Archive for May, 2012
In the coming months, I will be writing blogs about delegating, multi-tasking and team work from the perspective of manager and member of the team.
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Feel free to connect any way you want to. We don’t care how you do it but we do care that you do connect to us. For those who already have connected and check in once in awhile — thank you!
Pricing Guide
We charge three sets of rates: hourly, by retainer, and per project. All rates are quoted in US dollars. All charges may have additional fees associated with them for special materials, supplies, or shipping fees. When possible, we will communicate to you up front any additional fees associated with your request. However, some unanticipated items may be needed. The need for unanticipated items will be communicated to Client as soon as they arise and will not be charged without Client’s approval.
Hourly rates are $15 per hour. The hourly rate tends to be charged to those who wish to sample our services before committing to a project or long-term work arrangement; those who need only occasional or one time service; and, to those who do not have complex tasks to fulfill.
Projects are reserved for services that tend to be more complex and time intensive. Project estimates and quotes require a written project request submitted by Client. All projects will be given an estimated quote based off of Client’s written request outlining project objectives, time lines, services to be rendered, equipment, supply and personnel needs. All quoted rates will be honored for a period of 30 days. After 30 days, rates for projects are subject to change.
After project estimates are approved and terms of services and rates are agreed upon, a contract will be prepared by E-volution Administrative Services and will be signed by Client. At that time, an up-front deposit will be required before work commences. The initial deposit will depend upon the scope of the project but will at least be a minimum of $35.00. Most projects will require a deposit of 50% of the estimated project quote; however, some projects may be set up on a three-part payment basis consisting of 35% up front, 40% at mid-point; and 25% at completion. Final invoices are based upon actual project requirements as designated in the contract; however, we recognize that amendments to the contract may need to be made as the project scope might change. All amendments to the contract will be submitted in writing and approved by signature of Client.
Retainer rates are based on a specific number of service hours a client reserves each month. This is a flexible arrangement in which services that are required by Client may vary so that one week may include more hours than the previous week or vice versa. Retainer rates are required to be paid in full prior to the start of services each month. The schedule of monthly retainer fees are as follows:
|
Hours |
Rate Per Hour |
Total |
|
30 |
$35.00 |
$1,050.00 |
|
20 |
$35.00 |
$700.00 |
|
10 |
$35.00 |
$350.00 |
|
5 |
$35.00 |
$175.00 |
Hours that are not used within a month may be carried over to the next month once; thereafter, all hours that are not used within the month will be lost.
All Clients pay the regular fee (by hour, by project, or by retainer) plus fees for special materials, supplies, personnel, equipment, shipping, and other fees associated with services. These fees should be indicated in contracts made with the Client and will be approved by the Client before accrual of these fees. However, some anticipated items may be needed. Examples include but are not limited to: postage, shipping, special printing, copies, card stock, specialty paper, poster board, check stock, form paper, photo paper, scrap book paper, albums, embellishments, flash drives, CDs, DVDs, or disks if necessary. Additional fees over 20% of the contract or amendments may be negotiated.
All Clients are required to sign a Service Agreement, referred to in this document as “contract.” This service agreement outlines all details of services required so that there is no confusion as to what is expected by both parties.
All rates are subject to change at the discretion of E-volution Administrative Services but not within already written contracts without approval by Client designated by an amendment to the contract. Rates contained on this page are a starting point for discussion. Rates may be negotiated on a project to project basis or Client to Client basis.
Illegible or poor quality source materials provided by Client are subject to an additional fee paid to E-volution Administrative Services based upon the quality of materials.
Final proof reading is the responsibility of the Client. Client shall proof all materials prior to acceptance of the delivered work. All errors must be reported within twenty-four (24) hours of delivery or work will be considered accepted. All errors reported within twenty-four (24) hours will be corrected at no additional charge. Additional fees, however, may apply for errors to be corrected after twenty-four (24) hours.
All fees for services performed are billed in real time with a one (1) hour minimum per invoice. Detailed time records will be available upon request.
Invoices will be sent via email at the first of the month unless other arrangements are made with Client. All work associated with the invoices will be released in full after full payment of invoice has been made.
Invoices will be subject to net 30 terms and late fees will be charged at a recurring rate of 3% of the outstanding balance every month payment is not received.
Outstanding invoices will result in loss of service until Client’s account is settled in full.
Payments will be accepted by PayPal, Money Order, Cashier’s Check and Cash. Established Clients will have the ability to pay by business check or by personal check. However, there will be a returned check fee in the amount of $30.00.
A productivity system is an underlying structure on which to set up the framework or the makeup of your day, week, month and years. So, in this discussion, imagine a house with a foundation, walls, and a roof. Every house has those particular elements. It is both the details and the addition of you and your personality that gives uniqueness to your home. The things you bring to it and into it make it stand out from other homes.
Much like houses, productivity systems and planners have similarities. Since we are dealing with such things as tasks, times and dates, we can know that these things will be common across the board. Everyone, at some time or another, is concerned with these things. Elements beyond the common are the things that separate one system from another. Like the houses I mentioned, productivity systems and planners become unique because of the differences between the systems. Yet, they become even more unique and highly personalized with what you bring to them, what you place into them, and how you use them.
When choosing a planning system, we look for things that will help us manage our tasks, times, dates and commitments. Sometimes we also look for systems that will corral our ideas and supporting documents. We also look for systems that support and encourage creativity efforts and brainstorming. Sometimes we will also look for something that we can pour our whole lives into so that we can gain control of the personal aspects of our lives as well as the business aspects. But, we want these systems and planners to be in a format and order that makes sense to us and helps us in our own, unique, personal situations which are not guaranteed to be exactly like the next persons’ although they might be similar. Not all productivity systems or planners can meet such a wide range of preferences and satisfy everyone. If we get lucky, we may find a system that is absolutely perfect for all of our needs if it makes sense to us, the format is great and the whole thing really helps us keep track of our lives and everything pertaining to them. We may, however, find something or several somethings missing. That is the point in which we have to build our own hybrid system by adding our own “tools” or by pirating parts of others and incorporating those that are most useful into our own systems.
It’s okay to create your own no matter what anyone might tell you or try to sell you. If you need those bright pink pens and yellow pages with the bubbles on them to succeed — go ahead and add them to your system! The bottom line, most important thing about productivity and planning systems (a stock plan or system or a hybridized version) is that it works for you.
In the interest of helping you find your ideal (because we recognize that sometimes you have to go outside of the box to get what you need), I will continue to place links and ideas related to planning and productivity in this blog. If you’ve found your ideal — great! If not, here is a place to come to check periodically for new and different ideas that you might find helpful.
Some people advocate assigning priorities to tasks while others say that’s not necessary. I prefer to.
I assign priorities to tasks so that no matter where I am I can quickly glance at my list and know which things I think I need to do that day. If I am using a GTD–type system and I am working by context (say @phone), and I have assigned a number or even a letter and a number to that task, I can easily see which calls to make first because today I have to make sure that I get those numbered tasks done today. And, that is important when I only have a limited amount of time or energy to spend working within that context. If there are no numbered tasks for a particular context, I know none of these are urgent and I can work on them in no particular order.
Using GTD and a numbering system is an example of combining systems, such as Julie Morgenstern or Stephen Covey‘s, into hybrid beings that suit our own situation and or own productivity planning needs. So, if you want to and if it helps you, go ahead and assign that number or number and letter.
Image courtesy of Levenger.com
On this blog, I’ve talked about two different ways in which we can plan our days and take control of our business tasks. I’ve mentioned Stephen Covey‘s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People along with the Franklin-Covey planner and David Allen’s GTD. There are, of course, a million ways in which to plan your day and build in a system to gain control of business tasks: for example, the Action Method by Behance, the Pomodoro Technique, Personal Kanban, the Muji Chronotebook Hack, and Don’t Break the Chain, to name a few on a list of potentially millions. I tend to like the ones that set our focus beyond completing tasks and staying organized and bring in the rest of our lives so that we deal with the whole person and not just one aspect.
Having said that, I wonder if you’ve heard that Julie Morgenstern has a new planning system out that also attempts to help us with our whole lives? For those of you who don’t know who Julie Morgenstern is: she has been called the queen of organization. She’s a productivity expert and author of several books about productivity and organization. Her new planner uses simple but clear language that we can apply to our tasks and our lives helping us to answer questions of what we want more of and what we want less of as she has laid out her planner with sections labeled maximize and minimize. Yet, there are still action categories such as do and call.
If you’d like to find out more about Julie Morgenstern, she has a website here: http://juliemorgenstern.com/. She has also done an interview with Steve Leveen of Levenger which can be found in his blog at http://bit.ly/Jv8wPu.
Morgenstern’s planner is another option in a long list of how to organize and take control of your life and business. You might find it particularly helpful or you might find parts of it mixed with parts of another system helpful. There are no rules when it comes to planning and organizing your whole life. The most important part of it all is that you find what works for you.
Simply put: without customers or clients, businesses wouldn’t exist. So why do businesses spend so much time and money dealing with things that aren’t customer focused? Why are they spending an inordinate amount of time focused inwardly on administration and technology? Wouldn’t you think that they’d like to free up their best minds to focus on customer care and bringing new, better, and more useful products and services to their customers?
We would like to think that all business are actively customer-focused, but if they aren’t and they are so tied up in administrative and technology maintenance tasks, we’d like to propose that outsourcing of both is an excellent way to get back to the main reason why your business succeeds — the customer. This is where virtual administrators and cloud computing can help you the most.
Virtual administrators work with you to free up your time on administrative tasks. Ask ask us anything and chances are we will go all out in order to solve your problem and take care of your administrative needs. We are concerned with your business and conscious of your costs.
We advocate cloud computing and taking advantage of online resources that will allow you to free up your time so that you can focus on your customer. We advocate cloud computing because it is projected to produce $1.1 trillion a year in new business revenues. Additionally; moving to the cloud does several things for companies. It places technology in the hands of experts so that companies can focus on growing their business and collaborating with partners and vendors in new and creative ways. It frees up their time to focus on the important part of the business — the customer.
We are all working for the same ultimate reason — serve the customer. We’d like for you to spend some time thinking about how E-volution Administrative Services in conjunction with cloud computing can help you serve your customer better. However, if you don’t have the time to do even that, call us and we’ll ask a lot of questions in order to understand your business and your needs. From there, we can suggest ways for you to take advantage of our services and cloud computing so that you can get back to serving your customers and developing new and imaginative ways of serving them.
If you’d like to know more about cloud computing and the future, please read the link below. It explains what the future of cloud computing is predicted to be and why it is predicted to be so good for companies and the economy as a whole.
I found this article on gigoam.com about flexible hours and how to convince middle managers on why they should be ok with flexible working while doing a weekly review of my whole life plan. Although it sounds counter intuitive flexible hours increases productivity. Why? It may have something to do with workers who are happy because they’ve been able to achieve a better balance between work and everything thing else in their lives. Their energy and readiness to put their best foot forward may also be a benefit stemming from a better balanced life.
Check out the article link below that gives ideas on what questions you should be asking middle managers to help them think about why they are so negative about flexible working.
3 ways to get middle managers on board with flexible working — Online Collaboration.
Here’s a helpful article from Kate Murphy of the NY Times about circumventing internet tracking. In this article you’ll find some links for companies who pledge not to track you, collect information about you, or use your information.
E-volution Administrative Services 
