The most important thing to do when you are working with people who don’t live in your time zone is to get in the habit of always indicating times for phone calls and meetings with proper time zone abbreviations. Don’t expect people to remember exactly what time zone you are in. For example, I live in Alberta and am in the mountain time zone, so if I wanted to talk to someone at 10 am my time, I say 10:00 MST. I always like to indicate their time zone as well, so I might say “can we speak at 10 MST, 12 EST (your time)?” It helps to keep it very clear.

I love Time Zone Meeting Planner for helping me with planning the other person’s time. I can have several time zones accounted for all at once! I also use Google Calendar’s World Clock feature to help keep me on track.

*featured image © The Stakhanovite Twins, Flickr, Creative Commons License

Blog conferences can be such valuable tools for business people, even if they don’t blog. You can learn about emerging trends in the blogosphere, which may well impact your business or related activities (such as your marketing techniques, etc). You can learn tools to help you get started in using social media. You can make contacts with some big names and companies or (and just as importantly) make contacts in your community to build a solid customer base from.

If you look at the sessions topics for BlogWest for example, as a business owner you might want to attend sessions on these topics:

• WordPress 101 – for someone who thinks they should be blogging but just doesn’t know where to start
• The Frazzled Can’t Produce – what business owner couldn’t use tips to cope with stress?!
• Google Analytics – can help you understand who’s visiting your site
• Welcome to blogs, boards and Twitter, the future battlegrounds of public debate – a great way to connect with your community and understand the value/potential of social media.

And so many more! I’ll personally be attending sessions that will be beneficial to me as a personal blogger and that will help me continue to add to this business blog. Can’t wait!

Here’s the before picture (note boring bare walls and lack of proper storage):

I spent some time shopping for a few new things, including plenty of time spent on Pinterest and Google Image Search getting ideas for home office setups that might work for me. I don’t really sit at my desk, it’s more for organization purposes and storage, so that was one thing I didn’t have to worry about much. I mostly work from my treadmill. When I get tired I’m likely to work from my computer so the 4yo is easy to keep in sight

Anyway, here’s my updated home office – I love it!

Updating my office motivated me to really use my treadmill workstation, and it made me excited all over again to work from home. Realizing I am the only one who gets to decide what goes on my walls and how it should be set up is wonderful. Now time to decide what the next project will be…

Work is love made visible.
And if you can’t work with love
but only with distaste, it is
better that you should leave
your work and sit at the gate
of the temple and take alms
of the people who work with joy.
-Kahlil Gibran

I’m looking forward to a great 2012. 2011 was truly a successful year for Halo Secretarial Services, with several new clients and an increased dedication to taking on only lawyer clients, to allow me to truly practice my specialty of legal virtual assistance. I initiated working with my first subcontractor (a fabulous VLA based locally in Alberta), started using a treadmill desk and worked hard to find balance between my wonderful work and my amazing family. I can’t wait to see how much more can be done in 2012.

photo © gunnar3000 – Fotolia.com

I just sent out my most recent newsletter today and wanted to share the text here for anyone who hasn’t subscribed yet. Enjoy!

2012 is Coming

‘Tis the season for planning!

I turned the last page of my calendar today – the first day of December is always a wake-up call of sorts, isn’t it? Time to finish planning for the holidays, time to gather year-end paperwork and most importantly, time to make goals and set expectations for the coming year.

I know 2012 is going to be a busy year, for me and for Halo Secretarial, so I’m starting my planning right now. Here are some of the things I’m going to address in my planning, and I wanted to share, as I hope they can help you with your plans:

• Do you have enough help?
• Do you need more administrative assistance, better bookkeeping services, more childcare?
• What big ticket items do you need to purchase in 2012 so you can budget accordingly?
• Do you need to raise your fees, lower them or leave them as is?
• When are you going to do your big marketing campaigns for the year?
• Do you have any clients you need to stop working with?
• How do your personal goals match up with the timelines for your business objectives this year?
• Are your systems up to date?
• What kinds of training or learning activities do you want to participate in?
• Are you going to attend any conferences?

This list is helping me get started – so I better head back to my desk and work though my options. Happy Holidays to you all and cheers to an amazing 2012 for us all!

I worked extra hours before and after the vacation to make sure I was keeping on top of several projects, and I gave all my current clients plenty of notice, but I still felt bad about taking the time off. It’s definitely one of the biggest struggles in owning a small business – managing your personal needs with your desire to give 110% to your clients. Now, more than a week after returning from Florida (which was awesome by the way) I read a blog post over at Lawyerist about Vacation and realized a benefit of my vacation I hadn’t even considered. While I enjoyed the time away from my computer, I missed my work. I missed the rush of urgent projects and the conversations with colleagues. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones with a career that I truly enjoy and vacation helps me to appreciate just how much I do love what I do. Thank goodness I don’t find myself wishing to be in a car accident to avoid my work (especially since I don’t have to drive to work, lol, not much chance of a car accident on the way upstairs to my office). My work life balance is still not perfect, and some days I wish for a couple of extra hours, but overall, being a virtual legal assistant has been a dream come true – I hope all of my readers, colleagues and clients are able to say the same!

When your work relationships are virtual, you miss out on the body language and in person contact that help you know if you are doing your job well. Text on a screen can only convey so much, seeing a relieved smile on a client’s face after completion of a project can be more immediately reassuring as to the value you are providing. Still the right words, especially when the feedback is fairly immediate, can help you be sure you are achieving your goal of easing the burden off the shoulders of your customer. When one of my lawyers tells me how impressed they are with the speed at which I complete a task, I know I have exceeded their expectations – and made their day go a little more smoothly. These are the metrics that matter to me – satisfying the people I work with and for. I don’t need hundreds of customers, I don’t need to have a million twitter followers or to have people post links to my blog. That’s the beauty of owning the size and type of business I do. I just need to make my clients happy so they can keep their clients happy. It’s as simple as that.

Laurie

Poor communication

Poor communication is definitely one of the biggest stumbling blocks in virtual working relationships. Email and phone calls can be great ways to communicate, but I have seen many emails that are sent lacking critical information, or phone calls that are not followed up by written instructions confirming the content of the call and the expectations for the project undertaken. I have had lawyers send urgent emails asking about my services with no clear listing of what they need and why. It’s hard to provide a proper response right away (avoiding delays created by multiple email exchanges) if I don’t even know exactly what someone’s needs are and their timeline! Communication about work projects and assignments given by a lawyer to a virtual legal assistant should clearly set out what is needed, what the timeline is and any quirks of the assignment.

Not Providing Feedback

In an in-office situation, a lawyer will (hopefully!) tell his or her assistant if they did a good job. They may make corrections to their work themselves, but still let their assistant know how to improve for the next time. Virtually this seems to happen less and yet it is an important part of building a good relationship. Don’t feel like you are being nitpicky or difficult – you must provide feedback, both positive and negative, on a regular basis so your virtual assistant stays in the loop.  It can be as simple as preferring different font points on different documents or as big as deadline issues over time of day and time zones (ie. due on Wednesday could mean Wednesday at 8am PST or Wednesday by midnight). We don’t often see the absolute final product on assignments as documents are printed out on site and so we don’t get that feedback unless effort is made to make sure it is given. I know I, and most other VLA’s, want to do our absolute best and anything you say about our work is going to help in that respect.

Calendar Conflicts

This relates to communication really (most staff issues do!) but do make sure your virtual staff either have access to your calendar or get regular updates as to your schedule. A virtual legal assistant may not need to know when you run out for lunch or to get a coffee, but they do need to know on a general level what times of day are best to reach you, when to schedule meetings with you via phone/skype and when you are going to be away for vacation or other absences. This helps the VLA stay on top of her tasks and she may even help you by knowing your plans, as you may set deadlines with conflicts.

Overall, virtual relationships are not that different that in-person relationships. Regular and clear communication enhances the relationship and respect and consideration provide a solid foundation.