by sandra beck
I was talking to my husband about the running of my company www.motherhoodincorporated.com and how I was feeling run down, overworked and getting really stressed out as my company continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Some days it feels like I am wrangling 6 horses that want to charge out of control while I hold on to the reigns for dear life. In the beginning, I fretted about too little work …now I fret about too much. My son who is four looked up at me and said, “Mommy, you just need to be Wonder Woman.”
He was right.
But I am no Wonder Woman. No snazzy cuffs. No invisible jet. No magic lasso.
I went online to find some tips on time management. I often complain about not having the time to get things done and boy was I surprised to find so much of the on-line advice blaming me for wasting time and constantly! What I found was that many experts said on average that interruptions happen approximately 8 times a day and adds up to about 2-3 hours of wasted time. I was also instructed that I can control these interruptions with just a little persistence and planning.
My first thought was, “You are out of your cotton-picking mind!”
My second thought was, “You are not a working mother!”
In my effort to “plan, plan, plan” and “if you fail to plan, plan to fail,” I realized a few things as I plan for Motherhood Incorporated’s day..
- No matter how much you plan or organize, a bloody nose, a dirty diaper or a high fever throws you off your plan.
- You are only as good as your support systems allow you to be – babysitters flaking, kids home sick from daycare, or husbands out of town throw you off your plan.
- Planning gets the dinner done faster, but won’t do the grocery shopping, the cooking or the cleanup while battling with your children over the “Yuk!” dinner you prepared.
- Established working hours only work if your kids, dogs, husbands and the planet Mercury are in alignment. Check your astronomy guide for that part of your “plan.”
- Planning to get everything done on your to-do list is like taking off all the baby weight you gained in your third pregnancy, plus the first and second, by this weekend.
It sounds like I am actively against planning, but I am really not. I am actively against UNREALISTIC planning. I have found that my own system at www.motherhoodincorporated.com works best. I write down everything I have to do each day prior to starting my work day. I put everything in one of three categories:
- Things that MUST get done today.
- Things I COULD get done today.
- Things that CAN WAIT.
I made a promise to myself that I will be proud of myself if I just accomplish the things that MUST get done. If I have time, I get to the could ones…but that is pretty rare. As for the things that are in the can wait category – well they wait and that is okay.
My advice for everyone reading this article – do the best you can, set realistic expectations taking into consideration your responsibilities, and hide two matching bracelets in your desk for the times you need to repel evil clients!
by Sandra Beck/ www.motherhoodincorporated.com
At www.motherhoodincorporated.com we hear this all the time. I have been through 5 virtual assistants this year alone! I found a great virtual, but then he or she disappeared. I paid my virtual and now I can’t find him or her.
These are all too common stories in the virtual assistant industry – and virtuals – like employees are both responsible and irresponsible. So how do you find the good ones?
One route is to go to a company like www.motherhoodincorporated.com who pre-screens virtuals before passing them on to you. Yes, you will pay a little bit more per virtual job for someone else to administer the job, but in the end you get what you need done.
If you are choosing to hire a virtual on your own, here are a few tips that can help make the working relationship smoother and more effective for both of you. I am sure virtuals will get up in arms about what I am writing, and maybe so will the clients reading this – but this is what I hear – the good, the bad and the ugly.
And, you may think that I spend way too much time keeping my virtuals happy, but they come to work for me and stay for years. Can you say the same about your virtual assistants?
1. Pay Virtuals Fairly – and give them a bonus for a job well done or done before deadline. You many think that you are getting a great deal by underpaying a virtual for a job you know on the public market pays twice what you are paying them, but the message it sends to the virtual is that you are cheap and all you care about is the bottom line – and what they do – a good job, a mediocre job or a barely passable job is all the same to you. You are what we call Bottom Line Joes. Most virtuals leave clients because they are underpaid and the virtual is not dumb. They might take the job out of desperation one month, but they high tail it out of there for cheap employers.
2. Communicate Clearly What You Want Done: You need to be very specific in what you want a virtual assistant to do for you. They are not in your office. They do not know your day to day operations. They do not read minds. And, if you yell at them for not understanding what you did not explain clearly in the first place, then they won’t want to work for you. If you are impatient and don’t want to take the time to clearly explain what you want, don’t expect great results. You are what we call the Impatient Joes. Many virtuals leave Impatient Joe’s because it is just not worth the time because Impatient Joe’s usually dispute the bill in the end anyway.
3. Pay a Deposit to show Good Faith. Most virtuals tell me they hate real estate agents because they don’t pay or they wait to pay a virtual when something closes. Knowing this, pay a small deposit upfront to show good faith and cultivate trust at the beginning of the working relationship. Most virtuals come to me because they know I will pay them EVEN if the client does not pay me. Virtuals get $100 or $200 and can’t wait two months for a close that supports you for 3 months.
4. Find Out WHY Your Virtual works Virtually – I found in forming my business www.motherhoodincorporated.com that the only real group of people I could count on to get the job done were moms who NEED money. Free lancers, people who have a full time job and only work side jobs – they can blow you off because they have money coming in from other sources. When a mom comes to me and says her husband hurt his back and they can’t make their mortgage on his disability and she can’t afford childcare to go to work – it tells me that she HAS to work and I have a very good chance of getting the work done early because she needs money NOW!
5. Develop a Relationship with Your Virtual – take the time to get to know them as a person. You wouldn’t expect to garner a client for life without getting to know them – so why would you expect a virtual to hang around because you dangle the occasional $100 bill. People in relationships have a less chance of blowing each other off, not paying or treating unfairly the other – if there is a quasi-friendship/relationship there. At www.motherhoodincorporated.com we know our moms have kids, dogs, husbands and families. We get to know them and as such they are PEOPLE not just someone at the end of an email doing something you don’t want to do.
6. Create Reasonable Timelines: when you give a virtual a job to do, make sure that your timeline is reasonable for the work to be done. Give yourself a buffer between the end time of the job and the window for late virtual work. If you need something by next Friday, ask for it next Monday – if the virtual hits it or earlier great! If they are late or flake, you have time to get someone else to do the job.
7. Shower a Great Virtual with Love, Praise and Bonuses - like anyone, virtuals stay where they are appreciated, paid well and respected. I am often criticized by other professionals for “spoiling my virtuals” but when I was an office manager I was criticized for “spoiling my assistants.” The end result is I have not had to “hire” someone in decades – people come to me on a regular basis wanting to be part of my personal admin team or my company www.motherhoodincorporated.com.
8. Don’t Be a Jerk - I can’t believe I have to say this, but again, my virtual moms come to me again and again with horror stories about people who call them at home at 6 in the morning because THE CLIENT had a thought – or at dinner time because THE CLIENT can’t wait until normal business hours. Just because a virtual works at home, like our mom’s, doesn’t mean they are available 24-7. And if you want to have your virtual disappear like a puff of smoke, call them names, berate them, insult them and take out your bad day on them. Treat the virtual the same as you would a client – because in a good business – you need both the client and the support staff.
9. Pay as You Go – if you have a large or ongoing or complicated project to do, it might be better to split up the work between virtuals and create like what I have which is my virtual team. In cases like this that are more than just a one time job, I parcel out payment over time. When my team hits benchmark 1, I pay 25%…when they hit the midway point, payment #2 goes out at 50%…the remaining 25% goes out on COMPLETION DAY – not after. My teams know I give a reward for a job done under deadline – makes me look good, we can take on more work and we all win.
10. Pay for All Virtual Time – most virtuals resent training time or “client talk time” that is excessive and not paid for. You are buying their time – and because you don’t pay payroll taxes, the virtual provides most if not all of their own supplies and equipment – and you are usually paying lower than employee labor – you need to compensate them for the time you use to talk or email – especially if you are a talker or major emailer. For this reason, we often charge a client a setup fee because it takes them so long to get to the point.
It’s all a trade off, if you want to have the luxury of having people waiting for work at your fingertips – when, where and how much you want it – and not pay benefits, payroll taxes, sick days and vacation time, then something has to come from your end. As JW Marriot coined – take care of your employees (virtual) and they will take care of your business.
It may seem that they hold all the cards, and in essence they kind of do – if you don’t want or can’t afford a full time employee then you have to take care of them. Good virtuals are in demand – and they can always walk away and find more work quickly and often for more money – and believe me they do.
So take this advice in the spirit it is given and from someone who manages 87 virtuals on a daily basis – take good care of them and you won’t be sorry…
Seven Savvy Networking Strategies
May 14, 2008
Networking used to scare me to death. I hated networking in my traditional job. I always felt dumb introducing myself to someone who clearly only wanted my client list or to sleep with my boss (another blog altogether…) I wasn’t sure what to say and how until I finally wrote my spiel out one night:
“Hello, my name is Sandra Beck and I am Executive Director of Crap-Co that sells Crap, buys Crap and distributes Crap. We are based in Crap-ville and here’s the cell phone number of my boss – she’s as easy as she looks.” Please note that all references to Crap-Co and Crap-Co bosses are purely for entertainment purposes and no one at Crap-Co needs to feel the finger pointed…
Needless to say, I wasn’t very good at networking. When I left Crap-Co to start my business from home, everyone laughed at me like somehow the hermit executive of Crap-ville could somehow be successful. I knew I had to network to build my business www.motherhoodincorporated.com but I wasn’t sure how.
I went to www.dictionary.com and I looked up networking:
A supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest: Working mothers in the community use networking to help themselves manage successfully.
First of all, I thought it was cool that they referenced working mothers as a group, but then I realized that it is a supportive system – something that is already in place…so where do you begin? How do you break into a network or start one where there doesn’t exist one to serve your needs. I thought a lot about this and came up with my Seven Savvy Strategies for Networking Moms.
- Embrace the Goofiness: Everyone feels dumb at the beginning. I think back to my mom and what she taught me in Kindergarten. Just stick your hand out, say “Hi, I’m San – do you want to go on the swings with me?” That still holds true today. Just say hello. The good thing it’s much harder to laugh at you and roll their eyes on the internet.
- Ask a Lot of Questions: Begin with easy ones: what do you do, where do you live, how many kids do you have, can I see your bank statement? You don’t want to sound like a stalker, but people do like to talk about themselves and it relieves you of having to come up with something witty to say.
- Be an Expert: One of the things I found that I struggled with the most was being an expert. Who me? I’d look around and point at the next person to be the expert. We are all experts in something. Talk about something you know quite a bit about – I was just in a group the other day that was talking about bathing suits (hating them that is) and one gal came forward about great places to find suits for busty mommies. Being a “B” myself, I was stumped – but the expert was so helpful that I immediately liked her and sharing. So whatever your expertise: boobs, babies or boys – let it shine!
- Share the Wealth: If you know someone in the group is an expert – direct people to them and praise them. I am ready to recommend Ally and her busty bathing suit savvy to others. It is nice to say nice truths about people – makes you look good, feel good and is helpful.
- Give it Away for Free – Nope! Not that…but your expertise. Offer to write articles on what you know. And get your stuff posted on other blogs – around the web – in different groups. Plaster the world with your thoughts, ideas and strategies. And, if someone says – what makes you the expert on busy bathing suits – point to the article on Work-It mom and say “There, they do!” See! I am famous!
- Relax and Have Some Fun – Don’t worry about what everyone thinks about your post or article. My first one was “Gee I hope they like it.”…my next ones were filled with hope and all that goes with public service. Recently I am like “Read it or Die, I really don’t care” but, I secretly do.
- Network with the Intent to Help – I really do want to help moms build better businesses. Even though my mug is on all these postings and I love people to read my blogs - shameless pitch – http://motherhoodincorporated.com/wordpressgeneral/ . People know when you are just promoting yourself because your sister was the pretty one!
We all outsource work on a regular basis and we have for years. When you take all of your tax papers over to your accountant so she can prepare your taxes, you are outsourcing. You could have done it yourself, but at what cost? You made a decision to pay a professional to do it properly. It was a smart choice. Outsourcing is such a smart choice that millions of companies around the world have decided to outsource huge chunks of their companies to the far corners of the earth. Some of these companies have outsourced smart, some not so smart.
The first rule of outsourcing is that is has to be cost effective, which is not the same thing as cheap. I could take all of my tax papers to the 14 year old girl who lives across the street; because she is smart she could probably figure out how to submit my taxes. I am quite sure she wouldn’t charge what my CPA charges – but would she be cost effective? NO! Clearly the money I saved in paying her reduced wage would be lost in paying fines or just not receiving the maximum deduction because as 14 year old she isn’t an expert. Some companies have confused cost effective for cheap.
I spent 4 hours on the phone with GMAC the other day because I couldn’t find a single person who understood what I was saying. Please don’t misunderstand me – everyone on the phone spoke better English than I can speak any other language, and I respect all of them for their ability to learn a second and a third language, but the fact is their command of the language was not good enough to conduct business in English. It was a tremendous waste of my time; but a great example of bad outsourcing! I know GMAC thinks it is saving money but what could have been handled in 2 minutes took 4 hours! Too bad GMAC doesn’t outsource to American Moms who have made the decision to be home with their little ones. Imagine what great publicity that would be for them. Not to mention how cost effective it would be.
This among other reasons was why I started Motherhood Incorporated (www.motherhoodincorporated.com.) The business culture demands in many instances someone in command of the english language and someone who understand the culture. Recently a client came to my company because he hired a person on www.elance.com to write 100 blogs about speakers for his public speaking website. The person wrote 100 blogs including items about stereos, cd players and other items that used “speakers.”
Was the virtual who did the work wrong or was the person who hired him not clear in his request for articles about speakers. Electronic components vs. public speaking 100 posted blogs later, the man had to create a new blog because he was so firmly entrenched in the electronics market. Sometimes it doesn’t matter the English or the cultural component. Sometimes it means the life or death of your online business venture.
Outsourcing is a great business tool when done correctly. Just make sure you think about these things and the difference between cheap and cost effective!
Slow and Steady Wins the Race by Sandra Beck
May 8, 2008
One of the questions I am most frequently asked is how do you do it all? At first, I would stumble around all the usual answers:
I delegate.
I am really organzied.
I have a terrific team.
Then I took a minute and really thought about it. I think the secret of running a business as a mother is that I just do as much as I can — and then not beat myself up if I don’t do as much as I wanted.
After taking all these time management courses, reading books, talking to professionals I realized one thing: we all have the same total amount of hours. It’s what you do with those hours that determine how much you get done and more importantly how satisfied you are with your life.
I make a concerted effort to be done by 5:30 in my office. Door shut. No more computer. I may peek at my blackberry if I am nervous about something, but there is an end time to my workday. I also decide whether or not I am going to work on the weekends.
I used to worry that if I wasn’t working all the time on my business, it wouldn’t grow. I was wrong. I found that doing a little bit each day adds up to all the time I need and can afford right now. That might mean only working on my business for a few hours in a full week.
My priorities are my children first, my family second and my business third. I think many women are like me and when starting a business they think – oh I don’t want all that responsability. I don’t have the time. I’ll just work for someone else. And this is okay.
I invite you to think about the possibility of working your own hours on your own terms around the things that are important to you. Motherhood Incorporated was founded on the principle that we in building our business that we must do it with respect to ourselves and our families. I am living proof it can be done, and I know many of you can do it to. Just take it slow. Do a little bit at a time.
I just explained this concept to my son recently as we read the Tortoise and the Hare. The bunny hopped all over town like a crazy rabbit, while the slow and steady turtle crossed the finish line. Slow and steady wins the race
