If you have employees, a big part of your job is motivating them to work. You might use the carrot and the stick approach (in which you dangle the carrot over their heads to tempt them to move forward)… or you just use the stick approach (in which you beat them senselessly until the do the work)!

Okay, so you don’t literally use a carrot and stick to tempt or the "beat-them-with-the-stick approach" for harsher motivation, but you do need to motivate them and plenty of motivation falls into those categories.

Let’s look at two jobs I held during high school as great illustrations of these two types of motivations in action:

The first job was at a gas station. The owner would berate his employees by cursing at them and asking, "are you stupid?". He made us beg for our paycheck. He took money away whenever he felt that we weren’t working the way we should be. I realize now he broke several labor laws (although at the time I didn’t know any better and just accepted it).

The second job I had was at a small franchise fast food restaurant. (Smaller than McDonalds). The owner encouraged us to have fun and didn’t mind if we sat down on the job as long as everything got done. He rewarded us a with performance bonuses. He held a contest (which I won: I got to see Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in concert!). He encouraged employees to connect after hours.

The difference is like night and day. And if I knew then what I know now, I’d have left that first job in a heartbeat. It’s not a surprise that the gas station owner churned through employees while the restaurant owner had loyal employees.

And my two part-time high school experiences illustrate (perhaps hyperbolically) the real world. We have those bosses that tempt us to succeed and we have those bosses that seem to beat us mercilessly if we fail.

You might have employees now or you might be thinking about hiring some soon. Regardless, now is the perfect time for you to think about employee motivation and develop personal policies and best practices to create a great working environment:

* Your employees earned their pay. Don’t make them work extra hard to get that money.
* Your employees don’t always feel bought into the company so they don’t always work as hard as they could. But if you pay them for performance, they could be more likely to feel "bought in" and thus will work harder for you.
* Your employees spend at least one-third of their days at your workplace. So make sure that it is a place that is enjoyable to be at, that feels like a community. Care about your employees. You don’t have to get really personal to still show them that they are important to you.

Brought to by you by: Contemporary VA - Run your business instead of running in circles.

@ContemporaryVA on Twitter.  Follow the team to stay updated on business resources we deliver that cover strategies and tips, social media and more!

Small business owners have a lot to do and the relentless forward march of time can be stressful. It’s hard to get everything done that you’d like to get done. (Heck, it’s hard to get everything done that you need to get done). You schedule, you prioritize, you delegate, but it still is an overwhelming flood of work.

What you need is focus. Stop multitasking. There is a lot of pressure to multitask: To try to cover several projects at once. And, although this might work for some things, it doesn’t work as often as we’d like to think it works. Simply put, we’re not as good as we think we are.

When we multitask, we end up doing an inferior job on all of our projects, and potentially taking longer to do them. When we focus on one thing at a time, we can actually do a better job in a shorter time. To give a simple example: If you have 4 projects and you try to multitask them, you might end up taking 2 to 2 and a half hours to complete the work and each project will feel choppy and inferior. However, if you focus on each one individually, you can do a single project in only 20 to 25 minutes (for a total time of 1 hour and 20 minutes to 1 hour and 40 minutes) and end up with 4 well-done, cohesive projects at the end.

Part of the problem is that we can’t switch as easily from one thing to another. It takes a great amount of mental energy to switch. If you’re a consultant and you’re working on a business plan for a client and at the same time you’re coaching a client on how to get the most out of their staff, you’re demanding too much of yourself at once.

Instead, you can get more done in less time and complete it to a greater level of excellence when you focus on one thing at a time.

Here are some tips to help you do that:

* Batch similar projects together. Even if they are to different clients, if they are similar, you’ll do them faster and more effectively when you do them at the same time.

* Stop watching your email. Sometimes, having an auto-notification of email can feel convenient because it allows you to respond to people right away. But it is a big factor in us switching from one thing to another.

* If you need a period of concentration to finish a project, switch the phone to voicemail.

* If you’re prone to get off onto rabbit trails about stuff, or if you’re the kind of person who will instantly hit the web if a thought suddenly jumps into your mind (even if it isn’t related to the topic at hand), keep a piece of paper on hand to list any thoughts or ideas you have. Rather than pursuing them, write them down. Then later, when you have a moment, you can get back to them but they won’t pull your attention away from your work.

* Make sure you have eaten, drank plenty of water, are in relatively good health, and get plenty of rest. Busy entrepreneurs can be hard on their own bodies and not eating right or not getting adequate rest can make it harder for you to focus.

Brought to by you by: Contemporary VA - Run your business instead of running in circles.

@ContemporaryVA on Twitter.  Follow the team to stay updated on business resources we deliver that cover strategies and tips, social media and more!

Small business owners tend to be know-it-alls and do-it-alls, because most of the time, that’s a necessity. In order to truly be successful with your small business, you generally need to micromanage every facet and aspect of your business, or else success will elude you. After a while, though, running a small business, or perhaps even a medium business, doing everything can get rather tiresome.

When this happens, one of the best things that you can do for yourself is to get help. Oftentimes the best help can come in the form of a virtual assistant (VA). A virtual assistant can be known by many different names, including an online personal Assistant, virtual secretary, virtual administrative assistant, or virtual office assistant. They are all essentially the same.

A virtual assistant is better for small business than a traditional assistant in many respects. One of the best benefits is that, usually, you can hire a virtual assistant on a contract basis, which means they will work on a specific project for a specific length of time, and you can go back to them for various projects. Additionally, you can contract them to work on specific tasks constantly. More often than not, getting help this way, from a virtual assistant, is much more cost-effective than hiring a traditional administrative assistant to work with you day to day or even part-time at your business location.

What does the "virtual" mean in virtual assistant? A virtual assistant works remotely, and primarily on the Internet. For example, your primary communication method with your virtual assistant will likely be email, however, most virtual assistants are flexible in meeting your needs, and if you need to speak to them by telephone, that is likely not a problem. A virtual assistant can complete the same tasks as an administrative assistant, they simply complete it remotely and submit it to you virtually through email, though many virtual assistants will also submit projects via fax, and even telephone if you just want a quick update.

Since virtual assistants work in their own space, and frequently in a completely different state than the businesses for which they work, you do not need to worry about providing space, a computer, office supplies, and anything else that you would need for a traditional assistant. This is yet another benefit to your business bank account.

One of the most renowned virtual assistant firms is Contemporary VA. Not only does Contemporary VA offer virtual assistance, they also offer bookkeeping assistance. In fact, they even offer easy, do-it-yourself small business bookkeeping software.

Remember, we will consistently bring you the most recent, must-have information, so come back frequently. After all, we’re your Best Business Experts. You don’t want to miss what’s coming next.

Your Best Business Expert,

Lisa on behalf of Contemporary VA

www.contemporaryva.com