Strategy

Virtual Assistants Can Help with Caterpillars!

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THANK YOU to Jeanette Barnes of Old Fashioned Office for contributing this article! Visit her site at www.OldFashionedOffice.com.

Are Caterpillars Interfering with Your Online Business?

I truly feel lucky to live in the country and best of all, run my online business from the comfort of my home office. I get to look out the window and marvel at the trees, flowers, birds and other wildlife. It sure helps to relieve the stresses of the day.

But, living in the country can also have a downside. I don’t know if it was the exceptionally cold winter we had, but Mother Nature has been playing some tricks around here. I love all types of birds, but there is this one goofy cardinal that has decided he wants to attack the rear view mirrors on my car. I finally decided to put bags over the mirrors and he stopped. But, then I noticed he was on the ground jumping up and down attacking my chrome hubcaps!

Probably the weirdest thing that has happened is a swarm of caterpillars – and I mean swarm! They were coming out at night and literally covering my porch. As soon as I opened the door, they would come slithering into the house. This went on for about 2 weeks and I had no idea how to get rid of them.

After they disappeared, I noticed a big cocoon in one of the bushes. Not too much later, there were scads of beautiful, small butterflies all over the place. I’d never seen anything like this. Those icky caterpillars grew up and gave me a sight to enjoy!

What does this story about caterpillars have to do with business? As an online entrepreneur, you’ve probably discovered there are a million and one things you need to do to keep your business running – things like keeping and acquiring new customers, product launches, social media updates, wading through all your emails, preparing for your upcoming teleseminar, etc.

All these tasks are just like the caterpillars that were swarming on my porch. They’re tedious, time consuming and just plain not fun. Plus, they keep you from doing what you do best.

There is a solution – partner with a Virtual Assistant. If you haven’t heard this term before, a Virtual Assistant is highly skilled in the tools, techniques and procedures needed to run an online business. They partner with you to take the day to day tasks off your plate and turn them into butterflies – so you can sit back and enjoy your online business, gain more freedom, and increase your bottom line.

Virtual Assistants for Stress Relief

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The other evening, I was completely stressed out. So many things to do, not sure where to start.

You see, I was at the end of the day and still had many things on my plate. But they were all administrative tasks – pesky no-brainer stuff – and I was resentful that I had to do them. I was well on  my way to having a downer of an evening where I would either spend it working and stressed or not working and stressed.

Then the light bulb went on. I could call my Virtual Assistant! I spent 10 minutes on the phone describing what I needed done, the deadline and the expected outcomes. All of a sudden I had a whole new outlook on life!

Now, understand, I am immersed in the Virtual Assistant industry and often give presentations on effective delegation, but even I forgot to utilize my resources sometimes. So go easy on yourself and persevere. Delegating to a Virtual Assistant is a process that takes time and commitment!

Virtual Assistants: When to hire?

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Believe it or not – just before you think you can afford it!

Generally this is when you have new business coming in on a consistent basis, but haven’t quite maxed out your time yet. If you don’t start delegating at this point, a vicious cycle begins.

Here’s what happens: you’ll get really busy and you start to worry that if you get any busier, and subconsciously you worry that the quality of your work is going to suffer. So you become slower to respond to prospects, and back off your marketing a little. The result is that you create a comfortable stasis where you’re busy all the time, but not growing.

If you’re nodding and relating to this right now – it is definitely time to get a Virtual Assistant!

What is a Virtual Assistant? Some kind of software?

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Believe it or not, I was asked this question recently. Twice in 24 hours, as a matter of fact.

Virtual Assistants are on the verge of becoming mainstream, but we seem to have a little way to go before everyone is clear on the concept of Virtual Assistants.

Wikipedia defines a Virtual Assistant as “an entrepreneur who provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients from a home office”.

Another site offers the definition: “A temporary worker hired as needed who performs tasks remotely”.

My definition: “A Virtual Assistant is an assistant who is hired to do administrative tasks you know you should do (but often avoid) to maintain and/or grow your business. Because a Virtual Assistant is not enmeshed in the stress and drama of your business, they complete these tasks 2 to 10 times faster than you can. VA’s work off-site, so they are neither in the way, nor do they become an excuse for distracting & unproductive chit-chat.”

You did notice that “brevity” was not in the description, right?