Live Full Work Fun Podcast

I simply can't believe that in just a few days we will be starting a brand-new year! In today's show we are going to talk about setting your goals in motion for a successful new year.

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." --Walt Disney

Why is it that we think we can continue to add to our pile of things to do and stress ourselves out because there is never enough time?

It's a tough reality to face. When you say "yes" to something, you must say "no" to something else. Whether you are aware of it or not, at the end of the day what you said yes to left other things undone.

It's natural for our priorities and goals to shift in our businesses and in our personal lives. As we come into a new year, many of us are reflecting on our progress from the past years and focusing on our future goals.

In this podcast episode, Sharon and I talk about time management and the importance of evaluating what to let go in order to make room for growth. We give examples of some tough decisions we are facing at the moment and how we are working through the process to achieve our goals we've set for ourselves for the coming year.

Time is our most valuable resource. We can never get it back. We can never make more. We just keep moving forward whether we like it or not.

People set goals, but don't put an action plan in place. That action plan must translate into something listed on your calendar.

Just because you put something on your calendar to take an hour, does it really take an hour? Things can go two ways. You think something should take only an hour, but in reality, to do the job right, it will take much longer. Or, you are dragging your feet and making things take longer because you are unsure, not confident, or just wasting time.

It takes practice and continual work to find processes that work for you to have a good sense of how long things will take so that you can become more efficient.

You must prioritize and figure out what is important to you. Before you decide to give up something, take a moment to evaluate and understand the value it brings. Sometimes we aren't in a mood and don't want to do something. Let's take, for example, exercise. If you are trying to achieve a weight loss goal and give up exercise because you don't feel like it, then you wouldn't be getting closer to reaching your goal. It's in your best interest to keep your appointment with yourself and do it because you see the value of the end result.

Blocking time on your calendar is a helpful way of visualizing what you should attend and what you'll give up in order to add something else. When you see your calendar full of events and faced with other demands on your time, it's easier to visualize your priorities and either say no or move things around.

Sometimes it's a good idea to eliminate tasks, but often times, we can't eliminate them because we need to keep things running smoothly. But should you be doing the task or is it time to delegate so you can accomplish more? You should think about how much is it costing you to do the task versus paying someone else to do it.

You should be asking yourself these questions:

• How much is your time worth?
• What tasks are eating up your time?
• How much time do I devote to those tasks?
• How much it's costing you to do it yourself?
• How much would it cost to delegate the task?

Attaching a dollar amount to your time helps you measure and prioritize what tasks you should keep and what tasks make sense to delegate.

There are many things that demand your time and only you can make the decision of what takes priority.

Be realistic with yourself about your time, assign a value to your time, evaluate carefully how you are spending your time, and see if some tasks should be shifted.

What are you doing now that is holding you back from future growth and how are you making progress of letting go?

Last week, Sharon and I went through 10 of the 15 mistakes commonly made when goal setting. We didn't want to make the episode too long, so we broke it up into two episodes. Join us and see if you have ever made any of the mistakes.

We don't want to dwell on the negative because that isn't productive. But knowing the reasons why we don't accomplish a goal is important. Instead of feeling lost and frustrated, you gain a better understanding of yourself and your actions, which will better enable you to recognize if you fall into your old routine keeping you from achieving your goal.

Set your goals for next year with a fresh and new perspective.

It's the end of the year and it's the traditional resolution time. The added stress of the holidays and the pressing fact that the year is swiftly coming to an end gets many of us reflecting on what we've accomplished.

But are you frustrated and focused on what you didn't accomplish in the year and trying to hurry to do some catch-up? Do you have any goals that you set last year that looking back you haven't made the progress you wanted?

It happens to all of us.

I think it's a good idea to know and understand the reasons why goals fail so that we can get over being discouraged and be on a better path when setting new goals. In this episode, Sharon and I go over the main mistakes made in setting goals.

We hope you enjoy the show. If you find the show useful and helpful, we encourage you to subscribe to the show on iTunes and let us know your thoughts. You can leave a comment or always drop us a note at [email protected].

Working with a team has its challenges, but when it comes to your team being remote, there are special challenges.

We've had our struggles with some of our clients getting started and getting into a good groove.

In today's episode, we talk about the key things you should know when working with a virtual team. Actually, most of the things we go over apply to anyone you may add to your team whether they are remote or not.

Without a plan, you waste time and money. Sure it would be nice to hire someone, snap your fingers, then everything is in place and everything is running smoothly. The reality is it doesn't happen that way. Careful planning is needed on your part for a successful relationship with any new team member.

When you don't see someone on a regular basis, you aren't as "connected" to them. Without finding ways to consistently talking with your virtual assistant, you may lose sight who they are as a person and aren't using their talents to the fullest.

Regular communication holds both you and your VA accountable. You are able to address questions and talk about plans and projects. There are many tools that help streamline communication with a virtual team.

Even hiring someone with a great deal of experience will require some training. You have a uniqueness in your company and you are creating your company culture, so training and feedback should be expected in order to produce the outcomes you desire.

• Dropbox
• Slack
• Zoom
• Skype
• Screencast-o-matic
• YouTube

Once you have things in place, don't take advantage of how much your team has taken on. Even the little things add up to big-time savings for you. The small stuff matters!

It's a big step to reach out and ask for help. When you seek help in your business, there's a lot to consider. Being well informed before making a decision is important.

We invite you to download our free book called 5 Things You Must Know Before Hiring A Virtual Assistant. We hope it helps you with your journey in accomplishing more and growing your business.

In order to truly accomplish more and grow your business, you must strategically plan on getting help. Teams come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and the reality is, you will need a team.

In today's podcast, we go over the main fears of building a team and some hints to overcome them.

Most businesses starting out have more time than money and you must do everything yourself. The first step in realizing your business' growth depends on building the right team is viewing help as an investment instead of an expense. Find ways to make your money go further by delegating small projects first. An hour or two each week of delegated work makes a huge impact on your productivity.

The perception that no one can do as good as a job as you can is the wrong rabbit hole to go into. Yes, you may hear horror stories, but start delegating tasks a little at a time. Do your homework before hiring someone. This doesn't always eliminate bad things from happening, but how you plan separation of duties and processes will help you identify issues should they arise.

You may tell yourself that you are too busy to look for or train a new person to help. It would be just quicker if it did it myself. Getting stuck on that hamster wheel will lead to exhaustion and burn out. Indeed, finding the perfect person or people is hard, but always be on the look-out of qualified people that can help you in small projects. Develop cheat sheets and/or video tutorials on your processes to streamline training.

Letting go and beginning to not know what is going on with every little piece of your business is scary, no doubt. You must shift your thinking on all the details and focus on outcomes.

Are all these things that we discussed today reasons or merely excuses?

It's a big step to reach out and ask for help. If you need help in your business, there's a lot to consider. It is certainly a process to always be working on overcoming these fears. Being well informed before making a decision is important.

We invite you to download our free book called 5 Things You Must Know Before Hiring A Virtual Assistant. In it, you'll gain insight to help you overcome some of your fears.

We hope you enjoyed the show and find the information helpful and gets you on the path of accomplishing more.

We often get puzzled looks when we say we are virtual assistants. The buzz word of "virtual assistant" is rampant in the online business world, but not so much with traditional product or service industries. Technology has made it possible for small business owners to seriously consider virtual assistant services as they grow their company. In today's podcast, we go over what a virtual assistant is and ideas of what kinds of businesses they serve.

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is one who aids clients remotely by doing administrative tasks in their own office, using their own equipment. Communication between VA and client is generally done by a variety of methods, such as phone, email, instant messaging, or video conference.

Whether you are growing your business or a busy executive and you find yourself either bogged down with administrative tasks or simply do not have the desire or expertise in certain administrative tasks, then consider VA services. Many times, the ever-so-important tasks that must be done, such as bookkeeping, letter writing, invoicing, etc., eats up the time of a busy business owner cutting into the time they should be spending growing their business and spending time with their family. The delegation of administrative tasks or special projects to a VA saves time and money for the business owner.

Because VAs are independent contractors instead of employees, clients are not responsible for such employee related expenses such as employment taxes, insurance, and benefits. A VA provides their own office space, equipment, and supplies, the business owner does not have to have the extra expense of employee space and equipment.

Consider a VA when you have grown your business enough and you feel overwhelmed with all the administrative tasks. You realize you can't focus on the continued growth of your business. There are tasks that you know need to be done, like bookkeeping, invoicing, website updates, newsletters, client communication, but you either lack the expertise or lack the desire to do the task, then hiring a VA is a great option.

Many times, business owners may have the need for help 5-10 hours a week, for example, and find it difficult to hire a quality employee to fill those needs and do not have space or equipment for that employee to do the job effectively.

Other times, a special project comes up and there isn't the expertise or time in the office to fill the need. Scrivener Solutions discusses with you your needs to cater a plan that works best for your business.

Think about it, even delegating a project that may take 2-5 hours a month is well worth the investment. You are assured the project is completed and you use those hours for either servicing current customers or gaining new ones.

Of course, Scrivener Solutions is available for content marketing services

There are many national and international companies

Finding freelancers

• Fiverr - https://www.fiverr.com/
• Virtual Staff Finder virtualstafffinder.com/
• VA Networking https://www.vanetworking.com/

Online businesses are the most obvious and the term VAs are thrown around there a lot. VAs are a great option when you are running your office out of your home. Or, if you have office space and employees, VAs are an option for those projects where your current staff does not have the expertise or time to complete.

VAs can perform general or highly specialized tasks. Some VAs are industry specific.

Types of Industries who use VA services

• Heating & Air
• Window Washing
• Real Estate
• Financial Advisors
• Attorneys
• Retail stores
• Massage therapists
• Vets
• Doggie daycares
• List goes on and on

It's a big step to reach out and ask for help. If you need help in your business, there's a lot to consider. Download our free book, 5 Things You Must Know Before Hiring A Virtual Assistant to learn more.

Undoubtedly time and money are the biggest stressors for most people. There are tons of books, blog posts, articles, and podcasts about...

• How to save money
• How to save time
• How to make more money
• How to have more time

We all have ups and downs with managing both. We are hungry for information to improve so that we have more of both.

In order to improve, you've got to track. Today's podcast is all about tracking and using tools to help you gain a better perspective of where both your time and money goes.

We as business owners can quickly get a warped sense of how much time things take to complete or where our money actually goes. We convince ourselves that we have a great sense of where we stand because it's just in our head. We have great instincts. We just know. Much of the time, we are fooling ourselves.

Try putting things down in black and white for awhile, then review the data. This is one sure way to bring into focus how you can improve in both your time and money areas.

If you aren't tracking...I challenge you to start. This will certainly better prepare you for your yearly goal setting. It will also help you to prioritize, become much more efficient, and lead your team better.

Sharon and I discuss what tools we use at Scrivener Solutions and give examples of what we and some of our clients do with the information we gain from our tracking efforts. We hope this sparks some ideas of how you can improve your tracking systems so that you'll be able to better plan for the future. Don't let technology get in your way. Learning a few basic digital systems of tracking will save you both time and money.

• Quickbooks
• Peachtree (now Sage)
• Freshbooks
• Excel
• Toggl

Undoubtedly you've heard the phrase "failure to plan, plan to fail." Sure it may be true, but who has time for it? Running a small business takes all our time and energy, the last thing we want to do is a business plan.

You may have the impression that preparing a business plan is intimidating and the only time you'd need to bother with preparing one is when you must apply for a business loan. True, banks need a formal business plan in order to consider you for a loan and often times it's a good idea to get some help to prepare the document in a thorough and professional way. The professionals in organizations like SCORE are a great resource to help you prepare such a formal document.

But today we aren't talking about a formal document. Even the smallest business needs a plan. It doesn't have to be formal. It certainly doesn't have to be long. It's simply a way to have you think about your business and become clear on your direction.

As a small business, the only person in your business may be you. Your business plan serves as your goal-setting document and the foundation for your marketing message.

In today's episode, Sharon and I talk about the components of a business plan. We discuss the importance of the K.I.S.S. method (keep it simple silly) when it comes to your business plan.

All the components of a formal business plan can be scribbled on a piece of paper or typed up in a document. For me, I use an Excel spreadsheet. The sections don't have to be long, and often times may be one sentence.

A few years ago, when I strayed off course and was frustrated with my business, I realized that I needed to pull out my plan and really think how I wanted my business to take shape. I know how important making a plan is, but truthfully I get busy just "doing" and put off going back to my plan. That's why I implemented a system to hold myself accountable.

In the show, we go over each section in a little bit more detail and give examples of how I address each in my small business. We also discuss who I've recruited to hold me accountable so that I make time to pause and plan.

• Business Description
• Products and Services
• Sales and Marketing
• Operations
• Management Team
• Development
• Financial Summary

To some, my calendar may look intimidating with all the color-coded blocks and very little white space. To me, I gain focus and have a better plan for my day increasing my productivity.

I truly believe that if it's not on my schedule, then it doesn't get done...whatever "it" may be.

I use a blend of both an old-fashioned paper calendar and my digital calendar to help me plan and prioritize. I think using a blend of both is beneficial and here's why.

Using a paper calendar seems to be more tangible. It can help you gain an overall picture of the big stuff. It's great for goal setting. When you write down milestone goals on a paper calendar and keep it out and handy to frequently review, it's a perfect visual to help you stay on target.

I use a monthly planner and look at the coming year and the first thing I schedule are my trips or major family/personal events. By writing them down on the calendar, the level of importance has been elevated. My mindset shifts from "maybe someday" to "the time will be here soon."

Then, I move the major events from my wall calendar into my digital calendar to plan out more detailed events. Even if you are a technology-challenged individual, I think it's important to implement a digital calendar in your systems because it will position you for delegating some scheduling tasks in the future.

For example, Norma on my team reviews my appointments on my calendar for the week and will send email confirmations for my meetings. Only on rare occasions, she may need clarification. We have a system of communication through my digital calendar that I've shared with her. The number of no-shows or misunderstandings about meeting times and dates have been greatly reduced. My productivity increased!

You may wonder why I don't confirm my own appointments. Honestly, I tried, but that got placed to the bottom of the list. The fact is, I didn't want to find the time. I needed to have the accountability of someone else. That little task that I've delegated to Norma wouldn't have been possible if I didn't keep a digital calendar. She can't read my mind, but we've created a little system where it's almost like she can.

Even though you may be a team of one right now, it's important to develop systems that will allow you to grow into having team members.

You may say that you can't schedule because you don't know what tomorrow will bring. Of course, things come up. Of course, schedules may need to be modified. Of course, you may not allow the right time for a project. Having a schedule is a guide. When the unexpected does come up, you are better able to prioritize and determine if you should stray or stick to your plan.

In this podcast episode, I introduce Sharon Snow who is a part of the Scrivener Solutions team. Sharon is a mother, wife, teacher, business owner, and virtual assistant. We discuss different ways we use schedules to be more productive and organized.

• Use a paper calendar to give you a big picture of the year
• Schedule what's important to you first
• Move your important, big picture events from your paper calendar to your digital calendar
• Block out the times of your recurring meetings/events
• Block out travel time to avoid overbooking
• Share your calendar
• Review on a daily basis and move items from your to-do list and block time for the task/project on your schedule
• Block times that are available for meetings and when someone asks to meet with you, only choose those days and times
• Use your schedule to hold yourself accountable

• Google Calendar
• Life 360