Showing posts with label Small business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Small business. Show all posts
Independent Business & Virtual Assistant.
To know more you can visit our site http://virtual-assistants.outsourcing-services-india.com to have better idea about us.
How to Attract and Keep a Personal Assistant
Many managers will often say their personal assistant is invaluable to them yet they often treat them as if they're not.
Day after day, week after week the P.A. is in the office, slogging away making sure the work gets done. In many instances it is the P.A. that holds the business / department together.
Many of them are so conscientious they won't take time out and will stay at their desk until the work is done. Not only are they integral to the running of any business, their income and the way they are treated may not always reflect the importance of their role.
Jenny has worked for her current employer for the past three years and thoroughly enjoys her role as Personal Assistant to the General Manager. They have a great working relationship.
If she requires the occasional afternoon or morning off to deal with personal matters, all she has to do is ask. Her boss praises her regularly for her contribution and rewards her … sometimes monetarily and other times with a dinner out or movie tickets when they achieve their sales targets.
Because of this attitude with her employer, she does her utmost best in her work and never thinks twice about working overtime on the odd occasion. In fact she works twice as hard because she’s appreciated and has some flexibility in her working hours.
This is a totally different situation to Jenny's previous employer. Jenny had been working for another organisation where her boss was 'married to the job'. Although he had a wife and family, his behaviour didn't reflect this. He worked all hours of the day and night and couldn't understand why everyone else went home at 5.00 p.m.
Although she did her utmost best to organise him and get the work done on time, he would always ask for tasks to be done just when she was getting ready to leave for the day.
On the many occasions when she worked back or took work home so that her boss would have what he wanted for the next morning, he never thanked her. He just assumed that's what she should do. He never considered her needs. She was a single parent and therefore had major responsibilities. She had a life too. Her boss on the other hand was fortunate to have a wife who didn't work and took care of their personal life.
Prior to Jenny being in this role, there had been three other people who had worked in her position, and each one had lasted less than 3 months.
Jenny had enough, she left after 6 months and found her current position. It wasn't the money that was her main issue. It was the flexibility and appreciation. Although her boss was pleasant enough, he just didn't understand that there is more to working with someone than just paying their wages.
Learn How to Look After Your People
As soon as you have people to manage, the most important skill you need to learn is how to look after them.
Every client I have coached will often say their biggest challenge is the people that work for them.
There are many reasons for this including hiring the wrong people to begin with and the most common being the manager/boss… they haven’t developed the skills on being a masterful manager.
What the Boss Wants:
Someone who can use their initiative, make decisions in their absence and carry out tasks without supervision.
A person they can trust and take many of the basic administrative duties from them so the boss can spend his/her time on more important tasks.
A person who can organise them (and in some cases be a mind-reader).
An assistant who is their right-hand person and can keep everything running smoothly.
What the PA Wants:
A boss who they can communicate with.
A boss who understands that when they are given tasks to do, although they may have taken 2 minutes to discuss, could take the P.A. 2 days to complete with all the interruptions they have from others.
A boss who realises that the P.A. is a person who has to do many tasks as well as answering all the phone calls and often has many interruptions in their day which can cause them to get very behind with their work.
A boss who is appreciative of them and realises that the P.A. does have a life outside of work and needs to have time-out just like they do.
To be recognised on a regular basis that they are important. They also need to be renumerated for their valuable contribution and should have regular performance appraisals and be offered incentives.
The Final Word
When employing a personal assistant make sure they are the right fit. If you're looking for someone who can be extremely flexible in their hours and can come in early and stay late, then make sure that person is in the right personal situation to do that. Using our invaluable tool How to Hire the Right People can save you time, money and stress before you go through the process.
Employing people is a skill in itself. Keeping them happy so that they will be an important part of your business is another story. See Look After Your People And They Will Look After You
Have a great week
Lorraine Pirihi
About The Author
Lorraine Pirihi is Australia's Personal Productivity Specialist and Leading Life Coach. Her business The Office Organiser specialises in showing small business owners and managers, how to get organised at work so they can have a life! Lorraine is also a dynamic speaker and has produced many products including "How to Survive and Thrive at Work!"
To subscribe to her free ezine visit www.office-organiser.com.au
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Hiring A New Assistant?
The online service industry boom may be a viable alternative for your apparent human resource needs. More and more small businesses and even larger companies are turning to virtual office assistants to handle their administrative tasks.
Does it sound too complicated or new-fangled? Well, there are good reasons to at least consider the option.
Let's take a look at a few of the benefits that a cyber employee has over their in-office counterpart.
-Insurance, taxes, and other benefits do not apply to most online service providers. They provide services as a contractor or freelance provider.
-Your relationship with the provider you choose is just that: service provider to client. Imagine having all your employees treating you as their favorite client all the time, doing their best work each time to ensure your repeat business Conversely, have you ever been dissatisfied with a project you asked your assistant to complete. It probably, wasn't feasible(or legal) for you to fire that person on the spot. Online you determine whether to continue that relationship by allowing them to work on future projects for you or not.
-It may not seem like a lot, but take a moment to think of all the capital you invest in each new employee you hire. Every extra phone line, data port, software license, cubic foot of office space, furniture, and anything else a person would need to sit in your office and conduct business reduces your bottom line.
Obviously, virtual assistants have some limitations. Online providers can handle just about any need that could arise. Consider that you may miss the personal aspects of working side by side with someone you know and trust. It's the human and spatial aspects that are difficult to duplicate online. Extraordinary technology exists for communication and collaboration. However, none of that can ever guarantee you that if you stick your head around the corner and ask for an opinion or some help, you'll get it immediately. Most likely they won't attend your office holiday party or join the softball team!
There are many different types of companies online that can help you run your business more efficiently. You can hire on a project basis. You can put an assistant on retainer. If you have administrative needs that aren't being met, you may want to consider your options before running into your local classifieds office, ad in hand.
Article Source: http://www.articlenorth.com
Dana Wallert is the owner of DW Office Solutions. Find out more about Dana and her virtual assistance solutions and sign up to receive her free monthly newsletter at www.dwofficesolutions.com
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Training for Personal Assistant
Another major qualification in being a personal assistant is mastery of skills in terms of organization and socialization aspects. Although there is no specific training to become an efficient personal assistant, it pays to undergo some sort of briefing to know what it's like to be one. Here, people who have plans of becoming a personal assistant would have an idea what are the key essentials needed for one to be hired immediately and of course, how to be efficient for a specific type of boss or employer.
Aside from that, a personal assistant should be able to do two or more tasks at any given time. This is very vital especially to those bosses who have very hectic schedule. A personal assistant should also be able to remain calm despite stressful situations because there will always be time when she or he will be blamed for the things that went wrong along the way.
Other qualifications include being business and Internet savvy, being computer literate especially to basic operations, having knowledge in accounting and bookkeeping, basic phone etiquette, and people skills especially in dealing with people during negotiations and meetings.
To be able to become a good personal assistant, one has to know the tasks and responsibilities for the position. Knowing these will somehow train you to becoming an efficient and reliable personal assistant to your employer.
Preparing for the job
Once you have listed down all the qualities a personal assistant must have, it is now time to know if you have those skills needed for the job. If you think you don’t and still would want to pursue a career in this position, then you can train yourself to possess those skills.
It is best to start with the nature of the job you will be related to. If you will be working for an employer who runs a business, you must master the skills and efficiency of a secretary. This is because you will be asked to do all the scheduling and bookkeeping for the business. If you will become a personal assistant to a politician, you should also master the skills of organization and people skills because you will be dealing with people from all walks of life.
If you plan to work as a personal assistant for a celebrity, you must be very well prepared in dealing with pressure. This is because you will be involved in the very busy and complicated world of show business. If you will be working for a person with medical condition or disability, you must be very well informed in dealing with the boss who is also a patient.
Overall, the best possible way of becoming a good personal assistant is by training one's self by actually doing it. You can do this at home like helping your parents in the business or managing the household. You can also train yourself to become an efficient personal assistant by dong volunteer works in various establishments or you can join organizations to form network. Here, your skills can be honed and prepare you for the job that you wanted.
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How to Start a Home Based Personal Assistant Business
The first thing you have to know is figure out what your home based personal assistant business should focus on. Studies show that a lot of people miss out on paying their bills on time, meetings, appointments, birthdays, anniversaries and errands.
So they don’t miss out on it again, your business is designed to remind them about it or be the one to do the legwork. For this to work, there are a few things you need namely your business setup, pricing and marketing.
When you setup a business, naturally you must have an office, a computer, phone and mobile. You probably have this already in your house. The only thing you need to do is convert a small room. You also might want to invest in a fax machine so you can send or receive a quote. A filing cabinet may come later when you are already handling many clients.
Pricing can be done on an hourly or monthly rate. If you are starting out, it will be crazy to charge a monthly rate since people don’t know you yet so don’t be too greedy. The quality of your services will speak for itself and soon after, these clients of yours will even refer you to others.
The third is marketing your business. If you quit your old job to open this business, ask your friends and family members for help.
If you don’t have the budget to pay for a billboard but you can make posters and put this in community bulletin boards. You can also coordinate with your alma mater and post this in the alumni magazine or in other publications. Don’t forget to advertise on the web because a lot of people use it to access information.
When you are able to get more clients and you are not able to handle everything by yourself, this is the time that you hire people to work for you. It will be a good idea to provide them disability and insurance since you never know what could happen while you are on the job.
One of the things you should not forget to do is be bonded and insured. This will protect you if something happens to be damaged or missing when you are working with a client.
Credibility is important in any business and the same goes for your home based personal assistant business. To make this happen, you should get a bank reference and join a small business association, be part of the Better Business Bureau or the local Chamber of Commerce.
If business has been good for the past few months, use the names of your clients as references since a new client will probably ask about how well you worked for them in the past.
When you work for a client, remember that this is not a temporary or full time job but rather it is a contractual one. They don’t need you to be there everyday but you better be ready to respond whenever they give you a call.
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Starting Your Own Personal Assistant Service Business
But what does a personal assistant service actually do? Someone from their office will deliver or pick up personal items, wait for contractors, deliveries or installations in your home, shop for gifts, groceries and other items, take your car for repair or cleaning, take your pet to the vet, arrange business or personal travel, simply your way of paying bills and organize your home or office space.
Since you don’t need the personal assistant service all the time, you can simply call them up and only pay them for the number of hours rendered. Some companies have a flat rate for an hour or two which is more than enough to get a simple task done when you are busy doing something else.
You can find a personal assistant service online or through the phone directory and be happy to know that most of these are bonded and insured.
Given that the idea of a personal assistant service is not hard to do, you can make one yourself if there are not that many yet where you live. In fact, you can start by doing this at home and then when you take the call, you do the work or have some other people do it for you.
The skills you need to have to get into the personal assistant service business are not that difficult. You and your team should be internet savvy, knowledgeable about the latest gadgets, be able to do some basic financing and be well organized.
You then advertise to your neighbors and friends about your business and hopefully get referrals whenever it is needed.
The amount you charge depends on the kind of service you are providing. The best way is to aim for an annual salary so if you are able to finish the job in a much shorter time than expected, what you earn stays the same.
But if you are just establishing your presence in the market, it is best to charge hourly. You can charge extra when your services extend beyond the agreed upon time. Be sure to put everything written in a contract and have them sign it. You should be paid for your services the minute that the job is done. When things pick up, you can demand that clients should pay for this a month in advance.
Don’t forget to be bonded and insured so you will never be accused of theft if something is missing. You should also apply for disability and insurance to protect yourself and the people you send over.
To make yourself credible, you should have a bank reference and belong to the small business association, better business bureau or the chamber of commerce. After working with a few clients, use them as your reference since the client will probably do a background check and feel safe knowing you are a legitimate business.
Having a personal assistant service business is great since you don’t have to work everyday. You get a job whenever the phone rings while the rest of the time, you get to relax and enjoy doing some other activities.
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