The Hive Method

Have you ever looked at a bee’s hive? I mean REALLY looked. 

No? As a an entrepreneur, maybe you should take the time to watch the bees. Watch how they all work together. Notice how they all have the same goal. Recognize how every single bee has a job. Every single bee is important. Every single bee makes a difference.

There are many things one can learn from a beehive. This article goes into more detail on the specifics, but there are basics too. There is a specific mentality in a beehive. It is the survival of the hive. Every bee works together toward one goal and puts that main goal above each individual task or idea. That is The Hive Method. 

If you were to look up the definition of a hive, you will find “a place swarming with activity.”  Is that what you think of when you think of your business? Maybe you see it swarming with activity but that activity is all over the place and not uniform, strong, and building toward a common goal. The Hive Method is a revolutionary approach to your business.   

The Hive Method

BizEBee created The Hive Method to bring together business consulting, business coaching, and virtual administration.  A business consultant will pick your business apart, identify weaknesses, and tell you what changes to make. A business coach will help you rely on your own knowledge and experience, and guide you into using that knowledge. A virtual assistant will do the things you don’t have time for. With these three things combined, your business can be like a bee hive. Imagine what it would be like to have all of these things working together like a well-oiled machine. 

The thing with The Hive Method is that nobody is alone in the hive. The leader is immersed in everything while the rest of the bees swarm around them working for the good of the whole hive. Nothing is put completely on one individual. Everything is a team effort.  As a hive, everybody works toward the common goal of making your business successful, and helping you maintain that success. 

Why would you want to have three different people working separately with you and your business when you can have The Hive Method, and those three people working for you with communication, common goals, and the hive mentality?

Do You Have a Real Estate Assistant?

Balance working with a virtual and an in-house assistant.

Having an in-house real estate assistant can be a great asset to your business. They should be able to help you with your everyday tasks, and assist you with other tasks as needed. But most likely they can’t do everything, all of the time. That is where a virtual team member comes in. 

What is the difference between an in-house assistant’s abilities, and a virtual team member’s abilities? It all depends on what you need. Your real estate assistant may be fantastic with marketing and assisting with transaction coordination, but isn’t great at calling your leads. It could be that your real estate assistant is only there to focus on answering calls, managing your day-to-day activities, and is hands-off with everything else. As with any team member, everybody has their own skill set. 

With a business services company, such as BizEBee Consulting, you can have the best of both worlds. You can have your in-house real estate assistant, plus an entire team of virtual team members to assist you with whatever you need. 

How do you work with both?

If you have both an in-house real estate assistant, and would like to add a virtual team member, it is important to decide who does what. Take time in advance to decide what your in-house’s skills and responsibilities are to include. Then you take everything else and that is what your virtual team can handle for you. It doesn’t need to be harder than that. 

If you have a project that requires the coordination of the in-house and the virtual team, that shouldn’t be a problem either. Most virtual team members are fully equipped and willing to work with in-house assistants on anything that is needed. 

Are you ready to take the next step and talk about adding a virtual team to your business? If you are interested in more information, or for a FREE Business Analysis, call us at 202-469-6774. You can also schedule an appointment online to meet your schedule! 

What is a Free Business Analysis?

If you have been following or considering BizEBee Virtual Assistants you have seen that BizEBee offers a Free Business Analysis to potential and existing clients. Are you curious about what exactly is a Free Business Analysis?

Our Free Business Analysis is a 15-30 minutes phone call with one of our Client Success Coordinators or assistants that specialize in business consultation. The first portion of the call will review your current business status, goals for the year, and areas of potential business need or growth. After reviewing areas of potential business growth the Client Success Coordinator will review how BizEBee could perform work to grow your business and provide you with more time to focus on money generating tasks within your business.

When you schedule your Free Business Analysis our Client Success Coordinators perform an audit of your branding and marketing presence before the call. This ensures that your time on the phone call is 100% productive and informative. Our Free Business Analysis will provide you with an overview of how BizEBee Virtual Assistants can take your business to the next level.    

  

Consider a Free Business Analysis from BizEBee Virtual Assistants to assist you with your decision. Our Assistants are experienced, skilled, and certified with a passion for administration and helping businesses to succeed. Contact BizEBee, 202-469-6774 or admin@mybizebee.com.     

Cost Vs Quality

As a business manager or business owner the decision of who performs the work or tasks is yours. You review your options and make the decision based on several factors. Two of the factors that play a leading role are cost and quality. Your business must show a return of investments or ROI, so this may have your leaning to the cheapest option. Understanding the investment and planning for the business’s future could have you considering the option with the highest level of performance and quality.

The old saying is true that you get what you pay for and when you select the more economical or cheaper source to perform the tasks you might be surprised to learn who is performing the work. The lower the cost per hour typically results in a less experienced, skilled, or trained person performing the work. Always keep in mind experts and experience in a field will require a higher cost per hour. Paying more per hour may result in a higher cost per hour, but could have the potential to generate more revenue justifying the higher cost per hour.

The quality level of the work performed is a direct reflection of your business and can grow your business or send customers to your competition. When you are selecting who will perform the work, select the candidate that provides you with professional grade quality and takes your business forward. Poor quality work is negative for branding, reputation, and referrals. Making the investment in a professional that provides high quality work will build your business.

Cost and quality are two factors that you must consider when hiring the company or person that will work as an extension of your business. Understand how each impacts your current and future business, so that you are able to make the best decision. Consider a Free Business Analysis from BizEBee Virtual Assistants to assist you with your decision. Our Assistants are experienced, skilled, and certified with a passion for administration and helping businesses to succeed. Contact BizEBee, 202-469-6774 or admin@mybizebee.com.     

Delegate Which Tasks?

You hired an assistant to delegate work and help you have more time to focus on growing your business, but now you are not sure what tasks to delegate. Many business owners hire an assistant and then have fear or concern over what tasks to trust the assistant to perform. Trusting someone else with your business is hard, but understanding what tasks to delegate will help you delegate tasks easier.

First, take an inventory or make a list of each task you currently perform daily, weekly, or monthly for your business to function. Make sure to include all tasks even the small ones to your list as this will help you to view your full workload. From this list mark off any tasks that requires your direct interaction such as meeting with clients.

Second, with the remaining tasks that does not require your direct interaction ask this question, “Does the task generate revenue?” If the tasks generate revenue highlight the task in green to represent money producing task. The remaining tasks on your list will be administrative or maintenance and these should be the first tasks to delegate to your assistant. Once your assistant is performing the non-revenue tasks, it is time to review the money producing tasks that your perform.

Third, from the list of money or revenue producing tasks review and categorize the tasks into two categories. The first category is long term or future revenue tasks such as potential or future customers. The second category is revenue or money producing tasks that generate current revenue such as current business orders or current customers. Start delegating the long term or future revenue tasks to your assistant. This will provide you with more time to focus on your current customers or business deals.

Following these simple steps allow you to delegate tasks to your assistant and build more time in your schedule to grow your business by increasing revenue potential. If you are looking for an assistant or would like a free business analysis to discover more ways to improve your business contact, BizEBee Virtual Assistants, 202-469-6774 or admin@mybizebee.com and put our experience and knowledge to work for you. 

Virtual Assistant - Extension of Your Business?

As a business owner you are always looking for ways to grow and reach your business goals. One way that you can achieve both is hiring a Virtual Assistant that specializes in your business industry. An experienced Virtual Assistant will work as an extension of your business.

Business Consulting- Virtual Assistants put their skills, experience, and knowledge to work to complete tasks that you assign the virtual assistant and consult with you about other areas or services that can strengthen and build your business.

Professional Level Quality- When a Virtual Assistant is specialized in your area of business the quality of work that is completed for your business is higher and reflects well on your business. This ensures that your business has the edge over the competition.

Relate to Market- Your customer base and market is as unique as your business. The Virtual Assistant that you hire should have the ability to recognize who your customer is, what your customer expects, and how to build your business to expand your market or customer base. Knowledgeable Virtual Assistants invest time to fully understand your business market and customer base.

Business Goals- Virtual Assistants are dedicated to the success of your business. This is achieved by the virtual assistant helping you to reach your business goals and experienced virtual assistants setting goals for their work to take your business to the next level.

When you select the right Virtual Assistant you have the ability to expand and grow your business. If you are looking for a Virtual Assistant that will be an extension of your business contact BizEBee Virtual Assistants, 202-469-6774 or admin@mybizebee.com. 

Selecting a Virtual Assistant Company

After months of careful consideration you have made the decision to select a Virtual Assistant Company to help optimize the workflow for your business. When you start your search for the virtual assistant company that is the best fit, you realize you are not exactly sure where to start. Use the tips below to act as a guide during your selection process for a virtual assistant company.

Identify your Business Goals- First, take time to remind yourself of your business goals, business needs, and what your business means to you. In order to select a virtual assistant company that compliments your business you must clearly identify your business’s goals, mission, and values. These three items are the heart of your business and must be the heart of the virtual assistant company that you select.

Specialization- Your business needs, potential for growth and branding is unique to you and selecting a virtual assistant company that understands your unique business will improve efficiency and productivity of the tasks you delegate to the virtual assistant company. The virtual assistant company that you select must be an extension of you in order to be the best fit.

Experience- Always select a virtual assistant company that only hires experienced virtual assistants. An experienced virtual assistant will have the ability to immediately begin work with minimal supervision and instruction. The guarantees the virtual assistant company succeeds at your primary goal and giving you more time to focus on other areas of your business.

Accessible Leadership- The leadership of the virtual assistant company that you select should be available and show genuine interest in your business and a passion for their role in the virtual assistant company. Active and involved leadership shows that the virtual assistant company will act as your partner and truly invest their resources in helping your business reach success.

As you move through your search for a virtual assistant company take a moment to review BizEBee Virtual Assistants. Our goal is to join our clients in helping their business reach success. When you are ready contact us at, 202-469-6774, for a Free Business Analysis and learn how our services can assist with taking your business to the next level.       

Social Media in the Real Estate World

Why do you need an effective social medial strategy in the real estate industry? The answer is in the question…..social. Regardless of whether you are a real estate agent, mortgage broker, stager, inspector or any of the many other professions that makes up the real estate industry, your job is based on making personal connections. Isn’t that what social media is about? Making personal connections?

All real estate starts with a personal meeting. From the very start, to be effective, the agent needs to make a connection and ask questions to gain an understanding of the client’s needs. With the increasing influence of technology and the Internet, much of this now happens online. A solid social media presence can allow your clients and professional clients to learn more about you and gain a comfort level faster than a single meeting can do.

Social media has become a part of most people’s day. Prospects are engaging with agents every day. What better way to stay connected to leads and past clients, then interacting with them about things that are important to them?

Buyers and seller are also searching for agents that utilize the latest technology as both tools and marketing techniques. They expect their agent to stay current. Social media is no longer just for young people, it’s become a popular form of communication. Facebook messages, tweets, snapchat, Instagram…all the ways users interact with each other. If you’re not on these platforms, your competition is.

“But, I don’t know what I’m doing”
“I don’t have time to learn about social media”
“What should I post? And When?”

Great questions! And more detailed than we can discuss in this post.  But it’s important to get started on the basics. At a minimum, you need to have a Facebook Page, Twitter Account and YouTube Channel. Still finding this daunting? The good news is that the management of these sites can be outsourced to a virtual assistant.

You don’t make your own for sale signs, do you?

Your clients are online every day, sometimes all day. You need to be in front of them on those sites. The savvy, successful real estate professional is using social media to engage with clients and prospects, market properties and services and staying in touch with past clients. It’s a personal way to connect with leads and clients in a way that can be fun as well as relevant. You need a social media strategy that works. If you need help, and then hire someone to help you manage this important part of your business plan. 

Virtual Assistant vs In-house Assistant

Benjamin Franklin once said “Lost time is never found again”. But what does that sentiment mean to your business?  Does your business need a full staff of assistants and the office space that they will require to work in, as well as the furniture and equipment? Will you be able to find the right assistants to do the job? Do you have the time to hire, manage, and possibly fire assistants?  Do you keep a steady workload in order to keep these assistants busy? Will there be times that you need your assistant to work outside the normal business hours?  

Today, finding the right people for the job is virtually a key stroke away. I’m talking about a virtual assistant. Entrepreneur magazine writes “Using a virtual assistant can shave hours from your workweek,…, whether you’re starting or growing a business”.   

A virtual assistant can manage as many aspects of your business as you choose, while continuously changing with the needs of your business. A virtual assistant can  recruit staff, schedule appointments, conduct research, create documents and flyers, coordinate transactions, complete database entry and management and so many more endeavors, that cost your business time. And as we know- time is money. A virtual assistant is like having access to an office filled with specialists, but without the office and high overhead.  Best of all, you are in control of what your virtual assistant does and you are only paying for that work.  

The business world of 9-5 hours, an office filled with assistants, and a handshake to seal a deal is long gone. Today, we live in a fast paced world of technology.

Today, every minute counts in the world of business!

At BizeBee Virtual Assistants, you can count on us for all your business needs.

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