As I help develop productivity systems and procedures for entrepreneurs and small business owners, I’ve found myself developing another type of project management system – one I call the “self-direct project management system” – for business owners who need to share their projects with staff.While most small business owners run their own businesses, they often bring in others to work for them. For example, they might have a virtual assistant a few hours a week, or they might have a web development freelancer take care of their website, or they might outsource some of the preliminary work performed for a client deliverable, or they might have a couple of staff members. Even if you are a solopreneur running a sole proprietorship, you’ll still probably have some kind of “employee” or outsourced vendor at some point in the future. In all of these cases, it’s handy to have a system that is visible for each person so both they and you can see what is going on. That’s why I call it a “self-directed project management system”, because your staff can manage their own project management and you can keep an eye on everything.

(By the way, I’m going to use the term “employee” throughout this issue but be aware that I could mean employee, virtual assistant, freelancer, outsourced vendor, or whomever you might hire to do the work).

There are several project management programs out there and many of them are pretty good. If you wanted to just use one that already exists, and if you were willing to invest the money for it, you might consider some of the following, which I’ve used:

• BaseCamp
• Wrike
• Intervals
• Zoho Projects

I’ve tried these and there are good points and bad points about each one; it really depends on your business and your work style. Also, in a lot of cases, these only give limited access for free and you need to pay to create more projects or use more features.

One complaint I have with a couple of these systems is that there are too many bells and whistles for some entrepreneurs. Some of my clients want a really simple, straightforward system that is easy to use, easy to share, and easy to customize if necessary, and they don’t want to pay money for many of the extra features that they may not use. And that’s the system I’m going to show you in this issue of Tips In Ten.

The system I’m going to show you can be set up in moments, it only takes ten minutes a day to manage all of your projects, and it is free and really simple to use. Not only that, it is far more customizable to your business than the project management systems I’ve listed above. It’s very light, and although there are no bells and whistles, it works. (And I’ve discovered that something nice and simple that works is far better than something you pay for with lots of nice features that you never use.)

System Set-up (Duration: 10 minutes)
Setting up is really easy and only takes two minutes.

Sign into GoogleDocs and open a new spreadsheet. Save it as your Master Project Management Template.

Edit it like this: In the “A” column, write “Project” then “Goal” then “Measurable” (x 2) then “Task” (x 20 or so), as I’ve done below:

Save it and you’re done.

You’ve set it up in less time than it would take you to search for and buy a piece of project management software and try to figure it out!

Apply to roles (Duration: Varies. Only a few seconds per role)
When you bring someone on board in your business to get them working for you, just open the spreadsheet, click “File” and select “Make a Copy” (which is like “Save As”). When you’re prompted to name it, give it a name related to the project team or employee it is for.

If I was going to use this for a web developer/internet marketer I’ve hired, I would save it with that role as the name: “Web Dev and Internet Marketing”.

Then, just share it with that person by sending an invitation via email.

Creating projects (Duration: Typically less than 10 minutes)
When you’ve assigned and shared a project management document with a particular employee, you can quickly and easily add projects.

Step 1: List projects: Open the file for that role (“Web Dev and Internet Marketing” in the example I’ve given) and list the projects you want them to work on across the top (“Projects”) row. In the example I’m giving, let’s say that I want them to do 2 projects – design a new website and do some internet marketing.

Step 2: Write down your goal: I like giving people the big picture of whatever project they are working so I try to put down a goal for each project.

Step 3: List measurables: Measurables are important ways for people to know if they are being successful or not. Certainly not every project has a measurable – some are as simple as “just get it done” but I’ve suggested 3 spaces in case you want to put something in.

Step 4: List tasks: This is really easy to do. Just write the due date and the task in one cell and put them in order.

Other tips
Easy color coding: When your employees use this system, all they need to do is highlight the particular project they are working in one color (I’ve used yellow) and then highlight it in another color when they are done (I’ve used red). You might also want other colors for “on hold/waiting” but try to avoid introducing too many other colors into the system. Just keep it clean and simple.

Comments: If you need to give more instructions, just use the comments features (Insert > Comment) and type your comment for that field.

When finished: When a project is completely done, just delete the whole column to keep your space uncluttered.

Using the system (for employees)
All your employees have to do is open up the file when they do your work, highlight the project they are working on, and do the work.

Using the system (for you) (Duration: Typically just a few seconds per document)
Using this system is really easy and will rarely take a full ten minutes each day, even if you have several staff. Just sign in and check for the yellow-highlighted cells.

• Are they on track?
• Is the project they are working on going to land on your desk for review?

If there is a project with nothing highlighted in yellow, follow up – they’ve either forgotten to highlight it or haven’t started yet and a quick phone call or email will resolve that.

That’s it! It’s a nice, clean, simple system that allows your employees (even if it’s a distributed workforce of temporary freelancers) to manage their projects and for you to give some oversight to it.

Related posts:

1. Project Management in 10 Minutes
2. Project Management Gone Wrong
3. Project Management Success Requires Flexibility

In this article of Tips In Ten, I’m going to give you some basic steps to train others without spending more than ten minutes a day. Even if you don’t have staff yet, you might some day. Or, you’ll soon have an assistant or virtual assistant to train. Or perhaps you’ll outsource to someone and you want to give them a rough idea of your business. And, this might even work when putting together some instructional content for clients, too. So this issue is about “training” but it could relate to training anyone.

There are just four simple steps that you can do and most of the time it will take just ten minutes to put this together. In some circumstances where it will take longer, you can break it up over a few days. However, if you regularly train people and you get into a pattern with developing this kind of training, you probably won’t take more than ten minutes anyway.

Before I start, I want to give you a couple of ways to deploy your training. There’s no need to get fancy but you should use something that works for you. Depending on what you’re comfortable with, you might want to do:

• Written training (i.e. in Microsoft Word or some other word processing program).

• Audio training (where you record your voice talking to the trainee). If this is your preferred method, your computer probably has a standard “sound recorder” program in the Start > Programs > Accessories menu. Or, a free audio program I really like is Audacity which allows you a lot of freedom to record and edit sound.

• Video training (where you record your voice, your face, and perhaps a screen-cap video for the trainee). If you want to record your voice and face (and a whiteboard or other visual aid), you can just use your computer’s built-in camera or an inexpensive computer camera. If you want to record videos of what’s on your screen, Camtasia is really good.

Feel free to use a mixture of these three different types of training media, depending on what you are trying to teach. If you are trying to teach a program that has a lot of detailed things to do, Camtasia is great. If you want to give audio instructions about how to answer a telephone, audio is good. If you have some basic concepts or a training about a simple website, a written document (with images) is fine. Once you’ve made all this training, be sure to store them in one convenient place with obvious names so your trainees can access them later.

Here are the four steps I recommend for your training:

Step 1: Give them the bigger picture. (Duration: 1 minute)
This is so important and often ignored! Most trainees will do a much better job at whatever you are showing them if you just tell them why they are doing it and how it fits into the bigger picture. If you are teaching them to use Twitter on your company’s behalf, for example, don’t just show them the technical aspects of tweeting; instead, start them off by briefly explaining why Twitter is important and how Twitter fits into your company’s social media marketing strategy. You don’t have to spend long on this, just a moment to tell them why it’s important.

So you might say, “We believe that social media is a powerful way for businesses to interact with customers and we’ve chosen Twitter as one of our social media tools. You will be tweeting on behalf of our company to share our brand with our followers.”

See how easy that was? It only took a moment and it gave a nice, clear picture about Twitter’s role in the company.

Step 2: Give them the highlights. (Duration: 2 minutes)
Next, you are going to just hit some of the important things they need to know. It doesn’t have to be very detailed (you’ll get to that), but it should give them an overview of what they are doing and how they are doing it. I like to think of it like this: In a moment, you are about to give them the detailed instructions but first you are going to give them some key things to remember so that when you touch on those things in the detailed instructions, they will jump out.

Just keep it really simple and quick with bullet points. Keep it to ten or fewer highlights.

To use the Twitter example again, I might say: “You are going to spend ten minutes a day interacting with followers on Twitter using a combination of tweets, retweets, replies, and direct messages. You’ll also be actively following other people. What we are looking for is an engaged audience who thinks of us as the experts. And we always want to make sure we are engaging our audience and not just promoting ourselves.”

I wrote that as if I was doing an audio or video but you could easily arrange those into about half a dozen bullet points for a Word document. Now, when the trainee reads this and reviews the detailed part (in the next step) they will recognize the important parts that you want them to cover.

Some other valuable items to cover in this section:

• If you are measuring them on something, tell them what the measurable is.
• If there are several ways of doing something, tell them that and point out which way you are showing them.
• Tell them whether you are giving them a general overview as a guideline or a strict “must-follow” step-by-step system.

Step 3: Give them the details. (Duration: 5-8 minutes)
If you’ve done the other parts, this is going to go quickly and easily. Just show them how to do what you want them to do. Keep it simple. Make it step-by-step. Go through the material quickly but be mindful that you don’t blaze through so quickly that they will miss important parts.

If you are going to use a Word document, use screen capture (Press “Control” and “PrtScn” at the same time and that will copy a picture of your screen to your clipboard, then you can click “paste” in your Word document and the image of your screen will be pasted there).

If you are using audio or video, speak naturally and clearly into the microphone and jot down an outline before you start so that you don’t ramble on beyond your time limit.

There’s no reason why you can’t spend more than ten minutes but here’s what I find: You are already busy and don’t have a lot of time, but the only way to train your staff is bite the bullet and take the time to train them. So if you take ten minutes now to get them started, and you take ten minutes later for some intermediate training, and another ten minutes down the road for advanced training, that’s probably going to be easier to carve out of your busy days than half an hour all at once.

On the odd occasion, you might need to create something that takes longer than ten minutes. If that happens, break it up over a couple of days so that it doesn’t become a time stealer for you. In general, though, you should adequately cover a lot of material even if you restrict your time to ten minutes.

Step 4: Help them troubleshoot. (Duration: 1-2 minutes)
In some cases, I’ve found that a troubleshooting training session is worth ten minutes all on its own. But there are times when you only need to spend a moment or two helping your trainees avoid disaster. Give them a couple of the top things to watch out for and ways to deal with it. Then point them to a resource to get more information if they need it. If I was going to add some troubleshooting tips onto the end of my Twitter training, I might say something like, “Make sure you don’t explicitly sell our services while using Twitter because that’s not what it’s for. And be careful when you click on any shortened URLs; don’t click on them if they aren’t from a source you recognize.”

There! You’re done and it only took ten minutes. Now you don’t have an excuse not to train your staff to do the work that will be truly helpful to you! Just take ten minutes a day to create some training and your staff will be able to take on so many more projects, freeing you up to focus your attention on other aspects of your business.

Related posts:

1. Time Off: Do Small Business Owners Get Any?
2. Run a More Efficient, Profitable Business in 10 Minutes a Day
3. Business Growth in Ten Minutes a Day

This article is written for 3 different audiences in mind. Nearly all of my readers will fall into one of these 3 categories:

• Some businesses might hire a designer or developer (or their tech-savvy nephew) to build the site and get it up-and-running; other businesses might hire a virtual assistant to keep it maintained. But there are a lot of “in between” things that need to be done but which might not be completed by either outsource party.

• There are some businesses that are just starting out on a total shoe-string budget (“total shoestring budget” meaning they either eat or pay someone to help with their website so they’ve chosen to eat instead). They can’t afford to pay anyone to do the work. But they also don’t really know where to start.

• Some businesses have a website and just need some ideas to grow their site sensibly without wasting hours every day. They may do a lot of this work themselves, perhaps out of necessity or interest or habit.

Ultimately, there are two secrets to creating and maintaining a really good website in only 10 minutes a day: First, you need a plan. Second, you need a Content Management System. If you have these two things, you can do nearly all of your work in just ten minutes. The plan keeps you on track. The Content Management System (CMS) helps you to reduce the amount of time you spend performing the tasks on your plan.

Create a plan

A plan will keep you on track. Too often while building and maintaining your website, it’s easy to get caught up in things that either seem to be “must-haves” or are the latest thing of the moment. For example, you might have a great site but then suddenly notice that two or three sites you really admire have something that you don’t. You drop everything else in your day to add it in. At the end of the day you review your productivity and discover that you didn’t bill any time today because you spent so much time working on your site. A plan will help to fix this.

In fact, you’re going to need two plans (although I tend to stick them together and refer to them as one plan; but they’re actually two different plans).

• The first plan is a web design/web development plan. It’s the “back-end” of your side. Changes you make here govern the look and functionality of your site. Even if you outsource most of your site, you’ll end up handling some of this stuff (like that whiz-bang “must-have” widget I mentioned above).

• The second plan is a content plan or publishing calendar. It’s the content (mostly words but sometimes video or images) that people see.

The reason I stick these together is because sometimes there isn’t a clear delineation between the two. Also, I often think of stuff for one list while I’m working on stuff for the other. It’s just easier.

So here’s what to do:

Start by listing everything you need to do on your site. If you don’t have a site yet, you’ll need to start at the very beginning, of course. List it all. You’ll end up with a big list and that’s okay. In fact, it’s about to get a whole lot bigger…

Next, break up each project into ten minute chunks. That’s right. Ten minute chunks. In nearly all cases, I’ve found this to be quite possible. On the odd occasion you might need to work longer, but overall you can manage your time well while still building a great site in just ten minutes at a time. Some of your project-break-ups will depend on your skills and abilities. If you’re a decently fast typist, you might be able to blog a single blog in ten minutes. Well, that’s one task. But if you write a lot or peck one finger at a time to type anything, you’ll either want to outsource your writing or break up your single blog into two or three projects.

Now you’ll have a long, long, long list. The next thing you need to do is prioritize them. What needs to happen first? Then what? And after that? If your list is really long and overwhelming, I sometimes find it easier to start at the end and work backwards. For example, a list of 100 items might be really confusing to think what needs to go first, but I can usually identify what needs to happen last! Then work backwards through the list slowly.

Once that’s done, you have something meaningful to work with! It’s basically your step-by-step recipe to building and maintaining a website. And every single day, sit down and do one of those things. Period.

To help you do that, you’ll also want to…

Implement and use a Content Management System (CMS)

Years ago, people used to hand-code sites. I say this because I’ve done it and I know other people who have as well. When you wanted a website, you sat down at your computer, opened Notepad and started typing:

<html>
<head>
<meta>
<title>Page Title</title>
</head>
<body>
… etc.

It’s like riding a bicycle, you never lose it! The advantage was that you ended up knowing code like a pro in no time! But there was a disadvantage. After the fourth or fifth page, your site became difficult to manage. In my own personal experience I remember the odd occasion when I’d think “oh, I want a different link structure” and I’d need to go back and make changes across every page. The bigger the site got, the harder it was to maintain.

A CMS makes it so much easier. A CMS gives you an interface to manage and update content easily without having to open up the code on each page to make changes. Finding and implementing a CMS with your website will take longer than ten minutes. However, once have a CMS in place, it will dramatically shorten the amount of time it will take you do to the rest of your giant “to do” list mentioned earlier. So it’s worth the up-front time investment.

There are several Content Management Systems out there. If you click over to Wikipedia — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Content_Management_Systems — you will see what I mean. (Don’t worry so much about selecting one from the list – I’m about to recommend one).

So, there are lots of CMSs out there but I think the best one for most small business owners is WordPress. WordPress is an opensource (free!) CMS and there is a huge community of people who develop applications (called “plug-ins”) and designs (called “themes”) and offer them for free to WordPress users. A WordPress website gives you plenty of control: You can build website pages and/or blogs, giving you the power to design your site however you want to design it. Of course, you don’t have to use WordPress, it’s just one that I like and would recommend. I’ve been using it for years and coaching others to build successful businesses with the same CMS.

Ultimately, you need to find a CMS that works for you: It needs to be easy to learn and easy to implement. You don’t want to spend too long figuring out how to navigate around it and you don’t want to spend days trying to upload it to a server.

And then what?

Once you have your CMS in place, start rocking that to-do list! Do one thing a day, every single day. (If you have time, or find yourself with 10 minutes between supper and your favorite TV show, why not fire up your list and your CMS and do the next thing?)

Cross off each item as you go but be prepared to add more items as they come up. (You might get more blog ideas or you might find that something else needs to be added to your site).

The biggest challenge you’ll have is to discipline yourself to only do ten minutes a day. If necessary, set a timer and just do it.

Lastly, remember this important fact: Your website will never be perfect. It is always a work in progress. It is always going to be modified. Accept that it is imperfect and don’t lose sleep (or waste time) over not having the latest shiny widget on your site. You’ll eventually get to it on your list, but in the meantime you won’t waste time!

Related posts:

1. Building a Fanbase of Followers in 10 Minutes a Day
2. Saving Time with One Small Addition to Your Website
3. Brand Management in Ten Minutes Will Save You Hours

1. Hire a Virtual Assistant to sort and prioritize for you.
2. Utilize Email Center Pro

Email Center Pro allows you to link multiple email boxes up on the web and assign to multiple people. Let me give you a scenario:

I have the following email accounts: Sales, Admin (catch all), Accounting and Mine.
Then I have 5 users: Let’s just call them Larry, Mo, Curly, Bob and Bo.

I, as the administrator, have access to all email boxes, but my default is Mine.

Larry only has access to Sales
Mo and Curly both have access to Accounting Only
Bob has access to Admin
Bo has access to Mine

Larry handles the sales email as that is his job, if there is anything I need to see he can assign it to me. (No forward there).

Mo and Curly can simultaneously handle accounting as it tracks their movements and one cannot reply while another is replying – they leave notes for each other, etc.

Bob can filter through admin and only pick out relevant emails from all the junk our catch-all email account receives and move them to my inbox.

Bo is my right hand man and he handles all my email before I even see it.

Now, that is taking email management to a whole new level and probably overkill for most of my readers. I want to tell you how it can help you to handle and prioritize your email but first I just wanted to let you see its vast capabilities.

So, let’s talk about the average user.

You have your email box now feeding in to Email Center Pro and you and your assistant Bo now both handle your email. On your Email Center Pro dashboard you see “My Mail” top and center. This is email that has been “assigned” to you. Then underneath you see “All Mail” and this is mail that has come in. If you have a virtual assistant, you don’t even need to look at the “All Mail”, just the ‘My Mail’.

Technically, your mail comes into your “All Mail” inbox and it is unassigned.  Then Bo can label it and do one of three things: Assign it to you, archive it or handle it himself.

What is great is that Email Center Pro lets you have “mailbox level” signatures and “user level” signatures, so while everything coming from my mailbox has my standard signature, when Bo responds or handles an email on my behalf his signature is there and I have a disclaimer on his signature that reads:

“I check and handle email on Heather Villa’s behalf to assure timely and responsive communication. If you have concerns or an issue with this, please let us know. Heather does review all incoming and outgoing emails once daily.”

So I am not being misleading. My clients, colleagues and friends know Bo is handling my email.

If Bo uses the same sorting techniques mentioned in the previous email:

1. To Do Immediately
2. To Do Later
3. To Be Reviewed
4. Waiting on Follow Up
5. Business
6. Personal

…then you don’t have to worry about costly assistant bills because Bo’s work will just take minutes daily. When you log in to Email Center Pro you go directly to Label 1-To Do Immediately and can handle everything there and then change the label on the email once done.

Or you can use one of Email Center Pro’s other features. For me I have done away with label 1 and label 2. Because of the “My Mail” feature. Anything that belongs in Label 1 or Label 2 is assigned to me and if it is label 1 it is “starred” so when I go into the “My Mail” section of Email Center Pro I know that the only things that are in there are things I need to do and the yellow stars symbolize that it needs to be done immediately.

Obviously, guidelines have to be given to Bo or he has to learn a bit more about your business to do this efficiently. However, remember this: 1 hour invested today can save you 10 hours in the next month!

Disclaimer: This Tip in 10 Minutes obviously will take much longer if you have hundreds or thousands of emails a day.

Bonus Tip:

When you are ready to really delegate, take everything one step further and show Bo how he can do things to handle some of your incoming email. Email Center Pro makes this easy with a Note feature that allows you to add notes to a specific email. So when Bo assigns an email to you, you can assign it back to him with a note that says “yes schedule an appointment on my calendar for this person and email him to confirm”. Voila!

Related posts:

1. Sorting and Prioritizing Email in 10 Minutes on a Shoestring Budget
2. Kick Your Email in the @

Confessions of a Twitter Virgin – I tweet, you tweet and we all tweet. Or do we? Ali has many great points on how twitter can expand your business potential. However, the best practice is humanness first, business second. As Ali found out, Twitter can not only help with business it can also help on the personal side.

Tips on Persuading Effectively – Persuasion vs. Manipulation do they both mean the same? Many may think they are closely related. The two differ in many ways. This is a great read with some pertinent tips on how to better your persuasive skills.

What I Learned From My Broadband Blackout – Christine has the right mindset here. In today’s high tech world more often than not we forget to unplug. Even if it’s only for a few minutes each day it’s a must for everyone. What a great story!

Is That Client Legit or Just a Tire Kicker? – Don’t waste your time with clients who are not serious. When anyone starts a new business they welcome all potential clients. Why not? You need the work right? Don’t fall into the shopper trap. You will find some really good points on how to keep the tire kickers at bay.

Remembering How to Relax – Leaving work behind can be tough at times. . How effective can you truly be if you’re tired, stressed and your family is not speaking to you? Just one of the many great points in this read. I recommend this to everyone, not just business owners.

010 Virtual Assistant Podcast – Tech Tools For Collaboration Part 4 – If you’ve read most of my blog posts then you know I’m all about outsourcing and using virtual assistants.  If you’re looking to hire a VA or have ever just thought about it, I highly recommend these podcasts. Cliff continues to provide some great insight in the client side of this growing industry.

Catching Lightning Bugs – Laurie puts a fun twist on how to look at marketing. We all differ on our view that’s human nature. Her main point here is simplifying the way you interpret things. I have my jar ready, how about you?

There was a lot of good reads this week. Be sure the check out HeatherVilla StumbleUpon for a full list of my favorites.

Have a great weekend and don’t get sunburned at the beach!

Related posts:

1. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 8/27/10
2. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 7/23/10
3. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 4/16/10

Personality Types: Questions And Answers – Wow! When Hunter replies to a readers comment he REALLY replies! I am sure many of you have heard of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator type test, right? This is an amazing article that provides a ton of information on personality tests. These tests can be fun to do as a team-building project with your associates to help bridge the gap between some and teach how to communicate with one another according to each personality type.

Do You Believe That “Retail Is For Suckers?” – MomGrind posted this blog that caught my attention. This article is about how a luxury department store shopper experienced their first impression at a discount retailer. Fun read!

How to Get Social ROI from Internet Marketing Conferences – Sometimes meeting people can be a little scary for some. How much time do we spend talking to one another online by way of social media? LOTS! Lisa talks about her time spent at social media conferences the past few months and each time she came across the same thing: people saying (typing) that they were sorry they never got to meet at “social media event X”. Lisa wants to help those wallflowers, one “hi” at a time!

Need Gifts, Office Supplies, Books or Other Items? Your Virtual Assistant Can Shop for You – Using your Virtual Assistant for virtual assistance! Well, duh! Sophiezo goes into detail about what you can have your already loved and trusted VA help you with. There are 5 tips listed in this article but the entire site is filled with the most amazing information valuable for everyone who reads it!

Snapshots From Honolulu: Shave Ice from Waiola – YUM! So there is this place in Honolulu called Waiola. And the way Robyn Lee describes this island treat really makes me ask myself “so when was the last time I visited the islands?” Be warned: This is NO ordinary “icy” this is a fruit flavored highly customizable Shave Ice! (Not shaved ice.)

Four reasons why Lady Gaga has fans and you don’t - Lady Gaga – love her or dislike her (I can’t say hate – how can you hate her?) you have to admit: Lady Gaga is an amazing person when it comes to expressing appreciation and true gratefulness to her fans and followers. Sure her costumes might be a little wild, some may call them scary, but she really connects with her fans, commits to the passions and causes she speaks about. So how can you not admire her? Mack talks about Lady Gaga’s methods in detail, plus includes a video that I am sure will haunt the poor fan to some degree for the rest of his life! =)

Check out the rest of my favorites on HeatherVilla StumbleUpon.

Enjoy these readings and have a great weekend!

Related posts:

1. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 3/12/10
2. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 8/13/10
3. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 4/16/10

All The World’s A Stage In Marketing – With so many people writing blogs and articles online how is it possible to write about a topic you know at least another thousand people have already wrote about? It’s all in the delivery baby! You need to make sure that the information you are communicating to your readers, followers, and net promoters is catchy and memorable! Lisa Barone discusses the importance of keeping your readers entertained and engaged in the words you write while not being obnoxious. This article also has a ton of really great links and references.

How to Select the Right Domain Name – Every Tuesday Karyn will be answering questions on how to grow your business and will be posting the answers and suggestions via video. Last Tuesday’s video discusses the importance of a web domain and how to make sure you are selecting the proper name to use to brand yourself or your business.

[Video Biscuit] Chloe Meets the iPad – Too Cute!!! We all do it. We buy a new electronic toy and find some way to annoy or torment our pets! Watch and see Chloe the Corgi explore Daddy’s new iPad!

Being the Follower – As a Virtual Assistant how can you stand out and be a cut above the rest? In some cases it is good to be the follower, take the advice or instruction from the client and follow through. In other cases you may come across something that is not really the best fit for the situation even though it is what the client instructed you to do. In this instance you should shift from being the trusted follower and take a lead to help make things more efficient.

7 Ways To Hone Attention, Insight And Creativity – This article is powerful enough to change your life. Jonathan devoted this blog entry to providing us with some awesome reference materials in order to help us focus and relax. And when life gets a little intense, to let it roll off of us “like water off a duck’s tail!” Jonathan never fails to deliver inspirational and motivational reads!

Of course there are more. Check them out on HeatherVilla StumbleUpon.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Related posts:

1. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 7.24.09
2. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 5/21/10
3. Weekend Reading: My fav’s from this week: 3/12/10

I was recently reading a blog in the New York Times (published October 15th) by a CEO of a NY-based company. She referenced that, in a previous blog (published October 7th), she had written about ways to bypass high-priced agencies and run your own PR. And in that blog, someone had shared with her a brilliant piece of wisdom which sounds like something I tell people every day: In essence, the commenter said “you’re already busy as a CEO; why do the PR yourself as well? Focus on your core competencies to build your business and leave PR to someone else.” Read her original October 7th blog, entitled “Which PR Firm Do You Use?” .

That was her October 7th blog and she followed it up a week later with a reflection on that comment and the challenges she faces in deciding what work to keep and what work to delegate. Read her follow-up October 15th blog entitled “More On Do It Yourself PR and My Role as CEO” .

Finding the delegation balance amidst our busy roles
Many of us have been in her shoes: We’re leading a growing organization and trying to discover the balance between what we should do ourselves and what we give up. Although there are different sizes of businesses – the freelancer who hires a virtual assistant and the CEO of a 15-person firm who hires a COO, and everything in between – the challenge is surprisingly similar: Each leader is busy and has to figure out what to give up and what to keep.

Rules of thumb for leaders who want to delegate
First, give up what you don’t like to do. After all, you should enjoy your work! This isn’t always possible, depending on who you hire, but it might help to influence who you hire. (For example, if you’re a freelancer and you hate selling, you might want an assistant who can handle a large part of your selling process).

Second, give up the work that isn’t related to your core competency. This is easier to do for the freelancer than for the CEO of the larger business because a freelancer can easily identify his or her core competency as the specific revenue-generating activities they do. But a CEO has core competencies that are not necessarily specific to revenue generation, and this is discussed briefly in the October 15th blog I referenced earlier. The CEO is good at PR, even if she’s not running a PR firm. So, core competencies are more “business-growing” activities rather than strictly “revenue-generating” activities. If you’re a CEO and you’re a visionary, then embrace that and hand off the day-to-day to a COO.

Third, give up the work that is your core competency. No, this advice doesn’t conflict with the passage above. I think it’s the “next step” in taking a small business into the big business world. Small business owners do the revenue generation themselves; in big businesses, leaders eventually need to pass off business growing activities to sales and marketing experts, revenue-generation activities to production people, and they even willingly pass off core competency work to others, ideally duplicating their effort by sharing their wisdom. Take a look at a mammoth company like Dell: Michael Dell may have once picked up a screwdriver to assemble a computer… that was a revenue generating core competency of his. However, I’m fairly certain that he hasn’t picked up a screwdriver in a quite a while. And even if he has competencies in other areas (like efficient systems, for example) we can be fairly certain that he has other people doing that too. He’s kept a few things and passed off many other things (business building, revenue generating, core competencies) to other people.

Certainly, there are no easy answers and it does look different for every business owner or business leader. But one answer is clear: You can’t do it all so you have to pass some things to other people.

Happy Blogging!

Related posts:

1. There’s only one thing that can’t be delegated

But at the same time, trying to take time off for business owners is extremely difficult. With so much to do, it can be extremely difficult to break away at the end of the day. Twelve or fourteen hour workdays may soon become the norm as you try to keep your head above water. Success breeds success, leading you down an ever busier path. No matter how much you love your work, sooner or later you will begin to feel ready for a vacation.

When a business owner considers taking some time off they inevitably begin asking themselves:

• What will happen during your vacation?
• Will you be able to completely clear your schedule for a week or two?
• What happens if you do?
• Will you lose track of important clients, or possibly even lose work due to the inability to get things done in a timely manner?
• Will you lose out on future clients simply because you were unable to answer your email before someone else was hired instead?

There are no simple answers to these questions. Every business owner’s personal, vocational and financial picture is different. However, a basic truth holds for every person on Earth, whether or not that person is a business owner. We as human beings need down time. We need time to relax, spend time with loved ones, and have fun. Not allowing yourself some time off is a sure path to burnout.

Here are some tips on how to take time off for business owners

Begin by outsourcing as much as possible. A virtual assistant can transform the small business experience for the business owner who is struggling to keep up. Your virtual assistant can manage many of the day to day tasks of business management, from bookkeeping and accounting to answering phones and email. He or she can also manage your calendar, sending you reminders of important upcoming events. A VA can work as many or as few hours as you require, and those hours may change by the week, month or project. The cost of a VA is generally much less than that of recruiting, hiring, training and retaining an employee.
Plan your vacation well in advance. Work longer hours to get as far ahead as possible before you leave town. Let your clients know about your vacation well ahead of time. Plan realistic project deadlines that account for the time that you will be away.

Working during your vacation is a viable option, as long as your work hours are limited. There is little point in paying for a hotel room that you will sit in for days on end, working. However, setting aside an hour a day to check email and return phone calls, and perhaps one or two days a week to complete work tasks is a reasonable goal.

Let your VA work for you while you are on vacation. Arrange for him or her to answer your phone and respond to emails. Have anything that requires your attention forwarded to your voicemail or email for you to respond to at your leisure.

Balancing work and downtime can be difficult for any business owner. However, time off is essential to mental health and stability. Outsource those tasks that you do not need to personally handle and structure your schedule to allow for vacations. The peace of mind and refreshment of mind, body and spirit are worth the effort.

About the author: Heather Villa, MBA CMA MSM, is a Business Coach and Entrepreneur. She helps business owners achieve success in operations, productivity, project management, and social media. Read her other articles at http://hireheathervilla.com/resources/articles/ and visit http://heathervilla.com for more information.

Disclaimer: © 2009 Heather Villa. Permission is granted to repost this article. Article must be published in its entirety, including author bio, and all links must remain intact.

Related posts:

1. A “workout” regimen for small business owners
2. One Small Step for Business
3. How Much Does A Small Business Owner Really Make?

Experience
This should be one of the main considerations when looking at a potential candidate. You need to determine how much experience he or she has working at the tasks you want them to do. It doesn’t mean that they must have performed the exact role, but they should at least have experience in the tasks you need done. For example, a branch manager who is applying for the job of marketing manager might still be well qualified, just because they did marketing while a branch manager. Insist on and check references. Be sure that the experience listed matches what you are seeking.

Integrity
This trait is particularly important if your employee will be dealing with confidential information. Again, reference checks are invaluable and a background check should be considered when client confidentiality is important. Integrity can be a difficult quality to measure so you might have to rely on instinct a little.

Professionalism
This is always important in the business world. If your employee will be dealing with clients via the phone or email, it is imperative that they are able to conduct themselves in a professional manner. How do they conduct themselves on the phone? Do they have a pleasant speaking voice and use proper grammar? A thorough interview as well as a writing assessment can help you make this determination. And seriously consider doing this same assessment for all employees, not just front-office employees, because these people might answer phones in a pinch or they may end up becoming managers when your business grows further.

Initiative
This is huge, but it’s often missed. In my opinion, it’s the second-most-important quality after integrity. A person with initiative may not always do a perfect job, but they’re also not going to sit around and wait. They will be assertive, proactive, and a self-starter. Watch for candidates who seem to think “outside the box” and resist hiring employees who seem to be timid and who need a lot of guidance. You don’t want to spend your time micro-managing people or cleaning up after their messes! You will want to ask how they handle obstacles or difficulties in completing a task and how they manage their time when working from home.

These qualities are imperative in every staff member you hire, whether virtual assistant, freelancer, or employee. Use this article as a “checklist” to ensure that they possess these qualities before you hire them.

About the author: Heather Villa, MBA CMA MSM, is a Business Coach and Entrepreneur. She helps business owners achieve success in operations, productivity, project management, and social media. Read her other articles at http://hireheathervilla.com/resources/articles/ and visit http://heathervilla.com for more information.

Disclaimer: © 2009 Heather Villa. Permission is granted to repost this article. Article must be published in its entirety, including author bio, and all links must remain intact.

Related posts:

1. Navigating the Sea of Staffing Requirements