if(typeof(networkedblogs)==”undefined”){networkedblogs = {};networkedblogs.blogId=951920;networkedblogs.shortName=”virtualperfection”;}
<a href="
if(typeof(networkedblogs)==”undefined”){networkedblogs = {};networkedblogs.blogId=951920;networkedblogs.shortName=”virtualperfection”;} “>
Have you ever cringed at the thought of hiring an assistant or someone to come into your home or office to coordinate your email, do research for you, or write articles for your blog? Do you hesitate to hire someone who may end up cruising Facebook? Does the thought of paying someone the current wages for such a position to come in and work a typical workday make you nervous? Have you ever thought of hiring a virtual assistant instead? Do you know what one is?
Even though the term virtual assistant has gained some recognition, there’s still some confusion about the benefits of making the decision to use a VA for your business. Since virtual assistant’s work, by definition, remotely, as a business owner, you may feel that you will lack the control you have over what an onsite employee does or the one on one time to collaborate. The reality is though that most VA’s are more than happy to confer on the phone, send in daily or weekly progress reports, and, where practical, even come to you for a status meeting.
One big reason those who could benefit from a VA don’t hire one though is that they just are not aware either that they exist or what a VA can do for them.
There are lots of virtual assistants out there and the important thing to remember is that a VA can do for you whatever someone sitting in an office which you may be paying rent on, can do.
The economic benefits to you of hiring a virtual assistant, or VA as we call ourselves are many. Though most VA’s do not specialize in just one area, some do. More often than not, you will find a VA is more than capable of doing pretty much anything you ask. Due to the fact that we are virtual and work out of a home or their own office and the flexibility this affords us, we are more able to pursue educational opportunities to improve our business, which in turn helps those who choose to contract with us.
One of the reasons I hear business owners say they chose to hire virtual assistants is to save time.
You as the business owner are busy running the business, meeting with potential investors, and completing all of the tasks that may call for your attention. Maybe you’re busy trying to produce the next Wow-The-World product and don’t have time to put all your potential clients in a database, write articles, or research postal rates to Australia. Tackling tasks like this is typically where a virtual assistant shines. We’re all about details and taking small tasks off of the employer’s hands.
And, unlike regular employees who come to your office, must be there, and must be paid for, their 8 hours or what have you, a VA can, in effect, write up a schedule based upon your needs, and free up time during her day to pursue educational opportunities which may range from online seminars and Excel training to classes offered at a local institution of higher learning. At her own expense!
Tired of paying for employees playing computer games? Well with someone who comes into your office and sits at a desk all day, you may find that that person does a lot of, well, sitting. Having worked myself as a file clerk and also as an office manager, I kept my eyes open for other ways to benefit the company when the files were all tucked safely away but I can attest to the fact that at some point during the day, everything that needed to get done, well, got done and there was definite down time. There’s a point at which there are just no more reports to file and the phones just are not ringing. But the person sitting there with time on his or her hands still gets paid.
With a VA, you only pay for the time your assistant spends on your project. That being said, I’d have to include the caveat that many VA’s do charge retainers and for minimum hours, sometimes called “Over/under packages”. This has no bearing on their ability to complete tasks though.
So the next time you need someone to complete tasks you just don’t have time for, need some supportive feedback, need to get your message out, or just need help to get going on your next brilliant idea, consider a VA – we are virtually everywhere.
Welcome to Friday Fun And Info. Here’s something I found that’s very informative and a This is a neat program and I think this could also be used to send out a tailor-made survey.
Use L O S E is pronounced ” L ahhhh s”. When in doubt about which word to use in a case like this, think of a word you know how to spell…. maybe “cost”…. and 9.5 times out of 10, this will lead you to the correct spelling.
My case in point: Were and Where. Not a terribly good example since they are not as closely related but when I get to a point at which I don’t know which one to use, I think about (no kidding) The Way We Were.
A few other tricks I used to teach my child (translation: try to justify to him why our language is so confusing):
You know the difference between There and Their because:
There is a direction word and so is Here which is in There.
Their is a word you use when you are talking about people and the words He and I are in it.
I remember when he and I would argue that the correct pronunciation of the word “A” was ah… because that is the way his teachers taught him to say it!
Just my too scents,
Sheila
I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last posted. Even though I have an alert that comes up on my computer once a week TELLING me to post, I get too busy doing other things.
Getting too busy is part of success I guess but you have to take control of the busy. I have a friend who was saying once that she has an electronic organizer but instead of putting all future events in the organizer, she writes everything on sticky tabs and puts them on the organizer. I say whatever works. Maybe instead of either she needs a notebook and pen. Sometimes the old ways are best.
Whatever your method of organizing, find it and stick to it. I once heard a wise man say, basically, everything is potential fodder for your social media campaign, which is basically what you’re engaging in when you have a Facebook, Twitter, and blog account. It doesn’t need to be a constant chore. Take notes about what happens to you and stick it in your publicity plan once a week. Use a service like Hootsuite to do it all in one stop. Just do it. If it starts as a note on a sticky tab first, so be it but just do it.
Yesterday, I spoke with a VA in another country and we were talking about pricing. Though she has been doing it alot longer and so has been through alot more than I have, I couldn’t help but marvel at how expensive, or at least I thought, her services are.
Today I came across a great article about pricing I thought I’d pass along. Granted, it’s not about VA or business services but it is some good food for thought. Check it out at:
A new spin on the old saying, “If I had a nickel…” is “What would you do for five bucks” and lots of people are answering that and, you guessed it, making five bucks at Fiverr.com.
Fiverr.com is just one of the places online people are going and selling services cheaply. In contrast to older services such as Kasamba, Fiverr takes the guesswork – and math- out of the equation by allowing it’s users to only charge $5.
As a provider of these services I can tell you some people come up with some crazy stuff to do for their $5 such as write your name on a grain of rice which I really even question if it can be done. But as a customer, I can tell you some providers not only know what they’re doing but deliver the goods!
Besides the obvious benefit, the money, you might look into Fiverr as a way to get your name out there or perfect your craft. Perhaps you wish you had more in your portfolio and want to offer services as a graphic designer.
Though blatantly giving your customers contact information is a no-no, there are ways to get the point across that you exist other places on the web in the hopes that Fiverr customers may turn into customers for your business.
Where ever you are in your professional life, I suggest you check out this site and really put some thought into how it may be of benefit to you and your company.
Check out this news video at: http://blog.fiverr.com/2011/01/18/fiverr-on-abc/
Collectible Toys and Figurines:
http://www.entertainmentearth.com/prodinfo.asp?number=NC59583&id=VI-101164299
Here’s how you can get the most out of a program called Free Monthly Websites.
Free Monthly Websites, in my opinion is one of those programs you either know what to do with or you don’t. I will now show you how you can get the most of it and why Free Monthly Websites is such great tool which can earn you an extra income stream to your business for a long time to come.
The Three main categories we need to concentrate on here are:
1, Selling eBooks
2, Writing articles
3, Affiliate promotions
When you first login and download your website follow the tutorials which is very easy to do and eventually get your website onto your webspace. You are presented with a very nice well designed Adsense website.
What can you do with this free website? Well to be honest the free website has duplicate content so you can rule out getting to the top of the search engine rankings, the premier websites are a different kettle of fish all together but I will get to those in a moment.
Take option 1 above ‘Selling eBooks’ if you sell eBooks especially PLR (private Label Content) conversions, you will find Free Monthly Websites have a rather large verity of websites that correspond with a lot of the PLR out there (if you are a premier member you get a bonus PLR eBook). All you need to do is upload your eBook to a convenient location on your webspace and place a few corresponding links inside your PLR eBook for example:
I have a weight loss eBook and a small paragraph saying “there are 100’s ways to lose weight which can be found in various forms from Books to television to fitness programs bla bla bla” you could not take this small paragraph and insert your Free Monthly Websites website link in a prime location for instance “there are 100’s ways to lose weight which can be found in various forms from Books to television to fitness programs the best resource I found is at http://www.yourfreemonthlywebsites.com/fitness_website”
Now imagine you done this to all your eBooks! Simply take a little time upload your Free Monthly Websites website to your webspace then reopen your PLR eBooks and insert the relevant hyperlink which corresponds to your website and there you have it. For about 2 hours work you have created an income stream for life. Now imagine you have 50 PLR eBooks doing the rounds on eBay or your blog. Your AdSense revenue is going to creep up and up until you are earning a very respectable income. It’s a simple case of wash rinse repeat.
Option number 2 is even easier. I know most of you will at some point, or do write articles and submit them to relevant article directories. Well why not try writing an article about one of the subjects related to Free Monthly Websites? Upload your website to a location on your webspace, place the link in your article and there you have it, submit to article directories like:
http://www.articledashboard.com/
And another income stream will start.
The third option is a little different. Using your Free Monthly Websites affiliate link to promote the website and earn a potential 98.50 per referral. You can place your link in the websites provided for you and in the eBooks you sell and articles you write this can generate a missive earnings income of 98.50.
So with your website up on your webspace and your eBook on eBay and your articles in the article directories, you will be well on your way to earning a nice income from a free resource.
I mentioned earlier your Premier Members website. These are a fantastic resource and are worth every penny for the simple fact you receive a private label eBook and 20 articles with every Premier Membership website every month. Not only can you use the eBooks and articles in the ways I have explained, you can key word optimize your website for the search engines, change the content and make your sites as original as you like. In other words you have full edit rights. So if you imagine directing a visitor to your Premier Website via an eBook or article, they will find a fully edited site with offers and affiliate links promotions, and even an Aweber signup box (which you can integrate with a little HTML knowledge) which in turn will create more revenue and more subscribers for you.
My recommendations are if you have a few hours to spare get started with this and you will soon see a Google AdSense income. If you use the Premier Websites, you can place affiliate banners, Clickbank affiliate links and Aweber signup box on your site as well as edit all your own content via an easy edit control panel..
If you are going to move into this business, I recommend you take the Full Premier Websites Access!
Here’s a link for you:
Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed my review.
Regards,
Sheila Gazlay
Wanna compare notes on Christmas? First of all, one thing I learned recently is that “Xmas”, is not the shortcut, or even undercut, of Christmas that it’s been made out to be. The X actually has was adopted actually because the Greek letter C or chi looks like the English X. I originally heard this on the radio but you can find it also at http://www.crivoice.org/symbols/xmasorigin.html. So see the X in Xmas is not in fact the oversensationalized attempt to shorten Christmas as is usually argued.
Anyway, I was afraid the day was going to be a total downer. I imagined sitting at home alone thinking about what a crummy year it really was but instead had a great time with some new friends.
Things went back downhill though when, trying to act more young and agile than I am, mostly more agile, I’m really still young… in heart at least, I played games on the floor and was moving all around trying to keep up. All of a sudden I realized I had the leg cramp from He!! ( you know what I mean).
I knew passing out was not an option but I was seriously considering crying then discoverd 800 mg Ibuprofen – my new best friend!
The evening resumed with more interesting talk and laughter. No more games. And I was chauffered home in a car that I think was made for two – year -olds, really small ones. I had to basically half lay down on the presents still piled in the back. I considered sticking my head out the sunroof like Scooby Do.
Once home, I said a prayer of thanks and hope because now my back hurt and I needed Tylenol! So judging on Christmas, and I didn’t even mention the cell phone that was out of money and the $9.00 taxi ride from church, it should be an interesting and relaxing new year.
Cheers.
Connected Solutions 