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Your business is up and running and growing… and you want to grow your business further. You want your growth to be smart and effective and you want to avoid costly missteps and expensive “rabbit trails” that can pull you off track.

The problem is: You’re busy. You’ve got a full plate. You’ve got enough to do without piling on other activities (even though you know that business growth is critical). So, do you cut back on current success to encourage growth? Do you cut back on future growth to enjoy current success? Neither of those options is ideal!

There’s good news and it’s something you already know. With effective delegation to an assistant, you can enjoy even greater success today while strengthening and building your business for an even greater future.

This probably isn’t news to you but here’s why I’m mentioning it: I’m holding a free teleconference for a small group of people who will have the opportunity to “pick my brain” and learn what you can do to grow your business with more effective delegation or through the better use of a VA.

Teleconference overview
The teleconference is called “Full Schedules to Fulfilled: Delegating and VA’s for Business Growth” and it is free to a limited number of participants. I’ll be joined by my colleague Deb Walker and we’ll offer some advice and answer your questions about delegation and working with an assistant and how those elements contribute to growing your business.

Even though you know that delegating and having an assistant are good ideas, there may be techniques, ideas, challenges, tricks, and tips that we can help you with. Drawing from my years of experience as an entrepreneur of several small businesses, as a project manager, and as a productivity advisor for business owners around the world, I would love to share some “delegation mastery” ideas. And Deb’s insight will be valuable too. She brings a wealth of cross-industry experience to her work at ContemporaryVA and the oversight she provides to a staff of 30 VA’s ensures consistent, high quality work gets delivered to clients.

Normally I charge for all consultations but these calls (which I will be recording and plan to use in the future for promotional purposes) will be completely free. The teleconference will be about 60 minutes in length with 10 to 15 people on the call and we will specifically cover these three areas:

• Delegation Effectiveness
• Whether a VA might work for you
• How to use your VA more effectively

…and how these “tools” can grow your business.

I’d love to see you there!
If you already have a virtual assistant, we’ll show you how to use them more effectively by turning them into a valuable, proactive business asset (rather than a helpful but reactive order-taker). If you don’t have a virtual assistant already, we’ll show you why this might be the next best step for your business; a step that will transform your business in ways you never realized were possible.

So, if you’d like to grow your business and have been looking for an “edge”, this call could be it. But there are only a few slots left (I’ve already had some interest from a couple of my other channels) and I’d love to include you in the teleconference! Just enter your name and email address below and we will send the dial-in information to the first twenty who sign up!

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Can’t wait to speak with you!—

Related posts:

1. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 2
2. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 1
3. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 3

“Virtual is about efficiency and streamlining…”

“I prefer email to telephone calls or snail mail…”

“We don’t even order stationery anymore…”

“Of course I told my clients Happy Birthday, I sent them an ecard…”

“Of course I have not forgot the need for a personal note card here and then, that is why I subscribe to sendoutcards.com…”

I work in a primarily virtual environment, so I don’t dispute everything above.

I too utilize the virtual world to be more  efficient and streamline.

I too prefer email to telephone calls or snail mail.

I too have not ordered stationary in quite awhile (but I do still have some).

I don’t always know my clients’ birthdays, but if I did, I imagine I would send more than just an ecard.

I too subscribe and utilize sendoutcards.com

This is the world evolving as we know it. As a matter of fact, I only check my postal mail once a week, so I am used to it. My utility bills come via email, my credit card bills and student loan statements come via email, the only thing that ever comes via the USPS is direct mail pieces (catalogs, etc.) and a few bills that I have forgotten to activate e-statements on. Anything I order or purchase normally comes Fed Ex or UPS, so that poor postal mail just builds up in a basket, until I check it the end of every week and sort it into four piles:

• scan & shred
• put in the to be paid bin
• trash
• this looks interesting (normally a catalog or magazine)

However, this past week when I was checking my postal mail, I received a handwritten envelope, a card. I thought to myself – well my birthday is this month, but it  is still kind of early, so I opened it up.

It was a flat card (a non folding card) inside the most gorgeous flat card sleeve I have ever seen – and it was from my client Tamara Gold – and it was for no other reason than to tell me that she appreciated our services!

Okay I have a couple of things to say here:

1. I reached out to her via email to thank her – what a schmuck I am! While, I am sure she appreciated the acknowledgment, and at the time it seemed like the best thing to do (I wanted to thank her quickly), I soon realized part of the wow factor is that she took time out of her busy schedule to write me a short note. The least I can do is write her back (which I plan on doing in a handmade card I purchased awhile ago off of Etsy!)
2. It was the prettiest sleeve I have ever seen, those red vines are velvet, so of course I had to track down the maker – her name is Anna Griffin, and I WILL be purchasing some things from her shortly. (FYI: It is a ‘Flocked Invitation Sleeve’, the flat cards have to be purchased/personalized separately).
3. She is MY client, I should have been thanking her in this way, not vice versa (although I appreciate it!).
4. Even though we have a 100% virtual relationship, she just made our relationship more personal.

The moral of this story is… don’t forget the basics… a handwritten note will go a long way, and on unique stationery, will leave an everlasting impression.

Thanks Tamara for teaching me a very important lesson!

Related posts:

1. Heather Podcasts: Managing a Virtual Team, Advice by Deb Walker – Virtual Team Manager (Episode 5)
2. Tools that I use in our Businesses – Virtual and Brick & Mortar
3. The Advantage of Virtual

In project management we bring together numerous smaller pieces so that, by the end, we have a completed project – whether that’s a book or a product or an invention or a new business. There are many different kinds of project management tools and techniques out there and the one that is used most often is the “one liner”.

Think of it like this: You’re sitting around a conference room and you know that your department has to bring a new project to market. So someone goes up to the whiteboard, pulls out a marker and then draws a big line down the middle. Then, everyone starts to fill in what needs to be done:

• A business case needs to be completed.
• The legal department needs to review the material
• Vendors need to be sourced.
• Production needs to be ramped up.
• Marketing needs to start promoting the product.
• …(and so on).

And someone draw it like this:

This method seems to make sense, at first, and it’s easy to create a list of tasks and accountabilities that come out of it.

Unfortunately, it misses an important element in project management: the idea that these individual items are not single events in and of themselves.

Completing the business case is not as simple as completing the business case! Rather, the business case is simply the result of a variety of smaller, focused tasks like:

• Finding someone to spearhead the program
• Finding a writer to write the business case
• Supporting the writer with pre-existing research
• Performing research on an as-needed basis
• Reviewing the business case
• Making changes
• Review the business case again
• Presenting the business case to stakeholders
• …(and so on)

Filling the “one liner” with those tasks creates 3 challenges: First, it becomes incredibly unwieldy, forcing the one project line to become so long that it becomes overwhelming. Second, it incorrectly sets the priority of all tasks at the highest priority and tends to make projects take longer than they should because people are often left waiting for one task to finish before the next one can start. Third, it still makes things easy to miss.

Some tools have been created to solve this. Two popular tools are the Gantt chart and the NASA-developed PERT chart. While these are good, some people find them to be slightly over-complicated and unwieldy.

On many projects, one of the key tools I like to use is the fishbone diagram. The fishbone diagram is (in my opinion) a nice, user-friendly balance between the too-simple one liner and the too complicated Gantt and PERT charts. The fishbone diagram starts out like this:

Then, individual tasks are added:

This makes the time line much more manageable and user-friendly while keeping smaller (normally unstated) tasks in view.

Of course, this isn’t the only project management tool I use when I’m doing project management work for my clients, but it’s one that I’ve found to be superior to many others in its comprehensiveness while also making sure that it captures all the “mini projects” that contribute to making the actual project a success.

Wishing Best Success,

Heather Villa

Related posts:

1. Project management best practice: The report
2. The P Word
3. Unsticking a project

FreshBooks: FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking tool. Don’t be confused, it is not an accounting application – it handles billable time, billable expenses, invoicing, support tickets and document transmission. We use FreshBooks as our ‘main frame’ for client interaction. We log time to our project management system, import it into FreshBooks and bill with FreshBooks (we could log time directly into FreshBooks but our other system works a bit better for us due to our large team).

Zoho Creator: We use Zoho Creator as our centralized Database for various aspects of our companies. We use it as a CRM to keep track of leads and customers. We also track our employees, contractors, manuals, employee performance reviews, customer service surveys and more. You build your own application (or purchase one available) and it is completely custom to your needs.

Aweber Autoresponders: We use Aweber for our Ezines, Newsletters, Autoresponders and Mass Email Communication.

QuickBooks: We use QuickBooks Premium to maintain one of our businesses’ accounting, we use QuickBooks Online to maintain another and we use QuickBooks for Mac to maintain another. All around we are definitely a QuickBooks powered enterprise.

Custom Built Project Management System: No we do not use Basecamp or similar, we had a custom built project management system with FreshBooks API integration built by Becker Web Solutions, They are offering our system for resale ($2,500.00) and are more than willing to show you a demo account. Tell them that Heather Villa sent you and receive a 10% discount.

‘GoTo’ Products: We love GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC. We use GoToMeeting for online training, troubleshooting, teleconferences and staff meetings – all very important in the virtual world. We use GoToMyPC for our virtual employees to access our in-house servers (since we do not let client data leave our premises). Use any of the links above (no they are not affiliate links) for GoTo products and receive a 45 day free trial for either.

The list could go on and on – but here are some brief highlights of our other tools:

We utilize Wordpress for all of our blogs; HelpDeskPilot for our IAC-EZ Support Desk and KnowledgeBase; Pivotal Tracker for Road Mapping for IAC-EZ; Brosix for our Corporate Messenger; Spry, Joyent and Sliqua for our Hosting and Content Delivery Network; DNSMadeEasy for DNS, and Mailtrust for Email Server.

A couple of other services we use rarely or have just begun using are Egnyte for Back Ups and Unfuddle for something to do with our IAC-EZ tech/deployment department.

I know that recommendations are hard to ‘believe’ in a blog post, so let me say this – with the exception of FreshBooks, QuickBooks and Aweber – nothing listed is an affiliate link – and as for the three with affiliate link – I am a fanatic of all three and have nothing but excellent things to say.

Let me know what services you use and who has worked out well for you.

Best,

Heather

Related posts:

1. Heather Podcasts: Managing a Virtual Team, Advice by Deb Walker – Virtual Team Manager (Episode 5)
2. The Advantage of Virtual
3. Being Personal while being Virtual…

• I work for myself – so no chance of unemployment for me.
• Companies are scaling back workforce, so the virtual industry is booming with companies looking for virtual assistants. Traditional brick and mortar companies are looking for contractors available to telecommute so that they don’t have to pay employment taxes, full time staff or office space. Considering I am the CEO of one of the largest US based outsourcing firms, IAC Professionals – that means plenty of business for me.
• When the stock market goes south, money goes into private investments, which means new business start ups that need my consulting.
• In general – I don’t use credit. My house is paid off, so are my vehicles – so no long term debt to worry about.

So while all the hype and talk about the Economic Crisis of 2008 is going on… Consultants like myself are too occupied helping the tough get richer.

Some Examples:

Karen Swim of Words for Hire is heating up the charts in Startup Nation’s 2008 contest.

Trish Lambert of 4R Marketing and Success in Sweatpants just became a ‘Book Yourself Solid’ Certified Coach.

Now is not the time to get down or stuck in a rut – now is the time to take control of your destiny and stop letting the economic crisis affect you.

1. Make a list of things you are good at
2. Make a list of things you enjoy doing
3. Circle everything that appears on both lists 1 and 2
4. Begin doing them and getting paid to do them

With resources such as Elance, Guru, 99 Designs, Craigslist and Freelance Switch there is something out there for everyone.

When you succeed, I succeed,

Heather Villa, CMA, MBA, MSM

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