DemGen Inc. - Virtual Sales, Marketing, Customer Service & Admin Services

Remote Working: How to Stay Motivated

admin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:04:23 +0000

Realize that you are the one responsible for your future, the outcome of your business and/or the completion of your work. Create a comfortable and productive work environment, one in which you love to spend time. Surround yourself with the little extras that make your day easier: the most comfortable chair you can afford, music, plants, etc.
Inspire yourself by reading the stories of others who have become successful while building their own business or changing from working in an office to tele-commuting. Get great ideas for your office by looking at examples online. It doesn’t have to be expensive, start with what you already have.
Take advantage of the freedom you have by creating your own unique schedule if at all possible – one that works for you and lets you work when you are at your best, whether that be early morning or the middle of the night.
Never forget the benefits – more exercise, increased health as you can cook your own meals, breaks where you can spend your time doing what you want – especially outdoors.
Stay organized. Take the time time to keep your office area organized and everything in its place. It’s an expression that is heard a lot but it does make your life a lot easier.

Live the dream.

Many who work from home don’t realize just how fortunate they are and the freedoms they have. They continue on as if they are still working for an employer. An office of their own design, the things around them that they love, the people around them that they love – these are the priceless benefits of working remotely.

image by dierken on Flickr

5 Thoughts on Starting Your Entrepreneurial Life

admin — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:17:18 +0000

Realize at the outset that each person’s idea of the perfect lifestyle is different. While some relish the thought of working from a home office and merging it with their home life, others dream of becoming the eternal nomad, always working from a different location, while travelling the world. Follow your own path and create your own life, on your own terms, not a version seen through the eyes of another.
There will be work, lots of it. Be ready to roll up your sleeves, be productive and set goals for yourself. Know where you want to be in six months, one year, five years…sit down and make that plan that will include your home office in your home. Your goal should be to have a life that allows you to work at your highest level while still leaving lots of time for needed recreation. Make it interesting, your work doesn’t have to be a bore and seem like work.
What do you enjoy doing and how are you going to make your business fit in with the things you love to do and the people you love to spend time with? It shouldn’t be the other way around, so that business comes first and pleasure and relationships are an afterthought. Without life’s enjoyments and time spent with your friends and family, the excitement of building your business and the motivation to continue will shrivel like the proverbial autumn leaf.
Outsource. There are others that can do some things much, much better than you will ever be able to do them. (yes, there are!) Pick the one or two things that you excel at, that you know you would find a hard time finding someone else who could do better. Concentrate your time and efforts on those and hire a virtual professional for the rest. The lack of worry over a job less than well done is worth its weight in gold.
Know your limits. Your professional limits as well as your physical limits. Pushing yourself to exhaustion will not only leave you physically depleted but will affect your judgement. Treat yourself well and everything else will fall into place.

To the art of working well a civilized race would add that art of playing well. ~ George Santayana (Little Essays)

image by Dave Dugdale on Flickr

How Do Small Businesses Waste Money?

admin — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 10:58:40 +0000

Free Contact Forms – ContactMe.com

In Quest of the Perfect Remote Team

admin — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:04:58 +0000

Look for the best and keep the best. What does this mean to you?

Unique abilities aside, search out those with interesting quirks. These may not be obvious at first glance (or interview) but will slowly but certainly show up over time. Your first clue? Not your run of the mill resume – look for lots of variety.

Excellent grammar and word skills. First contact may be a phone interview…if their responses tend toward cliches, buzz words and slang, it may be best to keep looking. Those that follow the crowd rarely if ever do well in a virtual or entrepreneurial position.

Overqualified? This can be a yes or no. If you are looking for more mature workers, overqualified can mean several things and isn’t a concern. Many older workers have put in their time in offices and as remote employees or partners can make an excellent fit. They tend to have an excellent work ethic without demonstrating the drama and pretentiousness that younger workers tend to exhibit.

Once you’ve picked your team, how do you keep them interested in your business?

First of all, yes, you do owe a certain amount of responsibility to your original core workers. As your business expands and you bring on others, keep your main team members informed and don’t allow them to think they’re being replaced or not good enough for your newer clients. A major downfall of remote team work is when long time members no longer feel appreciated and start to look around for other options. One misstep and your most valuable team members may no longer be with you but will have moved on to where their qualities are more appreciated.

Don’t play favourites. This should seem obvious but just as managers in the corporate world let some employees get away with what others would be fired for, in the virtual world everything needs to be above board and equal for all. Transparency in business doesn’t mean giving away your secrets but it doesn’t mean keeping secrets either.

Keep meetings brief and only involve those who are concerned with the subject. Meetings can be a huge waste of energy and time, especially if you are working virtually. Most remote workers hate to be interrupted when they are in the middle of something important. Topics that are of an announcement type can be done through email so bring the remote clan together only when absolutely necessary.

Which of your workers are key to keeping your business up and running in a slow economy?

Variety is the spice of life and also gives life to your business. During slower times of the year for your company, your key workers are the ones who are able to do a bit of everything and show interest in doing more. Reliability is a necessity and if some of your remote workers tend to take a lot of time off, give them the option of taking it when there isn’t as much work available.

Your remote team: a mixture of personalities, talents and interests.

15 Quotable Quotes

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:52:52 +0000

Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps. ~ David Lloyd George

I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk. ~ Tony Robbins

Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. ~ Marilyn Monroe

image at sterlingtimes.org

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop. ~ Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does. ~ The Duchess – Lewis Carrol

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. ~ Mark Twain

20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the one’s you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover ~ Mark Twain

Make your life a mission – not an intermission. ~ Unknown

It is never too late to be what you might have been. ~ George Eliot

If wrinkles must be written upon our brow, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old. ~ James A. Garfield

If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place. ~ Nora Roberts

If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it. ~ Anthony J. D’Angelo

What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose. ~ Margaret Thatcher

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was greater than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anais Nin

~ A witty saying proves nothing. ~ Voltaire

Collaboration Tools for Virtual Teams

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:27:32 +0000

WORKPLACE

Designed for unlimited team members, Workplace gives your remote workers the choice to work on or offline. Do you have multiple teams, each working on a different project? Each one can have their own space for their notes, files and any documents or discussions that go along with them. Free download for Windows, Mac and Linux.

OfficeMedium

With social media integration, contact information management, calendar and event planning, file sharing and storage, OfficeMedium can be the one central collaboration tool that all of your virtual employees use for their projects. It does come at a price (with a 30-day free trial) that is reasonable for most remote teams due to it’s convenience, efficiency and one-tool-fits-all ability. Pictured below is the shared blog function. Compatible with all operating systems.

Socialtext

Does your team integrate social media, blogging and wiki workspaces into their daily tasks? Socialtext adds all three plus mobile availability. One of the advantages that Socialtext has over other collaboration tools is its customization functions. These are put in place so only members of the team who are on a certain project will receive updates, email and notes that pertain to it. This cuts down drastically on email overload, one of the most frustrating things for those who work remotely.

HyperOffice

HyperOffice offers a well rounded group of collaboration tools including web based email, calendars, document manager and forms. Compatible with mobile devices, PC and Mac, there are available add-ons that can extend your virtual reach with audio/video conferencing and email campaigns. Intranet, extranet and online access make it a flexible addition for your team’s tool box. Choose only what your team needs as it is useful for in office and on the road.

Out with the new and in with the old

admin — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:48:16 +0000

Some of the formerly new things which I’d like to see returned to the way they once were.

Quality

Interesting and knowledge based websites, less junk. We are becoming a world that is lacking in general life skills and possibly not interested in obtaining them. Quality outside of the internet also as many of us yearn for products that are well made and reasonably priced.

No comments allowed

It would be nice to read a newspaper or blog without having comments attached. Most people aren’t very interested in the opinions of others as they have their own and a majority of comments are advertising. It would also take away forums that lead to online drama.

Useful search engines

When I first started using the internet, quite a few years ago, Google was useful. You would put in your keywords and find a list of websites that were pretty close to what you were looking for. Using the most popular search engines now bring up a list of forums before anything else and you will have better luck finding information through databases that pertain to your topic.

Maturity

Maturity doesn’t necessarily pertain to age but there is a headlong rush by many to mimic those who are barely out of their teens. For those of us who are interested in spending time with adults, discussing adult issues and reading well written articles online with correct spelling, it can be saddening and frustrating when these are difficult to find. A return to fact based media would be a gigantic step in the right direction.

Privacy

There was a time when privacy was a right in this country but as we head into 2011 our right to keep our thoughts and actions to ourselves has become a battle that we seem to be losing bit by bit. You Tube and cellphones with cameras have put us on a slippery slope where our every word and/or action can be misconstrued through video.

Do you agree that these would be welcome changes? Each gradual step in the right direction could turn things around.

image by ell brown on Flickr

Which Elf Are You?

admin — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:46:42 +0000

As the countdown begins at Norad for the Santa tracker, small business owners start to look ahead to the new year while also taking a look back to see how they can improve on their relations with their customers.

In pagan times, the house gnomes that were the original Santa’s modern day elves, were courteous and helpful to good people but treated those they didn’t like and others who had been rude to them quite badly. What if we were to treat our customers in a similar way?

Now take a look at the elf list below from World of Christmas and imagine similar positions in companies worldwide:

1. Alabaster Snowball – Administrator of the Naughty & Nice list.
2. Bushy Evergreen – Inventor of the magic toy-making machine.
3. Pepper Mintstix – Guardian of the secret of where Father Christmas’s village is located.
4. Shinny Upatree – The oldest friend of Santa and the co-founder of the secret village in Lapland.
5. Sugarplum Mary – Head of the Sweet Treats, she is also known as Mary Christmas. She is an assistant to Mrs Claus and helps her in the kitchen.
6. Wunhorse Openslae – Designer of Father Christmas’s sleigh and responsible for its maintenance. He also looks after the reindeer and it is believed that his reindeer reach speeds faster than Christmas tree lights.

Which elf would you be?

We at DemGen would like to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year. We will be back with our blog in 2011!

Boundaries and Your Client Relationships

admin — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:23:12 +0000

An internet search will produce a long list of links to articles describing how to set boundaries for the client/business owner relationship. Let’s go ahead and forget the “how” of it for just a moment and ask a more fundamental question – why set boundaries? What is a boundary?

A boundary is a line that defines two separate spaces. The boundary attempts to make clear to someone that, upon crossing it, the person is no longer in a space where things are good; that person has moved over into a space where it’s not so good. You can go over there to that space if you want, but there’s no protection or recourse out there like there is in here.

Think of a construction site where a skyscraper is being built. Certain safety precautions may become so routine that the danger the precaution was geared to prevent hasn’t happened in such a long time that people don’t know why the precaution is even in place. Someone thinks that the odds of something bad happening are so slim, taking a short cut is worth the time saved…until that terrible something happens that, in all likelihood, is irreversible. Or much more expensive to fix than the time it would have taken to do it right. We are unfortunately reminded the hard way that there’s a reason for the precaution.

Setting boundaries is a good idea. That’s why we should set them,both in business and in life. Understanding why we should set boundaries not only motivates us to do so, but also helps us to follow and enforce them.

5 Simple Ways to Run a Business

admin — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:28:48 +0000

Simple: Not complex or complicated; free from guile or vanity

What does it mean to run a business simply and how can you do it?

When starting your own small business the most important outcome is that your business will thrive for many years to come. In order to do that your business must be based upon honest concepts. To do this there are some key ingredients that are needed:

Focus on one main product or service and make it the best that you can
Take responsibility. This includes for your values and morals, way of life and your dealings with others.
Give good value to your customers. This goes right back to taking responsibility. If you are the company and you and your product or service are connected closely, your name will be synonymous with your offering.
Take your time and spend wisely. Trying to act like a large corporation when what your customers want and need is someone they can work closely with on a personal level will not help your business, it will cause stagnation.
Keep it simple. Avoid business jargon and buzzwords. Both put people off and make your company as well as your employees look like they are not interested in the long haul.

Use the word simple rather than organic, a concept which is being tossed around a lot and the reason for this post. Using words to describe your business that others may take in the wrong way is not a good idea. You want your clients to recognize your company and your products and not have to ask numerous questions to understand your methods.

The simplest way is often the most straight forward way. Treat your customers as people, not as numbers and develop relationships with them.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~Leonardo DaVinci