Living Life on Our Terms – Living Virtually
How often do you wish to be freer? Living in America, we?re afforded more freedom than in any other part of the world. We can go anywhere we want without asking permission of our Government. We can hold any job we want for anyone who will hire us, as long as it?s legal of course. We can marry or cohabitate with anyone we want ? gender regardless. We can start and run businesses. Our freedom is one of the most coveted rights we have as Americans. Yet we tie ourselves to offices and desks and towns and schools and so on. Why? Why not enjoy more freedom? Why be tied to all of those things if you don?t have to be? Why wish; why not do?
Almost 14 years ago, Jim, my now husband and business partner and I were married in the beautiful little mountain town of Ouray (pronounced you-ray) in Colorado. I?d seen the town and fallen in love with it when I was a teenager and I somehow convinced him to get married there, site unseen. Well, he fell in love with the town too. Since that day 14 years ago, it?s been our dream to live in Ouray. For many years we couldn?t do it. We were tied to typical corporate jobs, desks, land line phones, a business that at the time wasn?t mobile, and all of the other things we Americans tie ourselves to. It just wasn?t possible.
Last year, while vacationing in Ouray, it was nearly unbearable for us to leave. Our business was mobile (I?ll get to that in a minute) so our biggest problem with making a cross country move like we were proposing was school for our daughter who would be entering 6th grade that fall.
We started looking into home schooling and any other options we could find. We found an online (virtual) grade school, middle school, and high school called Christa McAuliffe Academy http://www.cmacademy.org. We enrolled our daughter and started making plans to move to Colorado.
So in addition to our business being ?virtual? our daughter?s school is virtual as well. Heck, we?re a totally virtual family! We could work and school from Timbuktu if we wanted to, if they had internet connection there of course.
Back to our business being virtual. What many of you may not know is that Team Double-Click? is 100%, purely, totally, and undeniably virtual. The company has but two employees ? me and my husband and we both work from offices located in our home. Because we both talk so much and so loud, yes, we have separate offices or I?m afraid we?d strangle each other! As for our ?core staff? as we refer to them, they?re located all over the country and work from their home offices. They?re contracted ? not employees and they work in places like Florida, Missouri, California, Idaho, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, and many other states. So true to what we preach as a virtual staffing agency, we are 100% virtual.
To facilitate the virtual atmosphere and the virtual working environment, we utilize virtual phone systems, virtual fax systems, online accounting programs, online CRM programs, and rely heavily on email, instant messenger, and the telephone to communicate and carry on our day-to-day business. Editor?s note: If you?d like more information on the components Team Double-Click? uses to facilitate their virtual office, such as fax and phone systems, check out Gayle?s article Setting Up Your Virtual Office at http://virtualassistants.lakho.com/2008/08/setting-up-your-virtual-office/.
So what all of this virtual stuff means is that we can very easily go to conferences and work while we?re away ? provided we have an internet connection. When we were in the process of moving, we kept in touch by stopping along the way to check email and of course we spoke to our staff via cell phone regularly. We can easily vacation most any time we?d like (though we tend not to because we enjoy our work), again because we can connect anytime via the internet and phone!
The virtual aspects of our life are so liberating and so freeing because we can literally pick up and go anywhere, anytime we want to without worrying about phones going unanswered, about who will open the office, who will do this and who will do that. Our virtual-ness also made our move from Wisconsin to Colorado a breeze!
If you?re at all hesitant about making your company ?virtual?, or working virtually, any one of our core staff members, virtual assistants, or clients would be happy to tell you how great and how freeing it is. Additionally, our core staff are more than happy to help you take the steps to make it happen and show you the ropes. I encourage everyone to start enjoying the added freedom you deserve as an American and work virtually!
About the author:
Gayle Buske is the co-founder, president and CEO of Team Double-Click?, the country?s foremost virtual staffing agency. As the head of a virtual staffing agency with over 22,000 virtual professionals in its pool, Ms. Buske is uniquely qualified to aid clients? growth through virtual outsourcing as well as speak to the ins and outs of the industry. Gayle enjoys spending her free time with her husband, business and life partner, Jim, their daughter Madison, practicing Yoga, reading, hiking, flower gardening, and playing with the family?s three dogs and two cats.
Team Double-Click? provides virtual assistance for small and home-based businesses. Visit Team Double-Click?s Web site at http://www.teamdoubleclick.com or click on the banner:
Setting up Your Virtual Office
At Team Double-Click?, our clients often ask just how to go about setting up a virtual office – in other words – how does a small but growing business owner avoid renting bricks-and-mortar office space – and with good reason. Even the tiniest of offices ?in town? can run several hundred dollars a month. Add to that the cost of the commute (not cheap these days with the cost of gasoline well over $3.00 per gallon in most places), the furniture and computers to furnish that same office, and a full-time assistant (whom you still have to pay even when you don?t have work to keep them busy).
Setting up a virtual office can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but once you embrace the idea and get a feel for the logistics, it?s really quite easy. With today?s technologies and the use of a virtual staffing agency, such as Team Double-Click?, there really are no boundaries. And just think – with a virtual office you can spend more time with your family, work from almost anywhere, and your clients never need know you don?t have an office downtown, if you prefer them not to know. We know many small business owners who proudly tout the fact they are 100% virtual – it?s a bragging right after all. How many people do you know who have that kind of flexibility and low overheads? The numbers are growing, but we?re still an envied few in the grand scheme of the workplace.
Overcoming Commonly-Perceived Hurdles
There are several tasks and items most often viewed as hurdles to working virtually, utilizing a virtual assistant, and maintaining a virtual office. Let?s explore those hurdles and how to overcome them, and have you on your way to setting up a 100% virtual office. Fortunately, all of the commonly-perceived hurdles to working virtually and working with a virtual assistant (VA) can be overcome with relative ease.
Getting the Phones Answered (By Someone Who Is Not You!)
Your VA can answer and direct calls for you quite simply. We recommend a system called Freedom Voice . It?s a virtual phone system that allows your callers? calls to be answered by your VA regardless of where she is in the country. Through the phone system, she can answer in your company name (it alerts her that the call is coming from your business), handle those calls that she?s able to handle, and transfer calls to you or other staff members as necessary.
Team Double-Click? employs this very phone system with great success, as have many of our clients. Even though we are located in places such as Wisconsin, California, North Carolina, California, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Oregon, and Florida, the Freedom Voice system makes it all seem like we?re sitting in the same central office.
And just as important – your assistant can set the system up so that it only rings to your (or her) office during the hours you choose. So if your office hours are 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, you don?t have to hear the phone ringing during off hours – those calls will go to voice mail where your assistant can retrieve them in the morning. The system can also ?hunt? for you if you?re on the road a lot. Again, your assistant simply programs in all of the phone numbers you want to be located at. The system will first try, for example, your home office number; if it doesn?t find you there, it will try your cell phone, and so on until it runs out of numbers. If it does run out of numbers to try, it will transfer the caller into voice mail so you never miss a call.
Faxing – Most Importantly Having Your Assistant Fax For You
A virtual fax is essential so you don?t have to be the only one who can send and receive faxes. There are two companies we recommend using simultaneously for faxing to and from your virtual office.
The?company we recommend is eFax . With eFax you can SEND X number of faxed pages per month for a flat fee (starting at $19.95/month).
You should set up your letterhead and signatures, etc. so that your published fax number is the Packetel number because of the unlimited inbound capability. Packetel, though, doesn?t allow for outgoing faxes. That?s why we recommend eFax. Because both fax systems are virtual, your VA can fax anything you need. And you can fax files to her for processing very easily since they come in electronically. Just hang on to your hard-line fax machine and you can fax to your Packetel fax number and your VA will receive that information as a picture file in an email. She can process this paperwork or send it on to someone else just as if you simply passed the paperwork across your desk to her.
Order Fulfillment
Order fulfillment is perhaps one of the most often commonly-encountered perceived hurdles to working virtually, yet one of the easiest to overcome. A real estate mentor client of Team Double-Click? handles his order fulfillment for mentoring materials, workbooks, manuals, and CD?s by having his virtual assistant handle them for him.
His virtual assistant orders his printed and audio materials for him from his print shop and CD duplication company. When the VA orders, the VA has all of the finished products shipped to his/her own home office, where the VA assembles them into the appropriate packets. As orders come in, the VA boxes them up and sends them off to the mentor?s students via UPS.
Through UPS online your company can maintain an account, which the virtual assistant can use to have your orders shipped to your clients. If you haven?t checked out UPS online lately, please do. Their rates are very reasonable. They will come right to your virtual assistant?s door to pick up those packages (thus saving you the cost of having your VA run to the post office), all your ship-to addresses are stored in the system for future retrieval, and best of all, your assistant can print shipping labels right from the web site. She can even choose to have the receiver notified via email when the package is shipped, and choose to receive notification them self when the package is delivered. This makes for great tracking ability!
Order fulfillment for your company may also mean sending out paper-packets of information to clients or potential clients. This is actually simpler than sending packages of books and CD?s. All you need to do is forward your electronic copies of those documents to your virtual assistant. Your VA can print them off, put them in an envelope, and mail them to whomever you wish. The VA will ask you for reimbursement for the supplies, and of course, charge you for the time, but it?s done and you didn?t have to handle a single piece of paperwork.
If you want to take order fulfillment one step further and eliminate the need for you to personally touch any of the orders, have your ordering system notify your virtual assistant when the order comes in. Your VA will take care of the entire process and you don?t have to manage or touch any of it.
Your virtual assistant can also send these items via fax to your clients, if needed.
Transferring Large Files
Have a file that you need your VA to work on, but it?s too big to send through email? Piece of cake. There are two services we recommend for very easy file upload and subsequent download by your virtual assistant or a business associate. Both offer free accounts and both work very well. They are:
Filing
Oh yes, now your virtual assistant really can do your filing for you! It?s all a matter of remaining paperless. If you keep everything as an electronic file or picture file you can easily be 100% paperless – no more papers piling up on your desk, no more buying case upon case of copy paper!
Now, for your virtual assistant to actually do the filing, you will need an online or virtual filing system. The one Team Double-Click? recommends is through Xdrive. For just $10 per month you can store up to 5GB of files! You and your virtual assistant can both access your files similar to accessing a common file cabinet in the office or a shared hard drive.
You can simply forward your electronic files to her as needed, and she can file them away into the appropriate folders on Xdrive. Viola – your filing is virtually done.
This also accomplishes off-site storage and provides for easy retrieval in the event of a fire, computer crash, or natural disaster.
Sending Gifts and Cards
How often do you send cards and gifts to clients for special occasions – birthdays, holidays, births, get well wishes, etc.?
There are lots of new and innovative services out there these days that make sending gifts and cards to clients and potential clients a breeze.
One of our favorites for sending flowers is Flowers Across America. You can go to the web site, look over the options and instruct your VA to send XYZ arrangement to Jane Client – quick and easy.
To send greeting cards to clients we like Send Out Cards (use id number 9482 to receive any special promotions). The cards look fabulous and very professional. Here?s how it works: you ask your VA to send a get well card to John Client, your VA goes to Send Out Cards, chooses an appropriate card, enters the receiver?s address, types in the message you want to see on the card, and completes the order. The folks at Send Out Cards print and personalize the card, put it in an envelope, address it, stamp it, and send it off to the receiver. Cards can be purchased for as little as about $1 a piece – a third of the cost of picking up a greeting card at the card shop. And again – you didn?t have to take the time to go to the store, write on the card, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and walk it to the mailbox – it?s all done for you!
There is no limit to the kinds of gifts you can buy online and have shipped to your desired recipient. Just a few of our favorites:
Vermont Teddy Bear Company
Longaberger Baskets
Yankee Candles
Ghirardelli Chocolates
California Wine Country Gift Baskets
Gift Tree
Bed Bath and Beyond
Pier 1 Imports
Gift Certificates
A Southern Season
With any of these services you can either opt to maintain an account of your own and ask your VA to login with your account info or you can ask your VA to set up their own account, do the ordering, and charge you back for the costs.
File Collaboration
Again, technology comes to the rescue. It?s very easy, these days, to work on the same document along with your virtual assistant. For smaller documents simply emailing the document to the virtual assistant so they can make updates and such works well. Be sure to use MS Word?s ?track changes? function (?tools?, ?track changes?) so each of you knows what changes the other has made.
For larger documents or those in which you need more than two people collaborating, there are two great services we recommend.
LapLink ShareDirect is a great tool for going paperless. It allows instant sharing of any folder on your PC with one or thousands of users, without ever having to change or manage your Internet, firewall, or router configurations. And it is 256-bit encrypted!
Groove Networks (also note that Groove will be available with MS Office 2007).
Calendar and Outlook Contact Sharing
There?s a great company who has designed a software program which allows you to share your Outlook contacts and calendar with your virtual assistant and vice versa. The program plugs right into your Outlook so when your VA adds a new contact for you, you will automatically receive that contact?s info. Your VA can make changes to your calendar and schedule appointments and they will appear in your calendar. Check out www.4Team.biz.
Meeting With Clients and Virtual Staff
In some cases, of course, you?ll need to visit the client or a business prospect in person to seal a deal. But for the most part, many of your meetings with both staff and clients can easily be handled from a distance. Try these services:
Conference calls: www.freeconferencecall.com. With FreeConferenceCall you can have as many as 99 people on the line at once. Everyone dials into the main conference call line where you can hold meetings, conduct teleseminars, coach, train, or teach.
Online meetings: www.gotomeeting.com. For a few dollars a month you can make use of Go To Meeting, which allows you to simultaneously ?meet? with clients or associates via the web. When you set up a meeting you will be given a conference call line for all attendees to dial in and hear you speak, along with being able to allow them to see your computer screen while you talk. This lets you demonstrate or train on software or show a PowerPoint presentation from the comfort of your own desk and without the travel costs.
Contact Relationship Management (CRM)
Of course, if you wish to have your virtual assistant enter leads into your database, or help with contact relationship management, you?ll need something that?s accessible to both of you. We recommend:
Sales Force
cBiz (this system is designed for staffing but is fully customizable and has many possible applications)
SalesNexus (fee is one year at a time but it works out to about $40 per month per user)
Top Producer (for real estate)
Constant Contact
Bookkeeping, Paying Bills
So many people don?t know exactly how to have someone work virtually on their bookkeeping. There are a couple of options that make this task so much easier than it ever used to be.
The first option we recommend is keeping your QuickBooks program on your own desktop. Then allow your virtual bookkeeper to dial in and view your desktop and perform the bookkeeping remotely. For this we recommend LapLink Everywhere which includes remote desktop search from any Web-enabled device (powered by Google Desktop Search) LapLink Everywhere lets you choose how you want to work and which device with internet access you want to use to access your PC. It?s easy and fast to set up and simple to use.
QuickBooks also offers an online bookkeeping package which works wonderfully. See what they have to offer at http://quickbooks.intuit.com.
You can use your virtual fax, email, or snail mail to send receipts and such to your virtual bookkeeper for processing. If you choose fax or e-mail, your VA will simply destroy those copies after processing. If you mail them to your VA, they will mail them back for safe keeping after being processed.
Transaction Management (For Real Estate)
Team Double-Click? recently partnered with a fantastic company. They are an online transaction management system called RELAY?. Team Double-Click? has a partnership with the company and as long as you?re using Team Double-Click?s VA services, we can give you free access to the platform. If you?d like to learn more in-depth about RELAY?, please visit www.rebt.com or any of our sales associates would be happy to give you a private demo.
In a nutshell, RELAY? was designed for real estate agents but works equally well for real estate investors. It?s a secure, online area where all documents involved in the transaction (so all of your purchase papers, inspections, literally everything) are stored. You and your VA would have access, via secure login, to view, manipulate, and send those documents to whomever necessary.
What we?d suggest to make your life easier is to have your VA be the person to whom all documents are always sent. Your VA receives them via fax and uploads them to your RELAY? system. You can go in at any time and view those documents, print them, etc. When the time comes to send those docs somewhere (to a lender, broker, etc.) the VA can send them directly from the RELAY? system either via fax or email – eliminating the need for you to ever touch them.
The one time you may need to touch the documents would be to print something to sign it. But again, you can simply fax it to your assistant (via your Packetel account) and they?ll upload it. Through RELAY? you can (or the VA can) pick and choose who is able to view what. So let?s say you have a loan application that you want only the lender and not the broker to see. That?s no problem – the VA marks that person as allowed to see the document (you and your VA can see everything by default). Your VA also sets up a temporary user account (also free) for the lender. Lender receives their own unique login, able to view only that particular transaction and only the documents the VA has given access to. Lender can then print their own documents if need be.
Keeping track of every transaction is exactly the kind of thing RELAY? is built to handle. One thing we like is its ability to keep track of multiple revisions to documents. Let?s say you have a document called Offer to Purchase that is connected to one property. That document later gets revised to modify contingencies, etc. The VA uploads the document again and RELAY? automatically assigns it a version number so you always know which version is the most recent. Plus, you can still look back at earlier versions as reference, if needed.
Armed And Ready To Be Virtual
These are our most commonly-encountered perceived-hurdles to working virtually. Now that you?re armed with how to overcome these, most anything else is certainly possible.
Of course, there are a few added monthly expenses ($19.95 for eFax, $3.95 for Packetel, $19.99 for FreedomVoice, etc.). But add those up and weigh them against renting an office space and you?ve just saved hundreds of dollars a month! And don?t forget…hire your virtual assistant and they can help you get all of these virtual office components set up!
Team Double-Click? provides virtual assistance for small and home-based businesses. Visit Team Double-Click?s Web site at http://www.teamdoubleclick.com or click on the banner:
Going Paperless
Going paperless. Sound a little scary? Nah, not really. At least it doesn’t have to be. As few as 10 years ago, we kept box upon box of archived paper files. At one point, we had at least 100 of those boxes stuffed to capacity with trees. Unfortunately, it was a necessity. Back then, though, the technology (at least affordable technology) to go paperless wasn’t there. It would have cost thousands of dollars in labor and services to retroactively make all those paper files into electronic files. Fast forward to today and going paperless is quite simple and inexpensive. But why go paperless?
Less physical storage space necessary – save on file cabinets, paper, and folders
Locating files becomes more efficient – it’s as easy as “edit” “find”
Paperless, or electronic storage, is more cost-effective than printing everything and storing it on paper copy – electronic storage space is cheap!
The “ink” on an electronic copy of that important whatever won’t eventually fade like a paper copy will
Files are more easily transferred from your archives to an associate who may need to see it
You don’t need to pay an assistant to constantly do your filing for you. With electronic storage, it’s a snap to quickly “save as” into the appropriate folder on your hard drive
Of course, there can be some disadvantages to going paperless too:
Because electronic media is susceptible to power surges, scratches, and the like, there is a risk of losing that data
You MUST remember to back up your disc drives and keep a copy of that data in a safe place – off premises preferably
You’ll likely have to do your own filing unless you want your assistant to access your computer
Even if you’ve been a long-time packrat of paper files, there’s no reason you can’t start going paperless now. Start by making a conscious decision NOT to continue printing and filing everything that comes across your desk. Just as you would keep your paper files organized by setting up folders for various topics, do the same for your electronic files by creating folders in Microsoft Explorer
Depending on your filing system, set up folders for things such as “Clients”, “Prospects”, “Form Files”, “General Information”, etc. Within those folders are more folders. For example, your “Clients” folder should contain a folder for each client. Your “Prospects” folder should contain a folder for each prospective client and so on. Then, when that prospect becomes a client, you can simply drag his or her folder over to your “Clients” folder
Save all files that seem important.
Before the virtual world, business people were conveniently divided into 2 categories: filers and pilers. Filers kept things that they thought they might need, but dumped the rest. They could fill up a wastebasket of paper in half a day. Pilers, on the other hand, saved everything. Their wastebasket was for decorative purposes only. They’d save the most trivial of things “just in case”.
The virtual world has ended this distinction. Now, you can (and should) be both.
For the Pilers:
Keep all of your files; or most of them. Just create more folders to store them in. If you require more hard drive space, just go out and get it. Hard drive space is ridiculously cheap compared to even a decade ago.
For the Filers:
As soon as you’ve received or created a new file, save it to the appropriate folder. Naming your files appropriately will facilitate retrieving those files easily later on. Your filing system should first and foremost be one that you can understand and easily remember – it should make sense to you. When you name your files use as many characters as you need in the file name so you can search on a portion of that name later. It should give a good, but brief, description of what the document pertains to. Most people have used Windows Explorer’s search feature. If not, practice with it until you can easily locate your files. It’s a pretty powerful tool and very user-friendly.
There are a few other tools that will help you with your goal of going paperless:
eFax (http://www.efax.com) is what we use here. For a nominal monthly charge, all of your incoming faxes will come to you by way of email. Yep, they’re dumped right into your inbox as an attached picture file.
Adobe Acrobat (the full version – not reader (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/main.html) allows you to take almost any file, select the “print” option, and print to the Acrobat Distiller. This will turn the document into a .pdf file. A very easily transportable and easy-to-file file type, almost anyone can read a .pdf file. This makes sending your documents (and protecting them) a breeze. As a side note, when I receive an eFax document, because the file type isn’t so universal, I print from my eFax viewer to my Acrobat distiller, making the fax into a .pdf file. I then file the .pdf version, making it more transportable and viewable.
Scanners are another tool that is indispensable in the paperless world. Virtually any piece of paper or photo that you receive can be scanned and made into an electronic picture file. After you’ve created that picture file, you can email it to anyone you’d like as well as store it in your electronic files on your hard drive
LapLink Everywhere http://www.laplink.com/products/lle/overview.asp can facilitate having your virtual assistant do your electronic filing for you. It includes remote desktop search from any Web-enabled device (powered by Google Desktop Search) Laplink Everywhere lets you choose how you want to work and which device with internet access you want to use to access your PC. It?s easy and fast to set-up and simple to use
LapLink ShareDirect http://www.laplink.com/products/sharedirect/overview.asp is another great tool for going paperless. It allows instant sharing any folder on your PC with one or thousands of users, without ever having to change or manage your Internet, firewall, or router configurations. And it is 256-bit encrypted.
Hopefully you can see how going paperless can benefit almost any company or individual. The cost savings alone are enormous; reducing the amount of paper, ink, and folders you need to purchase.
Team Double-Click? provides virtual assistance for small and home-based businesses. Visit Team Double-Click?s Web site at http://www.teamdoubleclick.com or click on the banner:
Tips to VA – Using e-Mail to your Advantage
Working virtually, a reliable email account is essential. We recommend AGAINST using an AOL, Yahoo, or Hotmail account as they appear “cheap”. People like to see an email extension, which reflects the business you’re in – something with stability.
I constantly receive inquiries asking how on earth I handle all of the emails that I receive in a typical business day. Depending on what’s going on, I can receive anywhere between 100 and 300 emails a day and send about as many outbound messages. Even if your email load is smaller the tips I provide here will still help tame that email tiger.
Tip 1: Use Outlook or Outlook Express
I prefer Outlook or some similarly robust, non-web based email program, because they simply allow more flexibility than a web-based email program. Even if you have an AOL, Yahoo, or some other conglomerate’s email address, you can usually locate instructions somewhere on their site to set up the email in Outlook – just look for SMTP settings.
Tip 2: Set up lots of folders
Just as you would keep your paper files organized by setting up folders for various topics, do the same for your email files by creating files within your “local folder”. Mine go something like this: Client Update, Weekly Update, Next Weekly Update, Clients, Contractors, and so on. Within those folders are more folders. For example, my Clients folder contains a folder for each client. Yes, I use a lot of hard drive space saving emails, but it keeps me organized and I can (usually) find what I need quickly. Outlook’s “find” command is a lifesaver when you want to dig up that specific email from that client from a few months ago.
I have another “special” folder that I call “Requires follow up”. In this folder, I place sent messages (go into your sent messages folder and drag the sent message to another folder), which are important and need to be watched. I do this if I have any doubts about the party responding quickly. Never assume that just because you sent a message to someone rapidly, that they will reply with the same speed.
When my request has been answered; that message (or the other person’s reply) goes into the appropriate folder for storage. I review my “Requires follow up” folder several times throughout the day.
Tip 3: Save all emails that seem important.
Before the virtual world, business people were conveniently divided into 2 categories: filers and pilers. Filers kept things that they thought they might need, but dumped the rest. They could fill up a wastebasket of paper in half a day. Pilers, on the other hand, saved everything. Their wastebasket was for decorative purposes only. They’d save the most trivial of things “just in case”.
The virtual world has ended this distinction. Now, you can (and should) be a little of both.
For the Pilers:
Keep all of your email; or most of it. Just create more folders to store them in. If you require more hard drive space, just go out and get it. Hard drive space is ridiculously cheap compared to even a decade ago. I maximize my Outlook window to full screen. Adjust the Inbox window so that it takes up half of the vertical portion of the screen. This is my own anal little rule: If the messages in my Inbox extend below the screen so that I can’t see all of them (about 20 emails fit on the screen), I’m falling behind and need to spend some time answering them.
In Outlook, if you click the column headings above where the email message lines appear, it will sort your emails ascending or descending (keep clicking the heading and watch the little up or down arrow on the bar), whichever you choose. I always keep mine sorted by date/time received so the NEWEST emails are on top.
For the Filers:
If you have a continuing string (you reply, they reply, you reply again, etc.) keep only the most recent message. Go back in and delete the older ones so you don’t have duplicates.
Tip 4: Respond to All Emails Quickly.
… and as soon as possible (I try to respond within two hours at the most). Even if it’s just a tiny 10-second email that says “message received, I’ll get back to you within 3 hours”, send it! Let the sender know when you will answer them and then be sure to do it at that time/day. The Internet can seem like a giant abyss; a Bermuda Triangle through which emails go and are never seen again. And given that most business people receive 50+ emails a day, it’s important that your contacts know that you have received their email, and that you are “on top of it”.
Tip 5: Use the Subject Line!!!!
ARGH! This is a GIANT pet peeve of a lot of people; particularly those who are a bit less Internet-literate than you. Some of your contacts will come from a world where memos really did have a meaningful “re” line, as did business letters. As an added bonus, you can use Outlook’s find feature to search for particular words in an email subject header. So 6 months from now if you want to dig up that email from that guy who asked you about the thing, you can probably find the email in a matter of seconds if your subject line had something relevant to say.
Tip 6: Don’t Change the Subject Line!
Fresh on the heels of Tip 6: once an email thread is started, please don’t change the subject line. When you’re replying back and forth and someone suddenly changes the subject line on you it’s maddening. I do this occasionally if the subject of the conversation changes and the original topic has been dropped, but very rarely. In that case it’s better to just start a new thread with a fresh, clean message.
Tip 7: Answer EVERYTHING That the Other Party Asks For
This seems obvious; but it is hard to do, when a contact inserts a number of questions into one paragraph. Sometimes, the questions will not even be different; they will just be the same question that has been worded differently.
For example, a contact might write something like this: Hi there, I’m really interested in your virtual services. I need someone who can write the content for my web page. Do you have someone who can do this? Can they do it within two weeks? How long will it take? Can I choose the person who does this? Would it be possible for them to have it done by the end of October? Thanks!
There are 5 questions there, each one, conveniently, with a question mark. Many people – particularly those who are not Internet-savvy – will sometimes not add a question mark to their questions; which means that you must make sure that you carefully read the entire email to make sure that you’re answering what needs to be answered.
Here’s how I ensure that I do this: I hit reply, and then move my cursor to right after the first question, change font color and answer there. Move the cursor again to right after the next question, and so on until I’ve answered all of their questions. It’s much quicker and you’re sure not to forget anything. Here’s an example:
Hi there, I’m really interested in your virtual services. Thanks! We’re interested in having you as a client! I need someone who can write the content for my web page. No problem! Do you have someone who can do this? Absolutely! Can they do it within two weeks? Certainly! How long will it take? Between 1 and 2 weeks. Would it be possible for them to have it done by the end of October? Yes, I think so. That’s 3 weeks from today, so it means we need to get started right away. I can send you our standard agreement and we can get moving today. What is your fax #? Thanks! Our pleasure!!
NOTE: To make these color-embedded notes in an email message, you must be in HTML format. To do this, in Outlook, click “Format” and then “Plain Text (HTML)”.
Tip 8: Copy and Paste
What a blessing that is. I personally use this a lot. If I need to send a message to several people, but I just don’t have time to type and retype the same answer, then I type that response once, copy it, then reply to each person individually. This saves countless hours!
Tip 9: Know Which Emails You’ve Read
You’ll have to dig around your settings a bit – in my OE the command is in Tools, Options, Read. Click off the button that says, “Automatically mark messages read after x amount of time”. I manually mark my messages read or not read. That way I can quickly look at my Inbox and know what still needs to be taken care of and what can wait.
This won’t work for everyone, but when I get up and am enjoying my morning coffee, I sit and catch up on emails. I do the same (without the coffee 
about 15 minutes before I turn in for the night. I answer anything urgent and just skim the rest leaving them for morning.
Tip 10: Clean Out Your In, Out, and All Other Email Boxes
Once you’ve “dealt” with a particular email, make a decision immediately to delete it, file it, or leave it for follow up in a few minutes, then do it right away. It keeps your Inbox freed of clutter. Do the same periodically with your other boxes. I “clean house” on my mail boxes about once a month. I permanently delete, from client and contractor folders, strings that I think are done and issues resolved, or just not needed. I empty my deleted items box once a week and I save only one week’s worth of sent messages.
Because I’m so diligent about filing away my sent and received messages, I pretty well know that if it’s sent and I didn’t save it to a folder, or if it’s deleted, I won’t need it anymore and can safely get rid of it. I keep the week’s worth of sent items just in case. If you do need to save something that might be important later, you can save that message into that contact’s folder in Windows Explorer like this: Highlight the message to be saved, click “File”, “Save As”, and this will open up a browser window where you can locate that contact’s folder (or create a new folder for that contact). It’s also a good idea to get a copy of the Outlook Express Backup Wizard and periodically backup your email.
I also don’t do joke forwards and delete most of the ones I receive – unless they’re a “10″.
This won’t work for everyone, but when I get up and am enjoying my morning coffee, I sit and catch up on emails. I do the same (without the coffee about 15 minutes before I turn in for the night. I answer anything urgent and just skim the rest leaving them for morning.
Your Email Signature
We recommend a signature something like this:
Gayle Buske
Phone: 888.827.9129
Fax: 262.364.3022
Email
http://www.TeamDoubleClick.com
“Providing the people …virtually!”
Team Double-Click? provides virtual assistance for small and home-based businesses. We are a virtual staffing agency, working with over 1,500 of the best virtual office professionals the world has to offer.
~ Virtual assistants
~ Transcription
~ Editing and Creative writing
~ Project management
~ Marketing
~ Graphic design and Illustration
~ Web Design and Search Engine Optimization
~ Literary agency
This lets everyone know what you do every time you send a message and can help bring in business. We recommend using a TeamDoubleClick.com email address and the same signature line every time you send an email.
