The fact is if you are a woman business owner, you are most likely already a multi-tasker of epic proportions. You know how to combine family, childcare and business tasks. Whether it’s carpooling, deliveries, and business errands, or phoning clients, babysitters and arranging multiple schedules, you think in terms of multiple areas of impact most of the time. When your business is in your home you have additional challenges and benefits which your multi-tasking abilities can make work for you. You can handle household chores and meal preparation in between appointments, phone consultations, or writing that new piece for your monthly newsletter. You routinely make decisions which involve multiple areas of your life more or less simultaneously.

Taking that next step of how to apply your natural ability to enhance your business success is not so difficult, but it does require a new focus. You have to start thinking in terms of the various areas of your business the same way you think of the various areas of your life. You have to step back and get a little wider view of things.  The best way to do this is to set aside some quiet time when you will not be disturbed and really take a look at what it is you want your business to accomplish, in what time frame. Using the backward planning approach works very well.   Once you have developed your general goals, rework them into specific targets. In other words, take the generalized goal, say of “X number of new clients by X” and develop the set targets you’ll need to accomplish to reach that goal.

A project plan (target list) and work chart can be a very helpful tool for the next process of breaking down each target into the associated tasks required to fulfill each objective. Using these two tools, you can create the work chart for each specific area, and then see how the various targets are related. For instance, a new promotional pack for your business will have various components: brochure, logo, support materials, testimonial letters, perhaps a multimedia presentation. Each of these items becomes a block in the project work chart, and completing portions of any one may provide materials for the others.

Once you have accomplished this you will have a clear picture of all the tasks required for each area of your business. Now the process of checking in on the larger picture as you work each day becomes a simple matter of using these tools to keep you on track.  Target lists and project work charts are tools often used by engineers as they develop a new piece of equipment, hardware, firmware, or software. First the targets or functions of each piece are defined and then the steps to creating each working component are laid out. By following this method, the relationships between the various targets, or, in this case, components of your business plan, are visible and easily identified.  This avoids working on portions of the plan that cannot be implemented without other components also being in place.

The next step is to integrate the project work charts into a daily system of self check as you naturally group your work according to like tasks which can be accomplished in clusters of multi-tasking events. In this way you can significantly increase your progress and your business will thrive. Once you have clearly charted targets for the business you can start to apply the multi tasking skills you aridly have to what needs to be done to make the targets happen.

The next step to optimizing your multi-tasking is to ask yourself where you do your best work. What gives you the most energy and creativity? What is the most difficult for you to tackle of the things that require your attention?  Often, by breaking up more mundane tasks with those which are more creative or inspiring, it is possible to keep your energy level higher than if you were to attempt to force yourself to do the “boring” task alone.

Finally, as a multi-tasker, there is some danger that you can become too diversified and lose the focus and clarity of knowing what is most important in your business and in your life. By implementing target lists and project work charts as a guide to daily actions and updating them as each new target is complete you have a simple and effective system for starting each new day, and for meeting all your business objectives.

The daily action of a quick review of the target list and work chart also provides the added benefit of stimulating new ideas and inspirations to continue enhancing your multi tasking skills, keeping your work fresh, interesting and exciting.

Author Bio: Lisa Rodriguez is the owner of Next Level Assistant Services.  Next Level VA partners with coaches, consultants and direct sales professionals to market their brand, products and services.  Delegate more, free your time, earn more money.  Next Level specializes in e-commerce services: shopping cart/auto responder set-up, product creation and distribution, and leveraging social media (Twitter/Facebook) for new client leads and sales.

www.nextlevel-va.com

The beauty of Skype chats is that you can you pick them up when you have time and catch up with what everyone has been saying, and when you are really busy, you are not under any pressure to reply immediately.  Unless there is a set time for a meeting, but again, if you are too busy to attend “live” then you can easily read to catch up when you are available.

It’s a great way to get to know new business women and invite your contacts on Skype to join in too.

The room is live, but moderated, and you need to “apply” to get accepted.  Click on the call me button to be directed to the newly set up room and when I get your application I will accept you.  I’ll keep the room live for this month to see how successful and useful this method of keeping in touch with fellow SN4BW members is.

Please note that this is just ONE method to keep up with the challenge, choose the method that best suits you, as this is the only way to get the most out of the challenge.

If you have any other suggestions then please leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do!

Get Skype and call me for free.

Do you stand above the competition or do you get lost in the crowd?

Why should clients come to you rather than going elsewhere?

November is SN4BW’s Business Women’s Referrals Challenge and in order to get started and to get the most out of this month, we need to start at the beginning, with your marketing message and the answer to “what can you do for me?”  It needs to be clear so that not only do potential new clients know exactly what you provide but also those who want to refer others to you, they need to know exactly who you want to be referred to them.  It would be no good if you got a referral only to turn round and say “sorry I don’t do that!”

Chances are you are not unique with your business idea – I know shocking concept!  However, YOU are unique, and people buy from people.

Have you ever done business with someone you didn’t like? If you did, was it a happy experience?

Have you ever gone out of your way to do business with someone you liked, rather than the nearest person at the time?  How did that experience compare?

How does your business answer the question – “What can you do for me?”

Please post your answers here and let’s start this challenge by promoting your business and get your Workbook out and start filling it in!  Think you can do business with someone?  Got an idea for a Joint Venture?  THEN ASK!  Contact the person and start a conversation.  Take the initiative!  You just never know where that next opportunity will come from.  I’m always looking for the next one, you should be too!

FORMAT:   3 Lines of “What you can do for me” and a line for your website url.

I will only accept comments that refer to the SN4BW Challenge – NO SPAM ALLOWED!

You can make it known that you offer a referral fee or set up an affiliate program to help you.  You can join up with others in a complimentary field and cross-refer clients to each other.

You may decide to only offer your closest colleagues or clients your referral program so that you can easily keep track of those manually.  A referral system doesn’t have to be monetary, you can offer gift cards or complimentary products and/or services of your own.

Do you make it clear what types of referrals you are looking?  This may be by educating your referral partners about who your ideal referral would be, in other words, who your ideal client is and who would benefit most from your products and/or services.

Is it male or female or does it not matter?

What age are they?

Where do they hangout?  Is it online?  If so, where?

What hobbies do they have?

What is their lifestyle like?

What income bracket are they in?

More importantly, what is their biggest struggle or frustration and how can you solve it for them?

Remember to always ask others who their ideal referral is.  This is just smart business sense as you don’t want to recommend a friend or colleage to someone who can’t help them, nor do you want your friend or colleague to have someone that is not their ideal client be referred to them.

By working smartly together, we can each build up a strong referral network and build an endless stream of ideal referrals to grow our businesses together!