Can Political Correctness Actually be Dangerous?

A client of mine was recently approached, through her ticket desk (me), to speak at an event at St. Paul’s Church in Jarrow, UK.  The request allegedly came from Bishop Mark Jarrow.  I thought it odd so I did some research on the internet.  There is a St. Paul’s Church in Jarrow, UK (in fact, it’s the home of the Venerable Bede) and the local Bishop’s name is Mark Bryant aka Mark Jarrow.

This is where the political correctness comes in:  the language in the ticket and in subsequent emails wasn’t that of a native, English/British speaker.  My first reaction was scepticism but then I told myself, wait, maybe you’re being unnecessarily snobbish or prejudiced.  Britain is well known as a melting pot of many cultures – not all of whom speak English the way you or I do.  I remembered that at my Uncle’s funeral in a small town in northern Central Ontario, the Catholic priest was very Spanish.  Would he have been able to write an email in English that was completely grammatically correct?  Ditto a Catholic priest in a church in the Beaches area of Toronto a few years ago.   So, on with my political correctness hat and I let my client know about the ticket.

However, something never quite seemed right.  They sent a contract, which my client signed and returned (now they had her signature).  They needed her passport info, d.o.b. and full name to book her flight.  Then came the bombshell that she would need a work permit and would have to pay for it herself.

We both tried contacting the British Consulate here…they want $3.20 a minute to talk to a live human being.  After a tortuous search of the website we agreed to have the permit pulled in the UK – despite the fact that the British Consulate’s website said a Tier 5 permit would be 190GBP and the contact in Jarrow said it would be 430GBP.  I suggested they use part of the deposit they were going to send my client, but no…that was coming from a sponsor and not immediately available.  In any event, they said they were going to reimburse the cost so we were going to go ahead.

Still, something didn’t feel right at this point and when they asked me for the second time, when my client would like to travel, something clicked in me and, on my own time, I started really digging.  First I compared phone numbers and postal codes on the contract and the website (they were different).  Then I emailed the rector listed on the website and was put in touch with the real Bishop’s PA (who writes impeccable English).   Turns out it’s a scam that the local constabulary are well aware of but interestingly enough, the Toronto cops couldn’t care less about.

Thank goodness we figured out it was a scam before my client actually wired any money to them.  Oh, and for the record, my client looked up the IP addresses and they are in Nigeria.

So, when does political correctness become dangerous:  the minute we stop relying on our instinctive reactions and mask them with political correctness and the desire not to offend.

Sister’s Keeper?

Reblogged from BlueHeronWrites:

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Walking The Path that winds itself through the underground maze of downtown Toronto shops and restaurants, I noticed how people avoided eye contact and didn’t return a friendly smile or a “good morning” greeting. Is it due to the intensity of the city, the sardine closeness of their morning train commute, the density of the wall of protection each one has built up from a fear of intimacy, of getting involved? I don’t have the answer but I know I’d rather live in our small town where even …

This story happened when my friend Wendie was staying with me. It’s incredible!

O’Connor Drive closed because of a gas leak

Today started out much as any other day…checked my email, went for my walk around the building, spent an hour on the phone trying to get my printer/scanner to work and then I got ready to make some phone calls for a client. Unfortunately, what I didn’t know was that across the street there was a gas leak at the Leisureworld.

My day got disrupted by this because I was waiting for a delivery of the gift baskets I had ordered for clients as Christmas presents. I received a call that the baskets would be delivered in minutes so I went down to the lobby. Three-quarters of an hour later I finally received the gift baskets after the deliverer got “close” to me. O’Connor Drive has now been closed for over 3 hours. The residents at Leisureworld were evacuated onto TTC buses to await the all clear to return to their rooms.

Amazing how a gas leak can shut down a business that’s virtual, but effectively that’s what it did. I couldn’t make phone calls knowing that I would be interrupted when the gift basket delivery got close…and I didn’t know when that would be.

What’s 10 Minutes a Day Worth to You? by Liz Saunders

Do you know how 10 minutes a day can change your life? Read on about the benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant.

What is a Virtual Assistant (VA) you ask? A VA is someone who does various types of administrative work, but rather than going out to your office, VA’s stay in their own home office. There are many ways that an entrepreneur, organization or company can use a VA. VA’s perform many tasks that would otherwise be assigned to an executive assistant or an office manager. However, we offer more than just administrative assistance because we work more as a partner with our clients and can be used as sounding boards, research assistants, lead generators and project managers.

One reason to hire a VA is money: the money you’ll save by not having to hire someone for more hours than you need; the money you’ll save not having to pay rent for a place for an employee to sit; the money you’ll save on the equipment you won’t have to purchase for an employee to use and the money you’ll save not having to do payroll and pay employer’s portions of costs.

But it’s not just about saving money. It’s also about making money that is why you’re in business, isn’t it? A VA can free up your time so that you can build your business by taking the hours that are eaten up by your administration off your plate, giving you the opportunity to turn those wasted hours into profitable hours, whether through increasing your billable hours or through growing the business generally.

How do we do this? One thing we can do for the small entrepreneur is help create the illusion that his or her organization is a larger operation than it is, thereby investing it with more credibility. We can do this by simply answering the phone as your “receptionist, Assistant or Office Manager”. Similarly, if you’re on the road a great deal, or regularly in meetings, we can be the hub of the business: taking messages, sending out information packages to potential customers or even booking appointments using a web-based scheduler.

Some VA’s offer web-design and others offer bookkeeping. The range of services is extremely wide and no two VA’s are exactly alike. That also makes the relationship between VA and client a very close one. We aim to partner with our clients and in the process, anticipate our client’s needs before even being asked. We also act as a reminder service for our clients for personal and business events. A gentle reminder at the end of every month about doing the monthly invoices may be something that focuses the mind on the need to get it done…after all, you won’t get paid if you don’t send out the invoice. We can give you the reminder, then produce the invoices you require and, if you wish, keep track of payments. If necessary, we can send reminder notices to your forgetful customers.

When do you decide to make the leap from not having an assistant to having one? For some of you it will be when you’ve pulled the last strand of hair out of your head, or you’re spending so much time working that your partner and/or children have forgotten your name. Others will see the fire coming towards them in time to douse the flames before being engulfed.

This is where the value of 10 minutes a day comes in. Here’s a simple test that anyone with Internet access can take.

Go to www.spudcity.com and download a trial version of TraxTime. Then, using this marvelous little tool, start keeping track of everything you do during the day that is administrative and not billable. (It’s also an invaluable tool for keeping track of your time if you bill your client’s by the hour.) If you spend an average of 10 minutes a day on administration…that translates into one week per year (41.67 hours). One week! And two hours a week is the equivalent of one day a month or 12 days a year. Think what you could do with that time if you weren’t spending it on your administration? You could make some of those hours billable! You could use some of that time for prospecting, building your database and growing your business. You could spend the time with your family and enjoy a more balanced life.

Ten minutes a day. Once you’ve tried tracking your time with TraxTime, you’ll probably wish that you were only doing 10 minutes a day of administration. Think how much more profitable it would be to give those 10 minutes a day to a VA so that you could create more income producing time or maybe take that week off a year and spend it on a golf course or a beach or anywhere your fancy takes you.

Ten minutes. Gives us all something to think about doesn’t it?

Liz Saunders McManus

www.TheVirtualAlternative.com

Do You Need a Brain Dump? by Liz Saunders

I recently spoke to a former client who lamented the fact that he’s TOO busy to work with me, unless, that is, I could find a way to capture his mind and work with it while he went away on holiday. We agreed that he needed a Brain Dump.

A Brain Dump you say? Yes indeed. Sometimes, when an entrepreneur has so many irons in the fire, he just can’t get all the ideas in his head out of his head and onto paper. Either the brilliant ideas come to him while he’s driving the car, or on the golf course, or somehow not near paper or his computer. The solution? A small, digital recorder. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? I’ve used an Olympus Digital Voice Recorder WS-110 for years for recording meetings at which I’m doing the minutes…just in case I think I’ve missed something important. This is what it looks like:

But there are lots of them out there. There’s a site that does a comparison of some of the higher end models: About.com: Small Business Canada But you can get one at Best Buy for as little as $34.99.

Just think, if you could get some of those things off your mind, into a .wav file and off to your Virtual Assistant to transcribe how much more productive you could be. And of course, with today’s technology, you can send that .wav file from any computer, anywhere. It doesn’t get much simpler than that, unless you have the luxury of having a full time assistant at your beck and call to listen to and record your Brain Dump at your whim.

So, if you think you’re too overwhelmed to even think about hiring a Virtual Assistant, or are struggling to think what to give to your Virtual Assistant…consider a Brain Dump…it will be such a relief!

For more ideas to make your life simpler, visit me at TheVirtualAlternative.com

QR Codes, by Liz Saunders

Yesterday, while out doing my thing as a virtual assistant, I learned about something new and really cool…QR Codes.  What the…? you might ask.  Well here’s what one looks like:
I know, weird looking right? It was described as a screwed up Miss Pacman game. But they are really neat. Using your Smart Phone or iPhone, go to 2dscan.com and download ScanLife (which is free), then when you see a QR Code, take a picture of it and your phone will automatic go to the link embedded in the QR Code. The Code above is for a blog which is quite funny by Phil Barrett, the VP, Digital & Mobile at B Street. He’s how I heard about them. So take a picture and read Phil’s blog.

But they have all kinds of applications. They can be on the outside of a building and you can get a link to the history of the building or even an calendar of events planned for the building or anything that the building owner wants to program into the Code. In Japan, there are buildings where the entire side of the building is a huge QR Code. There are also magazines with no content…just QR Codes.

Wikipedia gives a more thorough idea of what they are.

Apparently this is the way of the future, so we’re going to have to get used to funny little Miss Pacman games everywhere!

Welcome Melissa!

We would like to welcome Melissa Paquin on board at The Virtual Alternative to handle event planning, meeting minutes and other tasks as required.

Welcome Melissa!

Services Offered

These are just a few of the services we offer at The Virtual Alternative:

Point of contact phone services

Minutes of meetings

Reservation management

Proof reading and editing

Email and voice mail monitoring

Meeting material preparation

Bulk mailing or emailing

Contact management

Market research

Reminder services

Vacation coverage

Transcription

Project assistance

Meeting and event planning

General secretarial

Can you think of others you would like to have available?

Thanks.

My first ever Corrie Ping and it was a blast!

Wow!  Wednesday night not only did I go to my first ever Ping, I went to the first Ping ever held in Toronto, as far as we can tell!  An evening to go down in history and I was there.

I met some other Corrie fans, Steve, Chris, Stacey – the organizer – and of course the owners of the pub, The Roy.  I didn’t meet the lady at the end of the bar, but she might have been the only other “elder statesperson” in Corrie fandom.  I’ve been a fan longer than Stacey’s been alive.  I first saw Coronation Street, sitting in a room in a suburb of Manchester, that could have been Stan and Hilda Ogden’s main room …complete with “murial”.

But what was so great about it?  The people, of course.  There was only one TV and even with the volume at full, it was hard to hear.  Amazing to think that there were actually other people in the pub who didn’t care about Corrie and insisted on talking and making general noise…believe it or not.

For me though, it’s always the people.   I knew I could watch Corrie again the next morning because I religiously tape the show.  People are what makes everything worthwhile.

And that’s what I feel in my business as well.  As a Virtual Assistant, sometimes I’m not so virtual.  Just the other morning, I went to an event of the American Marketing Association on behalf of one of my clients, actually representing that client as if I was an employee.  When I walked in the door, who was manning the registration desk, but the employee of one of my other clients!  Very small world.  My purpose in attending the meeting was to try to find some potential contacts in the non-profit sector for my client.   One of the first women I spoke to had an association management company who managed 15 non-profits or not-for-profits.  And I thought, “Oh, I’m an idiot.  Why did I not think of connecting the client I was representing and the client who was running the show”.

When the morning was over, I spoke to Candace (the employee) and I mentioned why I was there.  And what did she tell me?  That as far as she knew, one of their other clients was in search of a web designer!  Since I had lots of Kent’s cards (client I was representing) in my pocket, I gave one to Candace who promised to make sure her boss/my client would get it.

Then I went off to do the minutes of a meeting at an organization that is a client of my client who was organizing the morning’s event…was that clear?

Later that day I was able to connect my two clients for a conversation to see if there is any way they can work together.  I love it when a plan works!

And that’s what I think I do really well for my clients, as a value added.  I have such a wide network of acquaintances and I really enjoy it when I can find a solution through that network, that works for a client…or two in this case.

Cheers!

YAY! We finally have an air date!

Finally an air date!  The series starts on W Network on April 7th at 8 p.m. and we’re going to be the 10th episode.  So, if the schedule goes according to plan, that means the RLS show will be on June 16th!  But don’t rely on my counting abilities.  Check out the rest of the series too.

Cheers