What Can You Do To Improve Your Business in 2009?

I love this time of year!  Most of my clients are off on vacation and my usually hectic work schedule settles down allowing me time to get caught up.  I’ve been reflecting a lot the last couple of weeks on things that went well in my business and things that need improvement.

I have decided that I really need to dig deep and put more structure in place in my business and find the right resources to allow me to continue to grow my virtual assistance business as well as make time to learn new things, all while still having tons of time for fun and relaxation.  I seriously burned the candle at both ends this year and know that I can’t continue to do things the same way this year.

Here are some of the changes I’m making in my business this year to make sure that 2009 is even more successful and productive than 2008.

• I’m hiring a housekeeper. Seriously, I can think of a million things I’d rather do than scrub toilets, dust, vacuum, and – well you get the idea.  I’m committed to hiring it out and taking on another client to fill that time or at the very least I’ll just make sure that I’m using that time to do something that will help to grow revenue.
• I’m going to be more strict about the use of my time. I can get so sidetracked with all the social networking sites – I mean I can log into Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter and before I know it half the day is gone! I feel that social networking is important but I have to get smarter about it and really put my time into developing relationships without getting sucked into going off to explore a gazillion links, articles and sales letters.
• My billing will be done on time every month! I am going ahead and blocking out the time on my calendar RIGHT NOW to work on my client billing each month.  I think having a set appointment time each month to do that will help me stay on track rather than just doing it when I can squeeze it in between doing client work. I need to keep a closer eye on cash flow this year.
• Scheduling time for Web site updates and blog posts. I’m also building time for these activities into my calendar and plan to write several blog posts at once and then schedule them to post when I want them to show up. That way I am regularly working on updating all my content and it won’t seem so overwhelming.
• I’m stepping up efforts to find the right people to help me with my business.  I’m going to get pretty serious this year about delegating more work and finding the right people to add to my team.  Even if I have to try out 50 people, it will be worth it if I get that 1 good team member. Besides, I’m limited to how many clients I can serve myself and by leveraging the talent of others I can offer additional services.

I have a much longer list, but I’ve picked out the items above as starting points since I feel they will have a big impact on my business. I’d love to hear what changes you plan to make to your business to make 2009 your best year ever!  I look forward to hearing from you – Happy New Year!

How Many E-mail Messages Are in Your Inbox?

I heard about the concept of the zero Inbox at a Microsoft Connections event a couple of years ago and have been using that idea ever since to more effectively manage all of my incoming mail. This has worked wonders for my productivity in managing all of the various messages that I receive for my own business as well as messages that I am handling on behalf of my clients. I did a quick poll of friends and clients to see how many others use this technique and was surprised to learn that most of them had an Inbox overflowing with unread messages.

Here is how I deal with my incoming E-mail:

Examine each message in your Inbox and immediately take one of the following actions.

• Delete it – pretty obvious right? If it isn’t something you need just plain get rid of it immediately.
• Delegate it – if this is something that someone else should handle on your behalf immediately forward the message to them and file the message away or set up a follow up if necessary.
• Complete it – if the message pertains to something you have to do and you can finish it in 2 or 3 minutes, just do it right away and delete or file the message.
• Add to Calendar or Task List – If the email pertains to a meeting, schedule the time on your calendar right away. In Outlook, you can drag the message from the Inbox to the word Calendar in the window on the left hand side and it will automatically bring up the window to schedule an appointment. If the message is a task then drag it to Tasks and schedule a date and time complete it. Note: When you drag a message to the Calendar or Task List in Outlook the original message stays in the Inbox so you can then delete it or file it away.

By the time I finish this exercise, my Inbox is empty and everything is either deleted, delegated, completed or has been scheduled to be completed at the appropriate time. I can then move on to working through my task list for that particular day without worrying about tasks that are scheduled in the future or wasting time wading through my Inbox to see what I have to do that day.

I hope you will try this technique out for yourself. I get such a good feeling when I look at my Inbox and there is nothing there. I know that I am controlling my E-mail and it no longer controls me.

So, how many E-mails are in your Inbox right now??