There are a number of providers of e-mail solutions. Generally speaking they do a quite good job and they have some very sophisticated filters, designed to try and weed out all the spam. Nevertheless, some of it still gets through and gets in the way. Now, when you are sending e-mails back and forth in the course of your daily business it is not always easy to keep track of them and it can be especially difficult to keep on top of a particular conversational thread, when there is so much of that junk floating around.

When e-mail first became a staple of the business world it was indeed a very efficient way of communicating. It’s a lot easier to generate an e-mail and takes up a lot less time than sitting on the phone and talking with somebody about the subject. After all, those telephone conversations contain all kinds of niceties and invariably veer off topic to talk about something else. Today, e-mail is not the most efficient way to communicate in the business world, especially when it comes to your interaction with your outsourced team and virtual assistants. Because there is a danger of an e-mail becoming lost in a sea of spam or communications about various other topics from a variety of other people, you can’t always be sure that you’re being efficient.

Sometimes it is necessary for several people to interact and keep up with the content of the various e-mails. When they respond this is yet another opportunity for the entire thread to become loose and for you to lose track of important updates and progress in general. When you use a project management system you know that all relevant communications are strictly managed and there’s no chance of anything becoming lost. Each particular conversation about a particular issue is threaded, all relevant individuals are kept in touch and when everybody communicates through this particular medium there is no chance of confusion rearing its ugly head. Of course we all want to continue to use e-mail to communicate with prospects, certain vendors and so on but when we commit to using the central project management system for all e-mail communications within the team, we take a giant leap forward in our quest to become efficient, productive and professional.

Seeking Serenity can help you with your project management systems, your designated Virtual Assistant can help set up your system or help maintain the system.

Here are some fun tips on how you can keep sane, entertain your children and maintain your workload.

1. If you, like me, have raised your children to appreciate the Internet (!) and computers then at this time of the year you’re going to need more than 1 device. I personally have:
   • 1 Desktop PC
   • 1 Laptop (which I am currently typing this on in my bedroom!)
   • 1 smart phone
   • 1 Tablet
2. Invite their friends over for a craft morning and a movie afternoon, fill your table with lots of craft activities and let them do what they want – this works well with older children (8+) and you will get at least an hours work done! Rent a brilliant movie, get some popcorn and duvets – this should buy you a couple of hours, as long as the movie isn’t one you want to watch yourself!
3. Find an indoor activity centre, with slides, balls and climbing equipment, with tables/chairs for mum, take along your laptop and everyone is happy!
4. Homework…it has to be done at some point!
5. Give them some props and get them to create a play for you, they will need to spend time planning and practicing!
6. Arrange play dates with friends, and if you have more than 1 child try and time it so they all have friends at yours at the same time, and they’re out at the same time.
7. Let them help…if there is a small task they could do, get them to do it!
8. Reduce your work load.
9. Outsource to a Virtual Assistant.
10. Check your emails early in the morning, spend the day playing with the children and when they’re in bed at night, work – this is my preferred method…I get the best of both worlds, being mum and running my own business!

Have a good weekend!

There’s a great deal to be said for independence and for a free-spirited approach to ingenuity and creativity. It’s also certainly true to say that the most successful businesspeople today owe a lot of their success to their ability in these areas. However, those same influential and successful business people will also tell you that you need to trust systems from time to time and have a systemic approach to business if you’re going to succeed.

This reminds me of the old left brain versus right brain argument. People often ask, “Which side are you?” But the truth is, as a business owner, you need to have a firm grasp of both sides. You need to be able to harness the creativity from time to time in order to put forward a logical and rational approach to your business endeavours. Why are systems so important? Well, no matter how creative you may have been when you dreamed up your business theme, or when you came up with the latest project, you still have to convert the nucleus of an idea into reality. This is where, sometimes, creativity has to take a back seat and systems have to be front and centre.

This is especially so whenever repetition is in play. If you need to be able to replicate your bright idea, time and time again, as people purchase your product or solution accordingly, then you simply cannot do without “the system.” You are no doubt aware how important a virtual assistant and outsourcing team is for the future success of your business. You should also be aware that every time you use a proven system in association with your VA team, you have a much better chance of success. This is why the latest project management systems are always used and recommended by the virtual assistant and why it is so important for you, the business owner, to get on board.

The project management system is, if you will, a window to efficiency. Here, in one place, everybody can see what needs to be done to keep the business running along smoothly. All relevant tasks can be allocated and managed in a very efficient way. The systems are designed to enable the small business owner to achieve maximum efficiency, in concert with their virtual assistant team. As such, it’s very important for the small business owner to buy into the project management system, to use it on a regular basis and communicate efficiently with the team at all times.

The team at Seeking Serenity can help you through every step from creating your project management account to running reports, newsletters and accounting from it.

My snowboarding holiday is over and all of the ski gear is back in the loft (and next years trip booked…of course!)

The children are back to school and me and my husband are back in the office, the office is a room in our house, a room that overlooks the garden, a room that links to the kitchen. This makes being a full time, work from home mum work!

This little blog post is how this superwoman (which I have been named several times recently) manages to fit everything in…..

Its 6.30 on a sunny Monday morning, my children (girls, 10 and 11) have been to their fathers for the weekend – they’re due home any moment, every Monday and Thursday morning at 6.40am they’re returned to me, nice and tired and a little bit grumpy!

I prepare cups of tea for the 3 of us, hoping to sneak an extra one in before they get home – just to wake up that little bit more!

The girls walk in the door, lots of cuddles for me!

Then it’s time to get the dogs out of their crates, time to introduce my 2 lovely mad Springer spaniels, Echo 2 and Diesel 1. Normally a quick hello to me, and they run straight upstairs to see my husband…nice to be loved!

Pointing the girls in the direction of the bathroom and showing them where I’ve put their freshly washed, neatly ironed school uniform and polished shoes – I find the time to turn the pc on and check my emails.

Its then time to put the leads on the dogs, coats on the children and persuade my husband to join me for the morning dog walk / school run.

This normally includes many mums discussing PTA related items with me, being PTA secretary!

Once I’m home from the school run, I feed the dogs, get my breakfast and another cup of tea (I like my tea!) and back to my desk.

This morning’s task is finishing off a website I am building – I put my iPod on and start working.

At lunch time I take a break – time for lunch, time to walk the dogs again and time to chat to my husband!

After lunch I take my note pad out, my lovely pink note pad that I write my notes / to do list in.

I send out lots of emails that I need to send, some of them are netball related, making sure that I have enough players for the match on Sunday.

I also send out an email to the mums of my Brownie pack, reminding them of whets going on this week.

The website I was working on this morning is stage 1 –finished, time to send it over to the customer for revision.

Throughout the afternoon, lots of facebook interaction making sure my networking group runs effectively.

Before I know it, its 3pm and time to collect the girls from school – then for the next few hours its homework, cuddles and tea.

Mondays are now running club, which allows me to escape for 40 minutes of ‘fun’!

Then, once the girls are settled for the evening, it’s back to the PC to tie up loose ends/reply to emails and prepare tomorrows tasks.

Here, your friendly Virtual Assistant  lists a few helpful bits of HTML to help you:

When you open an HTML tag < it must be closed (with few exceptions) />

<B> This makes the words in between these tags bold  </B>
<I>This makes the words in between these tags italic </I>
<U>This makes the words in between these tags underlined </U>

If you want to link to your website:

<a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk.”>Your Website Name</A>

The only thing that will be seen is Your Website Name with a link to your website.

If you want to add a line break then you need to use

<br>

<A HREF=”http://the.webpage.com”>Name of webpage here</A>

If you want to add a link to email you, you can use this:

<a href=”mailto:youremailaddress”>Email Me</a>

I hope this helps!

Remember that blogging is a way of helping you to sell your solution. It isn’t simply a vehicle for your extrovert personality and you should always have an underlying objective in mind.

What kind of format should you use for a blog post? While some people tend to think that an informative article should be in the range of about 500 words on average, you don’t have to stick to this as a hard and fast rule. Many experts advocate a blog content piece in the range of about 400 words, but it’s also a good idea to format the post in such a way as to make it an easier read for your visitors.

Remember that people tend to scan any content online today and if they see a big chunk of text without any graphics, pictures or subheadings they may not actually read it all and be tempted to go elsewhere. It’s difficult to know what drives people when they visit a webpage after all, but if it is possible for you to allocate subheadings then do so, and proportion your post into readable chunks as well.

You may also like to create some posts that are based on lists, i.e. the top 10 of this or five things you should know about that. People love lists and they are likely to absorb the material therein. Another great way to structure a blog post could be a “how-to” tutorial; statistics show that this kind of post tends to get a lot more readership and is likely to be shared much more creatively by your visitors. People often wonder whether they have a sufficient amount of material to create these “how-to” posts. Remember that this type of post can be created around any subject whatsoever and you’re almost certain to have enough material, being an expert in your niche, to be able to provide ample content.

Engage your Virtual Assistant to come up with a broad selection of topics and themes for upcoming posts. Remember that the Virtual Assistant knows how to creatively construct blog posts and also how to focus on the raw material that you need to talk about as you build your level of overall expertise in the online community. The right Virtual Assistant also knows how to create content that has a truly profound ‘hook.’

1.         Blog:  a good blog can help brand you and your business.  Sites such as Blogger or WordPress are free.

2.         Get friendly with local radio DJs:  send them free stuff, ring in to take part in their competitions or text replies to their on-air questions.  Be nice to them and you might just get a few on-air mentions for your business.

3.         Join organisations:  get involved with local networking and business groups.

4.         Write to your local paper:  small local newspapers often struggle when it comes to receiving decent letter.  Get in the habit of reading the local paper and writing to the editor.

5.         Do a publicity stunt:  do something to attract attention both from the public and the media.  Take part in a fund raiser for Children in Need, or do a fun run with the proceeds going to charity.  Let everyone know and make sure you mention your business.

6.         Pick up the phone:  the phone is the cheapest marketing tool you have.  Don’t cold call, use it to phone old and new contacts rather than email them.  This is a great way to stand out from the crowd.

7.         Tell your story:  don’t be afraid to build your business around you.  People like buying from real people.

8.         Support a cause:  this is a powerful way to get your business noticed.  If you want to remain local why not sponsor some flowers for the local garden or plant some trees.

9.         Reduce rates for returning businesses:  offer a small discount for regular customers, they will respond to this and keep coming back.

10.       Use online business forums:  if you see through your website, online business forums can be a powerful tool to build reputation and traffic.  Just don’t spend too much time on them.

11.       Get your business involved in the local community:  donate something to the scouts or provide the local school with some much needed books or sports equipment.

12.       Purchase company clothing:  this in itself is a walking advertisement for your business.

13.       Advert on your car:  why not add details of your website or company name to the back of your car.

14.       Network everywhere:  wherever potential customers meet, be there.  You need to work at it and be seen regularly.

15.       Do a talk:  seek out the networking groups where your potential customers meet, join them and offer to do a free talk at some point.

16.       Give a guarantee:  offer a money back guarantee if they are not 100% satisfied. 

17.       Seek and use testimonials:  people feel more confident reading about the good experiences other customers have had.

18.       Send out press releases:  a good story submitted well has every chance of making the news and the best thing about that, is it’s free.

19.       Place videos online:  film an amusing video and upload to YouTube or MetaCafe.

20.       Create a calendar to give away:  a good way for customers to keep you in mind.

21.       Create a monthly newsletter and then send special deals to all how subscribe:  send out a monthly newsletter to previous customers and offer them a ‘newsletter only’ deal.  Maybe they received 20% off when they introduce someone new to your business.

22.       Get active on Twitter:  it only takes a few minutes to tweet so make this part of your daily work routine.

23.       Blog commenting:  Why not comment on other people’s blogs, you might find they start commenting back.

24.       Make your business cards memorable:  choose a design that stands out from the rest.

25.       Email signature:  use every email as a way to promote yourself and your business.  Try and include a website address.

26.       Flyers on community boards:  try putting a few flyers on the local community cork boards.

27.       Join your local Chamber of Commerce:  this can be a great way to get your business out into the community.

28.       Free classifieds:  use free classified ad services to promote your product or service.

29.       Use your friends and family: get them to spread the word about your business.

30.       Go to a trade show:  whether it be to promote your business or see what others have to offer, going to a trade show will get you talking to others.

31.       Hire someone to post flyers through doors:  a cheap but effective way to get your business into many homes.

32.       Create a podcast:  these can be quick, easy and free to produce.  Stick it on your website.

33.       Yellow Pages:  a lot of people still use the yellow pages to find the business they are looking for, so make sure you are in there.

34.       Website:  there are a lot of hosting sites that offer you a free website template and can cost as little as £10 per year.

35.       Google:  use Google to promote your business.  They have many packages to choose from.

So, today is the day we go back to normal, Christmas has been completed, you’ve eaten all the chocolate, you’ve recovered from the New Year parties and you’ve taken your decorations down.

To help kick start 2012 Seeking Serenity is offering a massive 50% discount from our services (valid for the next 14 days)

We’re busy carving pumpkins and preparing for our party this evening.

What are you doing for halloween?

So you’re sitting at your computer, blank screen in front of you. You may be transfixed by the blinking cursor and find that your eyes are starting to glaze over.

It may have been a long day already and you’ve got so many other things on your mind. You’ve got family commitments later; you may have a social engagement to attend. You’ve got to do your monthly accounts at some stage this evening and then you’ve got a full day of client work tomorrow. So much to think about as an entrepreneur and it’s very difficult to clear our mind as it were in order to focus on writing.

However, this is no time for writer’s (or blogger’s) block. You’ve got to come up with content for your blog and it’s been more than a week since you last posted anything on there.

Can’t you just use some of that PLR content that you’ve got in a folder somewhere on your hard drive? After all, you spent good money on it and shouldn’t you put it to good use?

Maybe tonight is not a good time to be trying to create content. They have a saying south of the border – mañana. I’m sure we can put this off until tomorrow, as maybe we will be more creatively inclined, have more inspiration and be able to type away merrily to create not just one blog post, but two?

I’m sure this sounds familiar to you. Writing can be quite a challenge at the best of times and remember that we are not talking about “any old” writing, either.

If you’re going to get anywhere with your blogging you simply have to create good quality content. When we talk about good quality content we don’t just mean that it’s got to be grammatically correct and free of any spelling mistakes or punctuation errors. It’s got to be highly relevant, informative, inspiring and/or thought-provoking.Ideally, it should be all of these rolled into one.

Think about it this way. If your content is not epic, it’s probably not going to stand out above all the other noise that your potential customers come across on a daily basis. It’s no small challenge. However, remember that you are supposed to be an expert in this particular niche. That by itself should be an inspiration to you, but you must nevertheless understand how important it is to provide this epic content often and regularly.

In truth, not all of us are very good when it comes to writing. Some people have more of a flair for it than others. It’s also true to say that time is very difficult to come by, especially if you’re trying to juggle your business time with family and other commitments.

A Virtual Assistant knows how important it is to create epic content and also knows how crucial it is to do so regularly and with conviction. Maybe you should put this chore into their hands and not have to worry about writer’s block ever again.

Do you have Bloggers Block? Why not call in a Virtual Assistant who can help you.

Contact us today!