Time Management

Tips to Successfully Explore the World Through Work-Away Travel

January 27, 2020 by Mary Cravets Leave a Comment

Work-away trips are a fantastic thing: running your business while traveling. Last year I tried it myself for the very first time by staying in Prague, Czechia for a month.

This trip was different from past travel in both its extended duration and for the combination of work and pleasure. Because it was my first time doing this, I learned an amazing amount about myself, my business and how to travel while working. That last sentence can also be written as follows: because it was my first time traveling it was painful and not as much fun as I’d hoped.

You see, I didn’t think ahead about time zones, access to health care, pilot strikes, cost of changing a portion of a trip, mental recovery time or how living outside of your comfort zone can be challenging even if you are loving it.

So, in an effort to prepare you for work away travel, here are tips from business owners who are successfully taking extended travel without losing momentum in their businesses.

Schedule client calls with care. Due to poor planning on my part, while I was in Prague I found myself taking client calls at 8 pm and that was after working several hours during the normal day. As a result, I missed out on some fun things that others in my group got to do.Jane Garee with Showstopping Sales says: “I set up my Google calendar with both my home-based time zone and the time zone I will be working from on the trip about a month in advance. These can go side by side in Google so you see both time zones simultaneously. I also put both time zones on my Apple Watch (it’s very cool and both time zones can go on the same screen). I find that being able to quickly translate time zones in my head goes a long way to keeping stress at bay… I’m a planner by nature so feeling good about what’s on my calendar and knowing I can easily fit in work and playtime makes living and working in a different country much easier.”
If you are staying a longer time, pack less than you think you have to. For my Prague trip, I packed everything forgetting that I can do laundry in the apartment.Susan O’Brien, Owner of EcoLux Interiors says: “Coordinate every piece so that it goes with several other pieces and base it all on lightweight, and for the weather, you are heading into. You need half of what you think you need, and a couple of scarves make a nothing outfit quite fun!”
Book your flights way ahead of time if available and understand the fine print before buying a lower-priced ticket.Louise Crooks of Keys to Clarity Coaching says: “I book my flights to really far off destinations quite well in advance. Sometimes 9mths in advance. It means my tickets can be 35% cheaper than most folks will end up paying. Great way to save on a budget.”
Keep your home in mind while you are away.Pam Ivey of Adventurous Life says: “I line up my petsitter right away to ensure the fur babies are looked after. She also picks up my mail, so that’s taken care of too. I ensure lawn maintenance/snow removal is arranged so it’s not a dead giveaway that I’m not home, and I’ve made sure everyone I want to keep in contact with at home (mom, sister, friend) has Skype at the ready and a tutorial given if needed.” Another option is WhatsApp. It’s an a
Keep a copy of any important documents in the cloud somewhere. This includes business and personal documents along with copies of your passport. Pam Ivey of Adventurous Life and Donna Kozik of Write a Book in a Weekend both agree with this.
Don’t skimp on a carrying bag and accessories for your daily commute to the “office.” Finding a co-working space is the best way to be sure you keep up with your work.Pam Ivey of Adventurous Life says: “Make sure you have a good bag, whether it’s a shoulder bag or backpack to carry your laptop back and forth to the office. (I love my backpack because it keeps my hands free.) Don’t forget adapters! And adapters with built-in USB ports are awesome.

2017: Successful? Yes. Peaceful? Not so much.

January 3, 2018 by Mary Cravets Leave a Comment

Walking along the beach on New Year’s Day, I reflected on how I felt exactly one year earlier: filled to overflowing with a sense of wonder and possibility.

Feeling inspired last January, I picked up pebbles on the beach, wrote a blog about them, then mailed them out across the country.

My intention was to remind us all to keep that sense of wonder and possibility with us throughout 2017.

How would you rate your success with that intention?

I give myself a B minus.

I took plenty of time off for friends, family, roller coaster and otters. And grew the company by about 25%.

But a consistent sense of wonder and possibility? Not so much.

In between the fun time off and the accomplishments was a lot of fretting. “Am I going to get this done? When can I take a breath? Am I doing the right things? What if I never get another client?”

I can track all of this fretting to a serious lack of space for thinking. For exploring. For analyzing and creating. For wonder and possibility.

This year, I want to get an A+.

So for 2018, I budgeted and protected time for wonder and possibility. I shared my calendaring process for the year in this recent blog, because I do not want to repeat the intermittent crazy of 2017.

I want to know… how’d you do?

I Hope You Get a Text Like This…

February 22, 2017 by Mary Cravets Leave a Comment

Happy Thursday!

Let me share a story with you…

A client of mine recently received this text:

“Hi Sara! I wanted to call and give you my credit card information today so we can start working together. Will you be around?”

The punch line? Sara had no idea who the text was from.

I hope you get a text like this sometime, because it’s a crazy good feeling to have so many prospects that you start to lose track of them. Now how did this happen?

We created a very specific plan of action for Sara’s marketing. It includes about 4-5 low- (or no-) cost activities that she implements consistently. They all work together to leverage her time and effectiveness so she is spending a minimum amount of time possible on marketing activities that work, and zero time on marketing that doesn’t work.

(Cool, right? Wasting NO time on activities that won’t bring results!)

Because of these key factors – specificity, implementation and consistency – she is consistently getting clients. She puts the work in, the results show up.

With her focus squarely on the actions, rather than worrying about when or how the results show up, she is experiencing a pretty sweet flow right now.

This is how marketing actually works for the majority of small business owners. You put effort in. You put more effort in. And, if you’re doing the exact right efforts, results show up.

The challenge of course is that there is a time delay between putting in the effort and getting results. Which is why people often fall prey to marketing tactics that claim to produce “overnight success.” Understand that client generation does not work this way.

Ok, sure, it can work that way sometimes. Sort of.

Imagine you peak at a conference packed with your ideal clients. You place Facebook ads. You enter into a joint venture with someone with a big list. Sounds almost effortless, right? But let’s look at what those examples actually require to create these “overnight” successes:

1. The perfect conference. Investments can include making dozens of speaking inquiries, filling out many speaking applications, creating a speaking video, creating a product or program, practicing speaking and selling, hiring coaches to perfect your speaking skills, and the time to accomplish all of this.

2. Facebook ads. Investments often include hiring a graphic designer, copy writer, virtual assistant and social media strategist, cost of ads to test out which audience will respond to your ad, ongoing advertising spend, and the time to accomplish all of this.

3. Joint venture. Investments include creating relationships with successful people willing to market your product for you, writing a lot of copy for a landing page, email marketing and social media posts, preparing videos or webinar content, getting affiliate software, and the time to accomplish all of this.

Did you notice that, in these examples, you still experience a time delay between putting in the effort and getting results?

And regardless of which path you take – the specific, consistent plan or something more like the overnight success examples – you can speed up your results by investing in:

Being crystal clear about who your ideal client is
Making sure your marketing messaging (the copy on your website, 30-second intro, etc.) makes your ideal client say “I need that!”
Creating a specific marketing action plan
Consistently implementing those actions
Tracking and evaluation of those actions
Aligning your whole business with your strengths, goals and what you value most

The moral of the story: get clear that there will be a delay between your efforts and your results, but do everything you can to make that delay as short as possible!

Life Imitating My Speaking Career

October 8, 2015 by Mary Cravets Leave a Comment

“Hey Mary, can you come facilitate our board retreat… today?”

I received this call recently and could hardly stifle my laughter.

You see, I often speak to groups of entrepreneurs about priorities and productivity, and this is the example I give:

“What if someone calls you at 10:30am and says their luncheon speaker just cancelled and they want to know if you’re available? If you have client work due at noon, and you already put it off until the moment you received the call, you’re going to have to decline what could potentially be a very lucrative speaking engagement. Get your top priorities done first so you can jump on opportunities when they arrive.”

So when I received this very last minute request for a paid, same-day opportunity, you can understand my amusement!

Then I did exactly what I teach:

Check your priorities. I looked at the priorities on my action list and evaluated whether or not this new opportunity superseded what I’d already planned.
Confirm whether the opportunity is in alignment with your goals. I thought about the opportunity again and evaluated it against my bigger goals to make sure it was a fit.
Make sure you have enough time to deliver quality. I checked the clock to make sure I could actually make it there, not just on time but also prepared to speak.

This opportunity passed all three criteria, so I accepted.

It’s also important to note that I was able to make this decision in a matter of seconds because I had a few things set up in advance: clear business goals, and a set schedule and action plan for the day.

For those times when we get these last-minute calls, it’s great if we can be flexible but we also have to take care of ourselves by first considering our priorities. Just because someone says, “Jump!” we don’t have to react, “How high?”. By getting in the practice of going over the next days tasks the night before, we are much more prepared to start the day with clear intentions. And, knowing exactly what needs to be done creates potential to be flexible for opportunities.

Get Your Freedom Back with This One Tip

July 1, 2015 by Mary Cravets Leave a Comment

Over the past few weeks, several clients and colleagues came to me and said, “I was invited to a meeting with [insert name here] and I’m not sure why we’re meeting.”

I was FLOORED. I know how busy entrepreneurs are. I know how much they value their freedom… how can they afford to take meetings with no clear purpose? And why would they?

In-person meetings take a serious investment of your time, so you must make that investment intentionally. When you invest in the wrong meetings, it wastes hours of your time, creates serious frustration, and keeps you frantic.

The key to investing wisely is to learn how to gracefully say no. Easier said than done, right? Here are a few tips I use to directly and politely say no to unnecessary meetings:

First, don’t automatically say yes to in-person meeting requests! When you receive a request, take a moment to evaluate whether or not there is a clear reason for you to take the time to meet.

Next, clarify the reason for the meeting. For example:

Thanks so much for reaching out to me! So I am clear, what are you hoping to accomplish during our meeting?

Thanks for suggesting we collaborate. Before we meet, what do you have in mind?

I appreciate you thinking of me. What do you want to discuss during our meeting?

Say no thank you or suggest an alternative.

Believe it or not, many times when I’ve asked for clarification, the requester simply does not reply and the issue resolves itself. However if they do reply, here are some diplomatic ways to either say no or suggest a less time-consuming alternative.

Thanks for clarifying. From what you describe, it sounds like what you’re looking to accomplish doesn’t really align with what I’m doing. I appreciate you thinking of me, and I’ll have to pass now.

Great, thanks for the details. I’d love to have this conversation with you, and I’d prefer to meet over the phone. Is that something you’d be open to? For a conversation like this, I find the phone saves us both a ton of time spent on driving.

I’d love to meet, and I’m not available for an in-person meeting for the next three weeks. Would you mind following up with me then?

The most important thing is to say what you mean.

If you are going to keep clear boundaries and consciously invest your time in only the most important things, do not say you’re open to meeting at a later date if you really want to say no. It will definitely come back to bite you!

And here’s the thing: you are not helping anyone by agreeing to do things you don’t want to do. Saying yes to an obligation that aggravates you prevents the requester from finding someone who would actually be excited about the opportunity. Sometimes saying no to someone is the best gift we can give them… not to mention, ourselves!

Let Go in Order to Grow – Delegate by Using the Power of a Virtual Assistant

January 24, 2015 by Mary Cravets Leave a Comment

Contributed by Laura Schappert.

“If you really want to grow as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to learn to delegate.” Richard Branson.

When you’re good at what you do, people want much more from you. This can lead to a real sense of pressure and work overload because you can’t do everything that everyone wants quite possibly leaving you feeling stressed, unhappy and like you’re letting people down. No matter how hard or how long you work, there’s a limited amount you can accomplish. What’s worse, you may be totally stalling your success if you expect to do everything yourself.

There’s no shame in asking for help, especially when you’re overwhelmed and overworked and time seems to do a disappearing act before your very eyes. One definition of ‘delegate’ is to ‘entrust a task or responsibility to another person.’ A good assistant helps you organize your processes, completes your administrative tasks faster than you can, helps keep you accountable and on track thereby creating a flow which allows you to achieve more and increase your value.

Here are some signs you’re overdue for an assistant:

You feel like your efforts are getting you nowhere or are not creating income
You’re constantly worried that things are falling through the cracks
You don’t think anyone can help, and there’s no one who can do all the things you can do
You struggle to make time for the most profitable parts of your business and those that create the biggest opportunities (these are generally the things you love to do most!)
Your business isn’t growing, and hasn’t for six months or more

If you’re already relating to this and nodding yes, it might be time to get in touch with me for a complimentary conversation.

People don’t often consider delegation because they think they can’t afford a virtual assistant. This is backwards. Resources always follow vision and until you get clear on what you need, the resources don’t show up. By learning how to delegate work and by doing it well, you can quickly build a strong and successful support system. Part of the delegation process involves knowing what you want to accomplish and determining a deadline to get it done. Having the goal of delegation creates freedom to plan for the future, find new ways to develop your business and time to invest in higher impact projects to achieve success.

To determine when delegation is most appropriate, ask yourself some key questions:

Is this a task that’s taking me away from planning and strategizing my business?
Are there tasks that are draining me and keeping me from doing my best work?
Is this a task someone else can do, or is it critical that I do it myself?
Is this a task that will recur, in a similar form, in the future?
Can someone else do this task better or more efficiently?
Are there tasks I don’t enjoy or am not good at?
Is this a task that I should delegate?

If you can answer “yes” to at least some of these questions, then it is worth delegating.

By delegating work, especially recurring tasks, you’re making a positive choice by acknowledging your time is valuable and you’re worthy of having the freedom to focus on your specialty. Employ your virtual assistant as you would your business coach, hairstylist, barista, auto mechanic, massage therapist, anyone who specializes in providing a service you often use, appreciate and trust they know what they’re doing. Remember that old V8 commercial, “I could’ve had a V8!”? Well, you can have a VA!

One last tip: The time to hire an assistant is slightly sooner than you’re 100% ready and comfortable. By the time you’re totally ready – both mentally and financially – you’ll be too busy to properly delegate and train them, if necessary.

Are you feeling inspired? Are you already feeling some relief from overwhelm? Are you ready to let go? Are you nodding and relating to any of this? If so, the next step is to contact me for a complimentary consultation. In the meantime, if you’d like to know more, please visit my website. As a virtual assistant, I share my client’s visions, I believe in the services they provide and want every success for them, including time to thrive and enjoy life.

“Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others.” Marianne Williamson