The Lone Ranger Syndrome

It’s time to stop doing it all…

(An excerpt from Chapter 15 in Money, Meaning and Beyond)

It’s not unusual for either of us to get variations of this question:

“Tina, I want to build my website, set up some Pink Spoons and manage my different streams of income, including online. So how do I become tech-savvy?”

Our response: “Why should you become tech-savvy?”

It’s easy when adding online elements to our business to think that we need to do it all ourselves, which simply isn’t true…

As a small business owner, isn’t your time better spent elsewhere, such as delivering value to your clients or building your business? When your time is limited, doesn’t it make sense to work on the stuff that only you can do in your business?

It’s a pet peeve of ours to see people waste their time and effort learning skills that are a poor match to their talents, they don’t enjoy, and in many cases don’t benefit their business!

So why is this so common? Most people think they can’t afford to hire help for themselves and their business, especially in the early days when cash flow may be tight. And so they resign themselves to either:

• Doing everything themselves and letting their business suffer, OR
• Under-utilizing the help that they do have, thus hampering their growth.

On behalf of your sanity and the growth of your business, hire some help sooner rather than later.

One of the best resources for support available these days is to hire a Virtual Assistant. Also known as a VA, these skilled professionals are able to help with anything from general administrative tasks, customer service, technical projects, marketing initiatives and more. The word Virtual simply refers to the fact that they work from their location, not yours, and that may mean they’re up to half way around the globe.

Because VAs usually work as contractors, you can hire them for as much or as little work as you need, be it just a few hours each week or up to full time hours as your business grows. Since VAs work from home and have their own equipment, you save the cost of hiring and housing a fulltime local assistant.

But won’t a VA – or any other kind of help for that matter – cost money? Money that you may not feel you can spare just now? The answer is yes, however there is one key point about turning a VA from a business liability, into a true asset.

Think of them as a Profit Center.

Instead of an expense, like stationary, office furniture, or your internet connection, a Virtual Assistant can be a profit center.

Most people don’t think about ‘getting help’ this way, so it’s to your benefit if you do. By focusing your VA on profit generating tasks, you leverage yourself, add capacity to your business and in fact, alleviate the pressure on you to be the only ‘bread winner’ in the business – a very common situation if you’re working solo.
Although it seems simple on the outside, this one mind-set shift will differentiate you from other business owners if you go ahead and implement it.

Ask, “How Can My Virtual Assistant Be a Profit Center In My Company?’

This mindset-shift is one of the main reasons why we have been able to help build our client companies so quickly from six figures to seven. Think about it. Being able to add capacity in a way that makes it possible for you to do much more work, more quickly, is a pretty neat thing. Not to mention bringing in more money!

Let’s talk a bit more about what these profit-generating tasks might be. First, the best VAs are NOT just glorified secretaries.

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Cool Tool: TimeDriver Personal Scheduler

The act of automating the booking of appointments is almost like a rite of passage for someone as appointment-oriented as a coach.

There can be quite a bit of fear around the act though – loss of control, fear of errors, loss of potential clients – so it’s a good thing when a reliable tool comes along.

Timedriver is that tool for me, freeing me from the this-ing and that-ing that is coordinating available times in email.  I admit I don’t always load up all my open times so I have a few in reserve for special occasions or VIP clients.  That said, I imagine I’ve reduced my email load by at least a couple dozen each week.

If you haven’t yet ventured into automated scheduling, this is an easy way to lighten your workload just a touch.  It’s easy to use, personalizable a bit, automatically adjusts for timezones, and, the price is really right.  Check it out at www.timedriver.com.

For those of you who REALLY get tangled up in multiple-people, multiple-time-zone meeting organizing, try www.doodle.com – really a lifesaver for coordinating busy people.

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

Your 5 snippets of wisdom about people for this week are listed below, from the collection by Thomas Leonard and assembled by his R&D team. We hope you’ll find them thought-provoking and useful  throughout your week.

• People want their mothers to love them.
• People’s interests change as they age.
• People want to feel safe and secure in their lives.
• People want to feel that they are attractive to others.
• People do not want to be or feel alone.

To receive more snippets like these every week in your email, we invite you to visit www.ThoughtsByEmail.com and sign up.

What are your thoughts this week?

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.

The Art of Sprinting or ‘How to Get More Done, Your Way’

An article by guest author Michael Neill of www.geniuscatalyst.com.

Preamble from Andrea: Michael’s hit the nail on the absolute head with his latest article on pacing yourself in business, reproduced in full below. I personally am definitely a sprinter, and love the way he’s expanded the analogy here. Have a close read, won’t you? It may help you understand yourself in a very different light. Highly recommended and a definite theme for 1-1 business coaching sessions to come.

People sometimes ask me how it is I get so much done and seem to take so much time off. My answer is that I have learned “the art of sprinting” – that is, how to give my all to a project and then rest, recover, relax and renew.

Here’s a recent example:

At 11:45pm last Wednesday evening, I pushed the “send” button on a writing project that accomplished in 5 intense weeks what most writers would spend anywhere from 5 months to 2 years to accomplish.

I say this not to show off (well, maybe a little, but not mostly to show off – I say it to show what’s possible if you make use of one simple distinction in how you manage your energy and your time – the difference between a marathon and a sprint.

Here’s how sports psychologist James Loehr puts it:

To visualize the difference between a 100-meter sprinter and a marathoner, think about their energy before and after a race. At the end, the marathoner looks like a train wreck, while the sprinter looks excited and energized.

The reason sprinters are so excited and full of energy is that they can see the goal line right in front of them. I could give 100% of my energy to reach that clear a goal. But the marathoner can’t see twenty-six miles.

And our work lives aren’t twenty-six miles, but thirty or forty years. So it’s no surprise that most people are not fully engaged in their jobs or home lives. They are afraid to give too much because they will run out of steam. And once you run out, you are dead.

When you see your life (or work or marriage or pretty much anything) as a marathon…

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Tina Recommends: Cool Tool – TweetDeck

I’ve been dabbling with Twitter these past few months – going a bit hot and cold, some days tweeting like mad and others not at all. Felt like I was missing the boat though, and so I started checking out some tools to enhance my Twitter experience.

Enter TweetDeck - a cool online tool that allows you to organize and view your tweets how YOU like (vs. being restricted by the standard Twitter format.) You can setup groups, track the ‘scoop’ on fav topics, see all your replies/DMs at a glance, use multiple twitter accounts and more… really brought Twitter into a whole new light for me, I daresay I may become addicted now? Yipes!

Check it out and if you’re new to twitter, it may be just the thing to make it worth considering. No longer just the next unproven, shiny new thing on the internet, real businesses are driving real dollars through twitter, and building fabulous relationships to boot!

Questions or comments about Twitter, TweetDeck or your favourite tool for Money and Meaning? Post here.

Are You Treating Your Market Like You’d Treat A Best Friend: With Respect, Love And Fierce Advocacy?

The Money and Meaning Movie was where this conversation began, so it’s fitting that we circle around and take another look at what it said:

“Ever wonder why some business owners succeed while others fail?

Why some prosper, while others lose everything?

Why some retire young while others never stop?

It’s because they understand they aren’t building a business. They’re building relationships.

They treat their market as they would a close friend.

They listen to their market’s needs. They give more value than is expected. They respect people as individuals not as numbers.

There is more to business than just making money. You can make money AND meaning. If you treat your customers like a number, they come and go. But if you treat them with care, you’ll build a business for life.”

Coaching Questions:

1. If you were to treat your clients/customers like the best of friends, how would you proceed differently this week?
2. If it were possible to honor your customers like friends sustainably, for the life of your business, what would you do/provide/offer/invite?
3. Do you feel as though the idea of your market as a friend is wickedly unsustainable? May we suggest you may not be taking as good care of yourself as you could? 

Especially in tougher economic times, it can be very telling to answer the above questions. Post your comments/questions below.

Since launching the Money and Meaning movie years ago, it’s been played to great effect at corporate meetings, training events, and on the desktops of hundreds around the world. Click to view it or share it here:

www.themoneyandmeaningmovie.com

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

Here are your 5 snippets of wisdom about people for this week, from the collection by Thomas Leonard and assembled by his R&D team. We hope you’ll find them thought-provoking and insightful throughout your week.  Enjoy!

• People like to feel special.
• People take action to create change.
• People believe that it is normal to be in a couple.
• People in mid-life are quieter than young people.
• People sometimes do mean things.

To receive more snippets like these every week in your email, we invite you to visit www.ThoughtsByEmail.com and sign up.

As always, your thoughts are encouraged and welcome!

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

Your 5 snippets of wisdom about people for this week are listed below.  They’re from the collection by Thomas Leonard and assembled by his R&D team. We hope you’ll find some thought-provoking insight to tap into throughout your week.

• People for centuries have found the moon to be mysterious in one way or another.
• People believe what they want to.
• People feel sad when their bodies do not work.
• People want to believe the world is a good place.
• People have challenges around intimacy.

If you’d like to receive more snippets like these every week in your email, we invite you to stop by and sign up at www.ThoughtsByEmail.com

Any thoughts about this week’s snippets?

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

Here are this week’s 5 snippets of wisdom about people, from the collection by Thomas Leonard and assembled by his R&D team. We hope you’ll find them  thought-provoking, useful and meaningful throughout your week.  Enjoy!

• People believe that the world will survive at all costs as a way to feel in control of their destiny.
• People want very much to be understood.
• People tolerate things even if they think they don’t.
• People want to feel comfortable.
• People are curious at the beginning.

Would you like to receive more 5 snippets just like these in your inbox every week?  We invite you to stop by and sign up at www.ThoughtsByEmail.com

What do you think of these 5 snippets?

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.