I know I know, its all the rage. Business owners are finding clients using it and its quite effective. But seriously, who has time to update status all day. I'm really struggling with the idea that its worth my time. I know that any marketing avenue takes time and consistency before you can see any real results. But is my target market really online in social media outlets? Is that where I'm going to find them.
No offense to those who think twitter/facebook/linked in are fun, but I'm looking for people who are looking to concentrate on spending their time servicing their clients not updating on what they are doing, reading, thinking all day.
Most of my frustration might be due to the fact that I personally don't have time to truly explore the wonderfulness of these marketing avenues. But I just felt like venting today..
BTW, check me out on facebook/linked in/ and twitter (virtualbizmger)
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Practicing What We Preach
As a Virtual Business Manager, my job is to assist business owners in growing their businesses by taking tasks off their plate that take time away from core activities of their business. Well recently I followed my own advice. I hired a virtual assistant to assist me with a small subset of my tasks related to my business, and I must say it is turning out to be one of the best decisions that I've made for my business. It has enabled me to concentrate on both marketing, networking (both social and otherwise) and servicing my existing clients. In a nutshell, I guess this is a testimonial that hiring and assistant is well worth the effort, even other virtual assistants do it!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Who’s Your Target?
As administrative partners, llc moves into another year of business, it is time to rethink some of the effectiveness of certain areas of business. The most glaring detail at this time would be profiling and duplicating our best client. Identifying what makes him so great. Is it his concise and clear communication? Or the fact that he truly uses us as partners day-to-day and not just a task here and there meaning he really "gets" the whole partnership part of our mission statement. Whatever the reason, we love him and want all of our clients to grow up to be just like him. The dilemma lies in the clients that we've taken on but are far from fitting that ideal profile. While I'm happy to say I really sincerely like all of our clients, I can't say that all of their work styles fit within the ideal client/Virtual Business Manager situation for administrative partners, llc. The question then becomes – are they trainable? Do we even want to train them? Of course in the economy no one wants to lose a paying customer, but is it worth the time and frustration that comes with working with someone outside of our target. What does a small business do?
We've decided to truly profile our clients going forward. We want to work with small business owners, who want to help themselves; one who understand that there is a need to delegate tasks that take time away from the core service of providing for their clients. They need to understand and appreciate that they can't do it by themselves; nor should they try. They will focus on what they are good at – running their business. They will not micromanage. They will trust our ability to succeed. They will be clear about expectations and provide constructive feedback where applicable.
I'm looking forward to signing on many more ideal clients this coming year. With the new range of services we are planning to offer this year, these clients should not be hard to find.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Meet administrative partners, llc's Newest Client
Doris E. McMillon is the President and Chief Strategist Officer for McMillon Communications, Inc., a full-service communications and marketing firm specializing in strategic positioning, branding and effective communications. Ms. McMillon has co-anchored and reported in prime-time news hour slots including tenure at Metromedia/Fox New York flagship station, WNTW-TV, where she went undercover as a welfare recipient for the hard-hitting, Emmy Award winning series, The Welfare Rip-off. For more information, please visit her website at www.mcmilloncommunications.com.
administrative partners, llc will be assisting McMillon Communications prepare for a request for proposal as well as all administrative tasks that will assist Ms. McMillon in growing her business.
We are happy to welcome Ms. McMillon into the administrative partner’s family.
administrative partners, llc will be assisting McMillon Communications prepare for a request for proposal as well as all administrative tasks that will assist Ms. McMillon in growing her business.
We are happy to welcome Ms. McMillon into the administrative partner’s family.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Business Proposals
What should go into a business proposal?
There are some things that tend to be similar across business proposals. These are tendencies and not rules. The only time there are rules is when the customer issues a Request for Proposals (RFP). An RFP, if it has sufficient detail, will tell you what should go into your proposal and how it should be presented. Sometimes, the nature of a product or service being offered or industry practices provide some guidelines for proposal composition and/or layout.
A typical business proposal might include:
* An Executive Summary introducing your company, what you will do or provide to the customer, and how the customer will benefit from what you propose.
* A statement of work or technical approach describing what you will do or provide to the customer. An implementation schedule and description of deliverables is usually included. If products are being proposed, then product descriptions are usually provided (the amount of detail depends on the customer’s requirements).
* A management plan describing how you will organize and supervise any work to be performed. A schedule of major milestones and allocation of resources may be provided.
* Corporate qualifications that describe your capability to do or provide what you are proposing. Relevant prior experience is usually highlighted.
* A Staffing Plan that describes how the project will be staffed is sometimes on large service contracts. If particular people are important to the approach, their resumes are usually provided.
* Contracts and Pricing. If the proposal is being used to close a business deal, then business and contractual terms are usually provided.
Some RFPs will set a page limit on the proposal. Some don’t. Some RFPs will tell you the format/layout to use, and some won’t. Some RFPs will tell you what evaluation criteria and process the customer will follow. And some won’t. The customer sets the standards and defines the rules.
If your proposal is going to be submitted to a Government agency, then the composition and layout of the proposal may have regulatory requirements to comply with. In the case of the Federal Government, these are usually based on the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).
(Taken from www.captureplanning.com)
There are some things that tend to be similar across business proposals. These are tendencies and not rules. The only time there are rules is when the customer issues a Request for Proposals (RFP). An RFP, if it has sufficient detail, will tell you what should go into your proposal and how it should be presented. Sometimes, the nature of a product or service being offered or industry practices provide some guidelines for proposal composition and/or layout.
A typical business proposal might include:
* An Executive Summary introducing your company, what you will do or provide to the customer, and how the customer will benefit from what you propose.
* A statement of work or technical approach describing what you will do or provide to the customer. An implementation schedule and description of deliverables is usually included. If products are being proposed, then product descriptions are usually provided (the amount of detail depends on the customer’s requirements).
* A management plan describing how you will organize and supervise any work to be performed. A schedule of major milestones and allocation of resources may be provided.
* Corporate qualifications that describe your capability to do or provide what you are proposing. Relevant prior experience is usually highlighted.
* A Staffing Plan that describes how the project will be staffed is sometimes on large service contracts. If particular people are important to the approach, their resumes are usually provided.
* Contracts and Pricing. If the proposal is being used to close a business deal, then business and contractual terms are usually provided.
Some RFPs will set a page limit on the proposal. Some don’t. Some RFPs will tell you the format/layout to use, and some won’t. Some RFPs will tell you what evaluation criteria and process the customer will follow. And some won’t. The customer sets the standards and defines the rules.
If your proposal is going to be submitted to a Government agency, then the composition and layout of the proposal may have regulatory requirements to comply with. In the case of the Federal Government, these are usually based on the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).
(Taken from www.captureplanning.com)
Friday, January 30, 2009
Fostering and Effective Relationship with Your Virtual Assistant
Celine Rogue wrote an article that I totally agree with called The Art of Delegating Tasks to a Virtual Assistant. This article laid out good information on how to work with a virtual assistant for the most effective working relationship.
A few simple/basic tips that might come in handy are:
B.0Be specific about your expectations. This will save both you and your virtual assistant time. She/He will not have to try and decipher what you mean by your instructions and then go back and forth via email or other medium for clarification. Expectations should address the timeframe of completion or check in as well as any information necessary that you might have in order to complete the task in a timely manner.
Partner for Growth.You will see the best result of your relationship if you partner for growth – not just a task here or there, but trust assistant to actually work with you on the nuances of administrative issues that will help you become more effective
Give it time to work. With every new relationship there are often growing pains. Work with an assistant for at least a few months to work through some of the growing pains. Many of those issues may be due to a lack of effective communication, which can be tweaked over time. Make sure to check in every other week or so, to determine how the relationship can be improved over time.
Sign up with an administrative partner today. Watch your business soar.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Managing Multiple Clients and Projects
Managing multiple projects for multiple clients can be a little daunting for new or even experienced solo and small business professionals. Without a system for keeping track of deadlines, client feedback, and team activity, you might quickly find yourself on the other end of an angry phone call with an unhappy client.
Here are three tips to help you work more effectively with multiple client projects:
Communicate More Efficiently
Clients are like everybody else, they get stressed and uncomfortable when they don’t hear from you. But they don’t want to hear from you just because of your charming wit and soothing voice, they want to know the status of their important projects!
A weekly status call or email might be sufficient when you have just a couple of low-key clients. However, when your client and project load increases, you could quickly find yourself spending precious hours on the phone just to provide status updates.
One easy solution is to keep task information online so that clients can login at their convenience (even at 3am) to find out the latest status of their tasks, and even more detailed information (optionally) like time tracking information or how much retainer time they have remaining.
Keep Files and Comments in One Place
Another simple way to keep things organized is to gently move your clients towards accessing files and giving feedback in a central location. Online project management software can help your clients easily upload or download project documents that you’re collaborating on, as well as make comments on a specific project or file without sending dozens of emails back and forth.
The key advantages of this approach is that your responses won’t get lost or misplaced - you’ll have a clear, coherent record of your project conversations. You’ll also be able to reference the latest version of your files in a consistent way.
This winds up saving lots of time that might otherwise be spent with a client providing feedback about the wrong version of a file, or missing your response to a query.
Track Deadlines Proactively
Even with the above measures in place, you still need to keep an eye on the dates you’ve committed to clients. At a minimum, you can adopt a simple system to prompt you about upcoming deadlines, and also to update clients if you are unable to meet those due dates.
One way of doing this is to keep a project or task calendar for each client that shows each upcoming deadline. You can refer to this calendar once a week or more frequently as needed to make sure you’re clear on client commitments. If you have a team, you can also add their commitments for more timely followup.
If you are using an online project management service like ClientSpot, you can also have the system remind you and your team of upcoming deadlines by email a couple of days before the fact. You can also monitor the status of tasks across all projects, clients and team members, or check just the work assigned to a specific person.
By staying on top of deadlines, you can also pro-actively notify your clients if things start to slip. Most clients will not only be understanding of an occasional delay, but will appreciate the early notice so that they can adjust. Not that you want to make a habit of missed deadlines, but at least by monitoring them carefully, you can still provide excellent customer service by informing clients early and giving them options to reschedule work.
These tips were written by Client Spot. No doubt they want you to use their service, but I think the overall message is the same. In order to provide a better more efficient process of tracking projects and keeping clients in the loop, there has to to be some type of system in place and an online project management tool, such as Client Spot or Basecamp can do wonders for your productivity.
Here are three tips to help you work more effectively with multiple client projects:
Communicate More Efficiently
Clients are like everybody else, they get stressed and uncomfortable when they don’t hear from you. But they don’t want to hear from you just because of your charming wit and soothing voice, they want to know the status of their important projects!
A weekly status call or email might be sufficient when you have just a couple of low-key clients. However, when your client and project load increases, you could quickly find yourself spending precious hours on the phone just to provide status updates.
One easy solution is to keep task information online so that clients can login at their convenience (even at 3am) to find out the latest status of their tasks, and even more detailed information (optionally) like time tracking information or how much retainer time they have remaining.
Keep Files and Comments in One Place
Another simple way to keep things organized is to gently move your clients towards accessing files and giving feedback in a central location. Online project management software can help your clients easily upload or download project documents that you’re collaborating on, as well as make comments on a specific project or file without sending dozens of emails back and forth.
The key advantages of this approach is that your responses won’t get lost or misplaced - you’ll have a clear, coherent record of your project conversations. You’ll also be able to reference the latest version of your files in a consistent way.
This winds up saving lots of time that might otherwise be spent with a client providing feedback about the wrong version of a file, or missing your response to a query.
Track Deadlines Proactively
Even with the above measures in place, you still need to keep an eye on the dates you’ve committed to clients. At a minimum, you can adopt a simple system to prompt you about upcoming deadlines, and also to update clients if you are unable to meet those due dates.
One way of doing this is to keep a project or task calendar for each client that shows each upcoming deadline. You can refer to this calendar once a week or more frequently as needed to make sure you’re clear on client commitments. If you have a team, you can also add their commitments for more timely followup.
If you are using an online project management service like ClientSpot, you can also have the system remind you and your team of upcoming deadlines by email a couple of days before the fact. You can also monitor the status of tasks across all projects, clients and team members, or check just the work assigned to a specific person.
By staying on top of deadlines, you can also pro-actively notify your clients if things start to slip. Most clients will not only be understanding of an occasional delay, but will appreciate the early notice so that they can adjust. Not that you want to make a habit of missed deadlines, but at least by monitoring them carefully, you can still provide excellent customer service by informing clients early and giving them options to reschedule work.
These tips were written by Client Spot. No doubt they want you to use their service, but I think the overall message is the same. In order to provide a better more efficient process of tracking projects and keeping clients in the loop, there has to to be some type of system in place and an online project management tool, such as Client Spot or Basecamp can do wonders for your productivity.
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