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Online Business Managers

Is It Time to Hit Pause?

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Have you pushed pause recently to take the time needed to attend to the MOST important things in your life?

As Online Business Managers we often think that if WE don’t do EVERYTHING then everything will fall apart. But what if we are falling apart? How then do we keep it all together when we are not keeping ourselves together? Let’s face it, this is the reality of life.  Stuff happens, and sometimes we need to hit pause.

Do you ever look around in life and say “Where is that stupid pause button?”

Honestly, as wives, moms, business owners, support professionals, etc., our true titles should be: Professional Jugglers.  But there are times when no matter how hard you try, you are just not catching all the balls as they fall.  If you are anything like me, you can generally catch all the balls in one area but not in all the areas: if I am focused on my home then balls drop in the business. If I am focused on my business then balls drop at home. If I am focused on my needs, then the needs of my family may not be met. You get the picture and I know I’m not the only one who endures such a balancing act.

So I spent some time thinking what a pause button would look like.  What would happen if I just announced to everyone in my life:  PAUSE, and everything came to a stop, or more of a holding space.

Well, I did just that yesterday.  After weeks of being in the rat race and managing through multiple transitions in life and business, I pushed pause.  And you know what, nothing fell apart.  When I got up this morning and pushed play again everything was exactly as I left it, but…

I WAS NOT AS I LEFT IT!

See when we push pause it’s because we need to tend to something more important than the movie we are watching, and yesterday I needed to tend to something more important than anything else in my life. Today, I am free to go forward again, to hop back in the race and continue my juggling act.

So I ask you:

  • What would YOUR pause button look like?
  • Do you know when it is necessary and do you know how to push it?
  • Have you pushed pause recently to take the time needed to attend to the MOST important things in your life?

As Online Business Managers we often think that if WE don’t do EVERYTHING then everything will fall apart, but what if we are falling apart?  How then do we keep it all together when we are not keeping ourselves together? Let’s face it, this is the reality of life.  Stuff happens, and sometimes we need to hit pause.

Granted if you think hitting pause weekly is an option, it’s not.  Don’t be abusive with the power of the pause button as it may make you look incompetent and cause all sorts of other issues (including that you will never complete the goal at hand).

Now let me ask you – what happens if you don’t hit pause on a movie when something more important happens? It keeps playing in the background but you don’t really notice it, catch the details or get the plot. The same thing happens in our businesses when we do not hit the pause button when something more important is happening in our lives.   But this is not an acceptable way to run a business.

As an OBM, it is your role to manage a business from a proactive state of operations, opposed to the reactive.  However, many times we find that our own lives are in a reactive state of operations.  We are roaming through our own existence in reactive mode: sick kid (react), car breaks down (react), new client (react), get dinner on table (react)… but what if…

What if we could focus on managing our lives from a proactive state of operations?  What if we took what we know in our business lives and applied them to our functioning life?

Think about it like this, if you set the time aside to watch a movie, and you know it’s what’s on the agenda, you are much less likely to NEED a pause button (outside of an emergency). So what if we make that same commitment to our lives, to be proactive in what we commit to?

I will be honest I have not been that proactive in my life recently, so when the pause button was needed, it was a must. Then I thought “I don’t want to have to hit that button again… as I don’t like that feeling of needing to pause everything.”  I realized what got me in this space to begin with was being reactive in my life – DUH!

Another reminder I had came from our OBM Mentorship call last week, where Tina asked the group (as I have heard her ask many times):  “What are you tolerating in your life?”  Ouch. I didn’t say so on the call, but boy am I tolerating some personal things in my life that I DO NOT WANT TO BE MY STANDARD OF ACCEPTANCE!

Well guess what happened when I hit pause yesterday?  All of those tolerances became like red flashing lights in my life… “warning, warning, warning.”

In my time of pause, while I needed to attend to my soul, the things I had been tolerating revealed the depth in which my “reactivity” to life had created instability in my ability to be proactive in my life.

So not only was the pause button a time of replenishing, it was also a time of revelation.

Today is a new resolve for what I want, what is needed to be a successful juggler and being able to move my life into the same level of pro-activeness in which I manage business.  As I know it is my sanctuary of peace.

So this post I hope leaves you with more questions than answers:

  • Do you have a pause button?  What would it look like for your life?
  • Are you living proactive in your life and business?
  • What are you tolerating in your life that is flashing “warning” at you?

 

OBM = Ownership

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As a mom I am forever telling my kids to clean their room… it seems that they have a hard time adapting to the fact that as they have become older the responsibility of keeping their living space clean is their’s and not mine. If you are a parent you know what I am talking about. My frustration in this isn’t so much that I have to tell them every day, or stay on top of them about it, it is more that they can’t seem to ‘get’ the fact that it’s their room, they should take ownership of it.

So in my ever analytically thinking mind, I started to look at it from their perspective:

I own the house (they don’t), I determine decor, for the most part (they don’t), I have veto or restriction rights (they don’t)…

hmmm.. but yet I want them to make the decision to be the ‘owner’ of the space when they so very obviously don’t own it… this has been the dilemma of teaching my kids to keep their rooms clean.

So as a Trainer and Mentor to Online Business Managers I have come to realize this same dilemma is plaguing the business community…

When I talk to business owners who are DESPERATE to work with people who can fully support them in the development and operations of their business, there is a recurring theme in those conversations: team members taking ownership of their role.

If you are a graphic designer… you role is easy to take ownership… need graphic, provide graphic. Easy… still your house, you own it. When it comes to web design same thing… but when it comes to the processes of managing a business, each business being unique to the structure of it’s needs, each client being unique to the ‘way’ they want their business to run… you are now taking your expertise and living in someone else’s house.

So how do you take ownership of something that is essentially NOT YOURS?

I know this is the question, I know business owners are asking this question, because they are in such great need to find someone who will step in and manage, run, love, care, about their business to the same extent that they do. And I know there are amazingly professional and dedicated virtual support professionals who want to support these owners, but unfortunately they find themselves in the same place as my kids trying to take ownership of something they do not officially ‘own’.

I don’t want to toot my own horn but.. I will.. this is a skill I have mastered. Why: because it’s the only way to be the best Online Business Owner I can be.

Here’s how I do it:

1. Engage Your Passion

You will never be able to take ownership of something you do not care about. You need to really be passionate about the work you do, who you are doing it for, and how it is received. This needs to be on a greater scale than on a personal level of “I love setting up structure, organizing or managing the process of business,” it needs to be something more along the lines of “I love setting up structure for the businesses I support because I believe that my clients message of X deserves the highest level of support”.

You need to be invested in the product… you don’t need to be an expert in the product just invested in it, i.e. if you work for a business that sells high-end carbonate customized bicycle parts to cycle enthusiast, you need to “care about cycling on some level.”

Why do you need to engage your passion? Because the owner is passionate about the product or service they are providing and the only way for you to step into the ownership of your role is to be passionate about the outcome it effects on those it serves.

2. Treat It As Though It’s Your Own

Grab all your ‘stuff’ and move in! Seriously this is soooo important when it comes to taking ownership of your role as an Online Business Manager. If you have processes, systems you love, formats, formulas, templates of how you manage a business – implement it, get it plugged into the business. The more of your management style you can assert, the more invaluable you will become to the business owner, and the more you will feel a part of owning the success of the business.

Every business lives and falls on its ability to deliver on product. The product is really up to the business owner… however it doesn’t really matter how fabulous the product is if the delivery (process of operations) is less than superior. If a book is delivered and the pages are printed upside down… really doesn’t matter how good the book is, what folks will remember and take away from it was that it was printed upside down. The ability to deliver sets the standard for how the product will be received. This is your role: get it right and implement your way of ‘getting it done.’

3. Take Accountability

Going back to my kids cleaning their room… the one area yet to be instilled in them is that they are accountable for that space. If it’s clean, straight, organized, destroyed, messy or somewhere in between… it is a reflection of them. They are accountable for that space, whether they want to be or not.

You MUST see yourself as the accountable person for the operations of a business to truly take ownership of your role as an Online Business Manager. No more pointing fingers, no more excuses, no more indecision… if you want to play at this level with your clients, you need to take accountability… when it’s running beautifully smooth… you are accountable, if it’s falling apart at the seems you are still accountable. Accountability is the anchor to all leadership and management.

Online Business Manager = Ownership. It really is that simple..

My question to you is where are you taking ownership in your OBM role and where do you still need to take ownership.