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Watching Financial Mess

September 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment

The first time I started a business I thought it was a sign of success when I got an office and started growing my staff.  Wow was I dumb.

If you are a small business and do not have a retail storefront, do not go down that path.  It is easy to talk yourself into it:

1. I need an office to meet customers.
2. I work better from an office.
3. I need a place for employees to work.

Growing a virtual business with virtual assistants, consultants and specialists is hard.  So is paying high overhead, training everyone and making payroll, paying healthcare, purchasing equipment, etc.

No matter how you slice it, starting a business is not easy.  But you will be much more nimble and able to make changes much faster if you grow your business with virtual help.

Daily Marketing Practices

September 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment

In an ideal world, you set up a marketing campaign, launch it and get results.  Then you can forget about marketing for a while.

In the new, Web 2.0 world, marketing is a daily activity.

What kinds of things can you do every day to maintain even just a minimal web presences?

1. Post to twitter
2. Post a blog post
3. Bookmark your favorite pages
4. Reach out to a new partner
5. Digg something
6. Comment on some blog posts
7. Stumble a few things

And this is just a minimal number of things.  Even if you are not bookmarking, digging or stumbling your own things, you are increasing the credibility of the account and it will have more weight if you do occasionally submit your own pages.

Of course, you can do these daily marketing practices yourself, or you can hire a virtual assistant to do your defined set of daily marketing practices for you.  It just depends on what is the best use of your time.

Introduction Writing

September 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Introduction writing is one area that a Virtual Buzz Assistant can really help out your organization.

Consider how often people now need to have a profile summary, bio or introduction written.

If your employees and team are on the web, a Virtual Assistant can help them by creating an introduction writing template, proof reading each person’s bio or introduction and help them post the information in various social networks if they want that much help.

What Does Your Bio or Introduction Writing Need?

• Strong opening that demonstrates areas of expertise
• Interesting personal facts
• Contact information
• possibly testimonials or benefits clients have realized when working with the person.
• Strong emphasis on organization
• A good picture

Writing introductions, summaries and bios should have consistant goals for all employees in the organization.  Think in terms of branding.  If I read the bio of one person that works for your company, and then a month later read the bio of another person that works for you, think about how powerful that introduction is if it is powerfully written and reinforces your corporate brand without heavy handed selling.

Bio writing and Introduction writing are often overlooked.  You write them once and forget about them.  Your Virtual Buzz Assistant could help every new employee craft several documents that they will reuse in social networking and communications channels.  Email Signatures, Bios, About Me pages and a pdf, Nice meeting you - here is a little about me email templates.

Putting a real strategy behind the often overlooked written introductions and bios will strengthen your brand and improve the professionalism of your employees online.

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Virtual Assistant Blog

September 23, 2008 | 1 Comment

If you are a virtual assistant and you are setting up a virtual assistant blog to demonstrate your skills, promote your virtual assistant business and promote your clients, this blog post is for you.

What should your virtual assistant blog focus be?

• Business casual is a dress code that is someplace between formal and casual.  Your Virtual Assistant blog should be written business casual.  People should get to know you but you should not forget your blog has a business focus and you are selling your virtual assistant services.  Find that happy place in between.
• Your virtual assistant blog should contain examples of how you have helped clients.  Help a new blog reader visualize exactly how you help people.
• A good virtual assistant blog will be written with search engine terms in mind.  What are your potential clients searching for - write articles about that.
• Don’t blog for your competition.  You might think that writing articles about being a virtual assistant is appropriate.  But too much of that is more likely to generate your competition looking at your blog instead of your potential clients.  For example, if you do a lot of book keeping, are you not more likely to find a client via search engines if you write articles about how to hire a virtual assistant to help with book keeping?
• Contact information - You HAVE TO make it easy for people to contact you.  Really easy.  Why spend all that time writing your virtual assistant blog if your visitors just get frustrated when they cannot find the contact page and information.
• Testimonials - Your clients can get some great PR and you get better credibility if you ask them for testimonials that you can place online.  Just be sure that you are secure with your client as publishing your client list can be an invitation for other virtual assistants to contact them.
• How to - Don’t just tell, show potential clients how to do things that you can assist them with.

Your virtual assistant blog is a great tool that will help you build relationships and trust before people decide to hire you as their virtual assistant.  By taking the VA Blog writing seriously, it can be a great tool for getting search engine results, bulding an audience and generating great sales leads.

Marketing Outcomes

September 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment

One of the things that is different between a Virtual Assistant and a Virtual Buzz Assistant is the focus on Marketing Outcomes.

For a traditional virtual assistant, customer satisfaction might be measured in how well you completed the task and if it was done in a reasonable amount of time.

For and Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant, you have much more specific marketing metrics you are trying to influence.  Here are some marketing outcome measurements:

• Did my blog post produce search engine results?
• How profitable are the adword campaigns you are overseeing?
• Did my blog post get linked to?
• Did my emails produce sales or website visitors?
• Did my article submission get used in many newsletters?  How many?
• Did my participation in online communities produce traffic?
• How many new newsletter subscribers have I generated?
• How many inbound links have I helped generate?
• How much traffic has the social bookmarking effort added?

Ultimately, you have to set specific, measurable and realistic marketing outcomes you are measuring.  That said, you also have to work closely with a client to make sure you have the same marketing vision.  Many small business owners want to set up a blog and have traffic the next day.  That is not going to happen.

Begin with a marketing baseline

As a virtual internet marketing assistant, you are usually tying your perfomance to the outcome, not to the task.  Your cliet has to understand that the internet is just like any other marketing.  Occasionally you might get lucky and hit a home run, but mostly it is about consistant effort and building your visibility, audience and brand recognition.

Before a virtual internet marketing professional starts working with a client, they need to document the baseline.  If you are averaging 10 visitors per day, trying to get 1,000 per day the next month is not really practical.  Instead, you may want to increase to 300 per day by the end of the year.  It does not sound as magical and flashy - but it is a goal that could be achieved.

Internet Marketing for your Client

One huge point that you have to make to many clients is that traffic might not be as important as they think.  If 10 people per day are visiting their website, and no one ever buys from them or contacts them, what do they think will happen with a 1,000 visitors?  Nothing.

Your client should think of every customer that clicks into his website just like he would think of every customer that walks into the door of his physical store front.  Each one is treated well, even if they are just browsing that day.

When your client  has a website that gets results, then it becomes an issue of traffic.  If it is getting results, he will be willing to buy leads, spend on advertising and hire virtual internet marketing assistants to do social media on your behalf.

While a traditional virtual assistant is doing a simple exchange of time on tasks for pay, the virtual buzz assistant is taking on additional responsibility to achieve marketing outcomes that justify the expense a client is incuring.  If you can achieve great markting outcomes, you are gaining a customer for life.

Virtual Assistant

September 18, 2008 | 2 Comments

What is a Virtual Assistant and how is that differnet from a Virtual Buzz Assistant?

Virtual Assistants are people that work Virtually and assist you with tasks.

I started this network because I saw so many virtual assistant sites advertising a laundry list of things they would do.  Website Development, Search Engine Optimization, Blog Writing….

The fact is, if you are hiring a traditional virtual assistant to do these kinds of marketing tasks, you are probably not getting a good value.  There are all different levels of skills with these kinds of internet marketing skills, and a virtual assistant that is willing to book your airline ticket, do data entry and order flowers for you is unlikely to be really good in internet marketing as well.  It just requires too much experience and constant learning to do those things well among other things.

So, if you would like to hire a virtual assistant that does general tasks, that is great and there are lots of places to do that.  If you are interested in hiring a Virtual Assistant that is Internet Marketing Savvy, you need to know what you are looking for and submit your project here.

A Virtual Buzz Assistant is very different.  They often do their own internet marketing and continually sharpen their skills by selling their own products or affiliate products.  They watch videos and read information on how to be a more effective blog writer, buzz marketing expert, etc.

A Virtual Buzz Assistant also will usually turn down those tasks that are more general.  They are focused on becoming the best Internet Marketing Professional that they can be.  That is why they will charge a higher hourly rate as well - because they provide more specialized skills.

Keep in mind that there are some similarities of a Virtual Assistant, an Executive Assistant and a Virtual Buzz Assistant.  You would not hire the Executive Assistant and ask them to be the CEO.  They assist the CEO.

You should not hire a virtual assistant and put them in charge of hiring.  However, you might hire one so sort through resumes and look for particular criteria.

And you should not hire a Virtual Buzz Assistant to write your buzz marketing plan.  They help you do the tasks to make your plan successful, but you have to have at least a simple plan with goals to begin with.

Virtual Assistants, whether doing internet marketing or other tasks, can be a very effective way to grow your organization.  But remember that you are in charge of strategy and you have to develop the working relationship, not just tell them to go create internet buzz for you.

Virtual Jobs

September 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment

What are Virtual Jobs?

Virtual Jobs are jobs that you can do from anywhere - as long as you have web access.

Virtual Assistants are people that work virtually on specific jobs that assist the full time staff or the individual entrepreneur.  A virtual job provides more flexibility but also requires good communication, discipline and organization.

Of course, the advantages of virtual jobs are that you are in business for yourself and that means you will be able to take advantage of some important things.

• Tax Advantages for Virtual Assistant Business
• Schedule Flexibility
• Set hours and pay
• Take working vacations

Some disadvantages of a virtual job are:

• Not in the office, so not as tightly part of the team
• Sometimes working in isolation
• Must be very clear on communications to avoid costly errors
• Cannot get distracted by surroundings easily - keep twitter turned off
• Distrust - you may have to work harder to overcome distrust of not being in office
• Jealousy - Employees that cannot work from home may be jealous of other people’s virtual jobs

Virtual Jobs are the wave of the future, but remember that you are really going to have to prove your value and ability to do a great job working virtually from your home.

Virtual Office Tips

September 16, 2008 | 1 Comment

10 Virtual Office Tips for those of you that work at home.

1. Set up your virtual office in a quiet place.  Far from sirens and crying kids, if possible.
2. Get a comfortable chair.  You will be spending a lot of time in it.
3. Set up different areas for different things in your virtual at-home office.  I keep a clean, need desk to work from and a messier area for files, bills, etc.
4. Use as many hosted software solutions as possible and still make back ups often - see virtual office tools
5. Avoid home office distractions like having a TV in the room.
6. Use the library, Panaras or Starbucks to get out of your virtual home office occasionally.
7. Set clear goals working from your home office.  I still use a paper notebook to write out tasks and cross them off as I go along.  Otherwise I would miss things or might not be as motivated.
8. Use Technology to your advantage and to make your life easier.
9. Don’t let a home office make you feel like you are always at work.  It is easy to work morning, noon and night since you are always in your virtual office and essentially at work.
10. Take your fair deductions - You have to talk to a tax specialist on this one, but let your business pay its fair share of utilities, maintenance and other expenses.  Trust me, if you get an office you would be paying a lot more.

What did we forget?  Use the comments below and add your virtual office tips.

Virtual Assistant Lifestyle

September 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Does working at home the hours you want sound appealing?

The Virtual Assistant Lifestyle is great, but it is not for everyone.  Here is a list of virtual assistant lifestyle benefits and another list with virtual assistant lifestyle drawbacks.

Virtual Assistnat Lifestyle Benefits

• Work from home
• Flexible Hours
• Tax Benefits of having your own business
• Work for clients you want
• Earn more than many entry level jobs - see virtual assistant salaries
• Develop skills that can make you a better marketer and lead to you having passive revenue.

Virtual Assistant Lifestyle Drawbacks

• It is easier for a client to not continue a virtual assistant contract than it is for an employer to fire an employee.
• No benefits
• No guarantee of hours
• You need to do a lot of business management for yourself
• You have to be able to sell your services
• You have to spend your own time sharpening your skills.

Being a Virtual Assistant is excellent as a second income that you can grow slowly.  If you are really good, a company will often try to cut a deal with you that could lead to long term stability.  If it is your primary income, you really need to have a team that you use.  Only by developing a bigger book of clients can you hope to have some form of dependability with your virtual assistant business.

The Virtual Assistant Lifestyle is excellent, but you have to plan ahead and be realistic.

Virtual Assistant Needed

September 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Virtual Assistant Needed due to increase in Virtual Assistant Jobs.

More than ever before, all signs point to virtual assistants being in more demand than ever.  In fact, lets just call them a virtual workforce.  Here we specialize in Virtual Marketing Assistants, but virtual employees of all types will be a big wave in the future.

This month we have seen a big increase in virtual assistant job requests.

Instead of saying “Virtual Assistant Needed” maybe we need to say “Effective Virtual Assistant Needed.”  Just because there are more virtual assistant job opportunities than ever before does not mean it is right for you.

One of the big upsides of the virtual assistant is that the company can hire them for a short while to try them out.  To be an effective VA, you really need to be able to demonstrate your value in a short period of time.

In some ways, this agreement has an upside to the virtual assistant and the company.  The company has lower costs and lower risks - although they have less control.  The virtual assistant can work for several clients, decreasing risk and giving more flexibilty.  The VA also gets some great tax benefits from having their own company.

So yes, Effective Virtual Assistant Needed - everywhere.  Is that you?

Virtual Assistant Assessment

September 14, 2008 | 2 Comments

Assessing the job that a Virtual Assistant is doing for you is tricky.  A virtual assistant assessment begins with asking yourself, Have I been clear on the tasks and outcome I expect?

I am sure it was clear to you.  But look at what you asked and imagin not knowing your business or what you are thinking.  Is it clear for someone else?

Assuming that you answer yes to the self assessment question, here are the assessment questions you have to ask after working with a virtual assistant for a while.

1. Did the VA ask questions when he did not understand something clearly?
2. Did the assistant acknowledge work requests quickly so you knew what was going on?
3. Did the virtual marketing assistant understand the task AND the Marketing Goal?
4. In what quality are the tasks completed?  Are they doing bare minimum or going the extra mile.
5. Are the hours spent on your task reasonable?  Are you paying for the VA to learn?
6. Are the virtual tasks done in a timely manner?
7. Do you get reports back and proper followup from your Virtual Assistant?
8. Are there errors in your copy?  If the VA is writing blog posts, how is the grammar and spelling?
9. How do you feel?  Are you confident in your Virtual Assistant’s ability to get things done or do you feel like you need to watch them every step of the way.  This improves with time, but if you do not feel like you can count on them, you should try another virtual assistant.

Several things will make it very hard for you to be successful with any assistant at all.

1. You did not clearly define the task and realistic outcome.
2. You did not clearly let them know how you like to communicate - frequency, reports, etc.  A virtual assistant may not want to bother you if they view you as busy.
3. Pay - if you are bargain hunting for a cheap virtual assistant, keep in mind you will probably get what you pay for.  Occasionally you may find a diamond in the rough, but it will cost a lot of energy and bad experiences while you look.
4. Assuming expertise - Virtual Assistants are frequently experts in some areas, but you should not assume they are the same as a professional consultant.  For example, our Virtual Buzz Assistants assist you in executing your marketing plan, they are not a buzz marketing agency that will necessarily craft a fantastic plan for you.

You get the idea.  Sometimes a virtual assistant will just not work out because they are not good at organization or doing the tasks you need.  Sometimes there is just a breakdown in communications or a personality conflict.  The key is to do a virtual assistant assessment and do a self assessment and see if you can improve the process and outcomes.  When you think of the effort that goes into hiring a new employee with orientation, training and weeks of getting up to speed, a virtual assistant has to jump over those issues and provide value to you much faster.  Clarity is your best friend.

And doing a virtual assistant assessment makes sure you find the virtual assistant that is right for you.

Virtual Website Design Firms

September 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment

If you have a website design firm you probably do not think you need a virtual buzz assistant on staff.  You already know everything about technology, and nothing else is all that important.

Well let me give you some advice based on my experience.  I started out a website design and custom technology consulting firm.  We set up great tools for people.  Really great.

But more than 80% of the people thought they were spending too much money and not getting enough value.  Not because of the tools, I said they were great.  It was because normal users do not take the time and effort needed to put good tools, websites and blogs to use.  Then they do not produce results (through no fault of your own) they still blame you.

Let me give you a better idea:

1. Hire a Virtual Buzz Assistant.  Have them work a little each day helping you with blogging, answering support tickets, doing online advocacy.
2. Sell additional Virtual Marketing services to your clients.  Don’t try to do it yourself.  You techies can’t spell.  Hire a virtual buzz assistant.  Now your web design firm is getting more marketing and you are subcontracting out services (for a profit) that will make your clients more happy.
3. Set expectations up front.  Virtual Buzz Assistants will help you close the sale because you can tell a client that they should produce regular content to get good web results, and you have just the person that can help them.

When you are looking at the success of a website, there are many important elements.  Good design will make your feel happy on day one, but good, steady content creation will make you feel happy in the long run.

If you are a Virtual Assistant reading this, think about approaching local web design firms and offering your services.  A couple clients like that could keep you more than busy.

Free Virtual Assistant Training

September 11, 2008 | 2 Comments

There is free virtual assistant training available everywhere.  It is called experience.

If you have even a modest budget, you should at least buy a book on starting a Virtual Assistant Business.

If you have a slightly higher budget and want to focus on marketing, you should join our network where you will get virtual assistant training in marketing as well as virtual assistant job leads that can help jump start your business.

But if your only choice is Free Virtual Assistant Training, keep in mind you are paying in time instead of money.  Here is some ideas to get the free training.

• Join lots of free virtual assistant forums.  Participate and use Google Notebook to save good advice.
• Read virtual assistant websites and va blogs daily.
• Study free business advice sites.  You are not just a virtual assistant, you are also a freelance assistant that is an entrepreneur and you have to mange your business well.  You also have to have the skills to help other businesses succeed.
• Become a better communicator for free.
• Become an affiliate and learn how to sell via trial and error.  It takes longer but it is free.
• Find a mentor to help you.
• Email experts with respectful questions.  Don’t pester one person, spread your emails around.
• Focus on a few tasks that are high value and perfect them first.  If you can only afford free virtual assistant training, it is going to take you longer to learn stuff, so you need to focus on a few marketable tasks and generate some income with those skills.  Then you can join this network or pay for training someplace else.
• Do a free virtual internship.  Make sure you get free training and a testimonial.
• Volunteer to help a non-profit in exchange for testimonial.
• Work for a virtual assistant agency until you have the experience to go out on your own.

There are many more ways to get free virtual assistant training.  The point is, if it is free you are going to have to hunt for it and learn through trial and error a lot more.  You will pay for your free training with your time, instead of your pocketbook.

Good luck.

Virtual Assistant Management Software

September 8, 2008 | 1 Comment

I have been searching for good software that would help collaboration and manage projects with Virtual Assistants.

I know that there are a lot of good project management software products out there.  But what about having people assigned and approved for particular tasks?

I am very surprised there is not something out there.  Maybe the bigger agencies all build their own virtual assistant management software and no one has it that you can buy.  I did see one software solution that is OK, but really is very expensive for a solution that is not as extensive as it could be.

Here is what I would like to see in Virtual Assistant Management Software:

1. Manage 1099
2. Integrate certification and training for tasks
3. Virtual Assistants can update availability, specializations, hours, tasks
4. Clients prepay for hours to activate activities
5. Automatic monthly satisfaction surveys

There is more I would like, but you get the idea.  I know I could put together several products and get very good results.  But I would prefer one system that helps people manage virtual assistant teams with good virtual workforce management software.

If anyone knows of something like this, please leave a comment below.  Thanks

Hire a Virtual Assistant

September 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment

If you want to hire a virtual assistant for anything, there are some specific things to consider in advance.

The number one problem people have when hiring a virtual assistant is when they hire them, they have unrealistic expectations.  Let me explain.

If someone is really good at all the aspects of internet marketing, they can generate a lot of income for themselves.  A LOT.

If you are hiring a virtual assistant that will help you with virtual internet marketing tasks, you are not hiring someone that is good at making $100,000+ per year on the web.  If they were that good, do you think they would want to work for you?

Virtual Assistants, whether Internet Marketing or otherwise, are a valuable part of a puzzle that you are putting together.  They are not your high-priced consultant that will tell you everything you need to know.  They are often happy to specialize in on or two areas and make a decent income working from home.

If you have the patience to plan, experiment and measure results, you can hire a virtual assistant and get better results faster.  If you are just looking for someone to figure out what you need and do it for you, plan to hire an experienced consultant or plan to fail.  Virtual Assistants need clear tasks and expectations.  And they need input from you.

You should hire a virtual assistant to help you execute your plan.  You should have a clear idea what the steps are that the virtual assistant can repeat to get you the results you want.

Also, if you hire a virtual assistant, don’t expect one person to meet all your needs.  Hire particular tasks for particular specialists and build a virtual assistant team that works like an engine to achieve your outcomes.

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