Beacon Virtual Assistants, LLC

With the recent barring of non-essential businesses to remain open due to the COVID-19 pandemic, mom-and-pop operations are scrambling to adapt to remain in business. The National Federation of Independent Business has stated that 68% of small business owners are very concerned about the ongoing financial impact. So how can you prepare and adapt your business?   Maintain as much of your routine as possible.   This was particularly difficult for me the first week of social distancing. Make sure you are still going to the office every day, be it a brick and motor business or your home office. Continue sending emails and making phone calls to your customers. See if your meetings can be done via Zoom. Even if you are just calling to check in to see how they are mentally, emotionally and physically and not trying to make a sale. Let them know that you are still thinking about them as not only customers, but also as friends. Make sure you are also still communicating w...

No one told you that owning your own business was going to take every strength or every core of your entire being! Or maybe they did, but that burning desire to do what you love was stronger than any warning could ever be. Either way, you cannot deny the sacrifices that were made to make your business succeed: long days, little sleep, working when you were sick, income and financial uncertainty and the absence of support structures are just a few. However, as a business owner, here is something to really think about,  the health of your business will always be limited by the level of health in your body and mind. Go back and read that again. So what is the best way to manage the uncertainty and stress and keep your business and yourself the best it can be? Even during the busiest of times, in order to stay successful and on top of your game, you must carve out some time in your schedule for self care. Self care means different things to different people These don’t have ...

Have you ever heard of Time Blocking? If not, this is one item that you MUST look into as it will make you far more productive! Basically, time blocking, as well as task batching and day theming, give you an effective way to control your workflow and workday.  It is a very effective way to become proactive about the work that you must do, rather than reacting to the work as it comes in. You will be dividing your days into blocks of time and each block is specific to a task or group of tasks that correlate to one another and only those tasks are worked during that time. This is actually a combination of both Time Blocking and Task Batching, which is the easiest for most people to incorporate.  For example, most people lump items like all social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack, etc) into one block, Strategic Planning could be a second block, Client Proposals could be a 3 rd  block, Email a 4 th  block and so on. In the image above,...