Prime Thoughts

An interesting article appeared in today’s Toronto Star, “Social network economy leaving business behind“.

A year ago I thought that Twitter was just one more method of networking and didn’t spend a lot of time on it. I took a course to become certified as a social media virtual assistant and it was an eye opener. I found it fascinating how many tools there were out there for being connected and how business can use them to promote their business.

Twitter has been very interesting for me. Have I gotten business from it yet? No, but it has been a very useful relationship building tool. I have found a great source for loose tea – @CompletelyTea – she will even drop the product off at my home. This saves me gas and time as I no longer have to drive across town to the store that sells the same product. Social media can connect you with people in your own town you may never have met otherwise. It’s as effective for local networking as it is for long distance.

Why should your business have a social media presence? Whether you have a bricks and mortar business or provide services online and work from your home, a social media presence can:

• improve your brand’s visibility
• increase traffic to your website and/or blog
• help build your mailing list and customer base
• connect with your target market
• monitor your online reputation

If you don’t have the time or knowledge, a virtual assistant can help you with creating and managing your presence.  Your virtual assistant can help you map out a social media strategy, create it and manage it for you.

I offer a free 30 minute consultation for new and current clients to discuss their social media needs.  Click here to contact me for your free consultation and make 2010 the year you get connected!

First let me say that our house does not have a television. we watched the entire Sopranos on DVD on a computer. It wasn’t like it was time sensitive that we had to see it when it aired. Same thing with the Tudors – everything happened over 400 years ago and we all know how the story ends. Earlier this year I got hooked on a CBC television program called “Being Erica”. I caught up on Season 1 in the spring (online) and have been enjoying Season 2 by watching it on the CBC website the day after it airs.

I recognize that television whether online or on the real screen needs advertising revenue to pay the bills. But most ads are so annoying I really don’t like them and make me think of the line from the comedian, Gallagher when he says, “the television has a brightness knob but it doesn’t work” (I’m paraphrasing). RIM has gotten it absolutely right right this year with their new ad campaign “Love What You Do”. The ads make you feel good – you don’t really see a blackberry in them, there’s one in there but you really have to look for it; you see people having fun and doing what they love. They’re “selling the sizzle, not the steak”. Has the ad made me run out and buy a blackberry? No, but only because it’s not something I desperately need in my business. I work mostly from home so it’s not that necessary, BUT, if I decided yes, I needed one and my choice was a Blackberry or iPhone, RIM has me sold already!

Perhaps this commercial resonated with me because it’s how I like to do my marketing. I want people to know how they are going to feel when they use my services. I leave my ego out of the marketing. I want clients and potential clients to feel that it’s all about them, not me.

How do you go about marketing yourself and products?

I can’t believe that it’s November 27th and I’m already tired of Christmas music. CBC Radio One has been playing it for a week or so to plug their Sounds of the Season event next week. That I get. Hearing Christmas music in stores three weeks ago, I don’t really get. It doesn’t put me in a buying mood – it makes me want to leave the store.

I guess for me unless it’s after Dec. 18th, it doesn’t feel like Christmas. That’s when my mom put up the Christmas tree and it felt more festive only having the tree up for only a week - it felt more special.

There is one task that makes the most sense for Christmas stuff early and that is Christmas cards – especially for business owners. Do you have your Christmas card list ready or is your client Christmas card list a stack of business cards? If you are in the latter category, I can help you with that. I can get your cards scanned into a form that you can use to run labels or to upload to a service like Send Out Cards (www.sendoutcards.com/60971) to get your Christmas cards done. Contact me if you need help with this.

To help you get your cards out on time, below are the mailing dates to get cards delivered by Christmas.

Cards Sent from Canada:

• Asia, New Zealand, Middle East, Carribien, : December 1st
• United States: December 14th

Cards sent within Canada:

• Local delivery: December 17th
• Within your province, December 18th
• Outside your province: December 16th

source http://canadapost.ca/dec/holiday/mailingdates-e.asp

I was at a networking meeting yesterday and discussion turned to Word 2007. The common comment was “I hate it, I can’t find anything, where is the File button”.

Yes, Office 2007 has a learning curve however it is not impossible to use. I’ve been using it since February 2007 and I’ve grown to love it. You may not learn to love it, but the links below may help you to like it.

First, the issue of “where do I find things”. The following link will take you to an interactive page at Microsoft that lets you move your cursor over the Word 2003 command and it will tell you where to find the equivalent command in Word 2007.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/word/HA100744321033.aspx

Another problem with Word 2007 is that its default font is Calibri. I’ve changed my default font to Arial which is more commonly used in previous versions of Word. Changing your default font to Arial or Times New Roman will make files you send to users of Word 2003 or earlier versions more compatible.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291291 (scroll down to the middle of the page)

You should be aware that not everyone is using Word 2007. I don’t know how many times one of my clients forwards documents to me to save down to Word 2003 because her clients are using Word 2007 and she is still using Word 2003. It’s an easy default to set, please see:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924074

I hope the links in this blog entry will help you get used to learning Word 2007. Of course, now that I’ve learned to love this version, I hope Microsoft doesn’t make another huge format change in the next version of Word .

Are you feeling overwhelmed with everything you have to do? For the self-employed person this is an all too common feeling. If you work from your home office, it is even more overwhelming as there are tons of distractions aside from the typical office distractions.

This is where to-do lists, or task lists as I like to call them, are really important and I think you need two of them. Two task lists I hear you ask? Yes, Two, Deux, Zwei, Dos! I like to call these the “domestic” and “business” task lists.

The hardest part of working from home is that it is easy to allow household stuff to sneak in. If your regular work hours are 9 to 5 – your “business” list should contain only the tasks you need to get done between those hours. This list includes your client work and your business building tasks. Think twice before calling your friend to have a chat; that belongs on the other list. If you work your task list, you will find that you will work so much better.

Having two task lists allows you to maintain your focus and accomplish more, giving your business a competitive edge.

Treat the time before 9AM as your commute time and deal with items on your domestic list – walking the dog, vacuuming, running the dishwasher, personal phone calls, etc.

If you worked in an office outside the home, at 5:00 you’d turn off your computer, get on the train or in your car and go home and leave the office mentally. Your domestic task list can help you do the same thing – leave the office at the office (even though it is in your house).

Your task list can be as simple as a writing tasks on a whiteboard, in a Word or Excel document or as complicated as using a mind map. I like mind maps (I’m a fan of Mind Manager). Mind maps allow you to create a visual of tasks, and you can indicate percentage complete and it’s all right there in front of you at a glance.

Your business task list shows you exactly what you have to do. You should review it each day to see if it contains any essential, low-value add tasks for your business that would be better off outsourced to a Virtual Assistant. For example, entering business cards into a database, formatting a report or PowerPoint presentation. Is your hourly rate high enough that it is more cost-effective to outsource these to a VA?

Don’t forget to check accomplished items off your task list or at least indicate the percentage completed. Seeing what you have accomplished is both therapeutic and liberating. Even if it’s not all done, you can at least see that you’re making progress. It can improve your self-confidence and morale and motivate you to get the job done – and you won’t be waking up in the middle of the night wondering if you forgot something.

No, it’s not an oxymoron. You can create indexes in Word and save time doing it. A really neat new tool created by Christopher Greaves called “Indxr” is an add-in that with one click runs through your document and creates an index. There is some clean up required and the product is being constantly being upgraded and improved.

Check it out and send Chris your feedback, good or bad, he’d love to hear it.

Those of you who have done this tedious task knows how long it takes to go through and mark up entries to generate an index. As a virtual assistant, I’ve always advised clients that if they want their document indexed, I could do it, but it was going to take time. Sometimes they felt the cost was too high and skipped it. Now I can tell them that, “yes, I can now index your document for you quickly”. We’ve timed it and it seems to average about one second per page.

Chris shows how easy it is below. For more information, visit www.indxr.ca.

Over the past few months I have had two calls from clients asking if I still had files from work done months ago. Why? Their hard drives crashed and their data was completely lost or computer experts wanted to charge them an arm and a leg to try to recover their data. Last night an organizer of a group said that when their WordPress blog website was compromised they lost their mailing list. A member of a networking group I belong to had a crisis this week where they couldn’t get work done because of a trojan virus.

If your computer died tomorrow how much time would you lose because you didn’t have your files? If your website was hacked or your ISP went out of business, how long would it take to have your website back up and running?

If you couldn’t be up and running quickly, what would the cost be to your business?

If you work with a Virtual Assistant, be sure to ask how long they retain files for. In my case, for some clients who I work with on an ongoing basis, I tend to retain their data for quite some time. If it is a one-off project, I usually delete the files after a couple of months. Recent experience has led me to now ask new clients, “how long would you like your data retained?”.

You should also take precautions to be able to get up and running in case of an emergency. Here are a few suggestions.

1.  Off-Site Back-Ups

There are many services to allow you to back-up your data off-site. One of the more affordable services is Carbonite - it costs less than $60 a year and provides unlimited storage. They even offer a 15 day free trial. Restoring data is extremely easy. And if a catastrophe hit your home and everything was lost, your data is safe.

2. Make a Mirror Back-up of your Hard Drive

You can buy an external hard drive for less than $200. There is software that you can purchase to back up your computer and XP and Vista have utilities built-in.

Back-up Information from Microsoft

If your hard drive crashes and you have a new hard drive installed, you can be up and running so much quicker.

3. Web Site / Blog / Mailing Lists

If you host your web site with a web hosting company, your account probably has a utility to zip and download your web site. You should do this regularly in case your site gets compromised or your web hosting company goes under – it could happen. If this unfortunate event should occur, yes, you will be down for a day or two while you get new hosting and move your domain name servers, but you won’t have to recreate your entire web site.

As the old saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

We are all searching for ways to save time and convey complex information in a more convenient manner.

Welcome to the world of mind mapping. Mind Manager from Mind Jet Corporation allows you to show thoughts, processes, etc. in a simple visual format. A client recently turned me on to this concept (Thanks Tanja!) and at first I was skeptical. Then I watched the webinar and I was hooked.

Think of diagrams drawn on white boards in brainstorming or planning meetings. Someone always had the painstaking task of trying to capture all of that information after the meeting and then organize it in PowerPoint or Visio (if there were diagrams involved). Mind Manager allows you do to this on the computer as you work out the ideas in your meeting – and then share the information after the meeting as a PDF file.

Mind Manager also allows you to assisgn resources to tasks, add links to Microsoft Office files or websites and prioritize tasks.

Studies have shown that people retain information much better if it is presented to them visually.

When I viewed the webinar for Mind Manager, I was taken back to a Saturday afternoon about six years ago when I was taking a project management course at Ryerson. My group spent an afternoon in one guys office working out a network diagram. We had yellow post-its all over the wall with all the steps in the project which of course got moved around as we mapped out the project. At the end of the afternoon we had to write down all the steps and then turn it into a document. I also remember all of us having achy legs and backs from all the bending and standing up. If we had been using a product like this, it would have been so much easier. 

If you are interested in learning more about Mind Manager, visit: Learn more here: http://img.mindjet.com/af/overview/index.html?ClickID=dbkhmyy0n2c2nnbccoy0onhctcoskc2snyxw.

It is great when people want to organize networking events. Unfortunately many people collect cards and send out an email blast with all of the addresses in the “To” line.  Obviously not everyone invited attends. The thing that is amusing is that some lazy people who do attend send out a “great to have met you” email the next day. I say lazy because instead of sending the “great to have met you message” to people whose business cards they collected the night before, they take the invitation message and do a “reply to all”.

This happened to me in and it was both annoying and amusing. I chose not to attend the event because of another engagement and got two of these messagse the next day. I found it annoying because I don’t feel it is a good practice to send out a message like that with everyone’s email publicly available. It was also annoying because I did not give my permission for my email address to be used in this manner. I think there are privacy issues involved in this and it leaves the invitees open to receiving spam from people they do not wish to receive it from. The people involved in the organization of this event included a real estate agent and a gift basket business owner. This action ensured that I would probably never do business with them.

It was amusing because it showed how lazy networkers can be. It didn’t come across as sincere. Why would someone send a message saying they were glad to meet me at the event when I wasn’t even there? It made the two individuals who did the reply to all memorable but not in a positive way.

If you have collected business cards and would like to organize a networking event, I’d like to suggest four methods to help you avoid potentially losing business by offending the people you invite to your event.

Method 1 – The Really Easy Way

Simply send the email invitation out with your own email address in the “To” line and the other addresses in the “bcc” line. That way the recipients don’t see all of the other recipients’ email addresses.

Method 2 – If you use Outlook

If you use Outlook and Microsoft Office, you can create a list in Excel with columns for the first name, email address and comment (if you want to add a personal message to each person). You can then use Word to complete the email merge. Please see this link for instructions: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP051872571033.aspx.

Method 3 – Online Services

Why not use Facebook, Linked in or services such as http://www.evite.com/ or http://www.meetup.com to announce an event or invite people to the event. Again, you don’t publicize everyone else’s email addresses.

Method 4 – eNewsletter Services

When you collect a business card, ask if you can add that person to your mailing list. Just turn down a corner of the card if they say yes to remind yourself that they gave you permission. If you use a service like www.mynewsletterbuilder.com or www.constantcontact.com, add them to a distribution list and send out an email message asking them to verify their participation. Then use that service to send out your networking event invitation. Again, the recipients don’t see everyone’s email addresses.

Have a wonderfully productive and fun networking event. And if you do receive an invitation where your address is one of 100 in the “To” line, don’t tell people you didn’t meet that you were glad you met them. It won’t go over positively.

The Pareto principle, or the  ”80/20″rule states that “for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes”.

This can also be applied to the Consultant. A Consultant can spend 20% of his or her time researching and writing a document and 80% of his or her time on the formatting and finalization. Just imagine how much more could be accomplished if that 80% of the time was delegated to a Virtual Assistant. The Consultant would achieve the following results:

• less frustration – especially if evenings and weekends are spent on that task
• more time to spend on other client work – increasing revenue
• a perfectly formatted document sooner

If you are a Consultant and see yourself in this picture and you haven’t yet partnered with a Virtual Assistant, consider the possibility. Prime Admin Solutions would be happy to discuss how a Virtual Assistant can help you take your business higher.