However, something happened towards the end of the school holidays that has had a very deep impact on my life. My mother, with whom I have always had a very close relationship, was admitted to hospital, diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer and then transferred to a hospice where she passed away, all within the space of one month.

Now I am a one woman business, and as soon as Mum went into hospital, business was no longer one of my main priorities. Luckily, I have a couple of very good friends who are also Virtual Assistants who were happy to cover the work that couldn’t be postponed. I also have some very understanding clients who either made temporary arrangements or delayed the work for a few weeks and I would like to take this opportunity to let both colleagues and clients know how grateful I am for their support and understanding.

The experience of dealing with the estate, as the executor of Mum’s will, has been interesting, difficult, frustrating, but also easier than it could otherwise have been for one simple reason: in addition to her will, Mum had kept a notebook of all the relevant information I would need. She had made sure I knew about the notebook and knew where it was kept.  It contained the following information:

1.      Her wishes for her funeral/cremation – details of hymns and readings.

2.      Contact details for everyone who should be told of her death.

3.      Her National Insurance number

4.      Details of all her bank and National Savings accounts.

5.      Details of all the direct debits payable from her bank account.

6.      Details of her pension accounts.

7.      Details of the car and house insurance and car tax

8.      Details of all her utility companies, including Council Tax

9.      Details of any belongings of sentimental, historical or financial value.

This has been an invaluable document for me, making a difficult time much easier and it’s something that I would encourage anyone else to put together for their own individual circumstances, even more so if you run your own business. Even if you have a solicitor, rather than a family member or friend, as an executor for your will, a document like this makes dealing with the estate a much simpler process at a difficult time.

Talking of wills, November is Will Aid month whereby participating solicitors will draw up a will free of charge, provided you make a suitable donation to the Will Aid charity. Your donation goes to help people in need both in the UK and around the world. It’s a great way of sorting out your affairs without paying the full amount that a solicitor would normally cost. Please do consider it.

1. Time is money

If you communicate poorly with someone who is undertaking work on your behalf, they will undoubtedly take longer to complete it to your satisfaction. But their time is usually your money, so the better you communicate at the start, the less you’ll have to pay at the end.

2. Be specific

The lesson I learned from this client was not to ask ‘Is this what you had in mind?’ but to be more specific – ‘What do you think of this part? Do you want to change anything? Is the font/style/layout OK?’

This works both ways. Virtual assistants are good at what they do, but I’ve yet to meet one who is a fully fledged psychic. So if, as a client, you have something particular you want then say so. Otherwise see point 1.

3. Keep communicating

Situations can change, priorities can change, different information becomes available and suddenly it makes sense to do things differently. That’s fine, it happens. But when it happens, make sure you keep everyone informed of the new plan.

4. Put pen to paper

Putting what you want in writing is always best, as long as you ensure that it is unambiguous. If you have a phone conversation with a client or supplier, it’s always a good idea to follow up very soon afterwards with an email setting out what you’ve just verbally agreed. That way you’ve got a written reminder of the conversation and you’re also covered if the other person doesn’t recall the conversation at a much later date.

So, as BT used to say ‘It’s good to talk.’

In the last couple of months other virtual assistants have:

• sub-contracted work out to me;

• undertaken work for me;

• recommended me to potential new clients, resulting in them contacting me;

• warned me of the pitfalls of working with one potential new client in particular, and

• wholeheartedly congratulated me on winning new clients.

In addition it is fairly commonplace to find VAs covering for each other during holidays or times of crisis.

Although I think the VA industry is much further down the road of collaboration rather than competition than many other sectors, particularly thanks to the likes of the Virtual Assistant Support Group and AUKVA, there does seem to be a growing movement towards this way of working. Businesses are waking up to the benefits of working together in terms of getting the customers they want, delivering a better service, and being able to negotiate with suppliers from a stronger base than they would as an individual.

While I was in the process of writing this post, Sally Walker of Media Labs was obviously having a similar thought process and has blogged about it here. It’s well worth a read.

So, what about you? Do you compete against others in your sector or have you found ways of making your business stronger by collaborating?

My initial reaction would be to say that I am ‘in the zone’ or ‘experiencing flow’, although I’d question whether I have the necessary joy and rapture required for that definition by Wikipedia, but it is certainly a positive feeling.

Wikipedia goes on to state that there are three necessary conditions to obtain flow. You must have:

1. A clear set of goals;
2. Confidence that the task can be achieved;
3. Immediate feedback from the task in hand to gauge progress.

Looking at these, it becomes apparent why flow is a positive experience, but how often are those criteria not met in the work that we undertake? Do you set out clear goals at the start of a project to at least get started, even if the requirements later change? Do you have a system for giving and receiving feedback? I will be the first to admit that I don’t always manage to achieve these, but will certainly be making more of an effort in future.

So what about you? Do you get into the zone and, if so, what activities do it for you?

Find your transcriptionist

Firstly, if possible, find a transcriptionist before recording anything. Talk through your project with them and ask their advice. If you’re planning a big project rather than a one-off half hour interview, it is particularly important to build up a good relationship with your transcriptionist as they could make or break the project.

Choose your equipment

If you are recording spoken voices, make sure you have the right equipment for the job. Generally speaking, unless you are recording in a police station or council interview room where there are specialist tape decks, you will get a much better result by recording digitally – either straight on to a laptop or with a digital recorder. Anything involving a tape, of whatever size, will generate background noise. Worst of all is a Dictaphone – the clue is in the name, they’re designed to record one person’s dictation, not a two or three way conversation.

If you want to record straight onto your laptop, there is software available to help you do so – a quick websearch will bring up a choice of options.

Make sure you use enough microphones for the number of participants, preferably one microphone for every two participants, and make sure they’re omni-directional i.e. they pick up from all directions, not just the person who they are pointing at.

Place and test your equipment

Place your microphone(s) so that they will pick up all the voices. If it is a one-to-one interview place your microphone nearer to your interviewee – it’s no good recording your own voice and not being able to hear what your interviewee is saying. Once it’s in place test it – record some natural conversation and play it back to check that you can hear all the voices clearly. Once you are set up, don’t move the microphone, as that will only add noise onto the recording; also try and make sure that nobody rustles papers by the microphone as this will drown out the voices.

Manage your recording

If you are recording more than two people, give a brief introduction and ask each participant to introduce themselves with their name and to say a little bit about themselves. This helps the transcriptionist to identify individual voices. Then, once you begin, manage the discussion so that, as far as possible, only one person is speaking at a time. If two or more people speak at the same time, you will find that usually only the one who is loudest or closest to the microphone is audible and anything else that is said will be lost.

This really just skims the surface. You can go into more depth about microphones, recording equipment, types of sound files and other aspects, such as recording conference proceedings or phone interviews, but at least by following these tips you stand a good chance of getting a reasonable quality recording. I will just leave you with one thought – if after reading this you still don’t think it’s worth your while making the effort to get a clear recording, then bear in mind that a good transcriptionist will increase their rates for a poor recording as it takes much longer to get a good transcription from it.

What a difference a week makes!

This week has proved a very interesting week. As a result here is my first ever Follow Friday Blog:

@BirdsontheBlog

Birds on the blog is a great site with posts on a huge range of articles, some business orientated, some news orientated, some just fun. I’d also recommend following the ‘birds’ who are all listed in Sarah’s post above.

@DrEvanHarris

Dr Harris is the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West. He was an NHS doctor and has some very sensible views on a range of health and science related topics. That on its own would be enough of a reason to follow him, but for added amusement it’s also worth following @EvansMother to see the interplay between them.

@ProfBrianCox

While we’re on the subject of science, Brian Cox is doing a fantastic job of making physics a cool subject. His enthusiasm for his subject came over beautifully in the recent BBC series Wonders of the Solar System. Let’s hope he encourages more young people to follow him into science.

@MrsMooseFace

Don’t be put off by the name, Henry is a lovely lady, a friend of mine who deserves more followers than she has currently got!

@CallTeam

Call Team is just a fantastic business service that not only offers a really high quality call answering service but provides administrative support as well.

@VASupportGroup

There are so many other fantastic virtual assistants on Twitter that I can’t name them all. Suffice it to say that they’re all members of the VA Support Group, and the ethos is one of collaboration not competition.

Also this week I attended my first ever Tweet Up, organised by @tweetupwoky. It was a great evening, lots of interesting people and discussion, not all of it about Twitter! So finally, a Follow Friday for the following local twitterati who helped make the evening so enjoyable!

@ScarlettaMedia

Scarletta Media is a digital marketing company and the owner, Mel, is the brains behind the Tweet Up. Scarletta offers digital marketing training, including Twitter workshops, as well as a range of marketing services.

@The_Wine_Place

Lynda Harvey specialises in wine tasting events and independent wine retail. Great for corporate bashes, unbiased opinion and weekly Twitter polls on a wine theme.

@1CorporateHippy

Joolz Lewis, the Corporate Hippy, helps individuals to get more out of work and organisations to get more out of their employees without having to sell their souls! She’s also got a great sense of humour.

@Interiors2Art

Jayne is a local artist and interior designer who produces some amazingly vibrant paintings.

@Chez_Vous

Chez-Vous offer a complete home service, from finding your next home through to styling it and then maintaining it.

@Flab2Ab

Julie is a local personal fitness trainer with clients ranging from sportsmen and women, through pregnant and new mums, to the older generation. All Julie’s programmes are tailored to meet individual requirements.

Like I said, quite a week! Hope you find someone here worth following.

Maggie (@MaggieBerney)

Most of the time I have a steady stream of work, more by luck than judgement, but there are times when the flow of work either slows right down or else, as recently, several jobs come in at once. I’m sure anyone who runs their own business will recognise this whole ‘feast or famine’ scenario. There may also be a new variation on Murphy’s Law at work – you will get most work when you have the least available time to do it. In fact if no-one’s claimed that one yet, maybe I should copyright it and call it Berney’s Law…

So, the question is how to deal with it. The first thing is to agree workable timescales with my clients; although they all want the work done as soon as possible, they are usually flexible enough to accept a slightly longer completion time where necessary. However, if it’s a self-inflicted time limit such as going on holiday, then it’s a matter of getting my head down and completing the work and not worrying so much about blogging or tweeting. Then when normality returns, or the holiday is over, I can play catch up. In theory when things are slow, I should be writing blog posts and tweets for both immediate use and for keeping back to use when things are more hectic. Unfortunately, that never seems to happen.

I’m also lucky in that I have a network of other virtual assistants to call on if it really is impossible to fit all the work in. The general ethos amongst virtual assistants that I know is one of collaboration, not competition, and certainly the majority are more than happy to lend a hand in an emergency. That’s just one of the reasons that this is a lovely sector to work in.

So, what’s your solution? How do you deal with fluctuations in work load – is it just a matter of working much longer hours in the busy times or do you subcontract work out?

According to sources, it’s not illegal to add my name to your email newsletter list if you’ve done some kind of business with me in the past. Evidently, this means that it’s perfectly fine to add me to your list if you’ve sent me an email. Ever. Because I’ve gotta tell you: I’m subscribed to a LOT of email newsletters that I didn’t sign up for, and I’m not very pleased with it. To me, it’s spam, whether or not that’s the legal definition.

I’m not sure what to do with this. Unsubscribing is the easy next step, but then what? I sure don’t feel vindicated just by unsubscribing and saying, “I never signed up to begin with” as my reason for leaving. So, to begin, I’m going to write this to all of you, and maybe, you can forward the following to whoever adds you without your request to their email list:

Please Remove Me From Your Email Newsletter

Hello!

You evidently mistook access for acceptance. I seem to be subscribed to your email newsletter, and I’m not interested. Now, I realize there’s a click-to-unsubscribe option, but I wanted a moment of your time, seeing as you ate up some of mine by making me go through the process of unsubscribing myself from your mailing list.

I can tell you’re eager to grow your business. It’s clear that you want incredibly smart and engaging people like me to participate in your world. Here’s a hint: blindly adding me to your email list won’t really win you many fans in that regard.

In fact, you know who you get when you use that method? Lazy people who haven’t bothered hitting unsubscribe yet. And if they’re too lazy to opt out (or even report you as spam), how motivated will they be to buy your product or service? Seems like a waste of your database space to me.

So, I’m going to unsubscribe now, and I’m going to wish you the best with your business. You clearly need it, if you think blindly adding me to your lists will ensure your future success.

Thanks and with appreciation,

_____________.

There You Have It

Share that all you want. Copy it, paste it, reblog it. Whatever. Just let’s get people to stop doing this. Okay?

And if YOU are doing it? Stop. Today. Please? Because I’m getting itchy to out you.

It is imperative that small business owners (especially those without staff and limited resources) have streamlined and organized systems and practices. This includes the way you process your clients’ information, marketing techniques, sales scripts and invoices/ bookkeeping. And let’s not forget hours of operation. There is nothing wrong with setting your own hours, but are you adhering to them? Are you spending the appropriate amount of time with your family? How and when are you honing your skills and increasing your business knowledge? Do you set aside time to perform the menial administrative duties? Do you plan your work? There needs to be a clear, well-defined and functional manner in which you operate your business.

When you are overwhelmed, frustrated and lost you should stop, think and listen. Stop doing what you are doing. Just like in a real emergency, STOP. Don’t panic. Our stress and anxiety levels immediately increase when we are flying by the seat of our pants. We are naturally concerned about revenue, clients and the direction of our business. This is okay. However, it is also easy to add to this concern unnecessarily when we operate our business without proper planning and a functional work system. So again, when you find yourself panicked, overwhelmed or simply unproductive, stop. When you are in quicksand, it is the flailing around that will cause you to sink even faster. Don’t move forward or backward. Just be still.

Think. Reflection and introspect is critical for small business owners. We have to be able to step back and survey the land to see clearly. Be realistic about where you are and what has taken place so far. Assess your business condition. What are you doing right? What are you doing wrong? What are your resources? What are your strengths? If you are not sure, don’t be afraid to ask for help. The knowledge and wisdom from wise counsel and a fresh pair of eyes could be the jolt you need to redirect your energy in the right direction.

Once you have come out of survival mode and have taken some time to really think about and assess your position, you must be open-minded and prepared to listen. Open-minded enough to accept the reality of your condition in whatever state it is in. Denial is destructive to you and your business. Listen to your intuition. We all have that small voice inside that gives us a heads up when we are going in the wrong direction or if something doesn’t feel right. Listen to that voice and give it the power and credit it deserves. If you have sought wise counsel, listen to what it is they are telling you. They should be telling you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.

The next time you find yourself overwhelmed, lost, frustrated or in a constant state of emergency, stop, think and listen.

A.Michelle Blakeley is the Founder and CEO of Simplicity, Inc.; a progressive small business development firm. She manages her clients’ business expectations and prevents information overload via Micro Business Therapy™ and Micro Business Action Plans. She is featured in Forbes.com and the Financial Post as one of 30 Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter and the host of Simple Truths for Women Entrepreneurs on BlogTalkRadio.com.