Direct Assist Online - Virtual Assistance Today for Tomorrow's Business

Do you have an old computer you want to get rid of?

2009-02-05T21:15:00.002Z

"You are a remarkable person who has extraordinary qualities. You have more talent and abilities than you could use in 100 lifetimes. What you can do with your life from this day forward is limited only by your own imagination". Brian Tracy

I have been working with a remarkable person, Sammie, her service quality is superb. What an amazing individual she has her many challenges healthwise while the rest of us have been blessed with good health. The other day I asked if there was anything I could do for her as she has added so much value to my life. She said that all she needs is computer parts. So I asked her what computer parts she was looking for? She tells me that she has 8 casings but she needs inside parts, parts that people don't use anymore. She went on to tell me that she builds these computers and then gives them to the underpriveledged and single moms.

So, if you have any old computer parts that you want to dispose of please get intouch with me so that I can get them to her.

She is looking for:

* Hard drives 30gb upwards
* SDRAM 128mb upwards
* DDR Ram 256mb upwards
* DDR2 Ram 256mb upwards
* CPU's intel and AMD 1.2 ghz upwards
* graphic/sound cards
* NIC/LAN cards
* old or broken laptops any condition/age

I don't know what some of this means and if you don't, it does not matter, if you want to get rid of your old computer I am sure she would be happy to have it.

Many thanks for your help.

Latest Skype Download

If you have not heard of the latest Skype download, well it's here and looking good. If you have not got it yet here is the link for you to download.

SKYPE DOWNLOAD

Romany Thresher

Business Scene Event - Sarah Arrow

2009-01-29T23:52:00.008Z

"Your super subconscious mind attracts into your life people, ideas and resources in harmony with your dominant thoughts. It brings you everything you need to succeed." Flight Plan by Brian Tracy.

What a powerful statement. I found myself pondering on that for a while and started doing a mind map of all the people in my life at this current moment. Listing all the resources and ideas playing in my head to see where and how my dominant thought had played their part.

Today, I attended the Business Scene event hosted by Sarah Arrow, one because it was hosted by Sarah and secondly I had arranged with Sarah that a client of mine could promote their services at the exhibition and I needed to be there to support them and help out where I could.

My day did not start off well, I felt dreadful health wise and was in a tremendous amount of pain, I did not have the energy to even go but I knew I had to. Time was getting close to leaving and I was debating whether or not I should go. I then remembered the quote by Brian Tracy, then and there I said to myself, "I am the creator of my world, I can do this and I will meet some great people and have a wonderful time, no matter what.

Well, as it turns out, I have to say, hoorah for Sarah and Kevin of Arrow Light Haulage. What superb hosts they were. The event ran smoothly with the help Robert Brett of Regus in Brentwood who provided the venue.

I had the opportunity to meet some very interesting people. I met Mark Perl of The Guru Garage who recently moved to the UK from South Africa and who has plans to put South Africa back on the map, we are most definitely on the same page. Mark also specialises in helping professionals become confident and effective networkers. He then introduced me to Warren Cass of the Business Scene who is also one of the reasons for the event being such a success. He is serious about wanting to know what he can do to establish and host events for small businesses. After tonight's event I am going to become more active in the Business Scene as I believe they are going to be going places with the plans they are working on.

I also had the fortunate privilege of finally meeting Nikki Pilkington who has helped many people increase their online presence. Her ebook 299 steps to website heaven is an excellent guide for SME businesses. We did not get much opportunity to chat but I am sure we will in the future.

All in all, every person I meet at the event I thoroughly enjoyed meeting. I can say the event was most successful and many thanks to Sarah, Kevin, Robert and Warren for a great opportunity to network and a most worthwhile network event.

So yes, my subconscious mind did create what I had chosen my dominant thoughts to be which was do my best to get on with it, enjoy myself and meet some good contacts.

Romany Thresher

Commuting Hell!

2009-01-22T15:37:00.006Z

Stuck on a train in yet another one of many train delays that occur in the UK. Running late, rushing and running to get the bus so that I can get to a meeting on time. "Why do I put myself through this," I asked myself. Trying to make sense of what possessed me to arrange this meeting at this ungodly hour of the day. "Peak hour."

While waiting for the bus, I grabbed the South African newspaper. Inside was the SA Property magazine with an article on "mixed use type developments" and the article contained the following facts:

The world's average commuting time to work is 40 minutues one way. Average commuting for workers in the UK works out to 15 days every year (360 hours).
In peak hour traffic times to cross the city can take between 4 and 5 hours in London, New York, Tokyo and even Johannesburg.

A colleague of mine said that door to door each day takes him 1 hour and 15 minutes which means that he is spending 24 days a year just on commuting to work.

How crazy is this? It makes me want to scream:
VOTE FOR FLEXIBLE WORKING!!!! and take on the powers that be.

I am also stunned when people say to me that they prefer to come into the office, sit behind a desk because if they worked from home, they would get no work done, "no self displine" they say.

"Mmmmm, 15 days extra a year, self discipline OR come into the office and loose 15 days every year. I say "15 DAYS EXTRA, bring it on, learn self discipline". 15 days should be motivation enough.

Others say that they need the interaction within the office community.

"Yes, I can see this being an obstacle but there is a worldwide community on the worldwide web to communicate with." I would rather opt for the extra days and meet up with people I want to meet with and from time to time you can have team meetings and get togethers, no one is stopping you.

I say, I am all for the flexible working! Besides it is good for the planet, reduces stress levels and adds to the quality of your life.

What do you say?
How many days are you wasting travelling to and from work?

Romany Thresher

How valuable is your time?

2008-11-28T09:32:00.011Z

It can be very easy to get sidetracked and focus on tasks that are unproductive.

An unproductive task or project is something that is not helping you to achieve your goal or simply not earning you an income.

For example:

To arrange and set up a meeting can take roughly 10 minutes or longer to organise. Arrange 5 of those and it has already taken an hour of your time.

You have some administration to do, update your database, letters to type, printing, posting etc, these are all time consuming unproductive tasks that are not bringing in any new business.

Brian Tracy author of The Flight Plan mentioned a good way to keep yourself disciplined is to work out your hourly rate and when starting a project or taking on a task, ask yourself, "Is this worth $/£ of my time?

Here is a calculation example he used to help you work out your hourly rate.

Determine how much it would cost you per month to live comfortably even if you had no income at all. Include all your costs e.g., accommodation, food, travel, medical, vacations, entertainment, etc. Multiply that number by 12 and then multiply the result by 20. This total represents your retirement goal. Divide your annual income by 2,000, i.e. the approximate number of hours that an executive works in a year. This amount is their hourly rate. If you earn $50,000 a year and you divide that amount by 2,000 you get a rate of $25 per hour.

Your potential earnings wasted doing unproductive tasks could therefore be very costly.

Romany Thresher

The handy Dictaphone

2008-11-06T08:56:00.023Z

Working with people who use dictaphones, I can see how they utilise this gadget to their advantage.

The dictaphone is a recording device which records your thoughts, ideas and pretty much anything else you want or need.

Not a supa dupa typist
Dictate your correspondence, reports presentations and emails. Maybe you want to blog about something? Why not dictate your thoughts, get it transcribed and you can make the final alterations before publishing.

Need to arrange meetings?
Dictate when, who, where and at what time you want the meeting. Perhaps you'd like to arrange a coffee, lunch or dinner, something in the future or something more immediate? Dictate your needs as necessary.

To do lists
Dictate everything you need to do, arrange and organise. Your transcriber will work through the list and get things done.

Out and about
When you are out of the office you can dictate notes to yourself. For example, if you work in the property field you can use your dictaphone and dictate your findings when inspecting a building. If you need to do an inventory list why not use your dictaphone instead of fussing about with pen and paper.

There are many more creative ways you can make use of a dictaphone.

When you are done, send the audio file by email to your transcriber who will transcribe the file and complete all the work recorded in the file.

Just think about how much time you can save.

Software
Want to try it out, NCH has a trial package called Express Dictate which you download onto your computer and you are ready to dictate. The downside is you cannot walk around with it.
But if this is something new to you, it may be a good way to get you started. NCH also offers software that you can download onto your PDA mobile device. It is not open to all devices like Blackberry who has locked their service for exclusive use.

Dictaphones
Try Speak It or visit our online store for cheaper dicataphones. Do your homework before purchasing a Dictaphone to make sure it is the right one for you.

Speaking tips when using a Dictaphone
It is also important that you speak clearly and that the transcriber can make sense of what you are dictating. Click here for tips.

People tend to speak about 4 to 5 times faster than an experienced person can type. In general, one hour audio recording of dictated text, which is of good sound quality and well presented, takes between 4 to 5 hours to transcribe. 1:4/5 ratio.

Romany Thresher

21st Century Personal Assistant

2008-10-30T15:36:00.014Z

There is a common misconception today about the role of a personal assistant. Some people seem to think that a personal assistant's job is to run errands, get coffee, be receptionist or hang around and perform some secretarial duties as and when needed.

However, the role of a Personal Assistant has changed tremendously, since the tranditional type secretarial role. Many successful business people have utilised their personal assisant's skills to maximise their productivity.

Top Level Personal Assistants

Top level assistants are known as Lifestyle Managers, Executive Assistants and Board Level Personal Assistants. These assistants generally work for the Chairman, CEO's, Managing Directors, Celebrities, Wealthy Individuals and Sports Stars. These top level personal assistants manage and organise both business and personal affairs for these individuals.

It is important to consider the level of assistance you will need before you hire someone to assist you. If you are a home business or an individual you may want to consider hiring a top level Virtual Personal Assistant because of the benefits it will add to your business namely, saving costs and added resources.

Top level Personal Assistants know how to be business managers, they are your confidant, know how to delegate work to others and make life easier. A good personal assistant often does more thant what they are being paid for.

Attributes of a top level personal assistant:

Strong work ethics.
Strong PR and effective communication skills.
Leadership and problem solving skills.
The ability to multi-task under pressure.
The ability to display self discipline.
The ability to organise and be organised.
The ability to manage projects.
Be proactive and come up with solution.
Flexibility and be adabtable.

Ultimately, a personal assistant works alongside you as your right hand person. The more work they can handle the more value they add to you.

Having a good personal assistant can play a key role in your success as an individual!

Economic cuts, can we prevent people losing their jobs?

2008-10-21T22:20:00.001+01:00

A company I work with sadly had to let go of a few of their staff members. This showed a very dismal and bleak reality of what is going on.

You hear it on the news, read it in the newspapers and you are not really sure how or exactly to what extent it can impact your life but when you are faced head on with the impact of this economic crises it shows you just what affect it has on the people we know around us who are caught up in it.

This led me to think about what one can do to contribute and help make the process easier or even find a solution that helps make things better.

It is perhaps time for all of us to start brainstorming and thinking about ways we can contribute and do our bit or perhaps come up with ideas that builds on more ideas which leads to happier results.

I would imagine that if you are a business owner, entrepreneur, employer a key question on your mind must be:

How to cut costs and how to prevent your employees from losing their jobs and losing their livelihoods?

One solution could lie in virtual working also known as remote working, outsourcing and flexible working. Every bit of technology and software being developed today is all being geared for this new way of working.

New World of Work by Microsoft.com

While many companies have welcomed flexible working and it has also only been open for some there are a lot of people who find it difficult to understand the concept or even not willing to embrace the concept. However, in this difficult time it could be that people would need to seriously re think their position, re think their ways of doing things and maybe embracing a change of mindset in order to have a positive impact on what is going on.

Whilst chatting to an associate of mine today he sent me this really good tool that one can use to show business owners and an employers a way to cut costs and perhaps when you are forced into the position of having to make staff redundant, you could look into this as an alternative option and work together with your staff to come up with a solution.

CAL Remote Team Working specialises in helping companies get set up and work as distributed teams.

Here is a calculator tool to show you how you can cut costs allowing staff to work from home or other locations.

Credit Crises to Collaborative Capitalism Presentation by Kiwork

Romany Thresher

Email Management Tip

2008-10-20T16:38:00.003+01:00

For better management of your emails get into the habit of inputting a topic in the subject box that is related to the email.

When you reply or forward an email, again think about the topic or remove the RE: and FW:

Using this method helps tremendously when you are searching for info.

How to get more time out of your busy day?

2008-09-01T14:35:00.000+01:00

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have all the time in the world to spend with their families? Have time for golf, fishing, go carting, skiing, holidays. Yet they also seem to have time to get all their work done and also focus on networking and growing their business.

What is their secret?

They manage their time by delegating tasks to other people such as personal assistants.
Now you may say “I can’t afford a full time personal assistant” but realistically can you afford not to.

The average person works 22 days a month. Take 1 hour a day over 22 days that would free up to 22 hours. 22 hours gives you 2 days and 6 hours extra. Just think for a moment what you can do with 2 days and 6 hours.

You may ask. "What possible work could I give to a personal assistant?"

A personal assistant could do the following:

Answer emails - 15 to 30 minutes
Research - 30 minutes
Meeting arrangements – 10 minutes on average is spent organising one meeting.
Book travel - 15 minutes saved to research, book and find the best deal.
Send out introduction letters for your business – 30 minutes
Send out invitations to clients – 15 minutes
Shop online, stationery, equipment, products –

Look at your to do list and see what you can hand over to a personal assistant. Make up a new to do list for your personal assistant. Depending on the nature of the work you can then either use a personal assistant daily for 1 hour or maybe for 1 day.

You can even use a personal assistant to write blogs for you. Get them to do some research put together the initial draft and then you can tailor it to suit your writing style.
A blog can take 15 or 30 minutes and sometimes even an hour.

For the small business technology has made it so easy to use a personal assistant because today you do not have to hire an assistant full time or even hire a temp. You can use a virtual assistant who works from their own offices, which means they use their own office equipment and you pay an hourly rate to use their services. The biggest advantage of using a virtual assistant is that you get to build a relationship with them and they become a part of your business.

Just think for a moment what you can do with those 2 days and 6 hours.