Dive inside the minds and processes of CEOs, managers, nomads, and dynamic entrepreneurs who are building impactful businesses and organizations through this new and innovative movement.
“Leadership is not a matter of authority, it is a matter of influence. A true leader teaches others to understand more, motivates them to be more and inspires them to become more.” — Michael Josephson
Creating and organizing a virtual team is one thing, but in order to indeed be successful, you must learn to lead and inspire effectively. The key is to communicate clearly and establish systems while encouraging your team members to be the best they can be.
The Psychology of Communication in Virtual Teams
Since remote teams face unique challenges in comparison to face-to-face teams, particularly in regards to both verbal and nonverbal cues, you need to implement key strategies that optimize clear, concise communication. In turn, you’ll enforce the concept of shared understanding, which is imperative to virtual team success.
The key is to build trust by encouraging open communication. To do so, schedule a video conference call, allowing your virtual team to meet you and one another. This will significantly reduce the risk of miscommunication and let your virtual team build social bonds.
Relationship-building also helps when it’s time to collaborate — so encourage a culture of communication from the get-go. Taking the time to get to know your virtual assistant is imperative, and when you do connect regularly, be sure to focus on:
[Considering a Virtual Assistant?]
The Principles of Effective Behavior Change
As more and more enterprises conduct business through virtual teamwork, new systems and processes need to be developed in order to maximize productivity. If you would like to alter your team’s current behavior to get more done, you need to lead differently than you would in a more formal managerial role.
Although you should focus on building a relationship with your virtual team members, you’ll also need to establish work rules and procedures. For example, should your team member(s) share information via email, a program such as Basecamp, or another method of communication?
When your team has a clear understanding of what it is they’re expected to do, their behavior will follow. However, you should also ensure that your team members feel empowered to make some of their own decisions, especially when those decisions are related to their area of expertise.
[Considering a Virtual Assistant?]
Tactics to Better Influence Your Team
When leading a virtual team, you need to focus on the fundamentals of successful leadership. This includes running regular meetings, developing clear goals, and highlighting individual strengths throughout your team.
Some tactics you can implement, include:
Selecting and Implementing the Right Technology
Although you can create a talented team, this will not be enough. A virtual team requires the right tools and technology to ensure each goal is met. From the importance of a CRM to the benefits of project tracking, this guide will help you optimize your current systems in order to grow your overall revenue.
Want to learn more? Be sure to request your 20+ free growth and strategy guides today!
[Considering a Virtual Assistant?]
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment cost
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Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Pioneers of virtual assistant services, our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
Honestly, we hear this more often than we would like. Other virtual assistant companies are hurting the trust that businesses have for virtual assistants — and these are the companies which do not hold the same gold standards as MyOutDesk does. The truth is, there are broad opportunities & huge potential when choosing the right virtual assistant provider & business partner.
In this STRATEGY-focused webinar, understand the magic of selling physical real estate through virtual solutions. This year is your ultimate test.
Fun Fact: Knolly Williams doesn’t go to a showing UNTIL he’s already signing the listing agreement/selling/closing the sale. He’s worked remotely more than he has stayed in an office (started at 23 years old, and he’s in his early 50s now).
As a top-performing real estate broker who has coached tens of thousands of agents & brokers around the world, Knolly Williams has over 300 listings without ever physically seeing any house, and he’s been doing this since 2008!
Tune in to understand his remote business model and how he leverages his virtual assistants to prepare everything. Knolly shared very important tips, tricks, and resources on our topic:
“Houses don’t have to be seen to be sold: Virtual Real Estate Selling”
Agents didn’t think it was possible to effectively sell virtually until COVID-19 forced everyone to.
Knolly has been featured on ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, Newsweek, and in over 300 newspapers worldwide. He is an author, trainer, national speaker, entrepreneur, real estate broker, and pastor of the Front Row Church.
Resources:
Knolly’s Sample Team Checklists https://bit.ly/2XmMWZ7
Knolly’s Sample Assistance Form https://bit.ly/36rAXO7
Knolly’s book “Consider it Sold!” https://bit.ly/3bU3LA5
Salesforce has a lot of built-in security measures that make working from home just as secure as being physically in an office. In the age of information, it’s important to keep data secure not only for your clients but also for your own peace of mind. In 2019 alone, over 1400 data breaches were discovered resulting in millions of dollars in fines. Data Breach Insurance is becoming increasingly popular as well. It’s our duty as businesses, operating with consumer data, to take every precaution to protect our client’s PII (personally identifiable information). Let’s go over some of the ways Salesforce empowers us to do just that.
2 Factor Authentication
One of the best defenses offered by Salesforce is 2 Factor Authentication (2FA). With 2FA, a user is required to have his or her device on hand in order to validate each and every login. If a user in your organization was to have their password stolen the malicious actor on the other end would not be able to get to any data without also having physical access to their smartphone. The idea around 2FA is to protect your account with both something you know and something you have.
Getting started with 2 Factor Authentication in Salesforce is easy. Just head to the 2FA Admin Rollout Guide provided by Salesforce to get started
The Salesforce Authenticator can also be found on the App Store and Google Play Store.
Login Hours
Another security feature that Salesforce has is login hours. For example, Andrew works 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday. We can configure a login window to only allow him to log in and log out from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday through Friday. This acts as an additional layer of protection from potential abuse or data theft.
Here is a quick guide from Salesforce on setting up login times for your users.
IP Whitelisting
In the work-from-home environment, it is sometimes important to ensure that users are logging into your Salesforce organization through a VPN or home address. One way Salesforce can enforce this is through IP address whitelisting. We consider this a more advanced feature. You can read more about setting it up here.
Disable Export Report
Disabling a user’s ability to export reports can help prevent protected information from being downloaded. Under General User Permissions you can uncheck “Export Reports” to remove this feature. While it does not stop them from printing and copy-pasting data it does prevent them from immediately having access to data in a well-formatted way. For additional security, you will want to consider Salesforce Shield.
Organization-Wide Password Policies
It is important to not only use secure passwords but rotate them often. A data breach involving a third-party site could end up affecting your organization if users have the same password. This is not uncommon, which is why many websites recommend using unique passwords for every website you are subscribed to. Expiring passwords organization-wide ensures that the likelihood of this occurring is very small.
Secure Password Generation & Sharing
Sometimes in an organization, we need to share logins with other individuals. DO NOT USE A SPREADSHEET FOR THIS! In smaller businesses, it’s tempting to simply have a text document or a spreadsheet to keep passwords on. This is insecure firstly because it’s not encrypted. Secondly, if you lose access to the machine, the passwords are all compromised. At MyOutDesk, we use 1Password to securely generate a random password and share any login information between devices or other users. Never share a Salesforce Login! We are listing this tip here since passwords are sometimes used in multiple places and it’s important to make sure Salesforce is not one of those.
Salesforce Shield
If the data inside your Salesforce instance is subject to strict compliance standards such as HIPAA then you will want to look into using Salesforce Shield. Salesforce Shield offers additional encryption features suitable for Financial services, healthcare, or businesses looking to protect certain IP or trade secrets. Shield also offers special Event Monitoring services which keep track of all data into and out of your system (reports, saved data, API access, etc). Additionally, this data is constantly monitored by Salesforce for unexpected behavior and unusual activity.
You can read more about Salesforce Shield here
From the beginning, MyOutDesk has been developing applications in remote environments with a team of developers from the US, Philippines, Pakistan, and India. Now more than ever it’s important to embrace smooth & modernized delivery pipelines to ensure the development and deployment of critical applications.
IT Virtual Assistants can help you build the applications you NEED and QUICKLY for your competitive company. MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs with experienced, full-time virtual assistants. To book an interview with those in our talent pool, click here.
Here’s how our remote team is keeping our development pipeline flowing.
Git is a Version Control System. Version control systems “are a category of software tools that help a software team manage changes to source code over time. Version control software keeps track of every modification to the code in a special kind of database. If a mistake is made, developers can turn back the clock and compare earlier versions of the code to help fix the mistake while minimizing disruption to all team members.” (source)
Github is a platform operated by Microsoft that allows developers to store their Git repositories and share them with the world as open-source projects or share it with other developers privately as a team.
With Github launching Github Teams for free there is no reason to put off adopting Github as your tool of choice for developer collaboration. It directly integrates with CircleCI, meaning that any commitment to any branch is automatically built and tested. This reduces regressions and ensures developers can focus and have peace of mind that their deployment won’t break a critical piece of your application.
Before any code is deployed we also create a pull request and ask for peer reviews. A pull request will bundle the changes and allow other developers to comment, mark specific lines that need to be adjusted, and discuss potential breaking changes. Once a pull request is accepted, a final pull request is built tagging the version before anything goes to production.
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In the past, we leveraged Jenkins as our tool of choice for Continuous Integration. Jenkins is a great tool for any company needing complete control over the build process, testing, and even deployment of their software. Unfortunately, you’ll need to run it on your own infrastructure most of the time and maintain verbose and complicated build scripts depending on application complexity. In the past year, MyOutDesk has moved our build process over to CircleCI to allow us to focus on development and testing instead of building & deploying.
CircleCI is a continuous integration & delivery platform that automatically spins up custom or pre-built docker containers to build your application and run it’s tests. CircleCI also has Orbs which simplify the process of configuring your container. This abstraction makes it much easier to extend its functionality (versus writing your own docker scripts).
For our build process, we need NodeJS in addition to AWS-CLI. It’s much easier for us to include the Orbs for Node & AWS-CLI in the build definition file (YAML) rather than write our own scripts to install it when the container launches or to build our own custom image. Additionally, we can be sure the testing environment is completely fresh every time tests are executed. CircleCI has its own certified orbs or you can build your own depending on the complexity of your application. Lastly, we pull down the AWS-CLI to allow us to ship artifacts to Elastic Beanstalk.
Top talent Virtual Assistants bring you a huge return on investment.
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Every application MyOutDesk maintains ships with both Cloudwatch Log Monitoring and Sentry Error Reporting. This is an absolute must when working remotely with a team of developers. There is not a single exception or critical application failure that occurs in the production environments that we are not aware of before it is reported by our internal staff or end-users.
Working 100% remotely with your development team presents a lot of challenges. However, with the right implementation of Github, CI\CD Services, effective review of pull requests, and proper monitoring working with a fully remote development team is a breeze.
IT Virtual Assistants can help you build the applications you NEED and QUICKLY for your competitive company. We’ll say it again, MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs with experienced, full-time virtual assistants! To find the talent you need & to book an interview, click here.
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free strategy consultation & Thrive Guide
Like most business owners, the past quarter went by as a complete crash course for many.
MyOutDesk is here to support your business as you go through this change in today’s market. We serve you by supplying valuable resources, helping you support your customers, and providing remote solutions that allow your business to thrive and survive!
Access guides with free consultation here:
You can access all three guides when scheduling a no-frills strategy consultation with us.
MyOutDesk started its business to scale with virtual assistants DURING the last recession, the global financial crisis of 2008. We are uniquely positioned to help you BEST respond to the current health crisis. That’s why we’re offering FREE strategy consultation calls & downloads.
During the call, we’ll walk you through step-by-step on how to use these guides & understand what your business needs to recover ASAP.
In 2018, only 5% of Americans worked remotely. Today, over 50% are attempting to do it, but are they doing it correctly?
Be prepared to shoot back up while understanding today’s market. Don’t wait around like many businesses, and stay ahead of the curve. Schedule a strategy consultation & access these 3 guides today!
From marketing to administrative tasks and even sales, the help of Virtual Assistants offers a ton of benefits. The demand for virtual assistants is multiplying. To help you make the best decision for your business, understand the benefits of virtual assistants here.
(To learn more about virtual assistants, schedule a FREE Business Strategy call with MyOutDesk today!)
Top talent Virtual Assistants bring you a huge return on investment.
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These are compelling reasons to hire a virtual assistant, and for many jobs ranging from administrative work to telemarketing, a Virtual Assistant working remotely is a perfect fit. Here’s what career Virtual Assistants know they contribute when working full-time with clients.
Regardless of the industry, you’ll experience incredibly busy periods, as well as slower periods. Your goals may also change throughout the year, impacting the types of tasks that need to be addressed. In order to achieve this level of flexibility, a virtual assistant is an ideal solution.
This strategy will allow you to pinpoint opportunities that’ll likely lead to increased productivity and growth — all while you continue to develop new growth ideas and techniques.
MyOttDesk Virtual Assistants are selected through a stringent talent-matching process. They are a professional talent pool with experience serving real estate, healthcare, finance, commerce, utilities, and much more!
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
When considering hired help, you must compare the potential cost-saving benefits associated with a virtual assistant. When hiring a full-time employee, you’ll need to consider costs related to onboarding, benefits, and other hidden costs.
In contrast, a virtual assistant can help you overcome busy periods without needing to pay someone during slower periods. Although you’ll still need to pay for their services, a virtual assistant is an investment — the type of investment that can significantly boost long-term revenue.
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The old saying, “Two heads are better than one,” could not be closer to the truth. When hiring a virtual assistant to address x, y, and z, those tasks no longer require your attention. Learning to delegate such tasks is one of the most effective ways to boost overall efficiency.
Also, a virtual assistant can help you become much more organized so that you can easily access the files and documents you need when you need them. From bookkeeping to CRM management, a virtual assistant will provide the level of support you need.
Some weeks seem as though they are hitting like a ton of bricks. As you try to catch up, prospective business is not addressed as it should be. Whether following up with last week’s clients or are sending out client documentation, you can INSTEAD spend your time on more dollar-productive activities and leave the rest to a mighty Virtual Assistant.
In turn, your clients/customers are not getting the attention they expect — and your business could suffer. Virtual assistants can address all of your customers’ questions and concerns, all while you focus on driving your business forward.
Just imagine being able to grow your client list while you strengthen your relationship with current clients. Perhaps you have a contact list that you have not yet used for marketing purposes? If so, a virtual assistant could create an email or telemarketing campaign to gain more leads and, in turn, grow your client list.
If routine, non-dollar productive tasks are steering your business into a rut, it’s time to eliminate these tasks off your plate. MyOutDesk has been serving business professionals across the country for over 13 years, becoming one of the top service providers in virtual assistant services.
We are here only for your success. That’s why we are offering zero-obligation strategy calls with free access to our guides and books.
Schedule your free business strategy call today. We’ll map out a plan for attaining:
MyOutDesk brings you 13 years of recession-tackling knowledge. We are committed to supporting your continued drive to champion a thriving business and support your local community during the COVID-19 health crisis. Schedule a free strategy call today.
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Nobody knows remote work like MyOutDesk. Watch this exclusive webinar event to give you complete, step-by-step instructions to take your business remote!
This week, California implemented a “Shelter In Place” policy, locking down the Bay Area to everything but essential businesses. Washington State has done the same, closing restaurants, bars, gyms, and schools – with other states soon to follow. Make no mistake: for most businesses, this will be a forced transition to a virtual/remote work environment, so prepare now for a smooth, seamless transition! Also, to get the knowledge, support & staffing you need to go fully remote, schedule your Double My Business Strategy Session now!
MyOutDesk has thousands of clients & virtual assistants across the world working in a virtual environment, giving us 13 years of experience in virtual & remote workplace environments – and in this exclusive, upcoming live webinar, we’re going to be walking you through EXACTLY how to take your business remote during the COVID-19 crisis.
This must-watch webinar event is presented as a community service by MyOutDesk to help you prepare, transition, and keep your business going during our current economic uncertainty.
In Chinese, the word “crisis” means danger + opportunity. In today’s market, agile businesses will adapt to new rules & challenges of the remote workplace & rise to the top of the market, while brick & mortar competitors continue to struggle & lose market share. Which of these would you prefer to be?
Virtually any professional services business can go remote: from real estate to telemedicine. The question is how to do it quickly & effectively. MyOutDesk is your partner in going remote – schedule your Double My Business Strategy Session now and let us help you!
Lock-downs, social distancing, and community quarantines are in full force all over the world, and for those whose who are able to accommodate it, working from home is the new norm for many businesses as well. Switching from a normal office setup to a remote setting can be a huge adjustment and those of us who have been doing this for years would like to share some tips and insights on what you can do to ensure that you and your business continue to thrive despite this major shift. Make sure to read all the way to the end, we’ll be sharing some other articles we’ve posted in the past that might be helpful as well!
Navigate the ins and outs of running your team remotely with a MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant. Book a consultation with us today to find out how.
Setting up a home office can be a great way to ensure that you continue to remain focused on your daily grind. If you don’t have one already, make sure you have enough space and all the materials and supplies you need. Anything from stacks of notepads and sticky notes, a corkboard, and even a snack drawer think of everything you usually need at your office desk and make sure you have them handy. You might need to invest in some hardware or technology that could be very helpful to you as well. Like a good pair of noise-canceling headphones or headset, a webcam, etc.
If space is an issue for you, putting up a divider of some sort can be a great option. If you have children, roommates, or other people who are staying home just like you, have a conversation about what you need and perhaps agree on “quiet time” or “do not disturb” hours so you can all focus on what you need to get done.
The important thing is to focus on the positives of working from home, like your fully equipped kitchen and the fact that you can wear your PJ’s to work, oh and did we mention the short and hassle-free commute from your bed to your desk?
Leading a remote team will have its unique challenges but if you are able to set it up well then you can expect smooth sailing. By setting specific parameters that you not have had to do in your office, you can all go on as you usually do. Assess the roles in your team and how working remotely might change the dynamics of that role and find solutions to how those differences can be addressed in your new setting. As time goes on, make sure you are all clarifying and re-clarifying goals and roles so that nothing slips through the cracks.
A disruptive event like coronavirus will generate new and competing tasks across the business. As a result, leaders need to continually clarify goals at the team and individual levels to stay focused on key priorities. A great way to keep track of this is by using a project management tool like Monday or Slack. Make sure all members of your team are\updating their boards consistently and in real-time so that nobody gets lost and everyone knows each other’s progress.
Keep your team’s unity strong by creating ways to interact online. Schedule regular meetings via applications like Zoom or GoToMeeting. Many programs offer free subscriptions and many are offering free services for companies and businesses in light of the coronavirus. Make sure you also set time to have interactions that are not work-related so that you and your team have a chance to check in on each other’s personal lives.
The Harvard Business Review suggests the following:
Take a virtual tour. At the start of a project, encourage each person to take a few minutes to show the team his or her home workspace and share some personal context. What are the possible distractions — like barking dogs, noisy passing trucks, or kids coming home from school? The aim is to help colleagues develop an understanding of each person’s work context so they can be more sensitive to each other’s constraints.
Acknowledge non-traditional workspaces. Michael, a millennial working in New York City, lives in an apartment with multiple roommates and doesn’t have private office space for working at home. If some of his roommates are also working remotely, he is likely to face the challenge of people walking or talking in the background during video calls. Let Michael know you appreciate his challenge and are open to discussing alternatives like flexing work hours so that calls happen when it’s quieter for him.
Keep your assumptions or stereotypes in check. Sarah, an executive participating in a conference call, received a text message from a colleague: “Mute yourself. We can hear your baby crying.” She replied: “My baby is napping. That’s Matthew’s son you heard.” The ambiguity inherent in having team members working from home can lead to biased assumptions about focus and commitment to work.
Here are some articles we’ve published that might further help you out as you lead your virtual team:
While the coronavirus and other such calamities might lead to disruption and cause you to have to change things quite drastically, we now have technology and means to be able to adjust with the right strategies.
If you would like to find out more about MyOutDesk Virtual Assistants and how they can become key players in your team during this time, please schedule your consultation so we can help you out.
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