Today is the most important day for your business. Why? What you achieve today impacts what you can accomplish tomorrow, next month, five years from now. In our fast-paced business world, it’s easy for our days to blur together. Too often we cultivate bad daily habits without even realizing it. But these little bad habits add up to impactful shifts in our success down the road.
Many of us are guilty of the following daily mistakes of small business owners. Taking the time to identify, and then correct, these mistakes helps empower you to achieve your full potential. And what business owner doesn’t want that?
- Not Prioritizing Your Own Health
Notice I didn’t say “value your own health” or “take care of your own health.” You need to prioritize your health because it is the best way to prioritize your business!
Your body is remarkably like a machine. Optimal performance requires quality fuel, proper maintenance, and adequate rest. Skimp out on one of these areas and the performance suffers.
Many of us buy into this workaholic American mentality. You slaved away at the office for 60 hours this week? Gold star for you! You worked through lunch? Gold star for you! You stayed up all night working on a presentation and gulped down four coffees to make it through the day? Gold star for you!
Stop it with these gold stars. The best entrepreneurs know your health should be a bigger priority than your business. Taking care of your health leads to being more effective and efficient as you work, maintaining better work-life balance, and being all around happier. Think of it as the ultimate productivity hack. Hit the gym, bring healthy lunches to work, and turn off the screens an hour before bed. A few weeks of healthy habits and you’ll be amazed at your increased work output.
- Not Posting to Social Media Daily
Social media for businesses is not a spectator sport. Either you are all in. Or you don’t enter the game at all.
Granted, all in does not need to mean several hours a day online or a disproportionate chunk of your marketing budget. But posting to Facebook once a week and never keeping up with the always changing marketing trends is not going to cut it.
Take some time to choose the best one to three platforms for your business (more if you are a large business with more marketing resources). Dedicate the necessary time to get these platforms thriving. While most businesses opt for the traditional Facebook and Twitter platforms, consider alternatives like Google+ and Facebook and LinkedIn Groups. These offer unique marketing benefits most marketers fail to take advantage of.
- Failing to Organize
Is your desktop scattered with documents and folders? Is your desk overrun with papers and packets? Does it take you more than 15 seconds to locate any given document?
It’s time for improved organization. To many entrepreneurs, organization can seem like a luxury. Who has time to look for (and then implement) the best organizational system? But the longer you go without one, the more time you waste searching for that one filed buried under desktop folder after desktop folder.
Take some time to actually implement a thorough organizational system. Then be sure to stick to it every day. Always put digital or physical files in their correct location with the correct labeling. Deal with any papers dropped on your desk right away. Don’t save to your desk drive or let stacks pile up on your desk. Every day be sure to keep things organized.
- Starting the Day With an Email Check
This can be one of THE hardest bad habits to break. We are all guilty of logging onto our computer and going right for the email.
But nearly every business productivity expert gives the same advice: don’t!
When we start with an email check, it puts our brain in reactive mode rather than a proactive or creative mode. When we arrive to work, we are often at a peak mental state (assuming we didn’t suffer from a horrid commute and got our cup of Joe). This precious optimal mental state should be used tackling the hardest projects of the day, not scanning through emails.
It’s best to get a project or two done before checking your email. As a business owner, you often are bombarded with questions and comments from clients and employees. Set aside dedicated time to check your email, say at 11am, 2pm, and 4pm to deal with these emails. This allows you to really focus on your work and use email as a slight brain break during your natural energy dips.
- Not Taking Breaks
This is another difficult mistake to stop engaging in. It’s all too easy to sit down at your desk in the morning…and never get up again. We falsely believe the best way to maximize our work is to maximize our hours working. In reality, our brains are much more efficient when we take breaks. Even just a few minutes every hour getting up and stretching can help your brain feel refreshed and ready to tackle whatever problem awaits you.
Try this Navy SEAL trick. Every hour, set an alarm on your phone for a SLLS break: stop, look around your surroundings, listen and try to name as many sounds as you can, and smell and try to name as many smells as you can. Soldiers use this when they are trudging through the worst environment possible for days on end. You can use it when you need a break from the hours staring at a computer.
- Failing to Look Long Term
In the daily hustle and bustle of work, it’s easy to get a narrow focus. There are so many tasks needing to be done now. But each day, you need to be preparing for the future. Spend time working on moving your business forward a few months from now. Send your current clients a little gift to strengthen that relationship. Attend a networking event or conference to build up your prospective client list. Take an online class to hone your skills. Try out new tools. Do something daily to prepare for the future. When the future comes, you’ll be ahead of your competition.
- Not Delegating or Outsourcing
This is a mantra all small business owners need to hear. Just because you can does not mean you should.
All too often we take on tasks that can and should be handled by someone else. We do this for many reasons. Maybe our team is so small we feel guilty passing along the task. Maybe we struggle with relinquishing control over our passion project. Maybe we worry it’ll take more time managing the employee than just doing it ourselves.
The reality is delegating is a powerful tool to maximize your business. Every small business owner should be delegating in some regard. You can delegate to your own employee or rely on the strength of a virtual assistant. Whatever approach you take, you can free up your valuable time to projects more pressing for your attention. It’s painful letting go, but you will be so glad you did!
year. It’ll change as unexpected expenses and outstanding situations arise, but it will help provide the 
This is the basic first step to making yourself a legitimate business. You need to know if you are going to be a sole-proprietor or an LLC, or something else. Most virtual assistants run an LLC. You need to make sure you have all your ducks in a row for your accounting and banking and have the general setup for legal requirements in your area. Go do the research. Develop your 
You have to know what you are going to sell. What are you good at and what do you have to offer people. Once you know what your business is there for, you can learn more and expand your services. I cannot tell you how important it is that you keep learning and stay on top of new developments not only in your industry but with new technology and ways to work. If you keep your skills up to date then you’ll have a more varied ad valuable skill set and will be worth more money. Plus, there is always something to learn and keep learning within the virtual assistant world.
assessing your 
just means you have to put effort in to making sure the client is happy and loving what you do. This call is designed to be a one-on-one conversation between you as the VA and the primary decision maker. You want to make sure you are able to talk too and are comfortable and have established with the person who is cutting the checks. 
You want work? Go to the places where works is listed. There are many places that allow people to publish jobs they need someone to help them with. It may not always been the ideal position, but it does get some income rolling through the door and helps you build a little bit of a reputation. The best part, when you land that first small project, you can build that relationship for when they need more work, they know they can contact you directly to see if you are 
Look in to other VA groups or agencies. There are many 
I know this sees a little cliché, but if people don’t know what you have to sell or market, how do you really expect them to buy it? If you have a specific clientele you are looking for, go talk to them. Send them some material about what you can offer. Being a 
sooner…or at least started the process sooner. It is daunting and overwhelming when your to-do list becomes a mile long. Get ahead of the curve; don’t let the stacks of tasks pile up. Don’t fall victim to being a prisoner in your own business where it stops you dead in your tracks. You know that feeling of being so overwhelmed that you just take a nap!? Try not to get to that space. A 
can get in the same mindset that many have. You know that negative mindset of, “I want to save money, so I will do it myself”, or “if it is going to get done right, I should do it myself”, or “it is going to take too long to bring someone on board and teach them the ropes”. Don’t fall victim to these statements. Growth is all about letting go of those blocks. The art of delegation comes with great rewards that you will soon realize and will look back and wonder why you didn’t seek support sooner.
my opinion. If your core values are in alignment everything else just flows so much easier. You can usually tell on the initial conversation with a VA if the synergy is there or not. I suggest to all my clients that you don’t focus on all business in your initial conversations. It is super valuable to talk openly about what makes you both burn with passion inside as well. You can learn quite a bit from digging deeper and creating a more personal connection too. Now, don’t get me wrong, passion is important, but their credentials are extremely important too. A nice balance is a wonderful way of matching core values. Having this alignment with your Virtual Assistant will in turn create authenticity and trust. It is a beautiful thing.
An all-access pass is to your virtual summit as Netflix is to tv shows. This is the most popular way you can increase your revenue via virtual summits. Some people will not able to attend your virtual summit during your limited broadcasting event due to a busy schedule, sickness, or anything else life throws their way. However, these customers still crave the information!
In essence, your virtual summit is an event. This is an amazing opportunity for companies to financially support you in exchange for publicity. There’s a few ways in which you can implement this, either by displaying their logo on your home page or making mention during your interviews.
After your summit is done broadcasting, you will have a shiny, new, email list of followers! They will be enthusiastic to learn more about your topic and seek more of the content you offer. This is absolutely a great opportunity to influence this email list and 
team members. Praise their successes. Encourage reflection on their struggles and setbacks. Ask if they are happy with the direction of their role, and if there’s anything you can help them with. Talk with them about their life apart from work. Do everything you can to support them and ensure they feel valued, both as your valued team member and as an individual.
for your business to move forward with every 
celebrate the past year. Highlight accomplishments and successes of the organization as a whole, and spotlight individuals who went above and beyond. Mention notable changes, like welcoming new staff members or new