Five Reasons a Creative Project Manager is Crucial to Any Business

Five Reasons a Creative Project Manager is Crucial to Any Business

Why a Creative Project Manager is Crucial to Any Business

In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing business world, creativity is becoming an increasingly important factor for success. As a result, the role of the project manager has evolved to include a focus on creativity and innovation. A creative project manager is essential for any project, regardless of its size or scope. Here are five reasons why:

  1. Encourages Innovation

A creative project manager is responsible for encouraging innovation within the team. They create an environment that fosters creativity and encourages team members to think outside the box. This can lead to new ideas and solutions that would have never been considered without the guidance of a creative project manager.

  1. Ensures Effective Communication

Effective communication is crucial for the success of any project. A creative project manager understands this and ensures that communication channels are open and transparent. They facilitate communication between team members, stakeholders, and clients to ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.

  1. Manages Resources Effectively

A creative project manager is responsible for managing resources effectively. They understand that creativity requires time, money, and other resources. They allocate resources appropriately to ensure that the team has what they need to be creative and innovative while keeping within the client’s budget.

  1. Encourages Collaboration

Collaboration is essential for creativity and innovation. A creative project manager understands this and encourages collaboration between team members. They create opportunities for team members to work together, share ideas, and build on each other’s strengths.

  1. Manages Risk

Every project comes with risks. A creative project manager is responsible for managing these risks effectively. They understand that creativity requires taking risks, but they also know how to mitigate those risks to ensure that the project stays on track.

In conclusion, a creative project manager is essential for any project that requires creativity and innovation. They encourage innovation, ensure effective communication, manage resources effectively, promote collaboration, and manage risk. Without a creative project manager, a project may lack direction, creativity, and innovation, leading to failure.

Do you have a project that needs a creative project manager? If so, contact me for a free chat to see how we can keep your projects on track! Email me at info@itaskvirtually.com

Customers – Are They The Gatekeepers To More Sales?

Customers – Are They The Gatekeepers To More Sales?

Customers – We Want Them – We Need Them

Are customers or the customer service the gatekeeper to getting your customers coming back for more? What or who stands between your business and more business? Customers? Maybe, but the real answer is the “what” — customer service. We all want them and we all need them and we want them to keep coming back to our business, right? So what is it about some companies that have clients raving about them? What is the one simple trick companies use to keep their customers coming back for more products or to purchase other services?

Is Your Company Known For Its Customer Service?

Have you seen a decline in your business lately? It could be due to the quality of your business’s customer service. Customers or your customer’s clients could stray from a business and it could be solely due to the quality of the customer service they’ve been receiving.  And why is this? Is it that life is just too busy to take the time to care? Or is it the lack of training in businesses upon hiring? In my opinion, it’s both.

We need to also train the younger generation and remind the older generation what it is to pick up the phone and call a customer, or how to speak to the customer in a very real engaging professional manner. Texting and emailing can sometimes be misconstrued in how it comes across.

Customers and clients can tell a genuine CSR, (customer service representative), or one that is flip and basically just can’t wait to get off the phone and end their day. As a result, customer service has become an issue, so much so, there are companies out there that handle these issues for a fee, as reported in this March 2017 article by USNews.com entitled: “Should You Pay Someone to Deal With Customer Service Issues for You?” by contributor, Susan Johnston Taylor.

We get it, life is busy, we’re all busy. Providing good customer service is or should be number one on your employees’ list. Good customer service is hard to come by these days. The foundation of a company’s success in this crucial area is adequate training of your employees. 

Can Your Business Get Customers Coming Back?

Now we know that the one trick that keeps customers coming back for more, is quality Customer Service. Whether we’re at the store or ordering something online, customers and the service we give or receive is there. Therefore, my question to you is, where has good customer service gone? Quality customer service is paramount to any business.

Over the years I’ve seen a decline in quality customer service; business to consumers and in business to business. Either the product is late or the service is bad. Is it due to the electronic age of cell phones where people are not engaging, they just text or email everyone? People used to communicate more with each other. I see so many young people today who do not know how to mix and mingle, as we used to call it, at networking events.

What Business Owners Can Start Doing Now

In conclusion, businesses that recognize this will include customer service training in their best company practices.  In fact, Susan writes: “Dealing with customer service has become such a headache that numerous businesses aim to take over this task – in exchange for a fee.”. So, do you really want to pay another company to deal with customer services issues instead of taking care of it in-house?

At iTask Virtually, we take the quality of customer service seriously. Click on the Contact pop-up to the right for your free 15-minute consultation today! 

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The Most Successful Way to Supercharge Your Business!

The Most Successful Way to Supercharge Your Business!

 

The Virtually Assistant Industry Can Supercharge Your Business

Supercharge your business by utilizing the virtual assistant industry! Face it—as business owners, we’re all looking for the most successful way to supercharge our businesses. We need a way to focus on what we do well while having someone else do other things that still need to get done. The answer to this question is quite simple; hire someone within the virtual assistant industry. However, the secret to supercharging your business lays in hiring the right virtual assistant!.

Are They All The Same?

Let’s take the engineering industry for example. There are mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, and electrical engineers. You don’t just hire any virtual assistant; you probably want to look for the virtual assistant that fits the need and the industry—be it mechanical, chemical or electrical.

So when it comes to hiring a virtual assistant, the same applies. Many people think “virtual assistant” is a title, but it’s not. It’s the name of the industry. The virtual assistant industry has many different specialties and virtual assistants that specialize in those areas. There are Administrative Virtual Assistants, Remote Online Project Assistants, Executive Online Virtual Assistants, and the list goes on. They all have different focuses, education, and specialties.

Industry-Specific Virtual Assistants

Among the virtual assistants that are general administrative assistants, some are industry-specific. Online Business Managers, for example,  are similar to in-house office managers but instead work virtually and are not employees. Therefore, also saving you money on benefits, overtime, etc.

Online Administrative Assistants help with all the business’s administrative needs, like emailing and responding to client inquiries, answering the phones, taking messages, and even updating your website with new posts.

Project Manager Virtual Assistants help with any or all the projects you need to get done. They help from the inception to the completion of the project and are involved to the extent you need them to be.

To help make your company a success, you have to find the right fit. In order for you to supercharge your business the right way,  the virtual assistant industry is for you! Definitely have a consultation with anyone you’re thinking of working with as there are many types of different specialties.  Many, if not all, offer free consultations. Simply click here or select a time and day below that’s best for you and we’ll discuss your business needs and begin supercharging your business.

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Increase your direct mail sales using 4 simple rules.

Increase your direct mail sales using 4 simple rules.

Use these four simple rules and you could see a dramatic increase in sales!

How to increase your direct mail sales by using four great simple rules. Keeping them in mind while planning out your direct mail campaign could significantly increase your return.

If not properly thought out, it can be like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.  This is definitely not the best way to measure your ROI (return on investment). If direct mail is going to be a part of your direct marketing campaign, there are certain components that must be in place.

A lot of people think, “I’ll do a postcard mailing and the customers will come running through the doors.”. Not so. There are 4 major characteristics of direct mail one needs to incorporate into the direct mail process from the get-go. Below, I list 4 key factors.

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

– Peter Drucker

#1 The Design. 

The overall design of the direct mail piece will catch the eye of the customer first. The design must be attractive. Use colors that identify with your brand so that the customer receiving it immediately thinks of your product or service.

#2 The Format.

Will it be a postcard, a flyer or a brochure? Bigger is not necessarily better. Use a format that fits with your offer. If you have more than one offer or a sale on a few items, for example, a back-to-school sale, a four-fold type of flyer might be better than a postcard. The format is also crucial to getting the best price from USPS. Take a look at Charts on my website. Here I give you the right and wrong way to fold a piece so that the USPS doesn’t reject all your hard work. Yes, that does happen.

#3 The List.

Are you using a list of customer addresses that you have acquired over the years? Or did you buy a list from a list company? The type of list you use is very important in targeting your best customer. The average person moves every few years and your customer may not live at that address anymore. Either way, make sure your list is processed through NCOA (the National Change of Address). Not only does it correct the address, but it can drop certain addresses if they’re not complete; this saves you money because you’d be charged for mailing the piece whether it got delivered or not.

You can visit http://pe.usps.com/MailpieceDesign/Index for more information on mailing.

#4 The Offer.

What is your offer? Is it a percentage off a product or service? Is it a BOGO offer? Whatever the offer, make sure it’s a good one and an honest one. These days we are all too aware of companies who increase the price of a product before they have a sale. Don’t assume your customers can’t think. Be honest with your customers and you’ll have loyal customers in return. I’ve seen a lot of “offers” from companies that when you do the math, you actually end up paying more than the original off-sale price. With the economy today, people are taking the time to figure out if a “sale” or an “offer” is a valuable one and worth their time and energy to take you up on it and to stay loyal to your brand. Also important is to make sure your offer is consistent with your other advertising efforts. For example, if you’re a tire store doing a direct mail piece on tires, don’t have print ads that advertise an oil change. Be consistent.

By incorporating these items into your direct mail campaign, you can ensure a more successful rate of return for your product or service. There are more things one can use when doing a direct mail campaign and I’ll talk about those in another blog post.  Just remember, a well-thought-out direct mail campaign can yield excellent results giving you the edge over your competition and keeping your business top of mind.

Is the Virtual Assistant Industry Just for Small Business?

Is the Virtual Assistant Industry Just for Small Business?

The Virtual Assistant Industry and Large Businesses – A Great Mix.

Is the virtual assistant industry just for small business? Nope! The virtual assistant industry is not just for small businesses. The virtual assistant industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade. In fact, according to an article in Entrepreneur magazine, it’s grown in 2001 to over 50,000 in 2015.

Large companies are recognizing the value of the virtual assistant industry.

What do these numbers show us? It shows us that people are not “freelancing” anymore. They are making a verifiable full-time business out of it.

traffic-843309_640With the internet that has shrunk the world with a tap of the keyboard and the enter button, the world and all businesses are at our fingertips, literally. Are the days of the daily commute grind, tall office buildings, smog-filled high rises, buses, trains and pedestrians coming to an end? If statistics are any indication of what’s to come, then maybe so.

Companies of all Sizes are Looking to the Virtual Assistant Industry.

A lot of business owners from small, one-owner type companies to the large 1,000+ employees are looking to expand their staff to the virtual assistant industry. Just a few weeks ago, I spoke to a business owner of a large company outside of New York. Their reasoning behind wanting to hire a virtual assistant is that their own office manager and administrative assistant were overloaded with work and instead of bringing another employee on board they wanted to go virtual. So, in this case, for them, it was more financially beneficial to hire someone in the virtual assistant industry.

The reasons large companies may opt to hire someone in the virtual assistant industry are many. One reason could be due to an employee who is on a leave of absence. Another reason may be for a one-time project that needs to get done.  One-off projects don’t warrant hiring a full-time employee. This is not to say that companies won’t hire a long-term virtual assistant, definitely, a lot of businesses contract other more long-term projects as well.

“Most people in the virtual assistant industry have specific niches and some have more than one skill they can offer.”

Let’s say a company needs to look off-site for someone who can do some research for images for their marketing materials, website or blogs, looking for an Online Business Manager that specializes or offers research would be an excellent choice. Same thing for wanting a website, the company should search within the virtual assistant industry for someone who offers WordPress websites. Project management is another area where a specific virtual assistant can be immensely helpful. The Project Manager Virtual Assistant can usually get the project started, get the team involved and give proper direction as to the scope and deliverables of a specific project while never having to step foot in the office which may be located in another state.

You may also want to read: https://itaskvirtually.com/10-smart-ways-a-business-owner-can-outsource-to-a-virtual-assistant

If you’re a large company and need some assistance in any area of work, looking to the virtual assistant industry is not a bad idea. Take a look here and see if I can help. We’re always available for a free 30-minute consultation on any upcoming business needs your company may have.