Time Management
“I know I should be delegating to save me time, but I am just too busy to figure it out.”
by Eric Taussig
I hear these words all the time from prospective Prialto members. They are some of my favorites to hear, because I know they come from the very type of person Prialto can best help.
Prialto has worked with more than 100 members who have successfully delegated thousands of tasks for us to do for them. Through this, we have learned critical best practices for using remote assistant services. This knowledge has become indispensible in guiding our new members to get up and running. A few examples:
- Communicate often, clearly, and consistently
Communication is your greatest ally in fostering any working relationship. It is even more critical when working remotely.It helps, for example, to set up a daily reminder call either at the beginning or at the end of the day. Just as you might make a daily practice of touching base with an in-office assistant, it is good practice to regularly check in with your Prialto assistant.
Your assistant should cover your daily to-do list to help you stay focused and on-task. Give your assistant honest and clear feedback on all the activities he or she helped you with in the last 24 hours.
And make these daily interactions by telephone, not email. Verbal conversation, our highest-bandwidth form of communication, lets you transmit the most amount of information efficiently.
- Focus first on delegating recurring tasks
Delegating recurring tasks is a powerful way to use your assistant. Once established, tasks get done with little or no additional effort on your part. Some powerful tasks our members have delegated are:- Every two weeks, compile competitor press releases and any changes to pricing/advertising
- Every third Wednesday, send a list of three restaurants with reviews and price ranges. (Should a member decide on a restaurant, the assistant makes the reservation and arranges the babysitter.)
- Twice a day, an assistant calls a hotline and retrieves any messages, transcribes the messages, and sends them to the member
True, software can perform many similar tasks, but our members routinely tell us that the human touch adds far more value. With humans, tasks get done with more nuance and in a way that saves time for our demanding members.
- Unload small tasks too
Even small tasks add up. If a task will take you 15 minutes, you may think to just do it yourself. But those small tasks add up. Four of those small tasks would take you an hour to complete, as opposed to four or five minutes spent assigning the task to your assistant. Here are some scenarios:- A prospect calls while you are driving. She wants you to send her your address via email immediately. You can call your assistant and have him or her send the information.
- You are on the phone with a client and realize that you need to invite someone to the sales meeting you just arranged. Call your assistant and have them handle the arrangements.
- You hear an advertisement on the radio. Call your assistant and ask them to send you the company’s information.
The relief of getting things done (not halfway done, not noted, or just added to your to-do list) liberates the soul. You fell better about your day, you feel more successful, and you are more relaxed.
- Build your relationship slowly to gain trust
Although we have trained our assistants to be ready for your most urgent tasks, you may still hesitate to hand off work. That is natural during the get-to-know-you phase. Take your time to build a working relationship with your assistant; otherwise, those first few tasks may create a lot of anxiety for you. Begin with smaller, easy-to-accomplish assignments and a simple to-do list that you want to do but just can’t seem to make time for.
An assistant may accomplish one-off tasks for you, but can they do so much more. They can completely remove tasks from your routine for good, they provide reassurance, and they remove the stress from life.
Eric Taussig is Prialto’s CEO
It’s a chicken or an egg thing: How to keep your business going in this economy
In these dire economic times, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to sustain a business without continued injection of capital. Money begets money. But how does a company keep afloat without continued cash investment? With banks continuing their strict policies on lending (see the New York Times article here), businesses are turning to outsourcing as a solution.
Outsourcing can help a company not just stay in business but also help it grow without a large infusion of money. If you’re a small business owner who is unable to afford a full-time employee, and whose only option is to increase your hours to keep your company going, outsourcing is a way to help you manage your business without sacrificing your personal life.
Here are some of the benefits of outsourcing:
- It can save you time - delegate time-consuming administrative tasks to an assistant so you can focus on the critical aspects of your business
- You don’t have to worry about employee sick time or vacation leave - with outsourcing, there is redundancy, so there is always coverage even when your primary assistant is unavailable
- Your clients never have to deal with voice mail - you can have an assistant handle all your calls, take messages, and relay them to you
- You can be more efficient with your time - your assistant can help you manage your calendar so you can stay on top of your schedule
- It can save you money - outsourcing an assistant is less than half the cost of a full-time employee
Companies like Prialto offer business process outsourcing (BPO) services that help businesses create operational efficiencies that keep costs low, boost customer service, and improve customer loyalty. Outsourcing helps companies focus on their core business by freeing up valuable resources to concentrate on expanding their business. All in all, outsourcing is a way for a company to survive these tough economic times, and maybe even grow its business, without draining its bank account.
To read more about the benefits of outsourcing, see article on AllBusiness.com.
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When hard work and diligence pays off
From one of our members…
“As a new user of Prialto, my wife and I were eager to put the service to good use. My wife works for an international economic development agency, which promotes poverty reduction through economic growth in third world countries. Accordingly, we put forward a rather unique request for our Prialto agent, Bert: research and compile a set of websites outlining best practices for creating a voucher system for agricultural development programs in Africa. The nature of the request was time sensitive and within a day of the initial request, we received a neatly organized list of websites which succinctly and clearly addressed each of our questions, saving my wife hours of research and enabling her to leverage the results for immediate review and synthesis into a report that was distributed to her organization’s Board the next morning. Kudos to Bert and Prialto for providing such a cost-effective, and incredibly versatile, personal remote assistant solution.”
Rob, Washington D.C.
Yes, you can still afford to travel…
As a travel junkie who’s always looking for deals, I came across this great article on money-saving travel tips from Travel + Leisure. Reading it, however, I began to wonder how much time I’ll be spending on the phone and on the web researching the deals that are currently being offered by hotels, cruise lines, etc. Then I thought, “I’ll just have my Prialto assistant do it for me.” Problem solved. Now I can continue with my work so I can afford these vacations!
To read the article from CNN.com, click on the following link:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/traveltips/01/20/money.saving.tips/index.html
Passport to getting things done efficiently
Veronica, a Prialto member, was at Costco recently, hoping to take advantage of their passport photo service so she can renew her passport. Unfortunately, when she saw the size of the photo, she realized that it might not have the right dimensions. You see, Veronica does not have a U.S. passport, and until this moment, she hadn’t thought about photo size. So, she called her personal assistant and sought his help. While Veronica went on with her shopping, her personal assistant did some research on the web: He looked up the guidelines for passport photos on the consulate’s website, and compared that with the U.S. passport photo guidelines. Once he determined that the requirements were different, he then proceeded to research photo studios that did passport photos for various countries. He found one at a location nearest to Costco. He then called her back and passed on the information to her.
Without any interruption to her schedule, Veronica was able to go on with her day. And for a mother of three, very active children, assistance such as this helps her manage her time efficiently.