Month: March 2019

Leaders, business owners, directors, entrepreneurs, whatever you call them, make decisions everyday – decisions that will be significant to the success of the company. It requires years of training and experience, years of ups and downs and years of trials and tests. These are the people who refuse to give up, persevere and kept on moving forward when all else fail.

These are the kind of people who identify the problem, focusing on the solutions instead of the situation. Once you have identified the problem, this will determine your steps as to where to start. Think through the key details about the problem, and collect any significant information.

Often, the act of gathering information is the first step towards resolving the issue. Sometimes, it’s worth talking to your next in line because most of the time the underlying cause of a problem is not conspicuous.

Once you have identified the problem, then you can generate possible solutions. Try to think on multiple solutions, and treat each worthy of consideration. Brainstorming is most of the time worth trying by gaining fresh viewpoints. Get the facts and figures, think on the pros and cons of each idea and compare.

At this stage, you have already spent a fair amount of time on the problem at hand, and of course, you want to see it taken care of. Make the decision, but before you go any further, it’s important to look critically at the problem and review your decision.

By applying experience or divergent thinking, a leader can distinguish similar situations and can be confident with the decision. You have to accept responsibility for the decision. As Tony Robbins said,

It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.

Tony Robbins

Many companies and businesses stop growing because they refuse to delegate. It is a result of thinking that tasks can be handled by one person only.

If big companies, such as Yahoo and Google, delegate tasks – even allow home-based jobs – then why can’t you?

Psychologically, entrepreneurs are scared of delegating what they have created. They are afraid of taking the BIG leap of delegating tasks and letting others oversee them; afraid of making mistakes along the way; afraid that someone brighter than them would handle the tasks with flying colours and end up being their competitor instead of being their worker. But hey, if big companies see that they are growing through the delegation of tasks to tons of people, then probably it’s worth the try. Don’t you think so?!

Regardless of what the argument is, the result of delegating tasks has been proven and tested already, and all you have to do is follow what the BIG guys are doing. Who knows? You might see yourself one day enjoying with your family at your favourite beach, with your favourite cocktail drink in your hand. You might be enjoying the clear blue skies and loving life whilst you’re confident enough that your business is running smoothly because of the BIG leap that you took that you thought was scary.

Businesses these days must be smart. Entrepreneurs look for ways to stay in the business lane. Some look for alternatives to survive because of their inability to thrive within large businesses.

Realising this truth, businesses should be able to evolve in the rapidly changing market. Indeed, businesses these days have to be smarter to survive.

What are Leadership and Delegation?

Delegation is the act of assigning tasks and responsibilities, together with the necessary authority (leadership) to carry them out, to your employees. Effective delegation can save you time and motivate your team by demonstrating that you trust them and value their abilities.

Common Mistakes Managers Make When Delegating

• Don’t give enough freedom
• Don’t communicate clearly
• Aren’t open to new ideas

How to Delegate

Firstly, concentrate on the most important matters yourself. You should be doing activities that only you can do (that involve a high level of skill and, ideally, that you enjoy doing). When delegating, set broad controls and allow your team to make mistakes.

Communicate Clearly

Take the time to make your requirements known to your team member. Give a clear picture of the results you expect, the time limits involved and the authority being transferred to that team member. Also, make sure other people in the organisation know about the delegation so they can support it.

Encourage Participation

Employees are least satisfied and least motivated when they can’t inject their own ideas into the project. They need to be able to display their own talents.

Examine Results Not Methods

An effective delegator needs to accept varying approaches to achieving results. Since no two people approach a solution in exactly the same way, you need to concentrate on whether the desired results are being achieved or not or whether they are being achieved your way. A poor delegator says, ‘This is what we want to achieve, and this is how we will proceed.’ An effective delegator says, ‘Here is the result we have agreed we want to accomplish; give me your best recommendations as to how we can get that result.’

Show Trust

Allow your team members to get the job done without micromanaging. Excessive checking will convince the employees that they are not really responsible for the job.

Delegate Credit Only

You cannot delegate blame. Remember that you bear the final responsibility for the actions of your team

Know Your Team

You need to know what and how much you can delegate to a person. You should gradually increase the level of responsibility and importance of the tasks as results are successfully achieved.

Things to Avoid

Don’t let the chain of command get too long. If there are too many levels of responsibility, some information will never trickle all the way to the bottom.
Don’t ask one subordinate to report to two people. It will be impossible for the subordinate to decide whose work comes first.
Don’t make fuzzy job assignments. Grey areas between positions simply invite overlap, conflict and duplication of effort.
Don’t be too rigid. Try to maintain flexibility to provide for situations that inevitably crop up and need nonstandard solutions.

Exercise

Make a list of three things you are doing today that you should be delegating. Identify who you will delegate them to, and write down how you will go about doing so. Then, delegate.

We have prepared six ways to your successful delegation, so chill out; have others do your work.

To realise everything you are capable of achieving and to be able to concentrate on those few tasks that can make the greatest contribution to your life and work, you must become excellent at delegation. Whether you are a boss or an employee, it is a universal key to success. You must be continually seeking ways to outsource, delegate and get other people to do things that pay you a lower hourly rate than you desire to earn.

There are several ways in which you can become more effective at delegating and outsourcing or hiring other people to do parts of your work so that you can do the parts of your job that pay the most.

When to Delegate?

1. Instead of You?

Ask the question, ‘Who can do this job instead of you?’ Remember, you have to delegate everything possible in order to have enough time to do those few things that are most important.

2. Better than You?

You should ask, ‘Who can do this job better than me?’ One of the characteristics of effective managers and successful leaders is that they have the ability to find people who are superior to them in specific tasks. You should continually be looking for people who can do certain parts of your work better than you.

3. At a Lower Cost?

Evaluate the job and ask, ‘Who can do this job at a lower cost than I require?’ Many companies and individuals are finding that they can outsource major parts of their operations to companies who specialise in such areas. Companies that specialise in a particular function can usually do the job cheaper and faster than a company that does that work as part of its other activities.

4. Can It Be Eliminated?

Ask yourself and others, ‘Can this activity be eliminated altogether?’ What would happen if the job was not done at all? Many of the routinised tasks and activities in a company or business could be quite easily eliminated with no loss of productivity and a massive increase in ineffectiveness.

It is amazing how many activities go on in a business and private life that could be quite easily discontinued completely, with no loss or inconvenience to anyone. Rooting out these opportunities for increased efficiency can dramatically escalate profitability for an organisation or department.

To achieve everything you are capable of achieving, and to be able to concentrate on those few tasks that can make the greatest contribution to your life and work, you must become excellent at delegation. Whether you are a boss or an employee, it is a universal key to success. You must be continually seeking ways to outsource, delegate and get other people to do things that pay you a lower hourly rate than you desire to earn.

There are several ways that you can become more effective at delegating and outsourcing, or hiring other people to do parts of your work so that you can do the parts of your job that pay the most.

What are Leadership and Delegation?

Delegation is the act of assigning tasks and responsibilities, together with the necessary authority (leadership) to carry them out, to your employees. Effective delegation can save you time and motivate your team by demonstrating that you trust them and value their abilities.

Common Mistakes Managers Make When Delegating

• Don’t give enough freedom
• Don’t communicate clearly
• Aren’t open to new ideas

Firstly, concentrate on the most important matters yourself. You should be doing activities that only you can do (that involve a high level of skill and, ideally, that you enjoy doing). When delegating, set broad controls and allow your team to make mistakes.

Take the time to make your requirements known to your team member. Give a clear picture of the results you expect, the time limits involved and the authority being transferred to that team member. Also, make sure other people in the organisation know about the delegation so they can support it.

Encourage Participation

Employees are least satisfied and least motivated when they can’t inject their own ideas into the project. They need to be able to display their own talents.

Examine results not methods

An effective delegator needs to accept varying approaches to achieving results. Since no two people approach a solution in exactly the same way, you need to concentrate on whether the desired results are being achieved or not or whether they are being achieved your way. A poor delegator says, ‘This is what we want to achieve, and this is how we will proceed.’ An effective delegator says, ‘Here is the result we have agreed we want to accomplish; give me your best recommendations as to how we can get that result.’

Show trust

Allow your team members to get the job done without micromanaging. Excessive checking will convince the employees that they are not really responsible for the job.

Delegate credit only

You cannot delegate blame. Remember that you bear the final responsibility for the actions of your team

Know your team

You need to know what and how much you can delegate to a person. You should gradually increase the level of responsibility and importance of the tasks as results are successfully achieved.

Things to avoid

Don’t let the chain of command get too long. If there are too many levels of responsibility, some information will never trickle all the way to the bottom.
Don’t ask one subordinate to report to two people. It will be impossible for the subordinate to decide whose work comes first.
Don’t make fuzzy job assignments. Grey areas between positions simply invite overlap, conflict and duplication of effort.
Don’t be too rigid. Try to maintain flexibility to provide for situations that inevitably crop up and need nonstandard solutions.

Exercise

Make a list of three things you are doing today that you should be delegating. Identify who you will delegate them to, and write down how you will go about doing so. Then, delegate.

So, success; how does that really work, yeah? And you may be wondering how to be successful in your business? Well, the idea itself is the most important. The very concept of success will blast you.

‘Success doesn’t come to you, you go to it.’
– Marva Collins

We’ve all had them. Those days when discouragement threatens to defeat purpose and conviction and start us down the steep, slippery slope of self-doubt.

The early days of entrepreneurship are filled with activity and busyness. Once that initial phase passes and things settle down to a more or less predictable routine, when our fantasies of tremendous wealth have not materialised after six months of endeavour, when someone is critical, when those orders just aren’t coming in no matter what we do or how many hours we work … we get discouraged and begin to question whether we really do have the right stuff for this business, after all!

So, how do you get through those times of self-doubt and back into the saddle? The first thing is to prepare for them. KNOW that there are going to be ‘days like these.’ If you expect them, then you
will be better able to recognise them for what they are and not give them greater prominence than they deserve. Nine times out of ten, things really DO look better in the morning!

Next, get right back to basics. What motivates you and keeps you focused? What are your motivation and purpose in starting your own business? The strength of your purpose will ultimately determine your level of motivation and hence determination. Is your purpose clear in your mind? If not, maybe you need to remind yourself of the reasons why you want to work for yourself. You may find that your reasons aren’t sufficient motivators. If not, find some that are.

Remind yourself of your purpose when you need to motivate yourself. If you’re a mom, perhaps your purpose in starting your home business was so you could be home with your children rather than in the paid workforce. So, when you’re feeling discouraged because you didn’t land that account you wanted or didn’t make that sale, remind yourself why you’re doing this in the first place. Picture your children. Visualise your purpose as vividly as you can. Then harness that motivation and turn it into energy you can direct back into your business. Use that energy to examine why you didn’t land the account or make the sale and then change whatever needs to be changed. By making changes in response to such stimuli, you are increasing the odds of being successful next time around.

Your response to setbacks will also be determined by your personal confidence level. A confident individual is more resilient in the face of setbacks, whereas a less confident person is more likely to react to a setback as an indication that he or she is not really capable of being successful. Your response to setbacks is critical to the future success or failure of your business. If you’re someone whose self-talk is positive, you will tell yourself, ‘Well, that approach didn’t reach what I wanted. I’ll have to try something different.’ If, on the contrary, your self-talk is pretty negative, you are much more likely to tell yourself ‘Well, that obviously didn’t work. I just don’t have what it takes to be a success at this.’

*The difference between the two is that the positive self-talker refuses to internalise a setback as a personal failure. By contrast, the negative self-talker doesn’t view the setback as just part of the external environment where the business operates but, rather, internalises the setback as a personal failure.*

So, watch your self-talk. The language you use in your thoughts makes an enormous impression on your subconscious. If you impress upon your subconscious that you are not deserving of success, your subconscious will busily go about proving the truth of that statement. Similarly, if you impress upon your subconscious that you are a successful, confident person, it will work just as hard to validate that presumption. The important point is this: your subconscious DOESN’T CARE where it takes you. It will literally take you WHEREVER you program it to go.

One highly effective technique to help remove the negative self-talk that can be so harmful to long-term success is self-hypnosis. There are many good induction tapes available that will guide you into a state of deep mental relaxation and then provide you with positive suggestions. If you are in a state of deep relaxation when you receive a positive suggestion, it will be absorbed much more readily by your subconscious, where those nagging self-doubts emanate from in the first place. Choose a tape that deals with such issues as self-confidence or positive thinking. By programming your subconscious with positive messages of confidence and success, it will actively go to work integrating those qualities.

Do not underestimate the value of positive programming and the danger of negative programming in determining the ultimate success of your business. It may very well mean the difference between stunning success and whimpering failure.

Do you feel stressed and overloaded?
If so, then you may need to brush up your delegation skills!

This is reality. You can’t do everything that everyone wants, and this can leave you stressed, unhappy and overloaded.

To delegate effectively, choose the right tasks to delegate, identify the right people to delegate to, and delegate in the right way. There’s a lot to this, but you’ll achieve so much more once you’re delegating effectively!

This is why delegation is such an important skill and is one that you absolutely have to learn!

Would you rather be focusing on all of the things you have to do, or do you want to use that time to get results that really matter to you? – Tony Robbins

The power of delegation

As an entrepreneur, your time is your most valuable asset, which is why delegation is so important. As a leader, your job is to concentrate on those things that only you, as the leader, can do. This is where the effectiveness of an organisation increases exponentially. Effective delegation is the secret to successful leadership. The purpose is twofold: to accomplish the task at hand and to develop the employee in charge of its completion. If applied properly, it’s a technique that saves time, money and morale whilst increasing the capabilities of your human resources. Mishandled, delegation can be a catastrophic failure resulting in poor performance, resentment and inefficiency.

Keeping Control

Take time to explain why they were chosen for the job, what’s expected from them during the project, the goals you have for the project, all timelines and deadlines and the resources on which they can draw. And agree a schedule for

Make sure that the team member understands that you want to know if any problems occur and that you are available for any questions or guidance needed as the work progresses.

We all know that as managers, we shouldn’t micromanage. However, this doesn’t mean we must abdicate control altogether. In delegating effectively, we have to find the sometimes-difficult balance between giving enough space for people to use their abilities to the best effect and monitoring and supporting closely enough to ensure that the job is done correctly and effectively.

The Importance of Full Acceptance

When delegated work is delivered back to you, set aside enough time to review it thoroughly. If possible, only accept good-quality, fully complete work. If you accept work that you are not satisfied with, your team member does not learn to do the job properly. Worse than this, you accept a whole new tranche of work that you will probably need to complete yourself. Not only does this overload you, but it also means that you don’t have the time to do your own job properly. Of course, when good work is returned to you, make sure to both recognise and reward the effort. As a leader, you should get in the practice of complimenting members of your team every time you are impressed by what they have done. This effort on your part will go a long way towards building team members’ self-confidence and efficiency, both of which will be improved in the next delegated task; hence, you both win.

Key Points

By delegating effectively, you can hugely expand the amount of work that you can deliver.

When you arrange the workload, you are working on the tasks that have the highest priority for you and other people are working on meaningful and challenging assignments, you have a recipe for success.

Take it from Siimon Reynolds, expert and entrepreneur/co-founded two large enterprises, Photon Group and OMG. SIICOACH:

How your self image determines your wealth. You’re visualising how things will go anyway, all day long. It’s just how the brain works. So you might as well take control of the process and visualise exactly what you want. With regular daily practice you’ll find you will be more confident, more at ease, more effective. You’ll also find your economic identity will have changed. And soon after, your wealth.

Are you prepared to make 2022 your most thriving year yet?  It would be great to put the negative news of 2021 behind us and begin shaping a future that we propose!

Here are three quick steps you can use to jump-start your year:

Confirm your hypothesis
Be acquainted that you are making an assumption, and then authenticate your assumption. Get in touch with your prospective clients to find out what it would be of significance to them. If you think a new product would be immense, confirm your hypothesis before you start and save the time and money that it takes to change later.

Never assume that you’re correct. If you’re initiating a new service, you will have a mass of assumptions. Business is built on hypotheses. Investigations, statistics, surveys, etc. all exist to gather information to authenticate or contradict hypotheses.

Track your advertising/marketing

Organise your marketing thoughtfully, and follow your results. Know what you’re trying to achieve with your marketing, not generically. Understand who your targets are, how to reach them, what elucidation you’re offering, what results you expect, how many touches it takes to convert a prospect into a customer, how long your crusade will last, etc.

Marketing is costly in money or time (or both). Even if you’re core effort is online and isn’t costly, it will still cost you effort and time. Never market without having finances, goals, and ways to track your achievement.

These simple steps can help you immensely. Not only will they assist you in achieving results, but they will also help you save time and money that might otherwise be wasted on guesses.

Set your objective

Adjust and adapt to changing circumstances, but always with the goal in mind. This is one of the keys to setting goals; it upholds your focal points and assists you in coordinating your actions. Countless people will not bother, but it has been said a couple of times. Set your goals. Note them down. Commit to them. The point isn’t just noting them down and then hoping they’ll come true. Set the goals, and then plan how you’ll accomplish them. Break the goals into pieces, and allocate pieces of them to dissimilar offerings your corporation has. Track your progress towards your goals, and scrutinise what works and what doesn’t work.

There are always those days when work is quiet. But on those slower periods, it’s an outstanding chance to not only grab hold of on all of your administration work. It’s also a great chance to get your business out there and plug yourself wherever you can.

Here are 25 Effective Ideas Used by Successful Businesses:

1. Cold call
Begin each day by following up any new leads or making several cold calls. It’s always good to keep your marketing on track and investigate any new opportunities that come your way.

2. Generate an e-newsletter
Distribute a regular e-newsletter to your current customer base. Inform people about what you’re doing and any new products or services you’ve launched. It’ll keep you on their radars and encourage repeat business.

3. Get into your local newspaper
put in writing about anything interesting going on in your business. Not sure how to write one? Read these tips or simply pick up the phone and speak to a journalist to see if they’re interested in running something. If they are, they’ll probably write the story themselves.

4. Publish a blog
Blogs are great opportunities to not only extend your digital marketing strategy by creating a whole range of long-tail keywords, SEO-wise. They’re also a good chance to show off your skills and expertise while building trust.

5. Present mini versions
Consider creating a ‘mini’ version of your product or service at a discounted rate. This may persuade new or existing customers to part with their cash and might lead to a longer term business relationship

6. Discover a niche
Research and discover a niche in the market that could benefit from your product or service, then subsequently target. Find out what’s missing and what people really need. Offer solutions to people’s problems.

7. Talk to your clientele
Don’t be afraid to chat to your existing customers to ask them why they hired you. And take the opportunity to ask them if you could be doing anything more to improve your service to them.

8. Use Twitter
Twitter is often referred to as the business-friendly social media platform because it’s a great way to start networking online while giving your brand personality.

9. Always carry business cards
Never ever leave home without your business cards. You never know who you might bump into. Make sure your business cards contain all relevant information, including your website address and any social media accounts you might have.

10. Promote on blogs
Explore online advertising opportunities by researching where your target market likes to go. Are there any blogs that appeal to your customers? get in touch with the blog owner and sponsor them in exchange for advertising space.

11. Write link-bait blogs
Make the most of your own blog by writing posts that naturally encourage people to link to it. The more people who recommend your blogs, the more web traffic you’ll get to your website.

12. Get testimonials
Nothing works better for your marketing than having a genuine testimonial from a happy client. If you haven’t yet added any testimonials to your website or marketing materials, do it now! Just make sure you ask full permission from your client first.

13. Make the most of your email signature
Link everything up by adding social media accounts and website URLs to your own email signature. Even consider adding your main marketing message or company slogan. Remind people why you’re business is good.

14. Make friends with leading bloggers
There’s a wealth of new media out there, so get researching and find some influential bloggers to make friends with. Get them to write a review about your business, product or service.

15. Sustain a competition
There are always competitions at newspapers and radio shows. Consider sponsoring one of them to raise your profile. You’ll not only advertise your brand and company name, you’ll be putting yourself in front of a much wider market.

16. Offer discounts for limited periods
Discounts at certain times of the year are always popular. Offer your own products and services at a discounted rate, for example – ‘Summer Savings’ or ‘Winter Deal’. People always like a bargain.

17. Sponsor an awards ceremony
Although often an expensive option, sponsoring awards can really get your business name out there. Remember, not all awards are expensive. There are always niche award ceremonies that better suit your business and budget.

18. Give something away
Got something you can offer in a competition? Newspapers and magazines will give you free editorial space in exchange for a prize. Just be aware they’ll always want minimum prize values.

19. Create an e-brochure
Hard-copy brochures can be expensive to design and print. Save your money and create a PDF version instead, available to download via your website. Take the opportunity to really sell yourself and explain to potential customers why they should hire you.

20. Write a column for your local paper
Get in touch with your local rag to see if they’d benefit from a regular ‘ask the expert’ column, then provide regular expert features for them to publish. Don’t ask, don’t get – so pick up the phone today.

21. Traditional mailers
Mail-drop campaigns are simply pushing marketing leaflets through doors or sending out postcards to your existing customer database. They might be old school but they shouldn’t be underestimated.

22. Add interaction to your website
People want to interact with websites these days, so create something that will be really appealing and helpful to your potential customers. For example, a recent website we created for our client Manchester Fertility Services includes a bespoke feature that has proved hugely successful in drawing new enquiries and customers

23. Become an expert spokesperson
Journalists are always after industry experts to add a little something to their news reports. Contact your local TV, radio and newspapers to put yourself forward as a willing spokesperson and expert in your own business field. Be prepared to be available for any interviews that might come up and do some media training so you’re ready to go.

24. Create a press kit
Pull together some background information about yourself and your business, ready to send out to any journalists. Have a ‘press’ section on your website where media can easily find out more about you and contact you.

25. Delegate
Delegation is one of the most important management skills. These logical rules and techniques will help you to delegate well (and will help you to help your manager when you are being delegated a task or new responsibility – delegation is a two-way process!). Good delegation saves you time, develops you people, grooms a successor, and motivates. Poor delegation will cause you frustration, demotivates and confuses the other person, and fails to achieve the task or purpose itself. So it’s a management skill that’s worth improving.

So, are virtual assistants worth it? Let’s find out.

Hiring a virtual assistant to handle your busy schedule or carry out tasks that don’t make a good use of your time is probably one of the most effective ways to get yourself on track and become more productive in your business. So, are virtual assistants worth it? Yes, a big yes!

The goal of Virtual Office Angels is to free up your time, increase your productivity and reduce the amount of stress in your life. Most of our clients are small business owners who require extra help in getting things done, need access to a wide variety of services and are working on a budget.

Virtual Office Angels can help take care of

• things that are neglected or procrastinated,
• projects that are beyond your capability,
• matters that are absorbing your time
• and anything that you don’t have to be doing yourself.

By delegating these things to our virtual assistants, you can focus on the truly important, high-leverage activities within your business that need your attention.

The result?

• Increased productivity
• Greater efficiency
• More Time
• Less Stress

The outcome is that your business moves forward, faster and easier.