Swiss Independence Day – American Style

My latest article on celebrating Swiss Independence Day

http://tinyurl.com/n658qp

Enfin! A Beauty Refuge for Women of Colour

Expatica.com published my article on both the French and Swiss editions today.

"Where can I find a hair salon?" is the #1 question women of color, especially, ask me about visiting, working, and living in Paris and now Geneva.

When in Paris or Geneva, check them out.

Here are more options from my pal, Priscilla Lalisse of Prissy Magazine in Paris.

Rejuvenating Your Virtual Assistance Practice After a Move

Six years ago when my husband suddenly announced that our family would be moving to France, I thought he had lost his mind. I had good reason to think so. Eight months into a pregnancy with my second daughter and a fledgling virtual assistance practice in tow, I had no intentions of giving up my hard-earned clients in order to move to the Paris.

It was such a tough decision because I wanted to remain in Chicago, my hometown, but the American economy was sluggish at best, and brutal on people like my husband, who had been working in IT. With much regret, we packed up our house, kids, pets and my VA business and moved to the City of Light.

When I arrived, I didn't speak the language yet, and I certainly didn't have any contact with the business culture either. I soon learned it was vastly different from what I was accustomed to back home. It was time to rejuvenate my VA practice, if I was going to remain in business.

If you think about it, every business occasionally needs a shot in the arm – VA practices especially. The same was still true when my family moved to Geneva, Switzerland in 2007. I had to start over and find new outlets for my practice but at least this time, I knew exactly what to expect.

Business rejuvenation allows you to introduce new ideas, gain fresh perspective and set direction for the future. The four tips provided below apply to almost any situation. The trick simply involves finding creative ways of holding on to existing clients while expanding your practice to include new ones.

1. Redefine your current business model

Remember what your business does and stick to the plan. Life's uncertainties can tempt you to go after all available business prospects instead of those that exactly match your business model's description. This is a bad idea because you'll lose your core business' focus and end up performing projects or tasks that are either not very fulfilling or fall out of your realm of expertise.

2. Re-examine your current client list

Rediscover who your clients are and the industries they represent. Take the time to re-evaluate why you enjoy working with them. Besides the fact that my client list has always been comprised of trainers or coaches, they all share certain personality traits and values that fuse perfectly with my own. When you know what makes your client relationships work, acquiring new ones become more of an exercise in interviewing prospects to ensure that they are the right fit for your company rather than the other way around.

3. Discover your company's uniqueness and let your personality shine

Recognize that the VA industry is growing exponentially and is now global. Therefore, you must not only carve out a service niche for your business, but also discover what makes your clients enjoy working with you. Remember that our unique personalities can be one of the strongest weapons in our marketing arsenal, because in the end, it all boils down to the special ways in which we treat and service our clients. For example, clients hire you because they like your personality in addition to the way you conduct business. When they know you, they are more likely to allow you into their network and refer you to other potential clients.

4. Research and evaluate the needs of your new business environment

Check out the local business community and spend time talking to people to find out more about their businesses and the types of services needed. Immediately upon my arrival in France, I started joining training and coaching trade associations, bilingual chambers of commerce and expatriate business and social networking groups. Doing this allowed me to get acquainted with potential clients in my industry and establish my company's presence.

Whether your business is changing locations, embarking on new markets or just needs a makeover, it's always important to evaluate what your business is doing now and determine where it should be going in the future. Moving to a new city, state or country can be frightening, but sometimes change is good and every business deserves a good shot in the arm.

Carolyn Davenport-Moncel is president of MotionTemps, LLC, a virtual assistance firm with offices in Chicago, Paris and Geneva. The firm specializes in managing websites and presentation creation for small-business owners.

Finding the "Right" Virtual Assistant for Your Business

I would like to hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) for my company because it would be the best solution for finding personnel for my business without hiring another employee. However, I don't know where to look or how to start? How do I decide which Virtual Assistant is right for my business?

As the world economy begins to slow down many small businesses find themselves in the same situation: they need more support staff but they cannot afford to add another employee to the company payroll. The solution very well could be integrating a Virtual Assistant into your support staff. However, if you are a business owner, consider these tips:

1. Be very clear and detailed about what types of tasks you need done (both immediate as well as future responsibilities).
   
2. Determine how many hours per week you think you will need the VA's help. You can figure it out by calculating how long it takes you to do things.
   
3. Anticipate if these responsibilities can be done truly virtually meaning (only by phone, fax, email, texting, etc.) with no face-to-face interaction or if there will be a need for the VA to physically come into your office to work or run errands for you. Depending on their location and specialty, some VAs will come to your office for meetings or occasional help in your office.
   
4. Determine if the VA requires any other special needs. For example, will need the VA need to be bilingual to handle any of their responsibilities.
   

In preparation for the VA interview do:

1. Carefully review the VA's background, resume and references.
   
2. Look for compatibility and synergy between you and your Virtual Assistant.
   
3. Determine if the VA has a genuine interest in your business (i.e., Are questions being asked about your overall business operations and the goals you have set for your business?)
   
4. Look for a VA who offers ideas or solutions for running your business more effectively.
   
5. Schedule several phone calls, if necessary, to ensure that the VA is right for you and your business.
   
6. Start your VA on small projects first in order to better monitor progress.
   

Where to Find VAs by Organizations and Directories

• A Clayton's Secretary (Australia)
  
• Alliance for Virtual Business
  
• Alliance of Virtual Assistants UK
  
• Canadian Virtual Assistant Network
  
• CyberWorkers.com
  
• DeskDemon
  
• Elite Office Support
  
• International Association of Virtual Office Assistants (IAVOA)
  
• International Virtual Assistants Association (IVAA)
  
• International Association of Virtual Assistants (UK)
  
• REVA Network
  
• SVA Club
  
• VA4U
  
• Virtual Assistant Networking (VAN)
  
• Virtual Business Group
  
• Virtual Networking Forum
  
• Virtual-Professionals
  

Hiring a Virtual Assistant can be a very rewarding experience. Remember that there are just as many VAs out there who work specialists as there are generalists. With the industry growing so quickly, you are bound to find the right one for your organization. Take your time and look for that perfect match.

For more information on how small-business owners can find the right Virtual Assistant for their companies, visit the MotionTemps.com website at: http://www.motiontemps.com/aboutvas.html

Having questions about starting or marketing a Virtual Assistance practice or have to integrate a VA into your small business? Send me an email or follow me on Twitter.

Carolyn Davenport-Moncel is president of MotionTemps, LLC, a virtual assistance firm with offices in Chicago, Paris and Geneva. The firm specializes in managing websites and presentation creation for small-business owners.

Switzerland: Europe’s Best-kept Secret!

Expatica.ch, a really great English-speaking resource publication, interviewed me this week about living and working in Switzerland. It was a fun interview!

You can read it here: http://tinyurl.com/q43uho

People often ask me about the differences between working and networking in the United States and Europe. The differences are vast at times. I apologize for not blogging more often, but I took a little break to prepare for the move from Paris to Geneva. However, I think figuring out how to work virtually with global organizations is a very important topic these days – especially as more people aim to launch global businesses. So through blogging and tweeting more regularly, I hope to share more of my experiences and advice on these topics. Hopefully, it will help others interested in learning more about working with businesses throughout Europe.

Creating a "Mini" Advisory Board for Your Business

The Eight People You Need to Keep Your Business on Course for Success

I know when most people think of corporate boards, they probably envision Fortune 500-conference rooms filled with stuffy, old men, legal counsel and investors discussing annual financial reports and stock options. However, the picture that I want to paint is far less intimidating. In fact, creating the board that I have in mind is an achievable goal for most any small-business owner. All you have to do is bring together a small group of people willing to help you grow your business by investing a little of their time and brainpower.

Your board of directors basically is an informal group of colleagues, business associates and friends dedicated to helping your company succeed. Armed with their own experiences they come together as a brain trust to help you make sound business decisions. The group should be equally comprised of established business people (mentor or former employer) and professionals (attorney and accountant), along with a few key people whom you find most trustworthy, namely a spouse, sibling, parent or best friend.

Over the last two years, I've discovered that my board should be large enough to allow for different perspectives and opinions, but small enough so that I'm not receiving information from too many sources. That's why "eight" seems to be the magic number. This is not to say that I never seek advice and counsel from other sources, but I have created an environment where these people work seamlessly together on a single purpose: to keep my business on the course to greater success.

So who is on my list and why? I'll share with you below:

An Attorney: Sound legal advice is imperative when you're running a business. Without a capable attorney, it's impossible to navigate the business world and avoid pitfalls without someone well versed in the law and how it pertains to you and your business location.

An Accountant: You must be able to gauge profitability and loss. You also need someone who can advise you on what can be legally deducted from your income taxes.

A Financial Planner: Since you are no longer an employees, you have to know how much is needed for retirement. In addition to showing you how to keep your company liquid and socking away enough money for retirement, a financial planner can evaluate your level of insurance coverage - paying special attention to disability insurance because in the virtual assistance business, we rely on our brains and our hands, so we have to protect them.

A Career Coach: You need someone to help you articulate your business goals, formulate a plan and hold you accountable for achieving those goals. This is the one person who will surely tell you "You Go, Girl!" when you need a cheerleader."

A Sibling, best friend or spouse: No one knows you better than a close relative or friend. They know what you are capable of achieving, and they know when you're not tapping into your full potential. A close relative will tell you the truth rather than what you want to hear. Plus sometimes in business, candidness coming from a close relative is more palpable than hearing it from a complete stranger. If you want to try out a new marketing idea, a close relative is more likely to not only tell you what they really think about your idea, but why it's not likely to work. They will likely brainstorm new ideas with you as well.

A Mentor: Whether you've been in business six months or six years, it's never too late to benefit from the experience of others.

A Client: Sometimes you need an honest perspective from the client's point of view. Use that one client with whom you have a particularly close relationship to learn how to improve your current services or introduce new ones that will benefit all of your clients as a whole.

Your Assistant (Virtual or otherwise): If you think about it, most small-business owners hire assistants to remove administrative obstacles so that they can can concentrate on improving or expanding their companies. What they often forget these days is the fact that assistants often have backgrounds in a myriad of different industries. Working in the business on a daily basis, assistants are also great problem solvers. Your assistant can provide insight on vendors and clients that you, the owner, might miss.

Two heads (or eight in this case) really are better one. So often as a small-business owner - particularly if you are a home-based independent consultant, you lose your sounding board once you go solo. Therefore, you can no longer throw out ideas to co-workers while chatting by the water cooler; call impromptu meetings for the purpose of brainstorming; or garner advice from trusted supervisors or mentors to ensure that you're making the right decisions.

As a solo small-business owner you are on your own, but it doesn't have to be scary thing. If you receive nurturing support from a "mini" board comprised of people who can be cheerleaders as well as realists then you will not only gain a firm grip on how your business works, but both you and your company will stay on course to greater success.

Carolyn Davenport-Moncel is president of MotionTemps, LLC, a virtual assistance firm with offices in Chicago, Paris and Geneva. The firm specializes in managing websites and presentation creation for small-business owners.