange reasonable cost insurance as it’s just for you.  Being an individual may not be a positive thing!  It’s  possible that you could get health insurance that doesn’t cost the earth if you are willing to pay high premiums.  Premiums are those payments that you make before the insurance company with cough up.  If your injury amounts to €25,000 in costs, and your premium is €5,000 the insurers will pay the additional €20,000 and not the full amount.

Group Benefits

Check out the business groups you already belong to.  There may be a group or a business link that will offer insurance or a discounted rate to other members.  I’m a member of the BPCC and offer other members 25% discount on my services.  There are insurance brokers, car hire companies and hotels that also offer similar discounts.   Check out the small print in your membership brochures.

Resources:

freelanceuk.com

finweb.com

Business Link UK

Chambers of Commerce

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money.  Find out how working with a Virtual Assistant can help your business.

There are also a number of companies that will mail you on a more regular basis, say once a week, or even once a day. I’m not a huge fan of the in-your-face marketing, (and ought to unsubscribe from a lot of the newsletters and updates I get) but occasionally there will be something in amongst the ‘blah, blah, blah, download this, you’ll make a fortune,’  to make me sit up and take note.

These are my 5 headlines (play around with them as you will) that may give your emails & newsletters a better chance of getting opened and read.

1. News – “Introducing our best ever mortgage rate.” This is a great headline if you have something new and big to announce.  Maybe you are discounting all your products for 48 hours and want everyone to know, or you have just won an award.  This is real news!  Shout about it.  However, don’t try and make news out of something that isn’t newsworthy.  If you have something that your readers will be interested in, they are more likely to read your newsletter or email and act upon it.
2. A Question – “Are you concerned about what your child is taking in his back-pack to school?” A question automatically involves your audience because they answer it in their minds.  If the question hits a nerve, (as who knows what their teenager is taking to school?!) they will read further into your newsletter to see what solution you offer.  Make sure it’s something that will interest your readers, rather than just you.
3. A Command – “Grow your business by 25% this year.” If you can turn your unique benefit into a commanding headline, you are on to a winner.  Headlines like ‘More time and profit for you and your business,’ and ‘Get more clients now,’ are a couple of headlines that have worked for me.
4. How To – “How to Get Rid of Stretch Marks in 15 days.” – The how-to headline works well as people just love information and how to do something without having to trawl Google.  Think of what benefits can your business bring to someone and then make these into headlines.  My golden headlines have been ‘How To Make More Money in Less Time,’ and ‘How to Hire and Fire At Will.’
5. The Testimonial – “It’s a pleasure to work with Emma, she is conscientious, fun and consistently goes the extra mile!” Nothing sells like someone else saying that you’re great.  Let your clients and customers do your selling for you and convince others to use your services.

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money.  Find out more

Airspace throughout Europe was closed to traffic by volcanic dust, which had a knock on affect on flights worldwide. I was supposed to be on holiday, taking a trip from Portugal to Paris by air and then riding a motorbike back home.  That didn’t happen!  My husband was grounded here and couldn’t meet me with the motorbike in Paris and a friend who was holidaying with us had an additional few days in Portugal as she was unable to return to London as planned. I’m also still waiting on a shipment from China for a client in Ireland, but that’s a whole other post…

If you were stuck in an airport and couldn’t get where you were going, wouldn’t it have been great to know that you could have relied on someone like me to provide assistance?!  There are many reasons for working with a Virtual Assistant, or even being able to work off-site yourself, but here are my top five, just in case another volcano erupts…

1.    The technology available today can free you from being to be tied to an office.  My friend was unable to return home, but with her Blackberry, my computer and fax machine and an understanding boss, was able to receive emails, manage budgets and organise her team from a small village in central Portugal.

2.    Video conferencing ought to have made air travel for business un-necessary for all but the most important of face to face meetings.  The use of video, web conferencing, intranet systems & teleconferencing are all available at a very low cost.  All you need is a phone and a pin number.  I’d recommend powwownow and Oxygen.

3.    ‘Thinking outside the box’, ‘blue sky thinking’ – very ‘90’s phrases but it may be what’s needed in a crisis.  My friend’s company’s travel agency couldn’t find any way to return her to London for at least a week after she was due to leave; I was able to find an alternative by train that had her back in the UK within 4 days of her scheduled departure date because I looked at the problem flexibly and found a solution.  There’s often a solution to every problem and it may only be a phone call away.

4.    If the local communication systems are down or not accessible for whatever reason and you can’t get on-line or make a call, you know that I am constantly checking for new emails and taking phone calls when you can’t.  Similarly, if you’ve left your work contacts at home while on holiday (congratulations, so many take their work on holiday with them!) you can send me a text or make a call and I can be there for your clients while you’re struggling to get back home!

5.    Travelling often involves crossing time zones, even if that’s just moving between the UK and France, or Texas to New York.  Working with a Virtual Assistant means that you can be on the road, in an airplane ( or stuck at an airport…) or on a train, Etc., and have a back-up system in place.  While you travel, wait for a connection or sleep, I can work. If you’re in a different time zone and need to contact me, I can be available for you as I work from home.

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money.  Find out more

]]> http://www.redboxvirtualoffice.com/blog/index.php/five-great-reasons-for-virtual-working-when-there%e2%80%99s-chaos-in-the-skies/feed/ 2 http://www.redboxvirtualoffice.com/blog/index.php/eats-shoots-leaves-the-red-box-guide-to-grammar/ http://www.redboxvirtualoffice.com/blog/index.php/eats-shoots-leaves-the-red-box-guide-to-grammar/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:30:20 +0000 Emma http://www.redboxvirtualoffice.com/blog/?p=345 Continue reading →]]> Do you remember back in 2003 the book by Lynne Truss entitled ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves‘? It was both a guide to correct grammar and a rant at the dumming down of the English language. I read it and loved it. The title of the book should not  be confused with a joke about a giant panda, with the punchline ‘Eats, shoots and leaves,’ which is a bit rude, but quite fun, too!

However, it seems that in 2010, there is a growing need for such a book again. There are so many instances of incorrect grammar, punctuation and spelling out there that I thought I would get on my soapbox and let you in on some of those that particularly annoy me. If you’d like your publicity materials proof read- and this especially applies to text that’s been translated – let me know.

• There, They’re, Their – Yes, 3 different words with 3 different meanings that all sound the same.   A nightmare if you’re transcribing! There is ‘over there’, describing a place, for example.  They’re is an abbreviation for they are, as in ‘they are in the playground,’ or, ‘they are having dinner’. Finally their is the possessive form for belonging to, so ‘we are going in their car,’ ‘their hair is too long for the army,’ and so on.  It’s so easy to get wrong, but writing the wrong form could put a whole new meaning to your sentence.
• The same goes for You’re or Your. Someone recently wrote to me, ‘Your fantastic…’  My fantastic what?  Hairstyle, office management?  He meant ‘You’re fantastic’ as I’d managed to persuade a bad debtor to finally pay up!
• Ditto for Where, Were, Wear.  Where is ‘Where is the cat?’ Were is ‘We were able to drive through the snow,’ and wear is ‘What are you going to wear to the party tonight?’ or ‘Did the service reveal any wear to the engine?’.
• Apostrophes and Plurals.  There is a difference between Peaches and Peaches’.  The first is the plural of peach, the second is something that belongs to Peaches ( the car of the daughter of Bob Geldof perhaps…).
• Beware of words that are spelt differently but sound alike, such as hear and here, stationery and stationary,  Etc. These words are not interchangeable, they have diferent meanings and therefore it is important to opt for the correct option. Further confusion can be sown by words that are spelt the same but sound different depending upon meaning, which can be discovered by the context in which they are placed in a sentence. Examples of these are row ( to propell a boat with an oar or to argue ) and refuse ( to turn down or garbage ). The pronunciation of these words changes depending upon their meaning, even though they are spelt identically.
• Be aware of the differences in UK and US spellings of the same word.  Happiness (UK)/Happyness (US), Organisation (UK)/Organization (US), Colour(UK)/Color(US) and so on.

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money.

]]> http://www.redboxvirtualoffice.com/blog/index.php/eats-shoots-leaves-the-red-box-guide-to-grammar/feed/ 0