Sat.Jan 12, 2013 - Fri.Jan 18, 2013

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How to turn an assistant into a career EA

Practically Perfect PA

I’m not going to lie, I became an assistant because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Growing up I’d dreamed of becoming everything from a spy to an air hostess but those dreams faded once I left University and hit the big wall of reality that is paying bills and funding your social life. Looking back over the last 10 years and having worked my way up from a Team Administrator to an Executive Assistant I wouldn’t change my decision for the world (not even the world of espionage!).

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Top 10 Small Business Trends for 2013

Small Business Labs

Below is our sixth annual Top 10 Small Business Trends list.  Last year's trends and links to our trends lists from prior years are available here. Our overall economic outlook for 2013 is for continued moderate growth with U.S. GDP increasing 2.25% to 2.75%.  We expect hiring and the job market to continue to improve with unemployment falling and finishing the year in the 6.8% to 7.2% range.

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WordPress Plugin Analysis & Facelift.

Eco-Office Gals

WordPress is a wonderful platform, back in it’s early onset I knew this was going to be the medium I wanted to work with at Eco-Office Gals. Unlike a static, HTML site of old, it grows with you, it grows with our online needs. Growth also means change. While some plugins & themes are tried and true, many are not. Plugins you installed years ago may become out of date, hindering the functionality of your website or causing a security issue.

2013 196
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Giving Is NOT Better Than Receiving: Guest Post by @CoachBarbWade

Stephanie LH Calahan

Many of us have been taught that it is much better to give than to receive.  We were taught that at a young age by adults that did not want us to be selfish.  On the surface, that sounds good, but t oday, Coach Barb Wade shares her thoughts on why giving is not better than receiving. Do you agree? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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SME Relationships: Proven Solutions for Seamless Collaboration and Success

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

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How to Set (And Stick To) Your Business Boundaries

Office Organization Success

It happens to all of us at some point or other … a client will ask us to do something different for them that is outside of our normal business practice. And, in the interest of keeping our clients happy, we will accommodate. The thing is, when you do make exceptions for one client, you’re not being fair to all of your other clients. So it’s really important that you have in place clear policies and processes, and that you have effectively communicated those policies to your clients.

Policies 178

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Schedule a Call ONLY at the Point You Confirm It.

Virtual Moxie

Amy wrote to pick my brain , with this conundrum: “When a potential client emails me and wants to do a consultation, I always send back three very date/time-specific appointment possibilities, and immediately block those times on my calendar, pending his response; it's what I feel I should do, since I offered those times. I find that when he doesn’t respond quickly, and we’re marching up to those dates/times, I start to feel anxious about having them blocked for him, when I know there’s so much

Calendars 166
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Why Anxiety May Prompt You to Take Bad Advice

On The Job

When I was in my early 20s, I took some really bad advice. I listened to people I should have ignored and did what they advised. I regretted it for years, and told myself one simple truth I would live by: "I will listen to myself from now on. If I make a mistake, it's my own fault. That, I can live with." The worst part for me was knowing that I made a big mistake because I listened to other people, even though I knew in the back of my mind I shouldn't have.

Agenda 158
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How to Plan an Eco Friendly Office Move

Eco-Office Gals

Are you in a position where your office is expanding and so you have to move into a bigger space? Or perhaps, you’ve decided to take “eco-friendly office practices” to the ultimate extreme and have your staff telecommute so that you can save on your resources? In both cases, if there’s one thing that you have to do is plan to move and if you are someone who is very conscious of being energy efficient, you probably want to make the transition in a way that is as “gre

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We’ve all got to do more to retain great people

The Small Business Blog

We’ve all heard it before. Try and keep the best people, and surround yourself with people better than you. This is the secret of success, and apparently people like Branson are masters at it. However, many people have reported that small businesses suffer from ‘resource poverty’ when it comes to people management and business owners simply do not have the time or resource to dedicate to finding, training, developing, motivating and retaining people.

Skills 166
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Elevating the Virtual Interviewing Experience

Sharing your authentic self in a virtual interview can be an unwanted challenge. How do you break through the digital barrier when conducting a virtual interview and share your exceptional self? Think in unconventional ways to elevate the virtual interviewing experience.

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Moxie Tip 300: Don’t Change Who You Are for Anyone

Virtual Moxie

Learning skills that you know aren't a good use of your time and talents and that don’t lead to work that lets you be happy is a sucker’s game. Don’t play it. IF something needs adjusting, it’s likely to be how you position yourself from the get-go with the potential clients you talk with. Make sure the story you tell about yourself is clear and in alignment with both who you are and what you do.

Skills 155
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Distractions at Work & How to Manage Them

Office Dynamics

Guest Blog submitted by Sara Bowman. From social media to chatty co-workers, it's easy to get distracted at work. Learning to manage these time wasters can not only increase your productivity but improve your overall workday. With eight hours in the average workday, here are some common distractions and ways to eliminate them: Strong Smells. Whether it sparks hunger pangs or leaves you feeling nauseous, it can be distracting whenever someone takes a smelly snack break at their desk.

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Eco Friendly Order Fulfilment Options for Businesses

Eco-Office Gals

A successful company is committed to the details of day-to-day business; that is what turns a first-time customer into a repeat one who then turns around and shares the word with others. This means that if you’re a company that ships out orders, it’s imperative that you make sure to package your products in a way that will keep them safe and secure until they are in your customer’s hands.

2013 139
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Unemployed? Maybe it’s Time to Be Your Own Boss

Tips From T. Marie

Just when the financial analysts start showing some optimism for our flailing economy, headlines prove that the job market is still dismal out there. Here in North Carolina , like many places across the country, it’s been that way for a while, so when Charlotte’s WCNC news desk reported the fact that several hundred finance workers lost their jobs last Friday, it was like adding insult to injury.

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Mandatory COVID Vaccination Policy Template

New vaccine mandates and testing policies will affect employers with more than 100 workers. Get Paycor’s free, customizable vaccination policy template to communicate critical details and new requirements to your employees. Get Paycor’s Template today!

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Moxie Tip 302: Getting Paid For Your Intake

Virtual Moxie

Once you've decided to bill for your intake process, there are two (at least!) ways to consider doing it: 1. Take the time from the retainer. 2. If you pretty much know how long it usually takes you to do the intake, charge a flat fee, upfront, to be paid along with (in addition to!) your initial retainer. You'll want to create an explicit agreement about the fact that paying for the intake is going to happen and how, so that there can be no misunderstanding or disconnect for the client.

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Top 5 Tips for Small Business Conferencing

The Small Business Blog

Top 5 Tips posts from the SME Blog are always full of hints and tips for small, home & micro business owners. 1.

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Top 5 Office Waste Reduction Tips

Eco-Office Gals

When you’re sitting in an office around other staff members for hours at a time, five days per week, you are bound to have a significant amount of waste that piles up from time to time. You want to be sure to stay on top of office waste because it’s a form of clutter than can slow down productivity and if you’re not careful, it can be what leads to a less than clean look or smell in your work space too.

Clothes 136
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Your BIG Dreams (a Spotlight)

Office Dynamics

Our theme this January is swirling around BIG dreams and dreaming as big as you can. Joan challenged you to submit your big dreams to us to share her on the blog. Thanks to these wonderful ladies for getting the ball rolling. It can be intimidating saying your big dream out loud for others to hear. You begin to wonder if it's too much, what they think and whether you deserve it.

2013 132
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Is Training the Right Solution?

Speaker: Tim Buteyn

Let's set the scene: you’ve identified a critical performance gap in your organization and need to close that gap. A colleague suggests training, but you suspect there’s something going on that training can’t address. How can you determine if training is the right solution before you commit your budget and resources to a new training program? In this webinar, you will learn how to determine if training is the right solution using the Behavior Engineering Model.

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Moxie Tip 301: Pricing your Intake Period

Virtual Moxie

The time between when you send your client agreement/intake packet to a new client and the time you actually begin working with her is the "intake" period--the time you do the work to get things ready on your end to work with the client. This might be setting up files, or reading materials the client sends you to bring you up to speed, or setting up an online collaborative workspace, or any number of other things you might do in preparation for the actual work to begin.

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A Week of Strategic Planning

Office Organization Success

Wow. what a week it’s been! My head is absolutely spinning (but in a good way). On Wednesday, I hosted my students for their Create Your 2013 P.R.O.F.I.T. Plan Workshop. It was a 5-hour, live, virtual workshop. And we dug in deep and did lots of different strategic planning exercises. They came away from the workshop with their own 90-day P.R.O.F.I.T.

2013 126
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Why It’s Important to Tell the Story of Your Green Brand

Eco-Office Gals

If you ask any company that is thriving within the marketplace to tell you about you will need in order to be a success, one of the first things that they will probably mention is the importance of building a brand. As you’re figuring out what your brand should be, you have to make sure to address issues like defining what your company is, how you want it to be perceived and what your missions and goals are surrounding your business.

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After The BIG Dream

Office Dynamics

Hello Monday Motivators! I hope you had a good weekend and are getting back into the swing of your normal schedule. Last week I wrote about ‘ Dream Big ’ Our Office Dynamics theme for January is DREAM BIG ! If you did not read last the Monday Motivator for January 7, you should do so as it will give you the premise for today’s tips.

2013 125
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Revitalizing Dry Content: A Lesson in Engagement

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

We’ve all been there. You’ve been given a pile of dry content and asked to create a compelling eLearning course. You’re determined to create something more engaging than the same old course that learners quickly click through, but how do you take this “boring” content and create something relevant and engaging? Many instructional designers will say, “Boring in means boring out.

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Moxie Tip 299: To RFP or Not to RFP? No Question

Virtual Moxie

You are a business owner, not anyone's employee, or "less than" anyone. If you want to stand in that space and be seen as an equal in the relationship you cannot "bid" for work or commoditize what you do. It's demeaning to you, and shifts the power in the relationship to one side. If you belong to an organization with an RFP system, consider asking them to change it.

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Your Business is a Reflection of You

Step It Up VA Coaching

by Donna Toothaker. There is a saying that goes, “how you do one thing is how you do everything.” This is especially true in business, but it also applies to your personal life and relationships. How you treat people, including your behaviors and actions toward others, crosses over into every area of your life. If you are someone people can count on, you will most likely be dependable in business relationships as well.

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5 Ways to Go Green From Your Office Chair

Eco-Office Gals

You do what you can at home every day to cultivate a green lifestyle and work towards a sustainable future, but if you’re like millions of other people, you may feel powerless at work. When you are at the office, you are more often forced to conform to the office’s will, which can lead to a disregard for your eco friendly ideals. Don’t give up hope just yet.

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How to Keep Your Career Resolutions

Eat Your Career

Did you set New Year’s resolutions for your career? If so, I want to help make sure you keep them! In my most recent segment on Fox 31 Denver’s Good Day Colorado , I share 6 simple strategies for success. Watch the video below. Subscribe to the comments for this post? Share this on del.icio.us. Digg this! Share this on Facebook. Share this on LinkedIn.

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Brain Fog HQ: Memory Enhancement Techniques for Professional Development

Speaker: Chester Santos – Author, International Keynote Speaker, Executive Coach, Corporate Trainer, Memory Expert, U.S. Memory Champion

In October, scientists discovered that 75% of patients who experienced brain fog had a lower quality of life at work than those who did not. At best, brain fog makes you slower and less efficient. At worst, your performance and cognitive functions are impaired, resulting in memory, management, and task completion problems. In this entertaining and interactive presentation, Chester Santos, "The International Man of Memory," will assist you in developing life-changing skills that will greatly enha