Do you have an Advisory Board for your business?  Have you considered it but you don’t know where to start?  An Advisory Board can be one of the best things that you can do for your business if you use it correctly.  It take work and it take commitment from everyone, done right everyone benefits.  Here are some steps to creating your Advisory Board.

1.  Select 3-10 people you believe can bring valuable assistance to your business.  I asked people who are in my network and  who new my products and services, they were raving fans. I had a high level of respect for each of them and their business success and I knew that they would hold me accountable.

2.  Ask each person if they would be willing to serve on your advisory board. You cannot get to yes if you do not open yourself to the possible no.  Let them know you value their opinion and would like to have them on your board.

3.  Let your board know how often you would meet, when you would meet, what you would like to achieve, and why you chose them to help you.

4. Set your first meeting and be prepared.  Start your meeting on time and have an agenda.  Let your board know what your goals are, what you are currently doing and what kind of things you want to do.  Let them ask you questions and get to know your board.  Above all, be completely prepared to work each time you meet.

5.  Thank your board, ask how you can help them.  I ask my board the last time we met, what it was that I could do for them.  Their response, “Keep doing what you are doing, be prepared and do what you say you will.”  I was very surprised, I am always prepared and always do what I say.  I also take great pains to find referrals for my board members.

A Board of Advisors is a great way to help you focus on your business and build strong relationships, it is a great way to strengthen your network.

With blogs popping up all over the web like weeds, the question is how does one build a successful blog. I guess the first question is how to define success? For arguments sake let’s define success as heavily trafficked and commented on.

I cam accross a very informatove post from mominisrael. She gives a list of tips that have helped her become successful.  Among her tips she writes: ” I started by commenting on other blogs that address similar topics. If a blogger begins posting here, I usually add that blog to my reader. (A reader is a web page that lets you know when the blogs you like have been updated. I use Netvibes, but Bloglines and Google Reader are more popular.) Lately I comment less (I hope temporarily), but I still read. ”

Doshdosh asks, ” So what’s the secret to building a large blog readership? Content dissemination and the development of a supportive core audience. And that’s really the key. It’s not just about the quality of your content. It’s about having broad distribution channels.

Once again, readership growth doesn’t only depend on the merit of your blog posts, but rather their circulation reach. It’s about how much attention your content receives.”

Finally, Positivityblog has a long list of tips to help you be a better blogger. Here is just one of the tips: ” Learn from more experienced people. This is so key - in any area of life really - and can really help you to improve quickly and avoid wasting time. I recommend not only subscribing to the two excellent resources called Problogger (about blogging) and Copyblogger (about communicating better and more persuasively). I also recommend delving into the archives of these two blogs. When I started blogging I spent two or three weeks reading lots and lots from the massive archives of Problogger. I learned a lot about blogging, marketing, monetization and what you should and should not do. Before I started this blog I knew very little about blogging. After those weeks I at least had a basic education that was very helpful. If you are thinking about creating your own blog or have just started one I recommend reading the big series Blogging Tips for Beginnersover at Problogger.”

Happy blogging.

I think it is interesting that we use the term “organizing clutter”. If it is clutter why are we organizing it? I think rather than saying “I am organizing clutter” it would be better or more to the point to say “I am organizing my home, room, cupboard, closet (whatever it may be) and getting rid of the clutter.” Maybe it is just me, but as a professional organizer I find that to be an oxymoron.

If you are organizing clutter here are 3 tips to make it fast and simple:

•When you’re through using something, put it away then, don’t let it start a pile of clutter. (Like the phone book, a dirty dish, shoes)
•Put Seasonal clothes in a different closet than you use for your main closet, or fold and put away in a container and store on the closet shelf, or put in the back of your closet.
•Make it easy for your family to throw away trash—have several trash cans strategically placed in your home.

Actually, those tips will help you avoid collecting clutter. What kinds of things do you think of as clutter in your home?

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

Sunday morning before reading the comics I thought “I am going to look for organizing tips that I can pass on to my friends”. And guess what?…I found organizing tips! I must say I was rather pleased.

The comic Rose is Rose (no credit as to who draws it) was my inspiration for my organizing tips. There was a drawing of cute Mimi picking up leaves running here and there with an armful of leaves in each frame. In the last frame her dad said to her mom, “The raking would go a lot faster if Mimi wasn’t color-coordinating the leaf piles”! I will admit even as a professional organizer that was over the top for me. But….

Color coordinating can make organizing clutter in our homes easier and faster and help to keep them organized. This is especially helpful for people with ADD.

•Use colored file folders. They are easier to distinguish in a file cabinet, or when they are left out. They key our minds as to what are in them. Freedom Filer filing system is the color coded system I use. My mind immediately keys in to what is in the files by color. (Resource, permanent, active, taxes, remove/replace). This has saved me a ton of time. And it is a no brainer when it comes to filing.
•Color coding towels for different bathrooms helps immediately to know what room they go to by color.
•Sheets color coded by size immediately identifies what bed they go to.

Look around your home and see how many things you color code and please share with us your organizing tips on how this helps you with organizing clutter and how to be more efficient and organized.

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

Ok, we know that the economy has gone south, credit is practically unavailable, businesses are drawing their spending back and so is the consumer, so what are you going to do as a business owner or sales manager to make sure that your business is not one of those that will be gone tomorrow?

The two places that most business want to cut back are not the wisest choices:

Training - A successful sales team or business owner stays involved with continuous training, keeping their prospecting, and sales skills sharp. This is the one place that the small business owner pinches their pennies, finding no value in quality training. It is important to keep new material in front of both the business owner and the sales teams.  Now is not the time to stop learning more about how to be a more effective sales person, how to implement referral systems that will generate higher referred prospects and how to close more deals.

Memberships -  Business Owners and Sales Managers alike begin to pull back on the networking groups and organizations where their teams have been spending time. A better result would be to diversify the organizations and make sure that you and your team are spending time in the right places with the right people and measure their results. 

After completing our course many of our clients are amazed at how much time they have invested in  networking activities that are not productive or effective.  If you and your people are out there networking then it is impotant that they be trained to do more than create visibility.  They must be able to effectively leverage their networks that become profitable for both parties.

Now is not the time to pull back, now is the time to become more strategic and more effective. 

Here is a poem from my daughter Julie

“She whispered in the wind, hoping her words would travel safely to the soft pink pools in their ears. Where they keep the memory of her childhood laughter, safely echoing and resting like she did in their arms when a child.”

I read this and thought that was nice. But I didn’t understand it until my other daughter re-read it to me and explained what it was saying. Wow! It is beautiful.

I think that is how it is with many of us; we want to get organized and we often “collect” organizing ideas and organizing tips but we don’t know what to do with the information. Sometimes we need someone else to help us understand organizing ideas or organizing tips in a different way.

I have a friend who bought a container to hold pens in her desk. The next day her girls took the container and were using it for something else. She jumped to the conclusion that containers don’t work and never bought another one for ten years. (GASP, containers make organizing fun, easy and simple). She had a good organizing idea but she needed more help or instruction on how to successfully use it.

A few things she could have done was to explain to her girls what it was going to be used for and if they needed containers for other things she would get them. She could have labeled the container. Labeling containers seems to anchor the contents to the container and it makes it easy to find things in them.

What is an organizing idea or organizing tip that has worked well for you?

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

I’m a believer in credibility. I am credible. My abilities, experience, work history, testimonials and awards make me so; but my membership at VACOC proves it. The VACOC can show a business that a virtual assistant has an administrative strength and knowledge within the field.

I was recently told, “So what. A business isn’t going to know that or care.”

Why wouldn’t a business care about credibility or competency?

The biggest selling and marketing point for me regarding the VACOC is the fact that members must meet and pass the criteria for membership. It demonstrates professionalism and ability.

Again, someone might throw out that phrase, “So what”?

Let’s say a business owner finds a virtual assistant and believes what they see at face value. Can they feel completely confident that they have partnered with someone competent? I don’t think so unless they have found this VA through word of mouth or a peer referral.

“The VACOC is the association for the virtual assistant who:

• Has at least 5 years upper level administrative experience (e.g., secretary, administrative assistant, executive assistant, etc.).
  
• Is highly skilled before entering the profession.
  
• Offers support that is primarily administrative in nature.
  
• Operates a committed, legitimate business (not freelancing on the side).
  
• Operates a solo practice (we do not represent telecommuters, secretarial services, virtual teams or virtual staffing agencies).
  
• Believes in ethics, honesty and integrity in business.
  
• Is serious about the profession, and committed to building a successful business.”*
  

So, as a business owner, wouldn’t you feel better about working with a virtual assistant that has established themselves, has the experience, and has passed certain criteria that proves the VA is competent? My answer is, “Yes”.

There are certain niche fields that virtual assistants market too. The underlying experience and abilities remain administrative. So, if you are searching for a credible virtual assistant, my experience has taught me that the place to find the best is at the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce.

This blog post has been graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by Colleen M. Johnson.  She is the owner of CMJ Office, a virtual administrative and genealogical research business.   CMJ Office provides top quality virtual administrative assistance for business owners and individuals.

She offers many services including proofreading, blogging, MS Office applications, admin support, database maintenance, mail services, internet research, and genealogy research.  She holds several memberships including VACOC, IVAA, VANetworking, NEHGS, and DCWW.  If you need assistance, please contact her or view her website information at http://www.cmjoffice.com.

You may know my daughter and her husband just moved to a different state. One of the things they had to do when they got to their new place was to get new phone numbers. This meant I had to program their new numbers in all my phones.

As I was programming their numbers I noticed there were several people I don’t call much anymore so I removed them from speed dial and added others who I call more frequently.

Because I am a home organizer my mind thought of my clients and you all who read my blog and I want to pass on this tip to you. Take the time this week to look at your programmed numbers and see if you too need to ‘clean up’ your phone numbers. And are you using all the numbers allotted to you? We had 20 numbers we could use that I had forgotten all about.

I called the phone company and found out how to program numbers (the last time I had done it was over two years ago) and then I typed up a list of speed dial numbers and made copies for every phone plus I will keep one in my planner. Speed dialing saves time, I love that feature.

Do you have a time saving tip you will share with us? We would love to know it.

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

As seen on the TheMomEntrepreneur, a great site for information regarding working mothers, raising kids, and running your own business.

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They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. As a mom entrepreneur however, my best friend is Garmin Nuvi.

On Friday, I really put my friend to the test. I was traveling to Dedham, MA to meet with a client. As I made the 1.5 hour drive down, I saw miles of traffic on the North side of the highway due to construction. I knew I would have to leave my client’s office by 1:00pm in order to pick my son up at school on time. The back up of traffic was a concern.

When the meeting was over and I was heading towards home, I noticed that the traffic was now backed up to the exit I entered. That meant sitting in seven or more miles of construction traffic with cars creeping along at a turtle’s pace.

My options: call the school and see how long they could watch my son once school ended, call my husband and have him leave work two hours early to pick him up, or put my friend to the test.

I decided to test my friendship with Garmin Nuvi. I pressed “detour” on the GPS navigation system. It told me to turn around and head South. Just great, without a map, I was at the mercy of my friend. I had no idea how close the other major highways were to me. And I was concerned I would not make it to my son’s school on time.

Garmin detoured me to I93, took up me Route 1 and back to I95 above the construction traffic. The detour only took me 14 minutes out of my way and I made it to my son’s school with three minutes to spare. I was still a hero…and I am in love with my friend Garmin Nuvi. (Don’t tell my husband:))

Traci Bisson has been a mom since February 2000 and an entrepreneur since August 2000. Eight weeks after she returned from maternity leave, the company where she had been employed for five years went out of business. She decided to try doing her own thing and failed miserably. After another year of working for two different companies (the first laid off the department she worked in and the other was showing signs of going under), she decided to try entrepreneurship again. Raising her two children and growing her company, Bisson Barcelona, has been both challenging and rewarding. Her story has been told in dozens of publications, including the Associated Press, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB.com), Plan Ahead Get Ahead (cover story), Union Leader, The Portsmouth Herald, Our Times and Seacoast Ventures