By VANA member Frances Palaschuk
OK, so in case you haven’t heard yet a Virtual Assistant (VA) is a real, live person who is highly skilled in their niche business market segment. Yes, a real live person! Don’t let the word virtual confuse you here. Virtual is simply the term used to describe the fact that you as a business owner can indeed employ business support personnel who are NOT local.
by Hartford Rhodes
Writing articles is a great way to market your online business, because it puts you in the position of being able to establish yourself as an expert in your field. The challenge, of course, is that not everyone feels comfortable with the idea of sitting down and writing articles. That’s where article ghostwriters come into play.
Ghost writing is a well-established tradition in which non-writers, such as yourself, can hire someone else who will do the actual article writing, while you are able to take the personal credit as the author of the article. That’s right: with ghost writing, you pay someone else not only for writing articles, but also for all rights to those articles. As a result, you are able to make any necessary changes and to publish the article with your own bylines and contact information, attached to the article.
by VANA member Kara Wierzbowski
Running a business can get hectic. Being organized can help. Organization saves you time, saves you money, and saves your sanity. Whether responding to emails is taking several hours a day, your office is over-run with papers, you missed a press release deadline or your customer service is suffering a VA can help. Here are just a few ways:
by VANA member Frances Palaschuk
For small business effective seasonal marketing campaigns can mean real big business. It is after all the busiest season of the year. Almost every business takes advantage of some sort of marketing gimmick from Holiday Barbie 2007 to Stocking Stuffers for your pets. When you think about it they are still selling the same old products and services but with a twist.
by Mark Wardell
1. Plan the following day at the end of each day.
This is the time your mind is most clear. If you try to plan your day in the morning, you become distracted by your e-mail, your voicemail, the telephone, your employees, your customers, and so forth. It’s nearly impossible to think rationally about your priorities when you’re being pulled in 10 different directions.
It’s also a good idea to plan the following week at the end of each week, plan the following month at the end of each month, and plan the following year at the end of each year. Make this part of your regular routine. If you follow no other piece of advice on this list, follow this one. I guarantee you this simple change will increase your productivity more than you can imagine.
by Erin Blaskie
In my profession as a virtual assistant, I am in the front of the delegating lines and I see firsthand what works and what doesn’t. Oftentimes, new clients will ask me to coach them a bit on delegating work to our company and I am always happy to do so.
If you are currently delegating work to others or you may do so in future, here are five ways to make your delegating experience more effective.
by Rick Sloboda
To achieve business growth, you need to focus on your strengths and hire others to take care of the rest.
Unfortunately, entrepreneurs often fail to employ this fundamental business growth strategy.
By Janet Barclay, MVA
Regardless of their area of expertise, new business owners often find themselves filling the roles of salesperson, customer service rep, webmaster, office manager, and many others. This can be a practical solution, as it’s difficult to justify paying someone else to perform these functions when you have time, but not money, to spare. However, if all goes well, the day will arrive when you no longer have time to efficiently maintain all of these roles. Unfortunately, most business owners don’t prepare for this day, and as a result, they are forced to work more and more hours as they continue juggling multiple roles.
By Jim Estill
Delegation is based on respect. You need to respect the person to whom you delegate. They, in turn, will not want to do the tasks, unless they respect you.
The best way to delegate is in person. Giving someone a task face-to-face is ideal because you can get a sense of the person you are dealing with. You can tell if someone is happy to do a task for you, or if they are actually resentful. Establishing the bounds of your delegating relationship is important.
By Ed Sykes
On the first season of the television reality show, The Apprentice, Donald Trump would give the ultimate winner the dream job of working for him, running one of his divisions and earning $250,000 per year. On the final episode, the choice came down to two candidates, Bill Rancic and Kwame Jackson, for the “ultimate” job. Both were very qualified. Bill Rancic was the owner of a successful Internet cigar business grossing over one million dollars a year, and Kwame Jackson was a graduate of Harvard Business School and most recently worked for the prestigious Wall Street investment house, Goldman Sachs, as an Investment Manager.