NAMS Notes Archives

Re-Igniting and Expanding Your Vision

By Marnie Marcus

Camp Clarity – Episode 2

I’d sort of been feeling like I’d achieved my vision … at least that original vision that focused on health, relationships and well-being.

But as I go through David Perdew’s Camp Clarity program, I’m realizing I’d stopped short on my original vision. There is still a lot more to explore that I want to co-create with my husband.

There are also 2 missing pieces to my vision — my business and money. I omitted them originally because I thought I had them covered. I’m learning that’s not too bright… a vision should cover all 5 areas.

Here are my thoughts as I start this section of the process.

Grab Your Free Checklist and Discover How to Love Your Life and Love Your Business!

Did you miss Episode 1? Check it out here.

Are You Succeeding in the 5 Most Important Areas of Your Life?

By Jen Perdew 6 Comments

Are You Succeeding in the 5 Most Important Areas of Your Life?

By Marnie L Marcus

I'm going through David Perdew's Camp Clarity program and thought it would be fun to video blog my way through it. Those who follow me know that for the last 3 years I've been re-inventing myself. I've gone through a business reset, the end of a 28-year-marriage, re-entered the dating world, went from 6 kids at home to 2, remarried and became a grandmother (0 to 4 grandchildren in the last year).

It all started for me back in August 2011, when I realized I couldn't keep going the way I was going. I was burnt out on my business, overweight, out of shape, and unhappy in my marriage. On the way home from a family beach vacation, I caught the vision of what I wanted my life to be like in two years' time -- how I wanted to feel, the vitality I wanted to experience, and the type of relationship I wanted to share.

The first thing I realized was that I didn't have the energy or stamina for the life I envisioned, so I came home, started taking vitamins and walking. Within a month or so I was working out regularly at the gym. My health and energy steadily improved and I dropped 50 lbs. I dug into my spiritual practices and became consistent with them. The more energetic, alive and grounded I became, the more I realized the relationship I was in was never going to work.

When Google changes wiped out my six-figure business literally overnight back in October 2012, I decided it was time to follow my heart in my business as well. Unfortunately, the transition didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. I floundered because I didn't have a clear vision for my business.

When my relationship issues came to a head, I asked for a divorce in April 2013, and was divorced by August 2013 (two years from that drive home from the beach). I was feeling great, feeling free, spiritually connected and strong. I was rebuilding my business, but it still had wobbly legs. I still didn't know what I wanted to do with it. As a result cash flow was a roller coaster ride.

Notice the 5 areas of my life that went through an over-hall: Business, Health, Relationships, Well-Being and Money. I didn't have anyone guiding me through this process -- no human anyway. Just feeling my way via my connection with God.

As I re-entered the dating world and was slammed with one business and monetary setback after another, my well-being (aka connection with God) began to waver. I made some stupid mistakes as a result. At one point, I honestly questioned my faith. I was ready to throw it all out the window. That questioning didn't last long, but it did happen.

I entered a series of relationships with men who couldn't see my value and didn't treat me well. After a heart-wrenching breakup, I finally tossed up my hands and told God, "You pick! I obviously don't know what's good for me." A couple relationships later, I met a man, completely different from the others who fit my list AND had lots of other qualities I never thought to look or ask for -- kindness, heroism, friendliness, resourcefulness -- a man who actually valued me at a level no other man ever had.

After a short engagement, we were married and we've been rebuilding our life in a new home. Our relationship is fantastic.

In the meantime I've dealt with some health issues and have added a few newlywed pounds I'd like to shed. My business is doing better, but it still needs to be scalable. Money's flowing a bit better, but it still needs improvement. My spirituality (aka well-being) is constantly improving.

Notice how all 5 areas aren't really firing at once? This is what attracted me to David's Camp Clarity program. I have been fumbling my way through life, with a vision, but not a clear vision in all 5 areas. Because my compelling vision focused on health and relationships, those areas transformed. But because I didn't have a vision that covered all five areas, the vision-less areas suffered.

I needed a guide. And now I have one. I'm excited about going through David Perdew's Camp Clarity program and sharing with you my thoughts as I do so. I hope you find them helpful.

Okay, here's my first Vlog…

Grab Your Free Checklist and Discover How to Love Your Life and Love Your Business!

Marnie_Bio (2)

4 Steps to Hire a Virtual Assistant Abroad

By Jen Perdew 6 Comments

Guest Post By Ellen Finkelstein
www.ChangetheWorldMarketing.com

Hiring a VA can be wonderful, but it’s not for every situation. For short-term projects, Fiverr or Upwork might be better – although I had a VA from Upwork (it was Odesk then) who worked for me for over a year.

But when you want someone permanent, whether full time or part time, a VA is the best option. And if How to Hire a VA blog post image you can’t afford U.S. rates ($20 and up, with averages of about $30-40), you can go abroad where the pay rates are much lower. For example, you can hire a VA from the Philippines for about $3.50.

The rates will depend on how much the VA already knows. Do you want someone who already knows OptimizePress, WordPress, InfusionSoft, or whatever software you’re using?

Or are you willing to train? If the latter, you can get someone for much less, but you’ll obviously spend more time training.

If you already have procedures written out – and you should – the training will be MUCH easier.

Where I went to find my VA

I’ve had a VA in the Philippines for a long time but when my VA got pregnant and had to take a leave of absence, I thought about hiring one in the Caribbean. For me the big advantage was the similar time zone. I thought that we could get on the phone regularly and she could do quick projects right away, if necessary.

By contrast, my VA in the Philippines did ongoing tasks like social media posts and special projects,
but not day-to-day tasks that came up. I have a VA in the United States for that and I love the fact that we can turn on a dime and work together closely.

I went to Caribbean.craigslist.org and put in an ad. Craigslist is free except in a few large cities. Here is my ad.

I'm looking for a part-time (20 hours/week) virtual assistant to help me with website updates (in WordPress) and social media marketing. Some experience helpful, but will train on specific tasks. Excellent English required because you'll be writing. Need a fast, reliable Internet connection. Hours are fairly flexible. $5/hour. Please attach a resume when you reply.

I received about 9 answers, one from a medical student! (I said I didn’t think that would work out.)

Some had associate degrees, others had a BA or BS. None had specific relevant experience, which is OK with me because we have extensive procedures and my U.S. VA can also help train.

How do you find the right person? You should think about how most companies hire employees:

They ask for a resume
They research the resume, speaking to references and former employers
They call some people in for an interview and may test them

It’s good to ask for references and to speak to them, but in my experience, you don’t get much out of this. Applicants choose their references carefully and so you won’t get a very balanced picture. Similarly, contacting former employers abroad is difficult and the language can be a barrier.

So I’ve come up with my own 4-step procedure:

I ask for a resume. In the resume, I look for good English skills, related or transferrable experience, and education.
If the resume looks good, I give them a test.
It takes a little over 1 hour and I don’t pay them for this time. (Think of a typing test that corporations once gave applicants.) This test was shared publicly online a few years ago and I’ve edited it several times.

For that reason, I’ll give you the Word .docx file, so you can edit it, too. (But I give applicants a PDF.)The test involves creating a WordPress.com blog and adding several blog posts that answer questions or complete tasks. This has worked out very well for me. Everyone who does well on the test has the ability I need.
If the test goes well, I do a video interview – so much easier in the Caribbean than in the Philippines!
If that goes well – and usually I’m down to 1 or 2 people by this time – I give them a 2-3 hour project for which I pay them.If that goes well, I hire them!

Note that not everyone is willing to take the test or even give me a resume!

If they aren’t interested, I’m not either.

My onboarding procedure

This is less structured, since I don’t hire VAs that often, but here are a few steps:

I ask them to create a LastPass account and then I invite them into my shared folder. In this way, they can access sites with passwords, but I can hide the passwords from them. I think you need the $14/year version for this – well worth it!
I ask them to create a Slack account and then I invite them into my Slack account. We use Slack for messaging back and forth – SO much better than email. Some people use Asana or Trello for this, but I found them too complicated for my needs. We message back and forth constantly in Slack and it works very well. Each person has his/her own channel plus you can create channels for projects, which helps keep related content together.
They need a PayPal account connected to their bank so I can pay them.

How I train my VAs

It’s a long process. Any mature business has lots of procedures and we’re no exception. We write procedures as we do anything new. We edit each other’s procedures.

Are they ever complete and up to date? Of course not, but we really work hard to get to that goal. bigstock-Helping-hand-to-new-member-or--47078242

I just start step-by-step.

I give my VA a task and tell her where the procedure is. She asks questions and if necessary we update the procedure. We repeat that until she is trained. (No one is ever fully trained, in my opinion; we’re always trying out new techniques and software.)

We don’t have our own complete procedures for how to do everything with outside software when that software has its own instructions, but we do have some. For one VA, I thought it would be best to show her OptimizePress with a video tutorial. I had the idea that my subscribers would enjoy seeing this, so I did it as a free webinar.

Of course, at the end I said that if they’re interested in OptimizePress they could check it out and I gave them my affiliate link, but that was the extent of the selling. I got 20-30 people to register for this. This technique creates some engagement and good will among your followers and you get the training done at the same time.

Download my test here

Feel free to edit it and use it for your own hiring process.

How about you?

Does this help make the process of hiring a VA easier for you? Leave a comment and please share this post with others because they’ll find it useful, too!

4 Reasons to Pass the Buck

By Jen Perdew 1 Comment

By pass the buck, I mean it in the nicest way possible!

When we created the team at MyNAMS, there were 3 major things we had to accomplish.

Decrease the workload for me and David.
Increase productivity, reliability and deliverability
Not reduce net income ( more on this later)

Outsourcing may seem like a pain sometimes. There can be headaches — especially if you’re running into problems with your team or aren’t recouping your investment with corresponding revenues.

You might wonder, “Is this really worth it?”

My answer – YES!!!!!!! ( I know. I’m shouting.)

I can solve more problems for my customers and clients when I outsource. The business helps more people.

Outsourcing allows us to build wealth. You’ll never build wealth if you’re always trading hours for dollars. There’s no leveragability when you’re doing everything yourself.

It enables us to have fun. If you’re not having fun in your business, what’s the point of doing it? You can’t have fun if you’re doing all the things in your business yourself. I don’t want to have more stress. Do you?I don’t want to do the things I used to do when I was in a cube doing a job I didn’t enjoy, working for someone else.

It creates ultimate freedom and flexibility. Outsourcing is all about freeing up your time and building a business that runs without you involved all the time. It helps you scale so you can do more and serve more.

If you’re outsourcing and it’s a pain or you’re not seeing the results you want, it could be for several reasons:

You’re not clearly and effectively communicating your expectations to your team.
You aren’t clear about what aspects of your business could and should be delegated.
You’re not tying every outsourcing activity to an end-goal of creating more revenue.

So if your outsourcing efforts aren’t working, is it all your fault?

Well, kinda. Hard to hear I know but we’re friends and friends tell each other the truth, right?

Yes, you can get someone working with you that doesn’t do a good job. But you’re the boss. So if you don’t clearly communicate your expectations and measure your results, ya it is your fault.

Success comes through delegating, managing, and getting other people to perform aspects of your business that are not your strengths and do not make the best use of your time.

So, my best advice to you is to get your plan on paper and have a way to communicate your expectations and measure your results. This is the only way having an effective team works. For both you and them!

You’re going to see more about the importance of outsourcing from us. Now that I know what it’s like to work like this, I’m never going back!

To discover more ways to help relieve your overwhelm and increase your productivity, check out the MyNAMS Free Membership with over 100 hours of training on fundamental business topics like outsourcing.

Is Outsourcing a Luxury or a Necessity?

By Jen Perdew 1 Comment

Want to know one of my biggest secrets to success?

Cloning Myself.

That’s right! I have uncovered the secret to cloning myself.

Hiring other people to do various tasks in the business has grown the business like nothing else. Most people think of outsourcing as an expense that eats away at the bottom line. They avoid making the leap to outsourcing because they see it as an expensive luxury instead of an unique problem solver!

Outsourcing is no luxury, it is the KEY to transforming what you do from a J.O.B. to a viable, scalable business.

Most small business owners never catch the vision of the power of outsourcing or what is possible for their businesses when they build a team who is fully invested. Yes, you can hire an outsourced team who cares about and is invested in your business.

If you’re serious about scaling your business, the goal of outsourcing is to

Create more time.
Create more money.
Get more done.

If you continue to run your business as a single person doing everything (not getting help), you will find that you’ve created a really difficult job. Instead creating a scalable and sustainable business means you HAVE to do the things that make the most sense. Like generate income.

Should you do data entry or create proposals to bring on a new client?

Seems like a no brainer right?

But when you have to do every single thing to keep the fires out or the lights on, it becomes difficult to win more business.

Our businesses are full of processes and tasks, and creating revenue and (unfortunately) expenses. The goal is to control the expenses and create more revenue. The best way to do that is to scale what you’re doing. The only way to really make more money is through leverage – cloning yourself.

Without the leverage of delegation, the business would not be what it is today.

Before we started outsourcing on a regular basis, our business was tiny. And so was our vision!

Now we’re scaling and expanding, and it’s because of the outsourcing. My outsourcing bill each month is more than many folks’ monthly business revenues. But we’ve increased our revenue during that same time. Simply because I can focus on bringing in clients, generating revenue or adding pieces to our funnel that bring in automated sales.

Hiring people just to be hiring people isn’t the solution though. Every task or process I outsource creates more revenues.

Many people don’t equate outsourcing with revenue generation. But if you’re doing it right, you should be creating more revenue with every process you outsource.

Do you want to learn how to make everything you outsource a profit center?

The MyNAMS Free Basic Membership has close to 100 hours of free training on essential business topics.

Outsourcing is one of them! Click here to access the training that will take your outsourcing plans to the next level!