Virtual Assistants have been working remotely from their home offices for years. They are small business entrepreneurs who are highly skilled in assisting management teams and existing support staff for all types of companies. Your operational support team does not necessarily need to work in house. Here are the reasons why:

1. You are a small business that does not have the capital to hire a full time assistant but you do need help
2. You do not have the time to set up your business travel
3. You need someone to assist with your online marketing strategy but it is not a full time position
4. You need an assistant to manage emails and your calendar
5. You need to create and edit correspondence
6. You need an assistant to manage your social media marketing such as your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts

These are just a few reasons why you should consider hiring a virtual assistant. Furthermore, keep in mind they are their own small business and should be treated as such.

In my next post, I will talk about the various pay scales for virtual assistants. The scales are mainly based on skill level, experience and particular job description.

Also, if you haven’t already, please sign up for our weekly newsletter “Viewing Value” where we collect and disseminate the best new ideas targeted at senior managers of expansion stage technology companies.

Virtual Assistants have been working remotely from their home offices for years. They are small business entrepreneurs who are highly skilled in assisting management teams and existing support staff for all types of companies. Your operational support team does not necessarily need to work in house. Here are the reasons why:

1. You are a small business that does not have the capital to hire a full time assistant but you do need help
2. You do not have the time to set up your business travel
3. You need someone to assist with your online marketing strategy but it is not a full time position
4. You need an assistant to manage emails and your calendar
5. You need to create and edit correspondence
6. You need an assistant to manage your social media marketing such as your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts

These are just a few reasons why you should consider hiring a virtual assistant. Furthermore, keep in mind they are their own small business and should be treated as such.

In my next post, I will talk about the various pay scales for virtual assistants. The scales are mainly based on skill level, experience and particular job description.

Also, if you haven’t already, please sign up for our weekly newsletter “Viewing Value” where we collect and disseminate the best new ideas targeted at senior managers of expansion stage technology companies.

I will create a series of blogs on some topics regarding virtual assisting, including:

• Why hire a virtual assistant
• How to hire one
• Where to find them
• How to manage them
• When a virtual assistant won’t work for your needs
• How to become a virtual assistant
   

If you are interested in learning more about a topic related to virtual assisting, let me know by commenting on this blog.

Virtual assistants can help management teams with organization management, operational support as well as recruiting support. If you are interested in learning more, stay tuned to my blog!

I was at a friend’s birthday party this past weekend which was catered by a small company called KristopherRobin catering. The entire event was basically a glorified cocktail hour. The food was phenomenal! The staff, Kristopher, Robin and another server were wonderfully courteous and made sure that everyone across the entire party got a chance to sample the hors d’oeuvres.

The reason I mention this is because in a previous post, “Meeting Planner Lessons,” I described how I needed to lower my cost for catering. I did not know that the event I was going to on my personal time was going to give me a lead on something for work.

I will be contacting KristopherRobin catering to find out how this Boston venture capital firm can use their expertise (and delicious food) at the next event we host for our expansion stage portfolio companies.

I was at a friend’s birthday party this past weekend which was catered by a small company called KristopherRobin catering. The entire event was basically a glorified cocktail hour. The food was phenomenal! The staff, Kristopher, Robin and another server were wonderfully courteous and made sure that everyone across the entire party got a chance to sample the hors d’oeuvres.

The reason I mention this is because in a previous post, “Meeting Planner Lessons,” I described how I needed to lower my cost for catering. I did not know that the event I was going to on my personal time was going to give me a lead on something for work.

I will be contacting KristopherRobin catering to find out how this Boston venture capital firm can use their expertise (and delicious food) at the next event we host for our expansion stage portfolio companies.

At OpenView Venture Partners, we have access to a gorgeous roof deck. We held the cocktail reception on the deck this time and it actually worked out really well. It was the harvest moon and the weather was beautiful. Everyone enjoyed the novelty of having the reception on the deck with the Boston skyline in the background. There is not a ton to be learned from the cocktail reception, other than trying to lower the cost of the event.

Forum day:

The meeting space was laid out very well for the format of the discussion. We set up the tables in rounds to seat 6 people each. I had power strips under each table so that attendants and management teams could continue to use their laptops or charge phones.

Meeting collateral was all set and passed out to each guest.

Catering…this is where we can save the most money in the future and the largest lessons were learned.

From an operational support / meeting planner stand point, the meeting went very well over all. I will blog next week about how I will attempt to improve the cost and function of the catering we chose.

At OpenView Venture Partners, we have access to a gorgeous roof deck. We held the cocktail reception on the deck this time and it actually worked out really well. It was the harvest moon and the weather was beautiful. Everyone enjoyed the novelty of having the reception on the deck with the Boston skyline in the background. There is not a ton to be learned from the cocktail reception, other than trying to lower the cost of the event.

Forum day:

The meeting space was laid out very well for the format of the discussion. We set up the tables in rounds to seat 6 people each. I had power strips under each table so that attendants and management teams could continue to use their laptops or charge phones.

Meeting collateral was all set and passed out to each guest.

Catering…this is where we can save the most money in the future and the largest lessons were learned.

From an operational support / meeting planner stand point, the meeting went very well over all. I will blog next week about how I will attempt to improve the cost and function of the catering we chose.

The new Labs website, which is linked to our blog and OpenView Venture Partners websites, includes information on Product, Company and Customer Development. This information is in the form of videos, podcasts, articles and blogs from experts in the field.

For more information about our Labs team, you can check out Firas Raouf’s earlier blog; it explains their functionality well.

If you are a CEO looking for investors, check out our newest resource, OpenView Lab’s website!

The new Labs website, which is linked to our blog and OpenView Venture Partners websites, includes information on Product, Company and Customer Development. This information is in the form of videos, podcasts, articles and blogs from experts in the field.

For more information about our Labs team, you can check out Firas Raouf’s earlier blog; it explains their functionality well.

If you are a CEO looking for investors, check out our newest resource, OpenView Lab’s website!

From an operational support point of view, setting up this new space has been a challenge. Today I met with a catering company to go over the menu for the CFO Forum cocktail reception and meeting. I have always relied upon the banquet staff at the hotels we used in the past for all of the food and beverage needs for these meetings. I was shocked at the items I needed to now think about.

-table linens (if any at all)
-bar set up for cocktail reception
-flatware
*how do we set it out?
*will we use their flatware or our own?
-napkins
*how many will I need?
*do I use cloth or paper?
-plates
*do we use theirs or ours?
*paper or china?

The list could go on and on, it seems! I have set up as much as I can and will leave the rest up to learning on the job! It is going to be a great learning experience for me.

We are going to be using this space as a conference center to house our quarterly forums, portfolio company board meetings and mini-forums/educational sessions for expansion stage portfolio and prospect companies.

We have hosted our previous quarterly meetings in rented hotel space. This will be the first time in my career that I will be getting together everything for a large meeting internally. I did not realize how heavily I relied upon hotel Event and Banquet staffs until I had to think of it all on my own. As an operational support professional here at our Boston venture capital firm, I have learned many things and grown in my career. I am looking forward to this new challenge and will blog about how it is all going!

We are going to be using this space as a conference center to house our quarterly forums, portfolio company board meetings and mini-forums/educational sessions for expansion stage portfolio and prospect companies.

We have hosted our previous quarterly meetings in rented hotel space. This will be the first time in my career that I will be getting together everything for a large meeting internally. I did not realize how heavily I relied upon hotel Event and Banquet staffs until I had to think of it all on my own. As an operational support professional here at our Boston venture capital firm, I have learned many things and grown in my career. I am looking forward to this new challenge and will blog about how it is all going!

First, figure out what type of mistake you made. According to Scott Berkun‘s How to learn from your mistakes, there are 4 types of mistakes.

• Stupid: Absurdly dumb things that just happen. Stubbing your toe, dropping your pizza on your neighbor’s fat cat or poking yourself in the eye with a banana.
• Simple: Mistakes that are avoidable but your sequence of decisions made inevitable. Having the power go out in the middle of your party because you forgot to pay the rent, or running out of beer at said party because you didn’t anticipate the number of guests.
• Involved: Mistakes that are understood but require effort to prevent. Regularly arriving late to work/friends, eating fast food for lunch every day, or going bankrupt at your start-up company because of your complete ignorance of basic accounting.
• Complex: Mistakes that have complicated causes and no obvious way to avoid next time. Examples include making tough decisions that have bad results, relationships that fail, or other unpleasant or unsatisfying outcomes to important things.

Stupid and simple mistakes are boring. We will all do stupid things like stub our toes or make poor decisions that turn out to be mistakes. There is not much to learn from these types of mistakes. To make the most of these mistakes, learn from them quickly and do not dwell on the mishap/mistake.

Involved mistakes take effort to amend or change the behaviors that led to the mistake. To make the most of these types of mistakes, you need to first admit that there is something you need to change in order to not make that mistake again. We tend to make involved mistakes over and over again because we don’t like to admit failure nor make the effort to change habits. Sometimes, you will need to ask for outside help. The main lesson with involved mistakes is to learn your behaviors and work with yourself on changing the habits or decisions that led to the mistake.

Complex mistakes are ones that you could not necessarily predict. There are not always clear reasons why the mistake occurred. Scott uses a great example of a floating oil rig dormitory (read his article for full information). The rig flipped over and killed 100 people. They finally figured out what the initial mistake was after a long investigation. The more complex a mistake, the more likely it can be broken down into stupid and simple mistakes leading up to the complex mistake.

“No amount of analysis can replace your confidence in yourself,” Scott writes. “When you’ve made a mistake, especially a visible one that impacts other people, it’s natural to question your ability to perform next time. But you must get past your doubts. The best you can do is study the past, practice for the situations you expect, and get back in the game.”

We have all had trying times during our careers. Maybe you’re and expansion stage CEO who is looking for investors and getting nowhere; maybe you are part of your company’s technical IT support and have to work the weekend again! These are situations which can be extremely frustrating and trying on the nerves. These are the situations that make people want to lash out inappropriately in an attempt to vent and soothe their mental landscape. It is rare that these releases occur as Slater’s did, though it is likely that many people, if not most, have at one time or another fantasized about undertaking a walk-out as grand as his. This is why so many people are idolizing Slater’s actions.

For those of you not “in the know”, Slater was trying to prevent a woman from getting her baggage from the overhead bin while the plane was still taxiing when the luggage hit him on the head. Apparently the woman did not apologize and that was the “straw that broke the camel’s back!” He got on the intercom and proceeded to curse at the entire plane and quit. His next move is what landed him in prison overnight. He took a beer or 2 from the cooler and deployed the emergency slide, then proceeded to slide to the tarmac below and headed home.

Not Many of us will ever do anything like this and, while Steven Slater’s actions allow those of us harboring these fantasies to live vicariously through him, the majority of us know that these small bumps will pass. There are likely many lessons that can be gleaned from Slater’s actions, ranging from customer service to employee HR services. Perhaps the most relevant lesson for those of us in the operational support field to learn from this is to be aware of our employees’ needs and be on the lookout for changes in behavior.

Like Slater, I sometimes get frustrated by workplace situations (albeit I rarely have to deal with the type of frustrations a flight attendant deals with daily). However, I have learned to take these frustrations in stride. The truth is that I love my operational support position — and the frustrations that come with it — here at my small Boston venture capital firm, OpenView Venture Partners, and will not be acting out like this anytime in the near future!

Have you ever had a PDF that was just too large to send as a single file? Have you ever had a PDF of which only a small portion was pertinent to your needs? I was reading the Professional Assistant blog again and came across a GREAT post on how to separate out specific pages from a PDF. The 4 simple steps to accomplish this are:

These instructions are for Adobe Acrobat: (taken directly from The Professional Assistant blog)

1. Click on Document, Pages, Extract.

   

3. Type in the first and last page that you want to create a PDF out of. For example, page 1 to 10.

    

5. Save this file to a new filename.
7. Repeat this step until all pages have been captured. For example, page 11 to 20, etc.

As an operational support person at OpenView Venture Partners, a Boston venture capital firm, I will use this trick/tip often. There are many times when we have a large PDF document and need to only send a small portion to an expansion stage CEO who is looking for investors.

Next time you have a large PDF, try this out!

I left the office during the week before we were to host our Customer Service Management Forum for our expansion stage portfolio companies and our prospect companies looking for investors. If you have read some of my older posts on forum setup and execution, you would know that the last week is normally used to tie up any loose ends and finalize all the details with the chosen venue. I was not here to manage the critical last week!

Upon my return from a relaxing vacation, I had to scramble to make sure that everything was in complete order. This including finalizing the attendee list, making a couple of sets of name tags, printing and binding the slide presentations along with our attendee booklet, working with the venue to finalize food & beverage and audio visual, etc. I got back on a Tuesday and the cocktail reception for the forum was on Wednesday… This provided me with a very small window to make things happen. I ran down to the wire and thankfully, everything was well executed.

Professionally speaking, from an operational support point of view, the reason that my vacation was not well timed was because it caused me to feel frantic. When you work frantically, you tend to make mistakes and/or overlook details. As an operational support person, my job is to make sure that all the details — no matter how small — have been taken care of.

I have learned a great lesson from this vacation and immediately following Customer Service Management Forum. I will desperately attempt to never again schedule a vacation so close to a large forum!

Do you have any experiences that did not go so well because of a poorly timed vacation?

I just read ‘The Importance of Vacations for Stress Relief, Productivity and Health‘ which discusses the many benefits of taking an annual vacation. Here is the gist of what the article states:

Vacations

• Promote creativity
• Stave off burnout
• Can keep us healthy
• Promote overall well being
• Can strengthen bonds
• Can help your job performance
• Relieve stress in lasting ways

If you would like more in-depth information on how vacations are beneficial to us and our employers, check out the article mentioned above.

If you have not taken a vacation yet this year, I would highly recommend it! Don’t forget, vacation is for you to take leisure time away from work and devote it to rest or pleasure. It’s time to rest those dogs!

I was reading ‘The Professional Assistant’ blog today and came across a post about a great feature in Microsoft’s Outlook 2007 called Overlay Mode. Outlook has allowed us in the past to view calendars side by side in order to visibly coordinate schedules. The overlay mode allows us to see these calendars in a consolidated area. If you have a small monitor, this mode helps when trying to view multiple days as the screen can get cramped with all the calendars open across the screen.

I found a video on You Tube that walks you through the process of overlaying multiple calendars.

Women have traditionally been in operational support or CFO/COO type roles. This article discusses Caterina Fake (co-founder of Flickr), Mena Trott (co-founder of Six Apart), Sandy Jen and Elaine Wherry (co-founders of Meebo), Gina Trapani (founding editor of LifeHacker.com), and Leah Culver (formerly of Pownce). All of these women have totally broken the stereotype of a woman’s role in a company. They are entrepreneurs looking to shape management teams and change the tech world as we know it.

It is an inspiration to see these women achieve success. If you are a female CEO of an expansion stage company and looking for investors, drop OpenView Venture Partners a line!

• Direct yourself before you direct others. If you want to self-manage, start by being your own boss and giving yourself tasks to complete. It will be difficult to manage assignments given to others if you cannot manage your own. This is an important first step.

• Do not pass the blame. Take responsibility for your own work. If there is an issue with something that you may have mishandled, do not pass the buck or try and fault someone else.

• Focus on the few things that matter. Do not waste your time with tasks that do not fit with your goals.

• Manage your time effectively. Set deadlines and stick to them. If you give yourself a deadline, you are more likely to get work done on time and out of the way faster.

• Be honest with yourself. If you are honest with yourself, you will be able to manage more efficiently. You will also know what you can and cannot accomplish within a given time frame. In the end, you will be able to set expectations more realistically.

If you are able to follow these simple rules, you will be off to a good start in self-management and ultimately managing others.

The crux of this show is to invert the common method of communication between employer and employee. On ‘Undercover Boss’, the boss is presented with an atypical view of her/his company and gets to see how things work bottom up rather than top down. It also teaches an important lesson regarding clear and open communication both within and outside the company. The key to this communication is friendliness, patience and a willingness to go beyond what is expected of you in order to facilitate new and ongoing relationships. Management teams, operational support, sales and marketing support, etc could all use this show as a lesson example to treat everyone you encounter in-person or on the phone with respect and friendliness. As an operational support person at OpenView Venture Partners, I speak with people all day long ranging from the wrong number to a prospective portfolio company CEO who is looking for investors. I need to make sure that I treat each and every person I speak with the same respect.

As in ‘Undercover Boss,’ you never know who you are actually speaking with, so err on the side of caution and treat everyone equally.

We need solutions for potential missed meetings that can be implemented at a moment’s notice. There are a ton of online companies that offer video conferencing services. Services such as GoToMeeting and WebEx allow you to set up and conduct last minute ‘in-person’ meetings simply and easily.
 Most laptops these days are manufactured with a built in web cam allowing for you to video conference anywhere. Gone are the days when not being able to fly to the meeting location means that you will simply not be able to meet and possibly lose a business deal or that venture funding.

In the past, I have gotten stressed out each time this meeting comes around. The point of this meeting is to give an update to our venture capital investors on how our portfolio is doing and what we are planning or the remainder of the year.

During the planning phase of each event, I try to reflect on the past meetings and see what can be improved; the hotel (meeting space size, noise level of meetings around, food and beverage, audio visual, etc), invitations (when to send out original invite, bcc’ing attendees, invite content, when to send reminders), and meeting collateral (printed and bound documents, agendas, etc)

Once you figure out the items that work well and what you should change/adjust, you are on your way to planning a great event.

Today was our Annual Limited Partner meeting and it went really well! All the planning, emailing, and printing helped create another successful event!

As the sole administrative associate at my Boston venture capital firm, OpenView Venture Partners, the planning for a successful event is my responsibility.

Here are some tips to setting up a successful annual meeting:

1) Choose your hotel / venue and be prepared to negotiate the terms of the contract. The basic idea is that everything is negotiable. Once you sign the contract you are obligated to abide by every word of it.

– Meeting room rates
– Hotel room rates
– Food and beverage minimums
– Parking

2) Choose food and beverage options that allow for various dietary needs such as having vegetarian lunch and breakfast options. I always like to have the beverages inside the meeting space; drinks are the one item participants classically leave a meeting to get. Make sure to have coffee, tea, water and soda available at all times of the day.

3) Work with the venue’s audio visual team to convey your meeting’s specific needs. I like to have a standard projection package along with wireless internet access for all participants.

– Projection package
– Wireless internet
– Presentation mouse / pointer
– Schedule a short run-through to work out any kinks
– Arrive 2 hours before the meeting to troubleshoot any last minute audio visual items

4) On the meeting day, get set up and prepare to greet guests by arriving at least 2 hours prior to the start of the event. This allows you time to organize the registration desk, any printed meeting collateral, and set up name tags. Here is a short day of check list:

– Set up name tags in alphabetical order on the registration desk
*Make sure you have a plan to make additional name tags on the spot
– Pass out meeting collateral to each attendee table
– Make sure to have the wireless internet access code on a printed sheet on each table
– Make sure that each table has a power strip to plug in a laptop if necessary
– Make sure to have the venue’s banquet managers contact information for any issues that may arise

If you follow these simple steps, you will have a successful meeting. The more meetings you set up, the easier they become. This process will become more finely tuned for each meeting you host.

1. tinyurl.com
2. eb.cx
3. elfurl.com
4. shorl.com
5. url.fm
6. shurl.org
7. qurl.net
8. notlong.com
9. shortlinks.co.uk
10. url123.com

As an operational support person at OpenView Venture Partners, I am going to start using these shortened URLs when I send notes for directions or a link to my blog! There are bunch of these sites out there, so pick the one that seems to work the best for you.

This is a day to acknowledge the hard work which your operational support teams do day in and day out. It is not necessary to get gifts, cards or flowers; a simple acknowledgment is all we really need. I have already had a couple of people at OpenView Venture Partners say thanks and Happy Admin. Professionals Day. The acknowledgment feels great!

How does your expansion stage firm celebrate the day?

Information systems support teams in large and small venture capital firms often have a stringent password policy requiring all employees to create a new secure password every 30, 60 or 90 days. They frequently give strict guidelines that must be followed, such as:

• Must have both capital and lower-case letters
• Must contain both letter and numbers
• Must not be an actual word in the dictionary

To answer the very first question, yes a password policy is a good thing to have. A password is the first line of defense against the unauthorized use of your computer, data and network.

As an employee, a password policy can be a complete pain and feel like a waste of time. Password policies also raise questions of trust and can sometimes be ambiguous. Can I let other employees use my computer to get information if I am not there to help them? What if my password is already highly secure? Do I need to change the password in every program that I have a password for? Should I only change the network password? How am I going to remember a new password every 60 days?

The whole point of having a password is to make your information more secure. If you have a highly secure password that you have not written down, nor shared with anyone, you should not have to change it often. Here are suggestions to keep your password secure:

• Never share your password with anyone
• Never save a password when prompted by your browser or any other programs
• Never send your password through email
• Never write your password down
• Use different passwords for different programs

If you want to check and see if your password is secure, you can check out Microsoft Online Safety password strength checker.

So, a password policy is a good thing, especially if you are one of the top venture capital firms. I do however think that if you create a secure password, you should not have to change it every 30, 60 or 90 days. I think creating a secure password that passes as ‘very strong’ in a password strength checker and changing it every 6 months should be sufficient if you follow the above security protocol.

I was initially smitten with this site for one reason and that is the forums section. Not only is this a great networking tool, it is a social network for operational support staff. Some of the topics include ‘Admin 4 Admins’ and ‘Help…Software Survival’.

If you support management teams, venture capital firms, sales and marketing support, Deskdemon is a great tool for you to refer to when you are looking to brush up on what is happening now in the operational support world.

At OpenView Venture Partners, I wear a couple of different hats: Executive Assistant to Scott Maxwell, Office manager, and HR support. If you are anything like me, you will find Deskdemon to be a huge help. Maybe I will see you in one of the forums!

I did some research to see what tips and tricks are out there for us operational support people and came to realize that I need a refresher course in Outlook. Microsoft offers online courses to refresh your skills with Outlook and all Office products.

They offer courses such as: Up to speed with Outlook 2007, Reduce spam! Get your Junk E-mail Filter in top condition, and Get out of your Inbox with Outlook 2007 to name a few. I plan on taking a couple of these courses and will let you know how they go and if they are truly any value.

Remember, there is always something new to learn and we can always improve our process.

As operational support folks, we often feel like we do not have as large of a role to play in the firm as the partners, associates and analysts. We need to learn and know the value that we bring to our firm’s each and every day.

In venture capital firms, deals move along very quickly requiring a fair amount of scheduling flexibility. When you get that last minute phone call for a meeting you need to be able to discuss with your boss how urgent the matter is and if the other meetings you would be changing are as urgent. If you can’t reach your boss to have this type of a discussion, you will sometimes have to make the judgment call. If your boss is definitely not available, maybe you have another venture partner meet with the prospect.

As an operational support person it is my job to make sure that I am able to keep my bosses schedule as organized as possible so these types of last minute meeting requests can be dealt with in a timely manner.

As you implement changes and test new courses of action, it is extremely important that you periodically check in with you management teams to help reevaluate how you are doing. You will be learning new ways to perform and not all will be perfect; you may find that you tried a new way of doing something and came up with a poor result. This is all part of the development process as change does not always result in an improvement.

In order to grow it is necessary to learn how to give, how to get and what to do with reviews and constructive criticism. We should view this entire process as a way to learn more about ourselves and how we can be better at our jobs. The process also helps us set firmer goals and have a stronger desire to attain them.

So the keys to this are, communication with your peers and management teams, integrating your new found ideas and goals into your everyday work life and reevaluating after implementation.

The iPad is going to be a great tool for business travelers. It has the ability to surf the web, watch videos, read and write mail, view Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and PDF’s, etc. It also offers the entertainment that the iPod and iPhone currently have with music and apps. Another feature of the iPad is that it is going to compete with the Kindle in the e-reader market. Apple’s competitive advantage is it’s brand. Everyone knows Apple and how great their sales and marketing support is, let alone their customer service.

If you are in a venture capital firm and travel all over to meet with expansion stage prospects looking for investors, you my want to consider getting and iPad. It could prove to be the best portable tool you own. Let’s see the reviews when the iPad finally emerges in the market.

• Identifying influencers, and ranking them in order of importance.
• Marketing to influencers, to increase awareness of the firm within the influencer community
• Marketing through influencers, using influencers to increase market awareness of the firm amongst target markets
• Marketing with influencers, turning influencers into advocates of the firm.

Authors, Duncan Brown and Nick Hayes wrote Influencer Marketing: Who Really Influences Your Customer?

“This book explains why today’s marketing model is a very different playing field. ROI is high on the agenda. The power of the network enables emphasis on 1:1 conversations and choice, dialogues and communities, which in turn leads to honesty and transparency in messaging.” Jon Tutcher Head of Marketing, Sun Microsystems UK & Ireland

Venture Capital firms looking to help their expansion stage portfolio companies should look into influence marketing because, as Jim Cassidy, VP Marketing EMEA, BEA Systems explains, “Today’s market is truly ‘always on’. This is having a dramatic impact on the way that we market and sell to our existing customers and prospects. Influencer Marketing provides an excellent reference on how you can drive and achieve significant change in your traditional mindset to ensure that you can address the new and dynamic challenges that now appear every day’. Ask yourself, ‘Do I change or do more of the same?’ There is only one correct answer”.

When you have a competitive product, you need to consider your customers and market. At OpenView Venture Partners, we try to help all of our expansion stage portfolio companies with sales and marketing support, including aiding in analyzing market changes to help continuous change and improvement for their marketing campaigns.

Here is a quick synopsis of the 7 things Your Boss Should Never Say to You:

1. “I pay your salary. You have to do what I say”
2. “I don’t want to listen to your complaints”
3. “I was here Saturday afternoon. Where were you?”
4. “Isn’t your performance review coming up soon?”
5. “We’ve always done it this way.”
6. “We need to cut costs.”
7. “You should work better”

Management teams need to communicate professionally and clearly. Below is why I think it is unprofessional to make the above statements.

Salary – Bringing up someones salary in any conversation that does not include a performance review is almost always inappropriate and unprofessional.

Complaints – Not listening to an employees complaints can lead to them feeling like you do not care about the firm. The complaint could be something that you as a manager are not aware of. Managers do not have visibility into every “corner” of the firm, so each and every team member plays an integral part in helping the firm improve by keeping lines of communication open.

Performance Reviews – Reviews should not be used as a threat, EVER. Reviews are in place to give each team member an idea of how they are doing and how they can improve. They are not meant to cause fear and panic.

Unchanging Process – Any firm that does not constantly reevaluate their process will not succeed in the long run. Forward thinking will help keep your firm competitive in it’s current market.

Cutting Costs – This is another statement that seems to cause fear, especially with our country’s current economic status.

Work Better – Stating that an employee should work better is not constructive or clear. As a manager, it is your responsibility to make sure that your employee fully understands what “work better” means to you. Set clear goals.

Management teams and employees alike need to be mindful of what the say and how they say it. Using tact in the business world is key to successful communication.

A S.M.A.R.T.E.R goal is a goal that is is specific and measurable. The acronym stand for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound, Evaluate, and Reevaluate.

Jack Canfield, writer of The Success Principles, states that “vague goals produce vague results.”

Using goals that are specific and measurable gives you an immediate look into how you are doing in relation to your overall goal. If the goal is vague, you will not know if you have completed the goal and if you are actually improving.

As a Boston venture capital firm that invests in expansion stage companies, we try to set an example on how to be a highly focused and adaptable team. Setting S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goals is a way in which we try to lead by example for our portfolio companies.

Okay, so you have had your review and you have discussed it with your management teams and peers; now how do you integrate this feedback into your daily activities? It is time to take these discussions and create a plan for improvement.

First, evaluate the top 3 areas in which you can enact change. These should be areas which are aligned with your firm’s goals and aspirations. Brainstorm with a management teams or peers to come up with some actionable tasks which will help you to improve. It is key to make sure you fully understand the feedback received in your review in order to have a meaningful and productive conversation around how to improve.

The plan you come up with should include SMARTER Goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound, Evaluate, Reevaluate). I will discuss SMARTER goals in another blog post.

Whether you are in sales support and marketing or operational support, this brainstorming/planning step will be an integral part in helping you be prepared to make the appropriate improvements.

It is time to start executing on your plan!

Annual reviews often cause anxiety as employees and management teams must think about how the job is going, how successful we have been, where we have fallen short, and how to improve going forward. Reviews are not meant to hurt feelings. During the review process, we worry about how we did and how our peers and management teams think we did; many people find it difficult to deal with any kind of criticism of their performance. Nonetheless, a review is not a negative activity. The reality is that a review is an opportunity for improvement and change. The first step in managing the constructive criticism of reviews is to discuss the results with your management teams and peers Have an open dialog on what you feel your top 3 areas for improvement are and then create a plan to execute on improving in those areas.

Having open communication with your reviewers will help make the entire process more valuable. I will discuss more on the communication in a future blog.

We are going to be implementing a random “hall test” to see if our team members know what the aspirations they should be emulating are. We have devised a mouse pad that has our firm’s priorities, mission, vision and values on it; this is to help us be reminded of the aspirations on a daily basis.

Our Aspirations:

“I need a favor that will take you 2 minutes that could help me win a blogging contest. Could I ask you to do one of these two things?

1. Send an e-mail to 2 people that you know with the link to this post asking them to read this post and to do me a favor that will take 2 minutes (don’t forget to cut and past the URL).

2. Post a note on your favorite social media site (you can use the “share this button below if you want) asking your followers/friends/readers to read this post and to do me a favor that will take 2 minutes. This could include your blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or anywhere else that you might be able to get two people to read this post.

I win if I can get a lot of people to read this post, and your help getting two more people is greatly appreciated! I will follow up by appending this post and let you know how well I did.

Btw, you may be wondering what a busy Boston Venture Capital firm is doing messing around with a blog contest rather than helping its portfolio companies grow and develop or making good expansion stage venture capital investments. The answer is that it seemed like a fun thing to do…”

Though everything went very well, there were still lessons to be learned.

1: Producing collateral materials is time consuming. I would be greatly benefited in the future if a temp was brought in to help me with this process. In the days leading up to my forums I very often find myself spending 8+ hours a day producing and preparing the forum materials

2: Making sure to arrive at the venue at least 2 hours prior to the start of the event each day. Each day often begins with new challenges; leave enough time to handle them.

3: Take more photos to document the event. You can sometimes see things in the photos that you did not notice during the meeting.

4: NEVER underestimate how cold these meeting venues can be, bring a sweater or layer!

I am looking forward to our next forum! I will update you as the date draws near.

Some of the successful events we have had in the past include: F1 Racing, Paintball, Dinner and Drinks, Bowling, Boston Harbor Cruise (when the tall ships were in port), and a weekend trip to Sebago Lake in Maine.

At OpenView, we work very hard to give our expansion stage portfolio companies the best support possible each and every day of the year. Outside of the office employee events are a way for us all to “let our hair down” and relax.

Here are the simple steps I took to become a notary in Massachusetts:

Step 1: checked to see if I was eligible

o Be at least 18 years old

o Reside legally or conduct business on a regular basis within Massachusetts

Step 2: Get the Application from online and fill it out:
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/prenot/notidx.htm

Step 3: Print out an updated resume to attach and send with the application

After completing my application I received a response letter (this takes between 10-18 business days). With letter in hand I went to city hall with a check for the fee and take my oath to become a Notary Public.

I am now able to help my firm and the other firms in my building. It is my hope that my new skill will save us time and streamline what was once a frustrating process.

Case in point, I was out this weekend researching treadmills for an upcoming purchase. One of my questions to the sales rep was “What have other customers said about this treadmill?” For one particular machine the sales person immediately indicated that he heard their customer service was lacking and that it was very difficult to get service calls or repairs made. Based upon these customer reviews that particular treadmill was immediately removed from my possibilities list.

If your company has a great product, stellar sales and marketing support, and management teams that care, you are well on your way to getting customers. However, if you fail to provide a high level of customer support your product will quickly lose favor in the marketplace. Your customer service team must be trained and expected to meet the high service standards of your customers.

Creating a competitive advantage in the area of customer service takes time. You need to build your brand reputation. You need to ensure your team has the knowledge and skills necessary to communicate with your customers and provide them above-the-bar support. If your company needs help planning and implementing a customer service framework, it may behoove you to look for assistance from venture capital firms that focus on value add.

Frankels key suggestions are relevant for men as well as women include:

• Don’t ask permission – inform others of your intentions
• Review voicemail messages after you leave them to ensure they’re crisp and clear
• Count to three before answering a question – even if the answer is on the tip of your tongue
• Avoid couching your opinions in the form of questions
• Develop a personal marketing plan

From venture capital firms to entrepreneurs looking for investors, these small suggestions can significantly help empower individuals.

• www.notarypublicdirectory.com/
• www.123notary.com/
• www.notarypublic.com/

If your office is in a large building with additional companies, you can sometimes find a notary in one of the surrounding offices. If your company often needs documents notarized, or if you typically have trouble finding an available notary, you may want to have an operational support person in your firm become a Notary Public. The process is very easy and straightforward. To see what your state requires for the application process, you can check out the National Notary Associations website under Become a Notary.

Having an in-house notary can really save time and energy in your office. Next week I will fill you in on my experience becoming a Notary Public.