We have moved our blog! Check it out and subscribe:

http://cybertaryroseville.wordpress.com/

As a small business owner, you are a top salesperson for your business. In some cases, in fact, you might be the only salesperson. What you might not know is that, as the owner of your business, you are also a wise expert full of wonderful teachings, and there are several simple ways to turn those teachings into sales right now.

No one likes a preachy hard sell. It makes us feel uncomfortable. It makes us get defensive. Sometimes it even makes us feel guilty. You know what I'm talking about. On the other hand, most of us love to purchase products and services that make our lives easier, better, prettier, safer, etc. Many of us, in fact, are constantly in search of the next best thing that is going to improve our every day.

What's interesting, however, is that most people prefer to find our way to products and services through information and knowledge we pick up along the way. We react positively when we hear about a great solution, rather than a great product. When we see a beneficial service working in someone's life, rather than inside a typical sales brochure, we take notice. So as a salesperson, this is the type of buyer's thinking you need to tap into and consider when creating your sales tools.

There are many ways you can demonstrate what you know and teach potential clients the things they want to do and understand. Teach them, don't sell them, about the solutions your products and service have to offer. Show them, don't sell them, how your current clients put your products and services to use in their lives. Even let your current clients do a little teaching about your company's value and service quality.

Here are 5 Ways you can package your knowledge and turn it into a useful sales tool:

1. Make a how-to video in your area of expertise.
2. Turn your best presentations into a digital format.
3. Write a short informational e-book.
4. Create a favorable testimonial video clip from one of your best customers.
5. Maintain a blog with a daily informational tip.

But don't stop there.

The "thank you" note is probably the most critical yet most overlooked client appreciation tool out there. How many times have you had a wonderfully productive meeting with a potential client and forgotten to simply say "thank you" or "please keep me in mind"? Well, why not let Cybertary handle the "thank you" notes, so you can stick to giving potential clients the kind of business they can be thankful for?

Shop Online for School and Everyday Office Supplies

Everyone I know is feeling the pinch these days-the pinch of high gas prices and a painfully slow-moving economy. So more than ever at Cybertary, we're concentrating on ways to save you time and money. When a drive across town will run you more the $4/gallon, it's time to consider online shopping-for the busy Back to School season, as well as for your everyday office supply purchases.

At first, online shopping seemed like a luxury to many. To others it still seems like something only technical people do. However, nowadays shopping online can be a means of saving you both valuable time and money. And let's face it-there's nothing worse than driving across town in traffic on your lunch hour, only to find out the store is out of the supplies you need. What a waste! And frankly, none of us have time to waste.

Many online office supply stores let you create and save a "Favorites" shopping list that really simplifies reorders. No more racking your brain for the name of your favorite pen or the number of your ink jet cartridges. Plus, you can often get free shipping if you order a certain amount (usually $50). Some stores even often offer Rewards programs based on volume that can add up to free supplies.

Some big names in Online Office Supplies and their current benefits*:

At Cybertary, it’s critical that we be able to take our work with us. After all, this is how Cybertaries do business. Sure, we are able to keep flexible hours, but that also means we sometimes conduct our work from a client’s office or a quiet cafe, along the soccer field, or from the road. Remote access tools allow you to work on documents as if you were sitting at your PC in your home office, or even at your client’s PC, without actually having to be there. Now these are tools many small businesses can utilize for more flexibility as well!
There are many different remote access tools available-each with their own pros and cons. The following is a short list of available remote access products recommended by Cybertary:

(Your Secret's Safe With Us!)
We know you typically work independently at superhuman capacity, but everyone can use a little help from time to time. In fact, your solopreneurial ability to build a successful business in a single bound may absolutely depend on your ability to find and receive help when you need it.

Not quite bionic but close, Cybertary is a network of highly skilled professionals working as Virtual Assistants (VAs) to provide as needed administrative support and specialized services to businesses, solopreneurs, executives and busy people. Every Cybertary takes the time to understand your business needs so you get consistent, caring, quality work every time you outsource to Cybertary.

Dads Talk About Returning to Work after Raising the Children

After 19 years at a major newspaper, Ken Kaplan accepted a buyout so that he could shift his career and spend more time with his two young children, now 9 and 14 years old.

That decision made Kaplan, a Boston resident, the primary caregiver in his household of four.

"I thought I owed it to myself to have some time with the kids," says Kaplan. As the children began heading off to school, "I sort of felt like an absentee father being at work during dinnertime. For many years, I felt cut out of their lives."

As the economy continues to putter along, households are rethinking their mechanics and shifting gears, allowing more dads to embrace the role of Mr. Mom. And, like the women before them, some men have been left wondering how to return to the labor market after a short- or long-term stint at home taking care of the kids..

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2009 unemployment rate for women was 2.2 percentage points lower than the rate for men, revealing one of the largest work force gender gaps ever.

 Is Business Ownership Right For You?

If you’ve ever considered starting a business, you don’t want to miss this FREE event!

Join us to learn more about:
• What it takes to be your own boss—even in this economic climate
• How to evaluate and choose the right business opportunity that “fits” you.
• Financing options and where to find funding
• Resources to help you succeed

Hear the first hand experience from a local franchisee of Cybertary and how they left the corporate world behind to start their own business.

Appetizers and refreshments provided.

When:    November 3, 2010
                6:00-7:30pm

Where:  Folsom Chamber of Commerce
               Ambassador Room
               200 Wool Street
               Folsom, CA 95630

Sponsored by: Cybertary & The Entrepreneur's Source

Please RSVP: Stephanie Craft, 530.389.2700, esource@hughes.net
OR Tina Angell, 916.303.4550, tina.angell@cybertary.com

If you are besieged by time zapping tasks, read on to find 10 things to delegate that will allow you more freedom:

1. Bookkeeping: Entrust your bookkeeping to that special number cruncher
2. Scheduling and Contact Management: Hand over office, event and calendar scheduling to a detail oriented guru
3. Contact follow-up after events: Allocate pre, during and post event follow up to an event pro
4. Web updates: Designate managing web edits and updates to the techno gang
5. Get Marketing: Let Cybertary create your marketing tools and implement regular marketing mailings for you!
6. Article submission: Utilize a Cybertary to submit articles for you 
7. Website optimization: Dole out anything web centric to the web gang
8. Blog posts and optimization: Hand off time zapping blog posting to a Cybertary
9. Reports, Graphs and Charts...oh my! Pass on reporting and tracking to a detailed, administrative type
10. Phone calls:  Let a Cybertary handle the phones while you optimize handling your callers!

iPods at work aren't just for tuning out your co-workers anymore. Many highly regarded companies are promoting efficiency in the workplace by using iPods as training tools, sales instruments, mobile learning devices, promotional incentives, communications pods and more. Using audio and video files and an array of available adapters and docks, the iPod can be greatly utilized for business. Their small size and great capacity (the Nano, available in 4GB and 8GB models, is just 6.55mm thin and the Classic, with up to 160GB, still fits in your hand) make them ideal for business people on the go.

Here are ten ways that small business owners can jump on the "iPod for business" bandwagon and make their work lives more efficient, which, as you know, only makes your entire life that much more fun too:

Do you have a pile of sticky notes with client contact information scribbled on them or business cards taped to your computer monitor?  Now is the perfect time to get them all organized into a contact database. A contact database can be created with a contact management tool such as Outlook, ACT, and Excel or by utilizing a card scanner to scan your company contacts business cards into your computer.

What if you don't have a database at all?  You can purchase a mailing list from a source such as http://www.infousa.com/, and receive hundreds of contacts that match your ideal client demographic, at a surprisingly low cost.

Cybertary can also help you create a database from scratch with some very targeted internet research, or convert an existing paper contact list to something electronic.  And frankly...once you go digital, you just can't go back to paper.

Now that you have a digital database, what do you do with it?

If you have ever considered business ownership, read below for this must-attend event!

Is Business Ownership Right For You?

If you’ve ever considered starting a business, you don’t want to miss this FREE event!

Join us to learn more about:
• What it takes to be your own boss—even in this economic climate
• How to evaluate and choose the right business opportunity that “fits” you.
• Financing options and where to find funding
• Resources to help you succeed

Hear the first hand experience from a local franchisee of Cybertary and how they left the corporate world behind to start their own business.

Appetizers and refreshments provided.

When:    November 3, 2010
                6:00-7:30pm

Where:  Folsom Chamber of Commerce
               Ambassador Room
               200 Wool Street
               Folsom, CA 95630

Sponsored by: Cybertary & The Entrepreneur's Source

Please RSVP: Stephanie Craft, 530.389.2700, esource@hughes.net
OR Tina Angell, 916.303.4550, tina.angell@cybertary.com

When you need a software CD or the software license information, do you dread the mad search you must embark upon to find them? Do you have a shelf full of old software boxes taking up space? Or are there software jewel boxes and loose CDs in a drawer or box? Worse yet, are you losing or damaging your valuable software CDs because you just don't have a designated way to store them? We have a solution that will save you space and keep your software and license keys handy and safe.

It's simple really. Just get yourself a CD binder at an office supply store and insert all of your software CDs in it. Then, you can then either cut out the license key from the box and slip it into the pocket with the CD or write the key number on the CD itself with a fine-tip permanent marker.

As Cybertaries, we need to stay on the cutting edge of technology with the latest software at our fingertips. This is a picture of our software binder at Cybertary Headquarters that holds 128 CDs in 3 inches of shelf space. They are sorted by software type (Operating System, Microsoft, Utilities, Graphics, Microsoft and Other). All of our software is easily accessible, protected, and organized. Pretty nice and easy, huh? 

 Is Business Ownership Right For You?

If you’ve ever considered starting a business, you don’t want to miss this FREE event!

Join us to learn more about:
• What it takes to be your own boss—even in this economic climate
• How to evaluate and choose the right business opportunity that “fits” you.
• Financing options and where to find funding
• Resources to help you succeed

Hear the first hand experience from a local franchisee of Cybertary and how they left the corporate world behind to start their own business.

Appetizers and refreshments provided.

When:    November 3, 2010
                6:00-7:30pm

Where:  Folsom Chamber of Commerce
               Ambassador Room
               200 Wool Street
               Folsom, CA 95630

Sponsored by: Cybertary & The Entrepreneur's Source

Please RSVP: Stephanie Craft, 530.389.2700, esource@hughes.net
OR Tina Angell, 916.303.4550, tina.angell@cybertary.com

How to Sniff Out an Email Hoax or Scam 

These days there is quite a surplus of email hoaxes. Just when you think no one can outsmart you, you receive the heartfelt email from a mother about her child who just needs a little money toward a big operation. And you want to cave. But it's probably a hoax. Even worse, it's probably a hoax designed to swindle you out of some of your hard-earned dough. Here are some tips for detecting Email Hoaxes.

Email Hoaxes
It's probably an Email Hoax if:

• It includes any of the following or similar statements:
  • "Forward this to everyone you know!"
  • "Forward this to get a FREE..." or
  • "This is NOT a hoax."
• The text seems manipulative or overly persuasive, emotional or desperate in tone.
• The email makes serious claims or gives emphatic warnings you cannot verify through a reputable source.
• In the case of an email reportedly from a verifiable company or well-known person (like Bill Gates), there is no mention of the content on the company's website (do not follow links inside the email to verify them; they might be fake websites-read about Phishing below)
• It's packed with fear-inducing warnings or information (always verify crime or health scare emails with a reputable law enforcement or medical associations).
• There is no standard professional signature from the sender.
• The sender has gone overboard with exclamation points (!!!!!) or UPPERCASE LETTERS.
• You are promised large sums of money.
• Your common sense tells you it's probably a hoax.
• The message seems too good to be true.
• The email has been forwarded over and over (and over).

Did you know that your computer can maintain itself while you sleep?  The Windows Task Scheduler is able to automate computer tasks to run automatically, anytime that it is convenient for you!  You can set the Task Scheduler to run utilities such as backups, defragmentation, utilities, virus scans, junk file purging, scripts, documents, or any of your other programs to run at the time and frequency you specify.

Scheduled Tasks starts each time you start Windows XP and runs in the background.  Tasks can run daily, weekly, monthly, or at certain events (such as system startup).  You can also customize how a task will run at a scheduled time.  If your computer is asleep at the scheduled time, Task Scheduler can even wake up your computer to run the scheduled task.

To schedule a new task:

1.    Open Scheduled Tasks (click Start, click All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Scheduled Tasks).
   
2.    Double-click Add Scheduled Task.

 Then just follow the instructions in the Scheduled Task Wizard.

Have more tasks than you can handle? Contact Cybertary today!

Since most of us spend so many hours in our offices every week, it's important to consider the many options and alternatives available for creating a greener workplace. Don't worry-we're not going to suggest you start composting your coffee grounds and lunch waste...not yet anyway. Instead, we'll give you some simple everyday tips for making your office more eco-friendly. After all, being socially responsible not only feels good, but it can also work wonders for sustaining our lovely planet.


Eco-friendly options and alternatives are often simpler and less expensive than what we're already doing or planning to do-and sometimes healthier too. When it comes to contemplating greener living, apply these three easy practices wherever possible: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Once you take the first few steps toward greener living and working, the ideas for reducing, reusing, and recycling will keep coming. To get you started, here are some easy tips for creating a greener office environment right now.

• Bring a mug for your coffee or tea
• Bring a cup for water (those tiny paper ones were trees once)
• Bring silverware and dishware
• No more sandwich baggies; make the switch to reusable containers
• Don't forget your cloth napkin!

Your Eco-Friendly Coffee Break
Invest in a good coffee machine and some great beans for the office. You'll save time, gas, and money on Starbuck's runs-not to mention a paper cup a day. Enjoy coffee whenever you want it, and use your "coffee break" for a nice mind-clearing walk outside instead.

"I Can't Afford a Cybertary!"

Why You Can't Afford Not to Have a Cybertary

Starting out in business is expensive and so business owners come to the conclusion that they can take care of everything themselves. Wrong! The job of a business owner is to market their business and increase profits.


Taking care of administrative tasks takes you away from your main focus. There are so many tasks to take care of on a daily basis, if you attempt them all on your own; you will burn out very quickly. Thousands of people start businesses each year, less than half succeed; you don't want to be the half that didn't make it.

Let's take a look at a day in the life of a busy business owner:

Don't you hate running back to the office just to pick up an important fax? Or what about making excuses to step out of client meetings in order to call your voicemail-again!-only to find out that important call hasn't come in just yet? Well, the masterminds over at K7 have you and your important on-the-go business in mind. Their FREE web-based unified messaging tool unties you from your office and sets you free into the world of the true telecommute.

The K7 system provides you a designated number that you may give to your clients and then reroutes voicemail and fax messages to your email so you can get up-to-the-minute responses from your clients and other important people. With K7, you'll enjoy these benefits:

In today's technology mecca, offering a wide array of remote access tools, accessible "software as a service" (SAAS) and other convenient online and offline tools, it's never been a better time to be running a small business, even from the comforts of home. With the click of your mouse, you can find all kinds of affordable tools that can bring your smaller company's operations up to the same speed with larger ones. Developers are conceiving highly intelligent, incredibly functional online tools faster than you can Google for them.

At Cybertary, we always look for fresh and innovative online tools that can simplify the lives of our clients and our other friends in the small business community. Here are ten exciting new online tools that have piqued our interest and may make your business life's day to day a little easier.

Skilled professionals drawn to Cybertary

As a financial executive for a large engineering firm, Patricia Beckman had it all in 2004 — the impressive job, the big paycheck and the collection of business suits. Her two daughters didn’t care. All they knew was that mom was gone most of the time.
Leita Cowart, Special Raymond Gordon started his own virtual assistant business as a Cybertary franchise owner.

“When my company offered me a promotion that would mean even more travel, my husband and I took a vacation to Hawaii. After several days, I decompressed and realized that I didn’t want the promotion. I didn’t even want the job I had. I wanted to be with my kids,” she said.

Beckman resigned and began researching ideas to start a company.

“When I hit on a description of virtual assistants, the light bulb came on,” she said. Nine months later, in 2005, she launched Cybertary from her home in Sacramento, Calif.

e-Faxing is a completely paperless alternative for the environmentally conscious.
 
Check out this Fact from Energy Star: 

According to Energy Star, one of the most energy-intensive pieces of business equipment is the paper-intensive fax machine, because it is often left on around the clock. A single fax machine consumes between 30 and 350 watts per hour. Also, paper production is second only to petroleum in terms of energy used by U.S. industries.

Benefits of e-Faxing:

• Works as easily as email
• Access faxes by email from any online source
• Saves space in your office
• Eliminates the worry and hassle of running out of paper or emitting a busy signal
• Saves you money on the extra fax line and fax supplies; plus, you can save many faxes electronically rather than print them all out. 

 Say Goodbye to the Lines at the Post Office and Handle All Your Postage Needs Online

Does the idea of wasting another lunch or personal hour in line at the post office get you down? Well, go ahead and perk up because now there are all kinds of snazzy postage services available on the Internet. Buy and print postage and mailing labels, purchase stamps and even schedule your packages to be picked up at your home or office-all courtesy of the World Wide Web.

What Are the Advantages of Using Online Postage?

Knowing exactly what your clients and prospects are thinking is a big part of the marketing game.

Often times small business owners think they know what their customers want, but assumption is a primary tool of choice drawing these conclusions.

The best way to really know what a market thinks about something is to ask. Run the idea up the old flagpole and see what kind of response you get. The Internet is spawning a whole new set of tools that can help the smallest of businesses tap the collective wisdom, or least collective opinion, of the masses when trying to make even the simplest business decisions.

Online surveys have become a powerful tool for the small business. By asking your clients everything from how much should I charge to what's the best color for our logo you can effectively test your assumptions before you push something out to the market.

Surveys are also a great way to monitor how you are doing in the eyes of your customers. Creating simple satisfaction surveys and serving them up to each individual customer allows you to find holes in your customer service and collect comments, good and bad, from the street.

2010 is over half over. What better time than now to remember your New Years Resolutions made back in January? Were any of the below a resolution for you and are they sticking?

1. Create Better Work/Life Balance
2. Implement Time Blocking to Manage your Day
3. Keep in Touch With Clients
4. Say Goodbye to Spam
5. Sign Up for Online Banking
6. Say Hello With VOIP
7. Get Together With Web Conferencing
8. Spread the Word With Pay-Per-Click Advertising
9. Talk Right Now With Instant Messaging
10. Let Cybertary Help Contact Cybertary now!

Share with us; we love to hear from you!

Happy Labor Day to all this Monday September 6th, 2010.

We hope you enjoy a day off work spent with family and friends! Traditionally, Labor Day symbolically indicates the end of summer, but not to worry because the official end of summer isn't until Wednesday September 22nd.

Have a safe, fun holiday and relax!

It is tradition to BBQ on Labor Day; are you BBQing this year?

Are you drowning in a sea of paperwork and files 'just in case' because you're not sure what you're supposed to save and for how long? Develop a clutter-free lifstyle by following these simple tips:

Keep for Three Months

• Credit card statements
• Insurance bills
• Paycheck stubs
• Utility bills

Keep until you have Checked Against Statement

• ATM and debit receipts
• Deposit slips
• Purchase receipts (unless they apply to a warranty or tax claim, then keep with warranties or taxes)
• Utility bills

Keep for One Year

• Canceled checks (unless they apply to a tax claim)
• Check registers

Keep for Three Years

• Bank statements
• Tax returns and all related receipts

Items to Keep for a Long Term

• Insurance policies (until they go out of effect)
• Legal documents, such as adoption papers and contracts
• Military papers
• Mortgage paperwork (until three years after you move)
• Patents and copyrights
• Records relating to the cost of home or property improvements
• Warranties (until you don't have the item anymore)

Items to Keep for a Lifetime

• Automobile titles
• Inventory of home and wallet
• Life documents (birth, marriage certificates)
• Property deed
• Stock and bond certificates
• Trust papers (will, power of attorney, health care directive)

Toss Every Month

• ATM And bank-deposit slips, after you've recorded the amounts in your check register and checked them against your monthly bank statement.
• Credit-card receipts, after you've checked to make sure the item appears correctly on your monthly statement.
• Sales receipts for minor purchases, after you've satisfactorily used the item and if it has no warranty.

Toss After One Year

• Monthly bank and credit-card Statement (if you don't itemize deductions).
• Monthly or quarterly brokerage and mutual-fund statements, after you've reconciled them with your year-end summary.
• Monthly mortgage statements, as long as your year-end statement clearly shows the total amount you've paid in interest and property taxes over the course of the year.
• Phone and utility bills (as long as you don't have a home office, use your phone for business calls, or anticipate any need to prove long-term residency).
• Paycheck stubs, after you've reconciled them with your annual W-2 or 1099 forms.

Retain for Seven Years

• W-2 AND 1099 forms.
• Year-end statements from credit-card companies.
• Phone and utility bills (only if you deduct any portion for business expenses, have more than one home, or have moved within the past few years).
• Canceled checks and receipts/statements for: annual mortgage interest and property taxes, deductible business expenses, child-care bills, out-of-pocket medical costs, or any other tax-deductible expense.

Keep Indefinitely

• Your annual tax returns. Your year-end summaries from financial-services companies.
• Confirmation slips that list the purchase price of any investments you own.
• Home-improvement records.
• Receipts for major purchases. (any item whose replacement cost exceeds the deductible on your homeowners' or renters' insurance policy).
• Beneficiary designations.

Be sure to shred the documents you can now discard! How many of you can now free up some file space?

• Select and customize your newsletter template
• Learn how to import your contact list and add new contacts
• Format your content and add graphics
• Learn how to view and analyze your newsletter statistics
• Leave with a working newsletter that you can start using immediately to market to your customers
  

Last Thursday, June 10, 2010, Cybertary Roseville had a booth at the Roseville Chamber of Commerce Quarterly Mixer held at the Denio's Corporate Office.  The weather was perfect, the food was delicious, celebrity Jack Gallagher was hilarious, and the turnout was impressive.  We met a lot of new businesses as well as connected with our old friends and colleagues.

This was an especially important mixer for us because we launched a new offering we are particularly excited about - our new Hands-On e-Newsletter Workshop.  While there are other e-newsletter classes available, all of them teach you about WHY you should use an electronic newsletter as part of your marketing strategy.  Our workshop is different in that we actually SHOW you how to create one.  Attendees will bring their laptop to the workshop, and we will literally walk them through setting up the various newsletter sections.  When participants leave the class they will have an actual working newsletter that they can then start to integrate into their marketing efforts.  For many business owners, just getting a project like this started is more than half the battle. 

If you've been thinking about starting an electronic newsletter, or you just want to check out what is involved in setting one up, this is an excellent opportunity for you to do just that.  Right now there are two sessions to choose from - June 24, 2010 and July 14, 2010 from 11:30-1:00 on both days.  If you would like more information about the class, please contact us at roseville@cybertary.com or (916) 303.4550 or click here to register for one of the upcoming newsletter workshops.

Today’s world is an amazing place. We can buy groceries without ever leaving the house, pay bills without writing a check, and even earn a living from the comfort of our own homes. Neighbors everywhere are asking themselves, “What does that guy next door do for a living? He never seems to leave the house!”

With more and more individuals and companies conscious of the environment and our carbon footprint, many are choosing virtual options for their workforce. In addition, as the cost of maintaining brick-and-mortar offices continues to rise, entire companies are moving into the virtual world. Whether you are working from home for your employer, running a home-based business, or working as a freelancer, the key to success is creating an efficient virtual office.

Click here to find out how to build your virtual office...

Your data never leaves your computer and strong encryption keeps your data safe.
Download your free trial...

“Wow!” is the word that comes to mind when I think about what happened to our business in recent weeks. We asked our friends, colleagues, and business associates to vote for us in an online business contest. The first time we did this, we were randomly selected out of all the entries in the area and won a $500 grant in the Intuit’s Love a Local Business contest, which we had reported to you previously.

We then found out that in order to be eligible for further consideration for their grand prize, we would have to get additional votes, so we sent out a second request to everyone. This time, they selected 5 local grand prize winners and the judging was based on the content of the customer comments provided. This time we won a $1000 prize and it was directly related to the wonderful things our customers said about us.

We are truly honored to serve the businesses in our local community and it means so much to us that our efforts have made a difference. We will continue to provide the best possible services in support of you and your businesses. So thanks again to all who voted. And thank you for choosing Cybertary to help you in your daily business endeavors.

On Friday, March 12, we attended the Love A Local Business event sponsored by Intuit.  They had a great turnout and we got to meet some wonderful people from Intuit including the woman who designed the whole Love A Local Business web site. By attending the event we made ourselves eligible for the next level prize of $1000.  We won't find out if we won that for a couple of weeks.

We even got a small mention in the Sacramento Bee Business section on Thursday, March 11 about our winning the first grant prize - see the article here: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/11/2598289/intuit-begins-small-business-aid.html

We again want to thank all of our friends, colleagues, clients and families that voted for us in February, however, we need your help one more time. Even if you previously voted we would be so appreciative if you would vote one more time during the month of March for the possibility of us to win the National Grand Prize of $25,000 in local advertising and $9,500 cash to invest in our business.  To be eligible for the national grand prize, the votes have to occur in the month of March and it is ok if you already voted - they will still count.

It’s easy to vote, just follow this link and it will take you directly to our voting site: http://lovealocalbusiness.intuit.com/fan?b_id=13852&cid=ad120x60

Many thanks for supporting us on this! Feel free to forward to any of your friends who would be willing to vote.

Deborah Stafford, of Stafford Realty Group, is a realtor who until last year had not been tracking her business finances with a bookkeeping tool. She knew that to truly understand how her business was performing, she needed to put her finances into a tool like QuickBooks. However, as a busy business owner, she did not have the time to set this up, learn a new system, or keep up the ongoing maintenance. Additionally, she was facing tax season, and she needed to get her previous year’s books in order for her accountant.

Cybertary came up with a plan that would simplify her financial tracking.

First, they assisted her with purchasing and installing QuickBooks on her computer, and set up her company’s QuickBooks files. Then, Cybertary entered in all the transactions for the previous year and reconciled all the accounts. This provided her a complete picture of how her company was performing and where her money was being spent.

For ongoing maintenance Cybertary completes her monthly QuickBooks reconciliation by remotely accessing her computer. This way she always has access to the latest and greatest QuickBooks data on her computer.

All this has relieved Deborah of worrying about her bookkeeping. Tax time is so much easier now since all her reports and files are available at the push of a button. And most importantly, Deborah can see how her company is performing financially so she can make smart and timely business decisions.

Deborah had this to say about her experience - "Cybertary has really helped me get my bookkeeping in order. I now have a P&L that I can use to tell me how my business is performing. By giving Cybertary some of my 80%, I am now better able to go after my 20% areas of focus.”

Here is some exciting news for the Cybertary franchise system.  Cybertary has been recognized as one of the winners of the Franchise Business Review's 2010 Franchisee Satisfaction Awards.  The Franchise Business Review interviews franchisees to determine their satisfaction with their franchisors. 

This acknowledgement of course mirrors our feelings about our franchise and we feel blessed to a part of such a phenomenal organization.

To check out the article, click here.

Manage your Day

Now you are tracking your time and you have your lists of priorities the final step is to take control of your day instead of letting it control you.

Take a break from responding to messages: One of the biggest pitfalls is constantly checking voice mail and email. We don’t realize it, but next time you “quickly” check your email, time yourself using one of the time tracking services noted above. You may be surprised how a few clicks can turn into ten minutes. This might not sound like a lot of time, but if you check your email ten times during the day, that’s nearly two hours! Instead, try setting aside a small block of time in the morning and one in the afternoon to check and return messages and utilize your email autoresponder to send automatic replies and manage expectations of those who communicate with you via email.

Change your meeting habits: Although well-managed meetings can be very productive, many meetings can be time wasters. It takes time to gather relevant items, get to the meeting space, wait for the late-comers, and exchange pleasantries, not to mention the time it takes in advance to schedule and plan the meeting and exchange emails to find a time that works for everyone involved. Try a productivity tool like MeetingWizard to arrange and schedule your meetings, making the planning process easier and more efficient.

Write it Down: As business people we are constantly busy and our minds are usually in overdrive. Some of our most clever ideas come at the most inopportune times – when travelling on the subway, rushing to a meeting, or while driving. Utilize Evernote to capture your thoughts, organize, and retrieve them later. Using your computer or phone, Evernote is always there so you can put your thoughts, things you see, things you want, and things you need into one place. This tool can save you time and save your sanity – no more scrambling to remember that inspiration you had but didn’t have a chance to write down. You can even record voice memos!

Simplify your password management: Keeping track of your passwords should be a simple task. However with all the tasks we can now perform online requiring user names and passwords, and with security risks at an all-time high, the number of passwords we need is often times more than our brains can handle. Lastpass, a secure online password manager, automatically fills in saved log-ins and forms with the click of a button. You will never again have to click on the “forgot password” button and wait for the confirmation email!

Tomorrow morning when you’re sitting at your desk with that first cup of coffee in hand, think about the 80:20 rule… 80% of your efforts will generate 20% of your results and 20% of your activities will produce the remaining 80% of your results! Then, start utilizing these time management tools and tips to help better manage your time and get more productive time out of your day.

Last time we discussed some tools that could help you with Time Tracking.  Now we will turn our attention to prioritizing and organizing.

Prioritize and Organize

Once you know and understand how you are currently spending your time – typically an eye-opening experience – you can start to make changes. Being well-organized is a goal for nearly everyone, but in the world of effective time management, it is a must. The only way to be truly organized is to keep a list of your tasks, prioritize them, and keep track of your progress to completion of each.

Lists are wonderful. We make them before we go to the grocery store, we make them to let our kids know what is expected of them, and we should be making them for ourselves. Yes, we all like to think that we can mentally manage the hundreds of things we need to accomplish in a day. In reality, though, keeping that mental list keeps us moving and busy but often without direction which can lead to lots of work with few results.

The best way to tackle your tasks is to understand which things to do first, then work our way down the list. There are several free online tools to organize and prioritize our tasks that can be used by individuals or teams. Services like Checkvist, HiTask, and Task2Gather allow you to brainstorm, and create, organize, and publish lists so everyone knows what to do and when.

If you’re not comfortable managing your life online, then pull out the old DayTimer and start making daily lists. Franklin Covey has lots of great planning tools to keep you on task.

Now that you have some ideas on how to prioritize your life and get organized, look for the final post in this series about Managing Your Day...

Thank you so much to all of our "fans" that voted for us in the Love A Local Business contest sponsored by Intuit.  We are fortunate to have such wonderful clients to work with and are honored and humbled by your compliments. So far we are the lucky winners of their first round prize of a $500 grant and we are in 3rd place in the Sacramento area, according to one of our sources. This grant award will help us continue to do what we strive to do best, and that is to provide our customers with the highest quality of administrative and business support services.

We also plan on attending the event on March 12 where we are eligible to win an additional $1000 and we are still in the running for their grand prize of $25,000 in local advertising funds and $9500 in cash that we can invest into our business! 

If you haven't voted yet, there is still time - please see the instructions below and forward it to your friends. 

**************************************************************************
http://lovealocalbusiness.intuit.com/ ( or click on the logo in the right sidebar of our blog)

Under Step 1 Search for the Local Business You Love, type in:

Company: Cybertary
City/State: Roseville, CA

Then click "Find"

In Step 2 you will see 2 listings for Cybertary.  We are the second Cybertary business listed (#1 is the corporate office, so please make sure you select ours:

CYBERTARY.COM - TINA ANGELL
1420 E ROSEVILLE PARKWAY Suite 140-329
Roseville, CA

Step 3 - please leave a comment about our services if you wish.  We would love to hear from you!

There are several time tracking tools available online, and many of them are FREE. Toggl is a collaborative time tracking tool that can be used via their website, as a browser popup, or embedded into your company intranet. Toggl allows you and your team to track time spent on specific tasks and provides you with comprehensive reports.

Another option, RescueTime offers time tracking solutions for individuals, small businesses and large enterprises and claims that on average, utilizing their service will recover 3 hours and 54 minutes worth of productive time per week, per person. Just imagine having nearly 4 extra hours in every week!
Stay tuned for Part 2 in this series of Time Management Tools...

Mike Richards of Richards & Associates wanted to streamline his CPA services business. With the economy in a tailspin, he started seeking out opportunities to outsource some of the administrative tasks that were burdening his core staff, to allow them to focus on actual client work that generates income. Richards & Associates perform audits of financial institutions and in order to be profitable, his staff needed to be out on site at the clients’ offices doing audits. He found that staff members were taking time out of their day just to take care of administrative tasks on their own that could easily be outsourced.

Additionally, he was finding it extremely difficult to keep up with responding to new business proposal requests in a timely fashion. He started researching administrative support options and had tried other services like eLance.com but never found the right match until he struck up a conversation on a Southwest flight. Richards’ seatmate on the flight raved about his virtual assistant (VA) and how much they had helped him to streamline his business. That VA was Cybertary.

Cybertary was a perfect solution for Mike Richards and Richards & Associates for three reasons:

1. Cybertary took over many of the administrative tasks that were taking staff time away from revenue-generating activities and costing the company and staff a lot of time and money both in commute time and in productivity
2. Cybertary prides themselves on being very secure and have pledged publicly that they do not outsource to teammates outside of the U.S. in order to protect their clients
3. Cybertary helped increase efficiency for Mike Richards response time to new business requests

“Cybertary’s VAs are meticulous in their work and extremely fast. I often contact them for a project and the work is returned before the scheduled deadline.”

“The level of expertise I get from the Cybertary VA team far surpasses the experience I’d get from just one administrative assistant. We have been able to consolidate offices, thus allowing us to reduce our administrative and overhead costs, commute time and associated costs.”

“Confidentiality is critical in our business, dealing in audits for financial institutions. Even though Cybertary doesn’t currently work on any projects that involve sensitive materials, Cybertary has openly pledged that they are very secure and do not hire VAs from outside the U.S. in order to protect their clients.”

“Cybertary has allowed me and my staff to be more efficient and effective. My staff can now focus on working with our clients on the audit activities, their area of expertise, rather than taking time to do administrative tasks. Cybertary also turns around my new business proposals in just a day, something that used to take me a week to 10 days on my own. The result has been that I have been able to GROW my business, despite the economy.”

bizSugar is a free social bookmarking and networking site geared specifically to small- and medium-sized business owners and managers. This site allows users to share news, information, blog posts, videos, podcasts, images, and other content that is relevant to small business. bizSugar then takes it a step further and encourages other users to vote for their favorite links making it easy to find the information you need on everything from marketing to finance to management to technology.

Now you can quickly and easily find answers to your questions, expand your knowledge, refine your strategies, and connect with other business owners. Becoming a member is easy, and free. Just visit bizSugar, click the "register" icon. Sweet!

With the start of the New Year brings the promise of resolutions, great and small. Nearly everyone takes this opportunity to get a fresh start, do away with some old bad habits and replace them with newer, better ones. For business owners, the New Year is a great time to reassess your business and create both short- and long-term goals which may include: expanding your product line or enhancing your services, increasing profits, or achieving a better work-life balance.

Whatever your objectives, there is one simple concept that can help you attain them … delegation. As Andrew Carnegie once said, “No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.”

As a business owner, you are likely a hard-working, ambitious professional, who is driven toward growth and success. Unfortunately this motivation and ambition is often accompanied with an obsession for doing everything yourself to ensure it is done “right”. The problem is that spending too much time working “in” your business leaves little time for working “on” your business. Delegating everyday tasks such as bookkeeping, database management, customer follow-up, managing your social networking profiles, and creating marketing materials can free up precious time for doing the things that truly only you can do, like planning, networking, or managing.

Mastering the art of delegation requires communication, honesty, and trust. You must be able to communicate effectively to everyone involved in order to ensure they understand not only their tasks, but also how those tasks contribute to the bigger picture. It’s critical to be honest with yourself, and to those involved, especially when communicating expectations and providing feedback. But often, the most difficult challenge for any business owner is to entrust others with vital tasks or projects. It’s important to realize that even if something isn’t done precisely the way you would do it, you are successful if the task or project is completed efficiently and with high-quality results.

Here are some keys to delegating with confidence:

· Clearly define goals, as well as time and budget constraints.
· Clearly communicate expectations and requirements
· Fully disclose the information needed to complete a project
· Encourage questions, take comments, and give timely feedback
· Set up and help meet deadlines
· Express constructive criticisms and concerns openly
· Respect and value the expertise of the person you choose for the task
· Actively contribute to all efforts to achieve your goals.

Delegating may sound difficult at first, but in doing so, you will be freeing up your valuable time to focus on the most important aspects of your business and your life. Delegation does not mean you give up full control of your business, it means you are open to attract more clients, have the freedom to work ‘on’ your business instead of ‘in’ it, and so many more possibilities. Consider hiring a Cybertary to allow you to focus on tasks that generate new income for yourself.