Have you ever played Whack-A-Mole? You know, the one where you use a padded hammer to knock a mole on the head each time it pops up. Well, the moles don’t stay up for very long. And, as the game progresses, more and more moles pop up simultaneously, on all sides of the grid. Faster and faster, as you try to beat the stuffing out of them before time runs out!

Then you look around at some of the other players… the ones who are choosing which moles to knock down rather than trying to hit them all. And you start to wonder if they have a better game plan or a higher success rate.

If Whack-A-Mole makes you think of how you run your business, you’re not wrong. Having to move quickly to knock daily problems on the head, often without any time to really think things through, does feel a LOT like Whack-A-Mole.

Links 🔗

👉  Newsletter episode

👉  How to reclaim time for your creative freedom [article]

👉 Your Virtual Assistant

👉  Follow Justine on LinkedIn

Welcome to this episode of The Lever, where we'll be discussing the importance of creative thinking in business, and how to make time for it. In this episode, we'll be sharing tips to help you start unlocking your creativity.  

I’m Justine, agency boss of Your Virtual Assistant where we help busy business owners delegate to elevate through our team of VAs, VBMs and virtual experts. We know the value in creating space for you to unlock your creativity.  

Links 🔗 

👉  Newsletter episode 

👉  How To Break Free To Work In Your Genius Zone [article]   

👉  Clarity Break [EOS tool] 

👉  Our Website

If you’re anything like me, you probably have a hard time switching off.

Justine Parsons 

Founder 

NZ's Virtual Business Support Agency

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1 FACT 🧐

Are You As Busy As You Think? — Wall Street Journal

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1 TIP 💡

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1 TOOL 💥

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1 QUESTION ❓

What’s stopping you from slowing down?

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1 ACTION 🎬

What makes a leader great? 

Are there certain defining traits that set great leaders apart?   

When I think of great leaders I admire, the qualities that stand out most for me are:   

📌 Integrity 

📌 Communication 

📌 Empathy 

📌 Respect 

📌 Courage   

These intrinsic qualities characterise the leaders I look up to. 

And they’re qualities I strive to demonstrate in my own leadership role.  

Let's explore how to be the best leaders we can be.  

Justine Parsons 

Founder 

NZ's Virtual Business Support Agency

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 1 FACT 🧐   

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. 

— Lao Tzu  

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1 TIP 💡  

Being a leader is no easy feat! It takes a whole lot of time and effort and a big dollop of charisma to get the most out of any team. But to truly inspire a team to do their best work, leaders must master certain skill sets. Here are five:  

✅ Strategic thinker – great leaders plan ahead, identifying how they will respond to a variety of situations. 

✅ Strong decision makers – great leaders understand how to balance emotion with reason and make decisions that positively impact themselves, their employees, their customers and stakeholders, and their organisations. 

✅ Handle conflict well – great leaders learn how to resolve conflict fairly, to build teams that work well together. 

✅ Delegate with ease – great leaders understand that the key to efficiency and developing a strong team is delegation. 

✅ Innovate to move forward – the ability to lead innovation and create change is what allows businesses to thrive and grow.  

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1 TOOL 💥  

Want to know where you fit in as a leader? 

Try this self-assessment tool to get: 

📌 an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses 

📌 practical tips 

📌 links to expert advice  

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1 QUESTION ❓  

Are you the best leader you can be? What would your team say to each other about you?  

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1 ACTION 🎬   

Define the traits you think make a great leader and consider how well you demonstrate these in your own business.

Few things frustrate business owners more than constantly being pulled into the weeds of their business. We tend to be the visionaries for our business, so operations and administration isn’t traditional what gets us up in the morning.

Today we’ll look at the three lists that will help you transition away from those tasks, and in doing so, start to see momentum and growth.

This week, we’re looking at the Three Lists Every Business Owner Should Have.

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1 FACT 🧐

"Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important."

Steven Covey

Don’t be that person!

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1 TIP 💡

By being mindful of how you’re spending your time, you can then control how you spend your time. Start sorting your tasks by:

📌 to dos: by you

📌 to dos: not by you

📌 to dos: wish list

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1 TOOL 💥

Download our guide “How to Reduce Your Admin” which walks you through the lists covered in this episode (plus much more) .

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1 QUESTION ❓

Look back over the last week. Did you complete tasks that genuinely move the needle for your business?

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1 ACTION 🎬

Note the tasks you have on your list for today. Which to-do list do each of these tasks fall into?

Few things produce a better return on investment than the low (or no) cost act of recognising employees.

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1 FACT 🧐

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1 TIP 💡

Employee recognition is about acknowledging accomplishments, appreciating hard work, and commending individuals and teams within your organisation.

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1 TOOL 💥

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1 QUESTION ❓

As a leader, are you ensuring that all members of your team are not only productive, meeting deadlines, and hitting targets, but that they are also recognised for work well done?

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1 ACTION 🎬

Here's this week's 1 fact, 1 tip, 1 tool, 1 question and 1 action, carefully crafted to get you thinking. It’s time to pull The Lever!   

Justine 

Your Virtual Assistant 

I’m in no doubt that running a business in today’s economic climate is more challenging than ever.   

Sure, we’ve navigated our way through a global pandemic. Come out the other side stronger and better equipped to take on whatever else comes our way.   

But isn’t it crazy how just when things start to feel normal again, BAM, we’re hit with yet another challenge? (I’m looking at you, labour market)   

Ever the optimist, I try to find the positive in every situation. So, I just wonder if maybe there is an opportunity for all of us facing an obstacle in business? I’d love to think there is, and I dare you to do the same!   

In this week’s The Lever, I’m exploring how to turn obstacles into opportunities. 

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1 FACT 🧐 

“Never let a good crisis go to waste. I see challenges as the most opportune time for a leader to demonstrate true leadership qualities.”   

~Winston Churchill~  

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1 TIP 💡  

It can be hard to see the opportunity hidden within the obstacle. In the past, I’ve really struggled with this, but I find these 3 strategies help:  

✅  Don’t be afraid to diversify—think about ways to diversify your business to meet your challenges head-on. 

✅  Follow a fixed process to evaluate and resolve problems — Don’t panic!   

✅  Define the scope of the problem, document possible solutions, and implement a plan of action. 

✅  Tap into the collective intelligence around you — Ask for help. Talk to other like-minded people in your industry. Get a mentor. Share ideas and inspiration.  

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1 TOOL 💥 

A challenge that many of my clients are struggling with right now is staff shortages. What with COVID, migration, and low unemployment, it’s something many businesses across New Zealand are facing. In this recent blog (The New Pandemic, Staff Shortages), I share possible solutions and examples of businesses we’re working with to overcome this obstacle.  

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1 QUESTION ❓ 

What are some obstacles facing you right now that you could turn into opportunities?  

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1 ACTION 🎬 

This week, get inspiration and ideas from your team, your mentor, a Facebook group, or an expert in your industry for an obstacle you’re facing or a problem you’re trying to solve.  You don't have to do this alone!  

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Subscribe to our podcast or sign up to have The Lever @Your Virtual Assistant Ltd  delivered to your inbox each Thursday here 

📕 Here's the free guide I referred to "The 5-Step Process to Reducing your Admin" 

Customer delight goes beyond simply providing great products and services or delivering on excellent customer service.  It’s about showing you care in ways that constantly surprise your customers.   

But it doesn’t just happen overnight because there is no one size fits all when it comes to customer delight. Rather, it’s something that has to be planned, designed and mindfully delivered.   

This week, we’re looking at 5 ways to build customer delight into your processes, but there are hundreds more worth exploring. The key is finding what works best for your business.  

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1 FACT 🧐 

"Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first." 

~Simon Sinek~  

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1 TIP 💡  

Customer delight should be treated as a competitive advantage to transform average customers into loyal promoters. The key to success is establishing trust and interest, and creating a long term relationship.   

Here’s how to get started:  

✅ Provide real-time support using technology and provide solutions for any problems as they occur. 

✅ Empower your team to delight your customers by giving them the authority to take independent decisions to impress your customers. 

✅ Analyse customer feedback. It provides valuable insights into what’s working well and what needs to be done to make the experience better. 

✅ Personalise your communication. Turn customer data into actionable insights to personalise your customer interactions and provide unique messaging. 

✅ Don’t make a promise you can’t keep and deliver on every promise you do make.   

Remember, the effort to delight customers should never replace the main focus of any successful company, which is to always deliver the best customer experience. 

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1 TOOL 💥 

Here’s a customer delight exercise for you! You’ll also find some examples of customer delight that will hopefully provide you with some inspiration to implement your own customer delight strategies.  

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1 QUESTION ❓ 

Can you think of a business that gave you that feeling of delight? How are you giving your clients that same feeling?  

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1 ACTION 🎬 

Start working on some ways you can delight your customers and get your team involved in brainstorming ideas for customer delight.  

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Subscribe to our podcast or sign up to have The Lever  @Your Virtual Assistant Ltd  delivered to your inbox each Thursday here 👇 https://yourva.co.nz/the-lever-newsletter/

There’s no getting away from the fact that customer satisfaction is critical to the survival and success of any business.  

And while acquiring new customers is important in meeting sales and revenue targets, retaining existing customers is the key to growing a business. That’s why fostering long-term relationships – getting to know your customers and tailoring their customer experience – is so important.  

One way to do that is to have an effective CRM customer retention strategy in place to keep customers engaged and satisfied. 

In this week’s The Lever, we’ll explore how CRMs help support customer retention.  

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1 FACT 🧐  

“Customer retention is the new growth,” according to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen (https://www.selecthub.com/customer-relationship-management/crm-customer-retention/). If you want to survive the 21st-century business battlefield, you need to emphasise keeping your current customers. And the heart of accomplishing customer retention is CRM software.  

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1 TIP 💡   

CRM - which stands for Customer Relationship Management – is all about finding ways to improve the quality and consistency of your relationship with customers and build customer loyalty.   

A CRM system can help you centralise, optimise and streamline your communications with customers, and become better in the following 6 areas:  

✅ Knowing your customers better 

✅ Segmenting customers into target audiences 

✅ Keeping existing customers happy 

✅ Anticipating their needs 

✅ Communicating with them more effectively 

✅ Protecting their data privacy  

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1 TOOL 💥 

How do you choose the right CRM? 

What makes one stand out from another? 

Before choosing a CRM, ask yourself these questions:  

1. What are the most inefficient processes in our business and what do we want to improve with a CRM system? 

2. What operational process and workflows do we lack and need to add? 

3. Who in our company is going to use the CRM? How many users do we need? 

4. What other software do we want to integrate with a CRM system? 

5. What is our budget?  

Here are the top CRMs for 2022 according to Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/best-crm-software-5116883 

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1 QUESTION ❓ 

How does your business nurture relationships with your existing customers?  

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1 ACTION 🎬 

Identify what you are doing - and what you could be doing - in your business to retain your clients. How do you consistently wow them?    

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Subscribe to our podcast or sign up to have The Lever  @Your Virtual Assistant Ltd  delivered to your inbox each Thursday here 👇 https://yourva.co.nz/the-lever-newsletter/

It’s ridiculously hard to break a bad habit. (Ask me, I know! I have a few I’ve been battling to break for years.) And it can be just as hard to start a good one. But as a business owner, I know that good habits are an essential part of my business’ success.

1 FACT:

1 TIP:

When thinking about which good habits to start, focus on those that will help you succeed.

1 TOOL:

1 QUESTION:

If you're not already doing this, this week, pick a habit, a tracker and an accountability partner. I challenge you to beat my streak!