virtual assistance Archives - Page 4 of 16 - Denise Riches

Managing Your Time Effectively as a Female Coach: Balancing Work and Life

Effective time management is important in any profession, and being someone in the coaching profession is no exception.

Balancing work and life, in my opinion, is a learned skill. It’s about developing good habits, having a plan of action, asking for help and learning how to say no.

Here’s some insider information to help you conquer the seemingly elusive work-life balance:

Have (and use) your calendar

I’ve talked in previous posts many times about the importance of having a great calendar system set up (here’s just one example). It’s at the top of this list because I truly feel it’s the most important tip.

Paper or digital, it doesn’t matter which one you use, as long as you use it. Everything you have going on should be in it!

The blog post I refer to in this tip fully explains how to set up your calendar for optimal time management, so please be sure to check it out.

Know when to say no

This is something a lot of women have trouble with, and it really interferes with effective time management.

Whether it’s guilt or the illusion that we really can do it all, it’s impossible to please everyone, so there really is no reason to try.

This may require baby steps – but I promise that as you do this more and more often – it truly does get easier. You may falter a bit at the beginning but stay strong!

If it’s not a “HELL YEAH”, it’s a no. A wise woman gave me this advice a few years ago and it’s truly been one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received. I hope someone else out there appreciates it as much as I do!

I have a handy article that helps you with saying no in a wide variety of ways for a wide variety of situations.

Schedule in buffer time

We’ve all had days where we’re running from one activity or appointment to the next, with no breaks. Stop the madness and incorporate this tip into your time management toolkit:

Start scheduling some time in between activities or appointments. This will be largely based on the type of activity or appointment you’re working with.

One example would be Zoom meetings – most of my clients place a buffer time of 15-20 minutes in between their calls. This gives them a chance to refill the coffee cup and stretch a bit.

Make sure you reflect this buffer time into your calendar, as well – it’s just as important as the activity or appointment itself.

Don’t be afraid to cancel

Things pop up. Illness happens. A bad night’s sleep happens.

You should never feel like you can’t cancel and/or reschedule something.

Take personal days

Effective time management also includes taking personal time. A lot of companies grant this to their employees, which is fantastic! But for us freelancers (or those who work from home), sometimes we experience some guilt. “I work from home, what am I whining about?”

Here’s the thing – if you don’t take personal days, you’re forgetting WHY you decided to go into business for yourself. It was to have the freedom that ‘working for the man’ failed to provide.

Schedule these into your calendar ahead of time, or if you’re experiencing a slow day, skip off early (put your out-of-office on). Get a pedicure. Go to lunch with a friend. Window-shop. Take a walk in nature. Any of these things will do wonders for your mental health.

Would you add anything to this list? I’d love to hear your ideas! Email me at info (at) deniseriches (dot) ca.

Hiring a virtual assistant is another great way to manage your time! We help keep you on track and are happy to take tasks off your plate – which frees up more of your time! Book a free consultation call with me.

Creating a Strong Brand Identity: Tips for Female Coaches

It’s never been more important for coaches to build a strong brand identity than it is right now.

Fun facts:

The coaching industry has been growing steadily over the last 5 years, with specialty coaches earning more than $100K annually.
It’s a billion-dollar industry, with growth projections estimated at 6.7%.
37% of coaches are 46-55 years old, and 92% of coaches remain active in the field – making this industry a great choice if you’re transitioning from another career while suggesting solid opportunities for job creation and growth.

However, this fast-growing industry means you’ll need to do your research and find a way to stand out.

Branding is one very important way to do this.

I’ve talked about branding before (check that out here: https://deniseriches.ca/the-importance-of-branding/) and its importance, regardless of what field you’re in – and it’s just as important for coaches.

Your brand is your calling card – it tells people what you do, who you are and what you stand for. You’re creating a powerful first impression in ways that include how you dress, how you speak, the tone of your voice, your energy, and how you show up and connect with clients. Therefore, your website, videos, social media, blog posts – all of that also reflects your brand.

Here are 4 ways to build your brand identity:

Be authentic

This means speaking from the heart and showing up as yourself. It’s more important than anything else when communicating with your ideal audience. Authenticity should be present in every piece of content you create, in every interaction, and in every conversation… it’s simply THAT important.

It means showing your audience the good, the bad and sometimes, the ugly. Being real with your audience means admitting that sometimes, things go wrong. They want to see what’s going on behind the scenes in your life – this builds trust more effectively than anything else.

Be reliable

In an unstable world, we’re all looking for something that sticks around.

Random and sporadic social media posts, inconsistent emails/newsletters – this isn’t how you want to present yourself or your business.

Being reliable means showing up, consistently. This will build trust and integrity. It’s hard to trust someone who’s here today, gone tomorrow. This is so important for your brand identity!

It doesn’t mean you need to spend ages creating content and putting it out there – it just means you need to stay consistent with it.

Be confident

Being sure of yourself and giving people the sense that you believe in what you teach and share is the key to showing your audience your confidence.

Sharing your personal message or story is a key way to share your ideas and values. It goes a long way to building your brand identity – because the more you share it, the more comfortable you will be in sharing it. This will help build up that confidence!

Be values-driven

Values define your integrity – they are the core principles of your life and work.

Your values show your audience what you believe in and what you stand for as a coach – all of which is shown in your blog articles, your social media, email marketing, offers and how you show up.

Choose 3-5 core values to build into your brand identity – values that feel aligned with who you are and what you’d like to represent.

Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

Jeff Bezos

Book a free consultation call with me and let’s talk about how I can help your business!

Self-Care for Female Coaches and How to Incorporate it into Your Business

Coaches: tell me that the term ‘self-care’ doesn’t immediately bring an image of candles and bubble baths to mind…?

Spa days are great, obviously – we could all use more of those in our lives, but that doesn’t define self-care – not in my opinion, anyway!

Coaches, you’re responsible for helping and healing others. You give SO much of yourself to others, and as the saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup. That means that you have to be in a good place YOURSELF before you can even think about helping someone else.

How can you do that? I have some ideas:

Check-in with yourself daily

This is important: self-care begins with carving out time for yourself daily – even if for just 5 minutes. Get still and quiet and really look into yourself. What’s coming up for you?

Commit to making the time and creating the space for this important first step in self-care to happen.

Listen to yourself

Pay attention to what your mind, body and soul are telling you. What needs your attention? What is being neglected?

Self-care means getting into the habit of sitting in solitude and really listening to what your body and mind are telling you.

Define your needs

If you’re feeling tired, it’s important that you rest – so take a nap or plan a day off. If you’re feeling something negative or off about a relationship, it may be that you need to have a conversation to clear the air.

Listening to our true selves can never steer us wrong when it comes to self-care – the trick is to pay attention, closely. But awareness isn’t going to fix anything by itself – taking action is key – it’s the only way you can feel better.

The more frequently you practice listening to yourself, the quicker and easier it comes. In turn, that means you can take action quickly and be well on your way to caring for others.

Think about what you advise your clients, and then listen to that advice for yourself. By going through these steps, you’ll develop some healthy habits for self-care that you will pass over to your clients – because you’ll be a shining example of your own advice.

And a bubble bath never hurt anyone… 😉

How can a virtual assistant help you with your business? Book a free consultation call with me and let’s find out!

Maximizing Your Online Presence: A Guide for Female Coaches

(Mostly) gone are the days of handing out paper flyers and advertisements. With so many things going digital, is it really any wonder that creating and maintaining an online presence is as important as it is?

I’ve been working with coaches since 2016, and while very few of them actually ENJOY interacting online, they all recognize the value of building and maintaining an online presence.

A word of caution, though – this isn’t a one-size-fits-all guide. While I have learned a lot over the years, I also recognize and respect that each person’s tastes and preferences are different. However, if you’re interested in my recommendations, please read on:

Choose your online presence platforms wisely

One piece of advice that I give to all of my clients is this: be where your clients are.

If your ideal clients are on Facebook, you’re not going to draw them in on LinkedIn, or Twitter. Likewise, if your clients are on Instagram, sharing content on Facebook is only a waste of time.

Generally speaking, pick 2 or 3 platforms where your ideal clients usually hang out, and stick with those religiously. Once your audience (and potential clients) know where to find you, they’ll keep coming back.

Another word of caution here, too – try to stay away from the brand-spanking new, or obscure platforms that almost no one has heard about. If it’s not well-known, it’s going to be a hundred times harder to build an audience there.

Don’t be on every platform

Just as it’s important to be where your clients are, it’s also as important to focus on those specific platforms, rather than spread yourself too thin by being everywhere.

And I really do mean that – it takes time and effort to write content and design images or carousels, especially if you need to resize for each platform. Save yourself the time (and if using a VA to do this for you, MONEY!) and stick to 2 or 3 and only those.

Post frequently

The rules are always changing as to how often you should post on social media – a general rule of thumb for Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram is 2-4x/week. Twitter should be daily.

The time of day is also something is ever-changing. With so many varied schools of thought, it’s hard to keep up!

Generally speaking, look at when YOU, yourself, go online to check your platforms. Usually before work, midday and evenings, right? Those are usually good times to post because others are doing the same.

Don’t post and run

Social presence. Meaning being present socially, online.

Showing your audience your expertise is so important – it builds that KLT (know, like trust) factor which will bring you new clients. But don’t think that you can just share your content and leave it – you also need to interact (which is another good reason to NOT be on every platform – who has time to check all of those channels?)

You will need to reply to DMs, Messenger and comments – and let’s not forget – you should also be commenting and liking other people’s content too.

I get it – it can sound like a lot of effort – but it doesn’t have to be, I promise! Set a timer for 15 minutes at a quiet time in your and do all your messaging and liking during that time slot. Then step away.

Share valuable content

As mentioned above, people want to learn about you, and they want to know they can trust you before they buy your *whatever service or thing you’re selling*.

Social media is a great way to demonstrate your expertise – sharing tidbits, hints, tips and tricks for those ‘quick wins’ is one great way to do that. Here are some other ideas:

Hold a weekly ‘live’ on Facebook or Instagram
Share case studies
Have a monthly q&a session (tie it into your ‘live’ and advertise it in advance!)
Share photos of behind-the-scenes
Share photos of yourself
Give people a peek of your personal life
Share your triumphs
Post about your disappointments
Be yourself!

If you don’t feel confident that you can give your online presence 100% of the attention it requires, enlist the help of a virtual assistant. They (or I) can set up a scheduler to keep content going out, draft written posts, design/edit images and generally help with content creation.

How can a virtual assistant help you with your business? Book a free consultation call with me and let’s find out!

5 Tech Tips for Female Coaches to Streamline Their Business Operations

Managing a business is challenging, and it can be easy to get lost in the day-to-day operations as you’re growing. And it’s normal to feel a bit frazzled and overwhelmed. It’s also normal to want to streamline your business to save both time and money.

So how can we, as female entrepreneurs, actually DO that?

The first step is taking a good look at how things in your business are currently being done, and coming to terms with the plain and simple fact that sometimes, change is not only good, it’s necessary. It can be dangerous to get complacent with how things have always been done. New procedures should be implemented over time because your business is ever-evolving.

Here are five tips that can help you to streamline your business operations:

Identify repetitive tasks

Mundane tasks are often not billable ones, and they are a major time-suck. Once you are able to identify these types of tasks, you can then look for ways to automate them. Some examples? Creating invoices, scheduling social media, sending payment reminders, etc.

Taking the time to set up your CRM, or invoicing software to send out invoices automatically, with follow-up emails scheduled in advance not only saves you time and headspace. Not having to worry about those tasks means you can focus your energy on more important tasks. The same goes for a social media scheduling tool – many come with evergreen options so that your content is constantly cycling through your channels.

Reduce paper usage

Paper is a wasted resource and has the ability to create a lot of chaos in your office, which is why reviewing your usage is a great step in streamlining your business operations.

Consider looking at storing information digitally so that everyone on your team has access without needing to sort through boxes of paperwork. The info is needed, the printed copies are not.

Automating processes

This one requires taking stock of your current processes before planning to automate them. Begin by documenting each stage of your present processes can give you an eye-opening view as to how things are done, and get you thinking about how they can be updated and streamlined. Forms can be put online and filled out online, for example.

With applications such as AirTable, Trello, ClickUp, Zapier, IFTTT and so many more, it’s easier than ever to get two or more systems talking to each other to get the job done, almost hands-free.

Reevaluate your hardware and digital resources

Replacing inefficient or old hardware has the ability to speed up processes and your overall efficiency. Slow computer systems slow down entire projects, which in turn, costs you more money in the long run.

Online marketing is more important than ever, so if you’re not maximizing your efforts with this tool, you should be. In addition to bringing in new clients, an online presence can help close deals, too. If you’re not sure how to use these tools, bring in an expert.

Outsource

As challenging as it is to let go of control, your productivity will skyrocket once you outsource a lot of what you need to do for your business.

You can outsource just about anything: payroll, accounting, human resources, online marketing, administration, etc. Independent contractors and freelancers will reduce the costs brought on by full-time employees performing these same tasks.

Outsourcing is, by far, the best and most important way to streamline any business. But that doesn’t mean you should just hire anyone – take the time to do your research, and be sure to interview potential candidates. You’re looking for someone to be on your team, and that vibe should be present during your interview.

In this very modern day and age, it’s easier than ever to get caught up in the busyness of it all, but by being smart about where you spend your time, money and energy, you don’t have to get bogged down. There are many smart and savvy ways to get it all done while keeping your sanity.

Do you have any other tips to add to this list? Let me know: info (at) drva-2a7f12.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live

How can a virtual assistant help you with your business? Book a free consultation call with me and let’s find out!

6 Great Ways to Start a New Year

New Year, New You?

Here are 6 ways you can start the New Year off right, beat the January blues and take care of YOU:

Set realistic goals and make a plan for how to achieve them

Think about some of your past goals and how you did with them. Did you give up after a couple of weeks?

Some of the most popular New Year’s goals or resolutions include: quitting smoking, losing weight, joining a gym, eating healthier or reducing alcohol intake.

All of these are pretty drastic changes in habits, so don’t beat yourself up if you’ve tried and tried again, and gotten nowhere. They’re all tall orders, but there are ways to ensure success!

While you’re sipping your coffee each Sunday morning, do some meal planning. Inventory what’s in your fridge, cupboards and freezers and make a plan for the week. Simply having a plan in place will help you avoid fast food or eating junk.

Get an accountability partner. A friend or your spouse is a great choice, especially if you both have the same goals. Make a promise to be strong for each other, and to be the encouragement one another needs when you find yourselves ‘just not feelin’ it’.

Make time for yourself and your mental health

With today’s fast pace, it’s easy to get lost in all the to-do lists and busyness of life, so it’s no wonder we all, at times, feel burnt out.

Mental health and self-care aren’t about spa treatments and sipping green tea. It can be anything that puts your mind at ease.

Indulge in a hobby you love or sit down with a good book. Get together with a friend or chat on the phone. Whatever makes you feel GOOD is what you need more of in your life.

Try something new and exciting

Make a list of 5-10 interests you have, but maybe haven’t had the time to explore. It can be as crazy or as calm as you’d like but make that list. Pick one or two things on that list and make a point of researching them.

Can you do this activity at home?
If not, where can you do these activities?
What is the cost involved?
Do you need any special gear or supplies?
Can you borrow these supplies from friends?
Do you have friends who already do these types of things? Maybe you can do them together or they’ll have beginner advice for you.

Spend time with the people you love

There are ALL kinds of free or low-cost things you can do with your loved ones:

Play board games
Start a book club
Host a movie night with friends or family
Go ice skating
Go for a winter hike with a Thermos of hot chocolate
Host a spa night with your girlfriends
Have a potluck or charcuterie evening
Visit a local museum

Be sure to check out local Events on Facebook, you’ll find all kinds of interesting events that are cheap or free.

Get organized and declutter your life

I don’t know about you, but getting rid of junk and reorganizing my stuff always makes me feel refreshed!

Whether it’s a drawer or a closet, pick a starting point and be ruthless. If you haven’t used it in a year, you likely won’t need it.

Use Facebook Marketplace to sell anything you believe might have some value (research current prices for the condition of your item and base your prices on that).

Plug each room of your house into your calendar, either a new room per week or month, it doesn’t matter, as long as you treat those like important appointments and get them done.

Sell or donate what you don’t need… take the rest to the dump.

Take on a new hobby or learn a new skill

Have you ever wanted to learn a new language? How about how to paint? Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn how to create a website – often, your local library can help with this, but you can also Google lessons or apps that can help!

Team up with a friend if you share similar interests, or go by yourself!

Do you have any other tips to add to this list? Let me know: info (at) drva-2a7f12.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live

How can a virtual assistant help you with your business? Book a free consultation call with me and let’s find out!