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Dear Danielle: How Do You Stay in Shape in this Business?

By Danielle Keister |
4 Comments

In this week’s episode of What Would Danielle Say?, a new business owner writes:

Dear Danielle:

I have a crazy question for you. I’ve just started my business and am also a part-time college student. I find that I’m spending a lot of time sitting on my butt. How do you keep in shape while working this kind of business? —DRF

Not a crazy question at all! It’s a real challenge in our kind of work because we are sitting at the computer for long stretches of time.

I love this question because at its foundation, it’s also really a business question, and I’ll tell you why in a bit.

First, let me address the practical question on its surface.

As with anything, we’re going to find a way or make the time for those things we want most.

And I’m no fitness poster child. I’m working on losing a few pounds that I’ve put on over the years of my business myself. So I can only tell you what I did.

I was confronted one year with the fact that I was no longer in  my 20s or 30s, able to eat whatever I wanted and never gain an ounce. What?! When did that happen? lol

On top of that, as we enter our 40s (and I just turned 49 this year), unless you are one of those blessed women with miracle genes, it’s just not as easy anymore to stay in shape and keep the pounds off. It’s not impossible, but you DO have to work harder and be more conscious about your eating and lifestyle.

That’s when I had my awakening and began to get conscious about what I needed to do to be healthier and lose some weight.

I began learning about nutrition and healthier living and eating.

Luckily, I’ve never had any food addictions or bad eating habits like sweets and junk food. I’ve always eaten pretty healthy foods in a mostly raw, local, whole, organic diet. Where I learned to get clear was in portion sizes and knowing my numbers: the amount of calories I needed to both lose and maintain weight and keep within those daily numbers.

Somehow or another I got turned onto Jillian Michaels. To this day, I’ve never seen a video or watched her on TV. But I came across her book Winning by Losing and it really was the turning point for me. And the reason is because she provides the simple math you need to know in order to lose weight and have more control over your weight.

Since I’ve always been a proponent of local and organic, her message also really resonated with me because she’s a huge advocate of that as well.

I don’t deprive myself of all of life’s pleasures and I’m still able to indulge once in awhile BECAUSE I know my numbers.

So I highly recommend you get Jillian’s book if youi want to become more knowledgeable and in control of this area of your life.

She walks you through crunching your numbers, understanding calories and how to count them, and figuring out your metabolic type (whether you are a balanced, fast or slow oxidizer, which is important to know because it tells you what kind of protein/carb/fat ratios you should be eating in every meal and the kinds of foods that are best for your particular type).

I believe her website also has some free online tools to help you do these calculations as well.

The other thing I do in living healthy and staying in shape run/hike/walk at least 3 miles day and do an exercise routine (another thing Jillian Michaels can give you direction with), 5 days a week.

Now, here’s why this is such a great business question.

Because why do we start our businesses? For most of us, our reasons go far beyond merely helping others and making a living. There are other things that are important to us, often having to do with loftier ambitions, having a more fulfilling life, a higher quality life and lifestyle, being able to be more present in the lives of our children and loved ones. All kinds of reasons.

And one of my biggest philosophies is that your business should support your life, not suck the life out of it.

And so this brings us back to the foundations of our business, how we set it up to be able to live life the way we want, to engineer our work so that we have time for those pursuits, interests and pleasures that are important to us.

I would venture to say that for most people, they are going about their business as if it was a job. They work with that first client or two as if they were an employee, never realizing the future implications and unsustainability of that dynamic.

Eventually, they find that because of the way they are working with clients (as well as some of the work they are doing), they have no room to take on others, their income is drastically limited, they have hardly any time for life…. it just goes on and on.

This is why we have to be intentional about the set-up of our business. to be knowledgeable and have foresight in how our foundations (i.e., our standard, policies, procedures, etc.) affect our ability to live the way we want to live.

So, like me, for example, it’s important for me to be able to have time for my run and exercise every day. It’s important to me that I have space around the work and have a methodical and well-intentioned system for how I handle it so that I am not stressed out every day about deadlines. It’s important to me that I don’t have to leap out of bed every day because I’ve got a pile of work that if I don’t get done in an instant will overwhelm and bury me.

And so I’m intentional in the fact that I am not a substitue employee. I provide strategic support, not daily support. I don’t (and never have) offered day-to-day assistance such as telling clients “I’ll manage your INbox everyday!” or receptionist work or managing calendars. I don’t do same day tasks (and I have a whole system for managing requests and turn-around times).

I’d never have a life or have the kind of freedom and flexibility that I do, if I did any of that kind of work or worked with clients in any of those ways. I’d be chained to my desk all day.

Figure out how you WANT your life to look like every day AND figure out what you DON’T want it to be like. These become the building blocks for your policies and procedures, your standards and the intentional way you choose clients, how you work with them and what work you do (and don’t do) for them.

As you go about that process, you also begin to realize that you need clarity about what you are in business and what you are in business to be/do for clients. (I’m pretty certain for most people, that’s NOT to be a beck-and-call employee.)

I now work what amounts to a 3-day week in my business (yes, you read that right) AND I’m able to provide vastly better care and support to my clients in the process. It’s crazy counter-intuitive, and I love showing people how they have a business like that, too.

If you need help in restructuring your business and laying foundations that will help you create a business and life you want, that supports those things that are important you, I’ve packaged up all my systems and knowledge in this area in my guide, Power Productivity & Biz Management for Administrative Consultants.

Standards Are Determined by You, Not Anyone Else

By Danielle Keister |
1 Comment

Standards are determined by you, not anyone else.

It’s pretty presumptuous and egocentric of someone else looking in to question why you’re working when they think you shouldn’t be.

As long as you are working on YOUR terms, by YOUR choice, it’s none of anyone else’s business when, where, how or why you are working.

Take the single mom. I can’t even imagine anymore (since my own daughter is grown now) the difficulties those with little ones still to raise have in growing and operating their business. Mad respect to her because she has responsibilities and timing that can’t be moved around at whim or done according to when someone else says she should or shouldn’t be working.

So, someone in that position might find, in the course of making it all work in her family, that she just does better working predominately at night or on the weekends. Hey, it’s not forever and no one ever said building a business would be easy or that you wouldn’t have to make some sacrifices along the way.

And that’s okay if that’s what she is doing by choice and what works for her.

Now, on the other hand, if you do find yourself feeling compelled to work beyond what you would choose to (long hours, nights, weekends, all your free time) due to extrinsic forces, and your business is running you instead of you running your business, that’s when an examination of your standards, boundaries, policies and operations will help you reclaim control of your life and become more at choice.

For example, you may be taking on the wrong clients and kinds of work.

You might be trying to be too much like an in-house assistant and working with clients like an employee instead of providing strategic—not daily—support as an independent consultant.

Perhaps your policies and procedures are not well-developed and you are letting clients determine those things instead of you.

Perhaps improving the communication about your standards, protocols, boundaries, the way things work and what procedures they should be following, etc., (such as with a client guide and/or new client orientation) and being more deliberate in communicating those things would help your client relationships and work go more smoothly.

Perhaps you are not charging enough which is forcing you to take on too much work in order to make ends meet, which in turn is taking away time for your life.

Perhaps you need to simplify and uncomplicate your administration and operations so that those things don’t overburden your time and attention.

Maybe you like working nights and weekends because it’s when you choose to on occasion, but sending communications at all hours is giving clients the wrong impression that they can impose on you beyond regular business hours. If that’s the case, making adjustments such as when you reply, scheduling your replies for certain hours, or even delaying replies a certain amount of time so as to manage their understandings and expectations will help keep clients from crowding you and overstepping boundaries.

It doesn’t matter when you work. Productivity and inspiration can’t be imposed or “managed.” They can only be facilitated.

What matters is that you are at choice and have the infrastructure and flexibility that allows you to follow your own energies and inspiration and harness them most effectively for you.

Dear Danielle: How Do You Respond to RFPs?

By Danielle Keister |
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Dear Danielle:

I really enjoy reading your blog. My question for you is, how do you recommend responding to an RFP (Request for Proposal)? As a member of other VA forums where RFPs are posted I struggle with knowing exactly how to submit an effective proposal. I did a quick search on your site and didn’t see anything directly mentioning RFPs or responding to them. I could be wrong. I would really appreciate your input. Thank you. —Anita Armas, CustomVA Administrative Services

Hi Anita :)

You must have missed my posts on Facebook here on this just recently, lol.

You didn’t find much on my blog about this because I don’t recommend people pay attention to RFPs whatsoever.

RFPs are the worst way to build your business. Your highest quality potential clients always come from your own pipelines and networking efforts. The lowest quality “leads” come from “job boards” and RFPs. (Hint: As an independent professional, you aren’t applying for “jobs.”)

Clients need to be brought on through your processes and hoops, not the other way around. If you allow them to lead those things, all you’re doing is auditioning to be the lowest priced bidder. Those are never good clients.

Don’t waste your time on RFPs. That’s not how you will build a high-earning, professional administrative support practice.

Here is one of my posts from 2010 for more of my thoughts on the topic.

You can also find more in the RFP category of my blog.

How to Achieve Your Standards, Values and Desires in Your Business

By Danielle Keister |
2 Comments

It’s all well and good to be told that to be successful in your business, you should have incredibly high standards, you should refuse to compromise them for anyone, you shouldn’t move too fast, and you should do your best work.

Easier said than done, particularly in the administrative support business!

And what do we mean when we talk about standards? Standards are boundaries, desires and values you have for your life, your business and what you want for your clients.

It can help to look at standards in view of some of the issues we run up against in our businesses that we want to avoid or solve:

  • Clients thinking you’re their beck-and-call substitute employee;
  • Becoming overwhelmed or disorganized with the workload;
  • Being so bogged down and crowded in the work that you aren’t able to do your best work; reacting and scrambling instead of being proactive and having the space to apply critical thinking and creativity (creativity is KILLED by crowding and overwhelm);
  • Working beyond normal business hours into the nights and weekends has become the habit in order to keep up with work and deadlines;
  • Never having time to take proper care of yourself;
  • Having so much work or working so much for one client that you don’t have time or room for anyone or anything else;
  • Living to work; not having enough time for your own life.

Most of us want to do a great job for our clients AND we also want to have plenty of time to enjoy our lives, right? These are two of the most basic standards we all have for being in business.

So how do you avoid these kind of pitfalls I’ve mentioned so you can achieve those standards? How do you ensure you are able to meet those goals and live up to the values you have for yourself, your business and how you want to take care of clients?

With a system!

And what is a system? A system is a method, plan or series of steps involved with the goal of streamlining or reducing work, improving efficiency, instilling consistency and dependability, and creating the circumstances that allow you to do your best work, all the time.

So a system becomes a plan, a roadmap, a tool for being able to achieve certain results, uphold your standards and values, and accomplish your objectives for your life, your business and your clients.

Without a system for being able to uphold your standards and boundaries, for managing the workload and client expectations, for working in a way that allows you to earn well without sacrificing quality of work and service, you will always feel a downward pull and drag that works against you in your business.

This, in turn, directly impacts your earning ability and income potential.

  • You NEED to avoid being crowded in the work so that you can do your best work, all the time, for all your clients.
  • You NEED the right conditions and operating policies and procedures in place so that you can work with your right number of clients and earn well in the process (business success is no success if you are not profitable and earning well in terms of both money AND discretionary time).
  • You NEED to have time for your life or you will become unhappy and resentful of your clients and the work, and won’t be able to serve either well.

This is what my class on August 22 is all about… teaching you my simple, unique, insanely easy-to-implement systems, policies and methods for achieving these kind of results in YOUR business.

This Wednesday, August 15, is the VERY last day to register and I don’t want you to miss out. These systems will change your life.

Check it out here >>

Dear Danielle: What Is a Retainer?

By Danielle Keister |
3 Comments

Dear Danielle:

I am fairly new to the business and have a few clients I know and trust, but am branching out and will be acquiring clients I have no prior experience with. Do you have any recommendations or suggestions on how to deal with billing new clients who you have no prior working relationship with?  When billing a monthly retainer package of $1,000, for example, if you do a month’s worth of work, then send them the bill, and wait another 30 days to get paid, you could potentially be working for 60 days before you get paid.  Do you recommend asking for part or all of your monthly fee up front or would you bill at the end of the month? —LB

This is a great question because it’s another reminder for us veterans that we can never take for granted that everyone knows what we think are commonly understood principles or details in business.

So, the first thing I would explain is that a retainer is a monthly upfront fee paid in full and in advance of service. And the service for which retainers are charged in our business is a month of ongoing administrative support.

The idea is that you and the client are entering into a relationship. With the retainer, they are securing a spot on your roster, reserving your time and preserving their priority over any other side (non retainer) clients or project work you do in your business.

With retainers, they are generally billed with due dates of “on or before the 1st.” There are no “deposits” toward a retainer because it’s not a layaway plan. They either pay beforehand or they don’t receive services.

In my practice, I have clients sign a credit card authorization form (AGR-30 in the Success Store) so that I can automatically run their credit card when it’s time for them to pay their retainer each month. So essentially, I pay myself, and my due date is the 25th of each month (and I never pay myself late, lol).

I do this because:

  1. the 1st is one of the busiest days of the month for me and for my clients (and most people running businesses, I think). I don’t want my money and being paid held up in any way; and
  2. if I happen to do billing for any clients (i.e., invoicing their clients on their behalf), I don’t have my business’s billing and theirs all trying to compete for my attention on the same day.

If you are billing after the fact, that is not a retainer. For the reasons you recognize (and that fact that you’ll run into far more nonpayment issues with nothing to mitigate your losses), you will have all kinds of financial problems if you bill at the end of the month for services already rendered. The last thing you need to be in is the credit lending business (which is basically what you’d be creating by billing after the fact and waiting to be paid).

How you bill in your business becomes part of your business management and systems for success. It should be given as much careful thought and consideration as every other planning and operational aspect of your business.

This is also an example of the kind of things I will be sharing with attendees at my business management systems class this coming August 22. Check it out!

Do You Never Have Time for Your Life? Want to Stop Being a Substitute Employee?

By Danielle Keister |
0 Comments

If you are so deeply involved and entrenched in managing your client’s day-to-day business, you will never have time for your own life, much less your own business and working with other clients.

Even if you’ve been conned into believing that’s the only way to charge higher fees, who gives a crap if you will never have the kind of freedom and flexibility to enjoy it!

The thinking that you aren’t valuable enough being an administrative expert and strategic partner to clients (and not a substitute employee they don’t pay taxes on) arises from a deep-seated lack of professional self-esteem. The sharks in our industry who want you to buy into their certification programs and clients who want to take advantage exploit these self-sabotaging beliefs for their own gain.

But you don’t need to take on a bigger role to be valuable (especially roles that aren’t your place to be taking on anyway as an independent professional).

What you need is to improve your professional self-esteem, learn to better understand and articulate your value, and for God’s sake, stop working with clients who are just trying to turn you into an employee they don’t pay taxes on. (The coaching, Internet marketing and real estate industries are notorious for this.)

You’re probably thinking “that sounds wonderful, but how on earth can I stop working with clients at their daily beck and call and still HAVE clients and make money?”

Oh, my dear, you’ve been fed such a load of BS by this industry. What I could show you will spin your world right around!

It all starts with how you manage your business and workload. Let me show you how you can work with clients as a strategic partner ( NOT a substitute employee), take fantastic care of them AND have more time for your life while doing it.

My class on August 22 will show you exactly how to manage your clients and workload so the right understandings and expectations are set right from the get-go, and you have more space around the work and more time for your life on a daily basis. Check it out here.

POLL: Would you like more free time in your business and life?

By Danielle Keister |
3 Comments

I have a new class coming up in August on the topic of biz management and productivity. I’ve set up my business in a way that not only allows me to provide fantastic client support, but I always have time for my life. With rare exception, I’m never working like a slave everyday, I’m not scrambling to get things done or keep up with my workload, and I have a tremendous amount of time for my life, vastly more than I see most other people in our industry having. I make more money than 90% of those in our industry AND I’m not working with clients like a substitute employee to earn it.

So, this class is a way to share with others how I have things set up so that they, too, can have this kind of biz and lifestyle… so they are working to live rather than living to work.

As a follower of my blog, you know that I give a ton of information and mentoring away for free. So I’d like to ask you for a favor in return. Whether or not you plan to attend this class, I’d like to know if this class piques your interest or not and whether it’s a topic you are interested in.

This is a completely anonymous survey so I don’t know who answers what. However, if you wouldn’t mind sharing with me where the trouble spots are when it comes to productivity and managing your biz and client expectations and the like, it would be very helpful to me as well and I would very much appreciate your assistance (I won’t post your comments so you can share freely). :)

Dear Danielle: How Do I Handle Interruption of Retained Services?

By Danielle Keister |
10 Comments

Dear Danielle:

It came up that a client with whom I’m working on a retainer basis has just alerted me that in a month he will be taking 4 to 5 weeks vacation so he will interrupt the service for that period of time.  We started our relationship in March, so we have been working together for three months now. How do you handle this kind of situation? Is it acceptable that he interrupts the service agreement at no cost for him? One of the clauses in our Service Agreement states that if for any reason one of the parties decides to discontinue the agreement he/I should give notice to the other party at least 30 days in advance. He is almost complying with that. But this clause was meant for the finalization of the agreement, not a temporary interruption. Should I accept this? Or should I let him know that if he interrupts the service, I might not be available when he is back at work, hence I should charge at least a minimum amount to reserve his space in my roster? Thanks in advance! —Mirna Bajraj, MB Asistencia Virtual

Hi, Mirna! Great question; I’ll do my best to help. :)

This is another one of those situations where there is no right way or wrong way. It all depends on how you want to run your practice and what is acceptable (or not) for you.

Obviously, we never want to hold a client hostage if they can’t or don’t want to continue working together, whatever the reason. At the same time, and as you recognize, they need to be fair to us as well. This is the reason our contracts contain a termination clause that gives both parties simple, fair and equal recourse for ending the relationship: 30 days written notice.

But this situation differs because the client isn’t saying he wants to permanently end the relationship, he simply wants to interrupt the service. And here begins our thought process.

So, the client goes on vacation and now you have an open slot on your retained client roster. Obviously, you are not going to sit around and wait for him to return. That’s income you now need and want to replace.

This is where a conversation with the client would be in order.

By all means, be gracious about his wishes. However, it would be a service to him to clarify your policies. You may want to remind him of the termination clause of your agreement with each other (i.e., proper fair notice). You might want to let him know that you don’t offer “service interruptions” per se. If a client opts to terminate the contract (per the termination clause), then the contract is ended. You are then, obviously, going to fill that slot on your roster with another client because that’s income you need to replace.

Therefore, the client needs to understand that when they return, you may not have a spot any longer for them. And, if you did have a spot, the whole contract process, etc., would naturally need to start from scratch as if they were a new client. It may also mean that your rates and other particulars may be different when they return as well.

At this point, you may want to let the client know that to keep his spot on your roster, there would need to be a continuance of service and that means continuing to pay their monthly fee.

I like to use the analogy of insurance as an example, and this would be especially apt if you are using my Value-Based Pricing methodology.

When you pay for insurance, you aren’t paying for actual use. You are paying for the event of use. In other words, we may not need to use healthcare services every month, but that doesn’t mean we get to stop paying our insurance premiums for those months we don’t use any services. We don’t pay, our insurance is cancelled, we lose our spot (and possibly our grandfathered plan) and have to start all over again new.

Another thing comes to mind… and it’s hard to tell since this client is so new, but is a vacation really the reason they are wanting to interrupt service? Might there be some other issues going on, that with some conversation, could be solved to mutual benefit?

This is another reason it’s so worthwhile, especially in the beginning stages of our retained client relationships, that we have weekly telephone meetings. It really helps us keep our finger on the pulse of things with the client, their needs and concerns, and allows us to get to know and understand them better.

Hope this helps, Mirna :)   If you have additional thoughts or questions or need further clarification, please feel free to post in the comments. This will help shed more light and help others at the same time as well.

Being of Service

By Danielle Keister |
5 Comments

What does being of service really mean?

So often, I see Administrative Consultants thinking it means being “instant assistants” and working with clients as if they were employees. They make unrealistic (and ultimately undeliverable) promises of “24 hour” and “on-demand” service.

Being of service—true service—means being able to deliver consistently and dependably at a humanly sustainable pace. Listen, you aren’t going to be of service to anyone running around like a chicken with its head cut off, all stressed out and making mistake after mistake due to being hurried and harried and not giving yourself enough “space” to breathe and think clearly.

That’s exactly where you’ll end up attempting to be an “instant assistant,” bending over backwards trying to impossibly meet every constant demand. That thinking lacks foresight, business sense, and just plain doesn’t work.

What does work is being intentional in your business. What does that mean? It means examining your business, bringing every process, system and action to conscious thought, and making sure each contributes to your ability to deliver long-term, value-rich, purposeful, consistently reliable service.

Why are you doing things the way you do? What are your systems? How do your processes facilitate your workflow? In the big picture, do they allow you to run a dependable, sustainable practice? Do they contribute to your service and consistent dependability to clients? What systems, policies, processes and flows will? What ineffective policies and processes do you need to say “no” to in order to deliver bigger value and superior long-term service?

Being a great service provider doesn’t mean killing yourself. Being a great solo professional service provider means being a conscious business owner and effective (not instant) manager of your client workload.

(originally posted February 24, 2007)

Are You a Proficient Business Owner?

By Danielle Keister |
2 Comments

I’m not talking about being masterfully skilled at the thing you are in business to do.

I’m talking about being ALSO masterfully skilled at running a business.

Because you can be as masterfully skilled in administrative support as all get out and still not serve your clients well if you don’t know how to manage and run your business well.

More business, trust and credibility has been lost not because someone couldn’t do the work or didn’t have the skills, but because they failed in other areas of business: customer service, workload management and communication.

Having policies and systems that help you manage and put order to things in your business is smart. Letting clients run your business and dictate certain fundamental management policies is not.

You have to run your business and institute protocols in a way that works for you first so that you can in turn take fabulous care of your clients.

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