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What Better Way to Make Someone Happy This Christmas Than Giving a Gift
Gift - Synonym of Christmas
Oh my it’s now December 1st. and the first thing that pops in my head is Christmas. Christmas for me the best time of the year. I even wrote a hub about Christmas in the Philippines. During this season, people are more kind, generous, understanding and peaceful. How can I not be excited. And best of all, Christmas is also the time when we receive gifts beside our birthdays. Growing up, gift is the synonym of Christmas for me. And I bet to some of you too. As I sit here wondering what gift will I receive from my wife, I stumbled upon a hub that talks about gratitude and thanks giving. I then thought why not think about what I will give instead of me thinking of what I will get. This is a challenge for me and for you too fellow bloggers. Aside from thinking of what gift we like to receive, let us all gather ideas on what and how we can give before and during Christmas.
The Entrepreneurial Mind Set
As a small business owner I surround myself with like minded people. Many of them are also business owners. Some have small and some have big. Most of them are like me, they love what they do. I am guessing you do too. That’s one of the compelling reasons most of us decided to go out on our own. We also like challenges and risks which bring out the artist within us. The opportunity to be creative is always there, and the possibility of shaping our own future. As I look closely on each of these colleagues of mine, though we all love what we are doing there are still differences from the way each other think and execute the same ideas.
I used to think that having a business is what makes someone an entrepreneur. Besides, being an entrepreneur means not being employed or having a boss. As I observe, business owners fall into two class—the self-employed and the entrepreneurs. What makes them different? It’s the mind set.
Self Employed
The self employed are those who have a skill or talent and they are sure that there are people who are willing to pay them for their time, product or service. So they quit their day job and employ themselves. They get calling cards, a website, possibly an office. They start marketing what they have to offer and after quite some time they have customers. One day, they find themselves working too many hours, consistently doing everything to fill the pipeline with new leads, and sometimes wondering if they have bought themselves a “dream job”. They cannot take too much time off because without them there is no business nor money will come. Even franchisees, which are running through a proven system, might see themselves fit in this category. Surely a lot of consultants and coaches, home based businesses, and service professionals end up on this list as well. We’re talking about talented professionals—people who, like you, work hard and deserve success! Unfortunately, a majority of business owners fall into this category.
The type of business the self employed is running is what Michael Gerber – Author of The E-Myth, revisited, called “Employee-Driven Business”, businesses that slowly dies together with its owner.
The Entrepreneurs
On the other hand, the entrepreneurs are the business owners who seem to have the ability to grow their businesses almost effortlessly, and maintain a steady growth. You talk to them and although they work hard, they may be off for a week or two, enjoying time with their family and loved ones somewhere or probably golfing .While their businesses are running and earning. They donate in charities and participate in activities with their kids. What do they know that the self employed do not?
Delegating Your Important Works
Are You Running a Business or Just Running in Circles?
Entrepreneurs have a lot to do to make their business run and grow but rarely have enough time to do it all! Are you running your company or running in circles? Have a skilled, proactive, scalable individual or team of who share your vision for the success of your business.
Your business will grow a lot faster and more profitably with a Virtual Assistant who takes care of the details quickly and at a lower cost than if you did the work yourself.
Stop trying to do it all. Hire a Virtual Assistant and watch your company grow.
Delegating is the ANSWER
Small or Big Businesses
Owners of small business face many challenges in their days and one of the biggest challenges that most of them face is having too much to do. It doesn’t matter if the business is doing really well or if it is stumbling along (and could be doing better).
For a busy business that is doing well, the business owner might find themselves drowning with orders to fill and with so little time to market. While for the slow business, the business owner might find themselves with much marketing opportunities that need to be pursued in order to find new customers.
Either way, the schedule is full! And delegating the works is the right thing to do. Here’s why:
Hiring a Virtual Assistant to delegating the works gives you the benefit of leveraging effort. It may be strange but the equation in delegation is one plus one equals three. It is because small business owners who are freed from the trivial, mundane and repetitive tasks (also with works that they don’t enjoy doing or are not good at) can instead focus their efforts on growing their business. Time that was spent doing stuff that doesn’t help in growing the business will now be use well for business-growth-activities. That is huge!
Businesses are not “one-man- shows”. They might start off that way but since we each only have 24 hours a day, if a business wants to grow more than through what can be accomplished in 24 hours, it has to be done with some help from others. This is a big sticking point for some business owners but once that mindset is broken, the business will bloom. Letting go of the idea that you’re the only one who can do it all is the first step in achieving it. (Chances are, you can do most of it but someone else can help).
Hire a Virtual Assistant and it sends the RIGHT work to the RIGHT person who has the RIGHT combination of skills and time to do the job. For example, as a business owner, you’re the right person to be building your business. You’re not the right person to be doing data entry your Virtual Assistant is.
What are the benefits in doing these?
as i was walking in a mall I saw this Hard Day’s Night shirt and I think it is sweet, I asked the sales lady if they have other Beatles shirt, I’ve got a reply from her saying that they don’t have any Beatles shirt. I told her while pointing to this shirt “how about that?” she then said “that’s not the Beatles”. And as a big Beatles fan I started singing it’s been a Hard Day’s Night„ she then exclaimed “oh yeah! that was the Beatles” smiling I went out of the shop ;)
What to do if your Virtual Assistant have done the job wrong?
There is nothing perfect in this world and that includes your Virtual Assistant’s work; mistakes, miscommunication, project derailment, etc. For whatever bunch of reasons, a project can go in a different direction than we wanted. Here’s how to fix it.
Tip 1: Entirely review the finished project
Entirely review the finished project. Look closer and see if you’re your Virtual Assistant just attached the wrong file. It happens! Or, perhaps excess information was provided as background and the finished work is at the end of the document.
Tip 2: Determine ways to save it
Assuming that the project you received wasn’t an incorrect file or just a mislabeled project, look at the project and determine how it can be saved. It’s extremely rare that a project is so totally wrecked that it needs to be scrapped and start all over again. If you think of a project being completed in stages, think about what you have to dial the project back to in order to start from there. Is 50% of the project correct? 75%? 25%?
Tip 3: Look for a pattern regarding what went wrong
Yes, this might seem like a strange step to take but it will make a huge difference to the outcome of the second attempt… and to the outcome of future projects. Here’s a simple example: Perhaps you might notice that the project was an entire plan about social bookmarking rather than social networking. Some of it is still salvageable but it needs to be extended out to cover broader social media. So the “pattern” here is that it was focused too narrowly on bookmarking.
Reviewing this step thoroughly, while you also review the communication in the project, can help to highlight where the mistake occurred.
Tip 4: Review with your Virtual Assistant
So far, you’ve done the work on your own. Now it’s time to go back to your Virtual Assistant with an outline of what went wrong and how to fix it. When you review with them, remember to be clear but positive. (Positive doesn’t mean that you have to thank them for a job well done if the project was wrong, but it does mean that you need to maintain professionalism and an upbeat attitude because good work doesn’t happen when criticism becomes too harsh). Outline for them what you were expecting and where you think the error occurred. Discuss a plan of action to see that the project gets corrected.
If you are concerned about how the project will progress and whether the corrections will fix what you are looking for, set up a series of mini-milestones in which you review the revised project before it is completed. While that might not be ideal on every project, it’s not a bad idea on projects that have really gone in a different direction than you were expecting.
Visit Virtual Assistant Philippines for more tips on how to better use your Virtual Assistant.
