Michigan VAs

Tuesday’s Time Saving Tips: Keyboard Shortcuts

Pat Williams — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:43:15 +0000

If you’re like me and spend a lot of time at the keyboard, shortcuts can shave seconds off your work immediately, but have you thought about how much time they save over the long term?

Here are my favorite shortcuts because I use them several times a day:

Windows
CTRL C: Copy
CTRL X: Cut
CTRL V: Paste

Mac
Command C: Copy
Command X: Cut
Command V: Paste

Press the ctrl or command button and the c, x, or v when you want to copy, cut or paste any files, images, or text.

Why Should You Hire Us?

Pat Marshall — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:00:05 +0000

In short, our focus is you and your business, our business is to help your business succeed by providing business services that we excel at so that you don’t have to be great at everything in order to be successful. Why should you hire us? It’s simple! At Your Service Office Solutions offer professional, high quality, timely [...]

What is Virtual Assistant

Pat Marshall — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:00:10 +0000

A Virtual Assistant (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is an entrepreneur who provides professional administrative, technical, or creative assistance to clients from a home office that can be located anywhere in the world. They usually work for other small businesses, brokers and consultancy groups. It is estimated that there are [...]

Real Estate Videos – Which Style Do You Prefer?

Pat Williams — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:13:33 +0000

I’m requesting your feedback and thoughts. As more and more agents begin to create videos of their listings, I’m wondering which style is preferred. Do you like the more formal, but potentially sterile, stitched professional image videos or the casual first person tours that may display the home’s blemishes?

The following videos are the perfect examples to evaluate because the subject is the same house. One video was created by Circlepix, a company that takes great still photos and creates a video from them, the other by the homeowner who walks you through the house with a handheld video camera.

Which style do you prefer? Why?

Thanks to The Columbus Team for allowing me to use these videos on this post.

It’s a Smart Decision!™ We’re Almost Live!

Nikita Devereaux — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:00:08 +0000

The It's a Smart Decision!™ Online Community is expressly for geographically dispersed teams, telecommuters, work at home entreprenuers -- or soloprenuers, as I call them -- and other "virtuals" who want to share all the ways you find balance and stave off insanity in your home office. It's just getting started, but you can bet people like you will make it well worth the two minutes it might take you to sign up.

Staying Visible with Your Most Underutilized Tech Tool

Nikita Devereaux — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:00:08 +0000

For work at home professionals, the nature of our "workplace" can be . . . well, a barrier. Traditional work relationships are based on manning a desk or cubicle in an office. Colleagues pool resources to produce, sell and maintain a product or service. When you work at home or on the go, "out of sight, out of mind" can easily prevail. Whether you are a home-based entrepreneur or a telecommuter, you don't want to be forgotten by clients or colleagues.

Tuesday’s Time Saving Tips: 6 Recommendations for More Effective Meetings

Pat Williams — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:32:45 +0000

The work day is crazy. We book a meeting and all of a sudden the date and time is looming, and we’re not prepared. So much time is wasted in meetings!

Whether your meeting location is across the conference table, over the phone or on the web, here are some quick tips to make your meetings more effective:

Plan, plan, plan! Book the meeting and jot down your agenda ideas. Keep the document on your desktop so you can add to the points of discussion/consideration between scheduling and the meeting day. Planning includes determining whether a meeting is required in the first place; consider whether the same results can be achieved via email.
Send an agenda out to all participants 24 hours to a week ahead of time. Request their feedback in advance or ask them to be prepared to present their input during the meeting. Give/ask for a time frame to complete their presentation.
Create the schedule and final agenda prior to the start of the meeting.
Stick to the agenda and to the task at hand. There’s nothing more frustrating than late start because social time between participants delays it.
Keep attendees on task throughout meeting so the pace is maintained by ensuring all are actively participating.
Finish with an effective follow up plan. Be clear on who is responsible for what. Document decisions and email a summary to each attendee with necessary deadlines.

Following these 6 meeting recommendations will create more effective meetings while freeing time for you and your attendees to accomplish other important tasks.

The Need for Perfection Can Cost You Business

Pat Williams — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:44:02 +0000

“Do not let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of progress.”

I had a client who wanted me to build a temporary three page site to use as a business calling card. It was temporary because she was planning to replace it with a larger site once she determined the content she wanted included.

This temporary site has never been published.

Why? Because it will never be perfect. The graphics and layout have been completely redesigned three times, the content has been rewritten several times as she’d find new ways of describing her business… and then she’d require new colors. The money she spent on this “temporary” site could have easily purchased her final site had she been able to determine what she wanted. I wonder how many clients she’s missed because of her inability to make a decision and move forward?

We’re raised to believe that mistakes are costly. Inaction costs us more.

“You cannot afford to wait for perfect conditions. Goal setting is often a matter of balancing timing against available resources. Opportunities are easily lost while waiting for perfect conditions.”
~Gary Ryan Blair

Photo Credit: jilles / CC BY 2.0

Tuesday’s Time Saving Tips: Think Delegation BEFORE You’re Buried

Pat Williams — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:40:17 +0000

As an entrepreneur and business owner, you started out loving what you do. The job is exciting, you’re passionate about your work. Why else would you work so hard for such long periods of time?

Long term, you can’t maintain that initial start up pace or you’ll eventually face burnout. You’ll become tired and find yourself buried in tiny tasks required to accomplish the big picture. The tasks you’ll no longer enjoy doing.

If you let yourself get to this point, you’ll lose the passion for your business.

Consider delegating BEFORE you’re buried.

As you work on your business, contemplate the steps you’re performing and evaluate the following:

Do I enjoy doing this?
Is this task part of my skill set? Will I spend a lot of time learning how to complete this task rather than doing it?
Is this the best use of my time? Could I be earning more money or would I be happier and more efficient performing a different task?
If I don’t enjoy this task, how much time do I waste avoiding it?
What are the steps I perform so I could pass all or a portion of of this task onto someone else?
What type of skills would someone need to complete this task effectively?

If you evaluate your tasks before you’re desperate for help, you’ll be halfway to actual delegation. Too many of our clients come to us when they are overwhelmed and too busy to slow down to determine HOW they want us to help them.

You may even consider delegating smaller tasks BEFORE you actually require help. This way, when the need to delegate is critical, you’ve already tested and found a reliable assistant who is ready, willing and CAPABLE of delivering the results you expect.

And if you’re already buried? Call me, I’ve got a shovel.

Photo Credit: vernhart / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Client Relationships

Pat Marshall — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:00:09 +0000

Have you run into a client relationship like this in your real world situations? Check out this video “ The Vendor Client relationship – in real world situations”. Every relationship has a story! http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vendorclientvideo.com%2F&h=9f3b7c724220c6ae7abe45ab42dc3936