So you have finally realized that you definitely need some help in order to run your business as smoothly as possible – You’re getting more clientele, you’re finding that the tasks you used to love doing are too time-consuming, you’re staying much later at work or spending too much time at your computer at home trying to get things done. You missed a great family gathering the other day because you just had to get a few things done, and before you knew it, the whole evening was gone and you haven’t even begun to get yourself ready to go out – UGHH! This is not what you had in mind when you decided to start your own business!
Ok, now you are totally set on getting yourself a VA!
The first question you will probably be asking yourself is, how do I know which VA is right for me? Where do I even begin to look for a Virtual Assistant? Here are a few very helpful hints that will assist you in finding the kind of VA that you can count on and feel comfortable with.
To start your search for that ‘perfect VA’, ask the people around you that you are working with on line – perhaps your clientele, or a forum or chat room, or especially a business coach who knows their way around the web. Get some referrals and make yourself a list to keep notes so that once you contact them and have interviewed them, you can look over your list and decide yourself who would be best-suited to be your assistant for the kind of business that you are running. Most of the VA’s out there will offer a free consultation – so you can set up a time/interview with them and see what they’re all about. After speaking with each potential VA, you should have gathered enough information about her services and qualifications to see which one will be suitable for you and your business.
Another good place to check into VA’s is Virtual Assistant Forums – easy enough to do! Just Google Virtual Assistant Forums and you will get a whole list of forums that you can search. First start with a couple of the most popular forums and that will give you a good starting point.
VAnetworking.com – this site is a large forum that has plenty of Virtual Assistants. On one of the tabs, there’s a section where you can search by country – or for the USA you can search by state – OR – you can even post an RFP (request for proposal) which will be posted on the forum for all potential VA’s to see!
VirtualAssistantForums.com – here is another huge forum that has loads of VA’s on it. You can browse for distinct qualifications www.virtualassistantforums.com/directory/ – and you also have the option of posting an RPF here as well.
In addition, there are also some very popular outsourcing sites, such as Elance and oDesk. These are not the same as the forums we mentioned and maybe they should not be your first priority to look for a VA, especially for the newbies, BUT they can be helpful. You would have to put up your profile on the 2 websites and post the jobs that you need help with. You will be receiving bids from VA’s all over the world, giving you the opportunity to choose the ones that best suits your needs, dependent on their expertise and ratings.
Another place to check for VA’s is LINKEDIN. Just do a search for Virtual Assistant, adding any specific qualifications, i.e. Webinar – Infusionsoft – Autoresponders etc. There are plenty of choices out there.
The best part is that they will be categorized, pending how closely connected you are.
Robyn here! I’ve had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I bring a variety of skills and experience to any business, which have been gained with over 25 years of experience as an administrative and IT professional. Learn more…
Summer has hit and maybe you’re thinking I wish I could have a bit more “me-time”, taking the kids swimming, going for a walk , read a book or take that trip to see family/friends. Whatever it is that you want to do, remember that it’s possible. Remember you not only deserve a vacation but you need one! What’s the secret to more “me-time” AND your business not crumbling… the secret is… outsourcing to your VA.
Probably when you originally hired your Virtual Assistant, you were just so grateful to be able to assign a lot of the mundane tasks like doing your blog posts, updating your EXCEL Sheet, research etc. The more you work with your VA, the more you realize that you can trust them to do a lot of the tasks that you don’t have to concern yourself with and now you can start working on how to drum up more clients for your business
In fact, after working for a certain amount of time with your VA, you will come to see that you don’t have to be at your desk working all the time, constantly checking to make sure that everything is running smoothly, back-tracking on your work (or time) to make sure that a certain contract has been sent out to your client. Now, you are able to enjoy more time in the knowledge that things are being taken care of. Remember the plans you made with your family to take that long-awaited vacation just as soon as you could? Well, that time has finally come! This is what is now possible for you since you have a great VA working for you!
Having a great connection with your VA does take baby steps. You need to start off slowly. However, once your VA has earned your trust, the amount of tasks and projects that you can give to them are unlimited and again that means more ME-TIME!
Your virtual assistant can:
Pay your invoices through PayPal or whatever merchant service you use. You can even get them established with their own personal logins with permission to view only what they need to
Manage the payments to your affiliates
Do customer service duties
Write and send out emails to your database
Add new products to your shopping cart.
Create landing pages
Do your scheduling
Coordinate Webinars, Telesummits etc.
Represent you in social media, or blogs/forums
And the list goes on and on..
The Bottom Line
You see how simple it is to only work with a Virtual Assistant, you can proceed with whatever your plans are for your business and your vacation. So start making a list of those tasks/duties that you prefer to hand over to your VA. You will thank yourself for it!
Robyn here! I’ve had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I bring a variety of skills and experience to any business, which have been gained with over 25 years of experience as an administrative and IT professional. Learn more…
Let’s talk about one of my favorite topics and that’s list building, or more specifically why you need to list build. No matter your online presence – from blogging, social media, creating awesome video content or your own online store, if you have an online business you can definitely benefit from building your list.
What’s the big deal about having an email list? Well for one it gives you the opportunity to communicate directly to your audience. There’s no waiting for them to visit you on your blog or follow you on Instagram to see your content or offers. You get to go directly to them, well their inbox that is.
Even though blogging, video content and social media are awesome ways to reach your audience, email marketing in itself converts better than those other forms of marketing. That’s the biggest reason why you should concentrate your marketing efforts on list building. Your email list will help you earn a living from your online business. And it’s also a form of safety net. Let me explain what I mean.
I don’t like to concentrate on all the negatives that can happen; Facebook can decide to shut down your account, your great website can get hacked and other not so fun things… but the good news is that with an email list you have a way to recover, to reach out and to talk with your tribe and let them know what’s going on.
And… another great advantage is you have an opportunity to get to know your audience better. You end up building a relationship with them through your weekly or bi-weekly emails that you send to them (as well as through their comments to you). You start to build trust with your tribe. And we know that’s important because once you have gained trust, they are more likely to take you up on the different offers you sent them via email. And as long as you treat your email list/tribe well and share great content it’s sustainable. You can make offers for things they want and need over and over again.
I’ve seen list sizes of 500 build a 6-figure income in a year, I’ve seen all list sizes and all income sizes and all I can say is imagine what you can do or earn if you start building or growing your list now.
If you want to learn more about List Building and how it can help your business click here and let’s talk.
You’ll never find 2 businesses that are the same, nor will you find 2 people that are exactly the same for that matter either – So who’s to say ‘When ‘X’ happens, you should hire a Virtual Assistant’? You’ll have some people say you should hire a VA right away, regardless of whether you’re just starting your own business or not. And then you have the other side of the coin, where people will say you’re better off to wait until you’ve established yourself and made some money. In the end, it’s really all about what you think, your own individual preference. Eventually, you will come to realize by some little signs here and there, that, yes, it’s time I get some outside help.
You need to send out your Invoices – Although it’s very commendable to give your clients the absolute best possible service you can, sometimes you end up doing so at the expense of your business. You can’t run a business without receiving an income, and you can’t receive an income without sending out your invoices/statements etc. But you don’t really have the time! No worries! A VA will take care of all your accounting needs so that you can best use your time working with and building your clientele.
You’re drowning in emails – You find that your emails are increasing and you’re having to spend way too much time on reading and responding to all of the emails – You want to be able to reply yourself to all of them to give it a ‘personal’ touch, but it’s just taking too much time!
Hire a Virtual Assistant to reply to your emails or have them put an FAQ section on your site to save you some time. It’s taking you forever to finally be able to do one task – whether it’s setting up an opt-in page, list, follow-up autoresponders, etc. – You thought you could do this in no time, but it’s just taking so long. After a few hours, you become frustrated and realize that you didn’t get anything accomplished at all.
Want to see how you can tell if you should learn the tasks you need to know for your business – OR – if you should hire a VA?
Will I have to do this particular task very often? If yes, then it is worth it to learn to do the task yourself. If not, then it is better to outsource it.
Do you want to know how to do the task because you love your work and you can afford the time to do it? If yes, then absolutely learn it. If not, then outsource it.
You’re finding all these little mistakes you’re making, such as spelling typos, grammatical errors, which, ok, we have all made mistakes once in a while and it’s understandable to have a mistake or two when sending out to your mailing list for example. But you’re making these mistakes more and more often, and forgetting to include an attachment or a link. Now you know it’s time to get a VA working for you and let them do all the administrative duties for you.
Now you’re happy that your business is growing, BUT the very thing that you intended to enjoy when owning your own business (enjoying time with family and friends) is not happening! In fact, you are having the opposite affect! You have no social life. You are missing time with your family and friends. After a while, it seems you wake up, go to your desk, work all day, eat a meal here and there, go back to work, then go to bed. Time to hire A VA!
Although there are a lot of other telltale signs that tell you that you need to outsource and get yourself a VA, the above are the most common reasons. If you were lucky enough not to encounter any of these problems, then you should definitely do yourself a favour and prevent any future negative occurrences and consider hiring a VIRTUAL ASSISTANT to save you time and frustration. Let us help you to succeed!!
Robyn here! I’ve had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I bring a variety of skills and experience to any business, which have been gained with over 25 years of experience as an administrative and IT professional. Learn more…
To continue last week’s theme on time management, I don’t know about you but at times it would appear that there are more things to do in our everyday lives (both working and personal). An important part of having a successful online business is to be able to be organized and know how to maximize your time efficiently. If you happen to be someone who is not skilled at this, then you will probably not be able to accomplish what you set out to do on most days. Read on to see how you can improve this skill and maybe learn how to be more efficient in your business and your day to day life.
What you need to do is to take a look at the big picture and decide what it is that you want to accomplish with each one of your tasks. This typically doesn’t take much time and as a result it saves you about a third of the time it usually takes, you should check last week’s blog post on this topic for more ideas.
Now that you have decided on your outcome, it helps to encourage you to stay on track and obtain your goal. As you are completing the task, think about how you would like to handle your next task. If you didn’t get your end result, figure out what went wrong and how you might be able to correct it so that you can get the outcome you wanted.
Another way you might use to keep your focus and better manage your time, is putting up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. Only use this method when you totally cannot have any interruptions while working on a certain task. People need to respect that you cannot have any distractions unless it is a dire emergency. It’s a healthy way to set boundaries as sometimes we let others take our time and nothing gets accomplished. When you get down to it, it’s your responsibility to set those boundaries and get the job done.
Another method is to use blocks of time to sort out and get your tasks completed. For example, you shouldn’t be checking emails and answering phone calls while you are trying to get tasks done. Rather than trying to multi-task and having so many tabs open on your computer such as emails, Skype, Social media etc., TURN THEM ALL OFF. This helps you to keep your mind focused on getting the job done. You’ll be thankful for it later. Remember that you can’t be available to everyone all the time (clients included) so don’t worry as most understand this since they too are running a business.
Sometimes it’s tempting to check your Facebook, Instagram & Google accounts when you hear that little ‘ding!’ and you realize that there is a message waiting for you, whether it’s from friends and family or your colleagues. But, you need to assign a time for you to reply to them. Of course, there are exceptions, such as something urgent relating to the job you are currently working on, where you have no choice but to answer. So take that time, but don’t let it roll over into something that’s going to lead you astray from your task.
You also need to realize that you may not complete every assignment every day. If you can’t complete all your tasks designated for that day, don’t worry. Look to see if you took on too much, or where there are too many distractions. Did you delegate tasks to your staff or did you decide to take it all on yourself? This helps you to see where you could have improved in your overall time management.
To summarize, be sure to always recognize what outcome you want and turn off all distractions. Then concentrate on your tasks and get in the habit of working in blocks of time. Don’t forget to delegate to your staff whatever keeps you from moving forward and after awhile you will know how to maximize your time and be better able to complete your tasks.
Robyn here! I’ve had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I bring a variety of skills and experience to any business, which have been gained with over 25 years of experience as an administrative and IT professional. Learn more…
Last week we discussed the importance of list building, this week I’d like to touch a bit more on the subject and talk about how you can build your list through blogging. If you are not building your list with blogging, you might want to consider doing that because blogging is a great tool for you to use to establish your online presence.
Let me explain to you some different techniques on how to up-build your list via your blog.
Get an Opt-in Form on Your Sidebar
The majority of entrepreneurs will add an Opt-In form on the side bar of their Blog or newsletter which will appear on each page. You may not get a ton of new potential clients on your list right away, but it’s a beginning!
You don’t have to change it every time you create a new blog post. Once you put it up there, it’s done and you will start to slowly see some subscribers join. Of course, you can update it whenever you want, whether it’s a different set-up such as moving it to the top of your page or a different background and maybe try a different size font, new colors, or even different offers. You could change them as little or as often as you want. Eventually you will have one that works just perfect for you!
Pop-up Forms
I know! A lot of people dislike these, but hey, If they do what they’re supposed to, then that’s a great thing!
I get it, you really don’t like them yourself, so you’re hesitant to try them. Don’t let that stop you though. You will be amazed at what a great tool it is and how well it does actually work!
Maybe you’re even thinking thinking, but I can’t be bothering my potential clients with all these pop-up forms. Well the good news is that you can also adjust them so that they only pop up once every 2 or 4 weeks or an exit pop-up, or a timed pop-up. Really there are no hard and fast rules for this. You can adjust it by making some changes to it until you hit on the right method that works well for you.
Customized Opt-in Forms At The End Of Your Blog Posts
Now this one is a great technique, but be aware that it is more time-consuming to create as it is much more personalized and relating directly to your blog content. Nevertheless, the results can be quite amazing! AND it does not need to be done for each blog that you post. Keep it more for special occasions or holidays etc. Let me give you an example as follows:
Your niche is Health and Wellness. You just posted a blog about how to Detox in a week, getting your mindset and any tools that may be required to follow through with the procedure. When signing off, you have an opt-in offering more tips on how you can safely detox as well as a free recipe e-book of different detox drinks people can make.
So you see, you are not only giving valuable advice on how to take care of your body, but you are also giving a free gift consisting of different detox recipes that people can use. This will be a great way of generating more traffic to your site and ultimately building your list. However, as I already mentioned, you don’t have to do this for every blog you post, you might consider that option when launching a new product or a monthly offer or whatever works for you and your service or product.
So as you can see there are a few ways you can build your list through your blog, try one of these ways or all of them and see your list numbers start to go up.
If you want to learn more about List Building and how it can help your business click here and let’s talk.
