What to Look for When Hiring a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Manager

Posted on by November 15, 2011

The Internet is constantly changing, with new and innovative ways for marketing and selling your products and services always looming over the horizon. If you are looking to hire a great virtual assistant or an online business manager, you’ve got to find one who keeps up with the ever-changing online technology and your ever-changing business needs. You can hire a virtual assistant to handle just one or two short-term tasks, or you can create a long-term business relationship with them where they are “on call” for any internet business need that arises.

Therefore, before you can begin interviewing prospective virtual assistants, you need to define the perfect virtual assistant for you. Get out a piece of paper and answer this question for yourself: What tasks do you want your assistant to take over? It can be the mundane, such as posting videos to your sites and social network profiles. Or it can be the advanced, such as building social networking profiles for you, from the ground up.

Start shopping for potential virtual assistants by obtaining referrals. Ask your business colleagues and friends if they have recommendations. Then check them out online. The best candidates may not necessarily have huge corporate-looking websites. Look for clean, uncluttered websites and profiles with clear information.

Whether potential candidates are referred to you or you just found them while surfing the ‘net, check out their reputation. Google that individual’s name and company. Do they have a solid online presence and have they received positive feedback from past clients? Do they look good online? Look at the testimonials, services they offer, etc. This will give you some basic info, such as how long a prospective virtual assistant has been at it and their education and training.

Also request some client recommendations. It’s okay though, if they cannot supply you with names of past clients, because some past clients may have requested that their names remain private. This is especially true in industries where business marketing and new product news is held under lock and key.

Be aware that some virtual assistant companies act more like agencies. They outsource talent to do the work for you. The danger in this is that the person you interview over the phone may not be the person doing the work for you. Could they be asking someone in a foreign county to do your precious work for pennies on the dollar? If so, that’s ok as long as the work is being done to your precise specifications. This is where a virtual assistant acts as your project manager or online business manager.

Therefore, when you’re interviewing for your virtual assistant, it’s important to be talking with the person who is directly responsible for completing your tasks, regardless of whether you are going through a large virtual assistant company or not.

10 Ways an Expert Virtual Assistant Can Help You Manage Your Next Project

Posted on by May 6, 2013

The entire point of hiring a virtual assistant is to take care of those pesky online tasks for you. Sure, you could spend time contacting tech support for your websites, looking up FAQs on social networking sites, watching how-to YouTube videos, taking webinars, and even enrolling in community college classes to keep your presence known on the Internet, but this learning curve takes a lot of time.

An expert virtual assistant, like Christine Buffaloe, keeps up with the ever-changing online nuances for you. It doesn’t matter what business you are in. The right virtual assistant will make it their business to know how to market your business.

How can she help you? What’s your next project? I’ll use a general example: You’ve got to get the word out about your newest product or service. This product could be a new recording, a new book, or a new business venture. Or perhaps it is a grand opening, a special event, or a discount on your services. Of course, you want to announce it to the world, and what better way than via the Internet? But where do you start? You start with an expert virtual assistant.

Here is just a sampling of 10 ways your expert virtual assistant or online business manager can help you manage that new project:

1. They can handle online research for you.

Don’t know where to start? If you need to find the best places to post an ad, choices for a great name for your new website, and the hottest spots to post a social networking profile, Chris will do the legwork for you. She’ll tell you how long your project will take, and inform you of the technical know-how involved. You can decide if you want to take it from there or let her run with the ball.

2. They can create an online presence for you.

Give your expert virtual assistant the info they need—bio, photos, media—And they will be your online “agent”, creating profiles for you where you need them, using your favorite colors and fonts, like at my blog. Christine can upload this kind of stuff to your website for you, too! If you want to make changes, your virtual assistant will safely keep your online passwords under lock and key and will only share them with you, so you can go into your new profiles and tweak them to your heart’s content.

3. They can do your online and offline “housekeeping” jobs.

They can set up and maintain your email lists, categorizing them so you can target particular email blasts to specific people on your list. They can categorize your Facebook friends and tweeters, too. Need to dump a bunch of inactive friends? Need to clean up your existing email list? Your expert virtual assistant can handle database management tasks with finesse.

4. They can help you compose and send off email blasts and e-newsletters using online email programs.

Your expert virtual assistant knows how to make your messages look good for email. And if you want them to deal with getting the message about your new product or service to your email list, they can handle sending it out, managing subscribers and unsubscribers, report who is reading and responding to your newsletter, and more. Hand it all over to them and you won’t need to deal with email management again.

4. They can proofread and write for you.

I like to think of the Internet as a big billboard. Make sure you look as good as you can by allowing your expert virtual assistant to proof your next email blast, your next blog post, your next advertisement, and your updated bio. They can even send an email on your behalf, saying, “Hello, I’m Chris, Anne’s virtual assistant…” This will certainly impress your friends. Your expert virtual assistant will make you look mahvelous, dahling, on the World Wide Web!

5. They can do the stuff you know how to do but don’t want to do.

An excellent virtual assistant doesn’t mind checking through a long list of possibly dead links, uploading a lot of media—mp3s, video, photos—to various websites and social network profiles. There’s no shame in admitting that you don’t want to do those tasks. You’ve got better things to do.

6. They can flag you to posts that need your personal attention.

No time to deal with social networking? If you haven’t the time or inclination to post to Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, and other social network platforms about your new product or service, and you have timely info to convey, let your expert virtual assistant do it for you. They can interact with your fan base for you. Send them your 140-character message and they’ll get it out online. Send them your new product links, and they’ll tell the world about them.

7. Virtual Assistants can do all kinds of personal things for you if you wish.

They can sift through all the junk messages and send you the gold, the real business sales and inquiries. They can even handle product fulfillment for your online store. They can check for phone messages from online services like Grasshopper, transcribe podcasts and webinars for you, and act as your headhunter or recruiter to help you find excellent job candidates for your expanding business. A virtual assistant can even help you find the best travel deals for your speaking engagements (but they don’t do windows, and they don’t pick up your laundry for you).

8. They can be your personal techie.

Serenity Virtual Assistant Services partner’s with her husband who heads up SEO (search engine optimization). They can write in code for your website and other online profiles. And if they can’t do something for you, they can contact tech support on your behalf so that they can do it for you.

9. They can be your online secret agent.

They can subscribe to Google Alerts on your behalf to find out where your products and services are being mentioned online. They can track comments on your blog and monitor feedback about your newest postings.

10. They can handle damage control.

Did you spend a lot of time posting something to your WordPress website, but it looks terrible and you can’t fix it? I often contact Chris and she is able to help me fix the problem. Did someone hack into one of your online profiles? Call on your virtual assistant for help. They can back up your online info, keep track of your passwords in case things go awry and you can’t get in to fix it yourself. And they can preserve your online reputation by spreading the best about you, your products, and your services.

You’re never really “done “with your virtual assistant, keep in touch with them. Chris often alerts me to news about the ever-changing landscape of the Internet. They’ll let you know of the newest places to get the word out and how to do it. They’ll teach you about ways to improve your online presence. And if you ever find that you need help with tasks that are outside of their scope, they’ll refer you to other experts to continue to grow your business. And like Chris, they continue to be your online friend.

Anne Roos is a professional writer and author of two published non-fiction books. Anne has over twenty-five years of owning her own business as a professional musician. Words and music are my loves and marketing is my thing. Therefore, I’m comfy adding interesting tidbits and morsels to blogs and social media pages to whet readers’ appetites.

Why most small businesses fail – and what you can do so yours won’t

Posted on by May 6, 2013

In 2007 Discover Card conducted an independent survey to shed light on the characteristics of the 22 million small business owners in the United States. The number one trait common to small business owners? The study revealed: “Independence is their prime motivation.”

While additional studies have confirmed that while there are many personality characteristics common to most entrepreneurs, a very independent spirit is the one trait shared by each and every one. Most small business owners would not give up the freedom that comes along with owning their business to work for someone else, even if it meant making more money.

But there is a danger to being too independent. This one trait of extreme independence can be the biggest roadblock to success for entrepreneurs. No one person has all the answers. No one person can work alone and always aware of potential problems or roadblocks. Everyone has their blind spots. No matter where they have been or what they have accomplished, everyone is missing vital knowledge and experience in one area or another.

Small business owners have to be aware of the need to seek out a trusted network. Entrepreneurs need a place where they can discuss issues with others in a similar situation. Sometimes, when working alone, it is very easy to continue down the wrong path until suddenly you discover what a costly error you have made. Working alone is like that.

Another challenge that entrepreneurs face was discussed by Michael Gerber in his classic book The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most New Businesses Fail and What to Do About It. Gerber talked about the importance of working ON your business and not IN your business.

But how do you change from being a day-to-day business “technician”, dealing with customers and putting out fires, to spending time as a visionary executive looking at your business from the outside in? The best way: schedule committed time to work “on” your business!

If you are like most entrepreneurs, who are surrounded by “busy business noise” in which it can be difficult to even hear yourself think, you will have to structure your time in such a way that the urgencies of the moment will not deter you from this important work. You and your business will benefit from a structure which ensures that you use the time you allocated for exactly what you intended, regardless of the emergency du jour.

If you are really committed to being successful by working on your business instead of just in your business – if you want to prevent failure which so many other smart and hard-working small business owners have experienced – then be sure to visit Business Mastermind Teams to learn what you can do to have the business of your dreams.

Clicking here may well mean the difference between failure and success.

A Nonprofit’s Ideal Donor

Posted on by May 6, 2013

When Sandy Rees of Get Fully Funded worked as marketing director for the Knoxville Second Harvest food bank in Tennessee, her most successful strategy was creating a profile of the ideal donor, and then marketing to that niche.

The food bank did its research and discovered that the vast majority of donors were women over age 50, who attended church regularly.

“We needed to be speaking in front of every woman’s group in every church in town,” she said. “We did. We knocked their socks off with the presentation and we had a special call to action at the end. It worked like a charm.”

Rees says nonprofits that don’t take the time to research, study and market to their ideal donors are leaving money on the table. They’re also missing numerous publicity opportunities because if you don’t know your donors’ profile, you can’t target the media that are reaching them.

She will team up with Joan Stewart this Thursday, Oct. 27, to present her best tips for nonprofit PR during the webinar “Failproof Publicity Tips for Cash-strapped Nonprofits to Raise Money, Recruit Volunteers & Promote a Worthy Cause.”

We’ll share dozens of tips, tricks and tools that will help you save time and money communicating your story to the masses–and achieve the results you need.

Read more about what we’ll be discussing, and register here.

Relationship Marketing on the Internet

Posted on by May 6, 2013

If you feel that your social media marketing efforts could use a HUGE boost, good news! My friend, Mari Smith, has a brand new book out today called The New Relationship Marketing: How To Build A Large, Loyal, Profitable Network Using the Social Web.Mari is one of the foremost leaders in the social media world, with particular expertise in Facebook marketing.

You’ll love this book – it’s as if Mari is sitting by your side gently guiding you through the maze of do’s and don’ts in order to create much better results with your marketing.

Go pick up a copy of Mari’s new book today – available anywhere books are sold, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and in Kindle and Nook versions.

PLUS, good news! When you get your copy of the book, you also get to attend Mari’s free four-part webinar miniseries where she’ll walk you through the principles in her book. Find details of how to register here: Relationship Marketing Webinars.

P.S. In true Mari-style, you get to register for the free four-part webinar series on the “honor system!” That is, you do not need to scan/fax/email/snail mail any proof of purchase before you get access to the online classes. Once you order your book, just register here and that’s it!

Tips for Your 2012 Media Plan

Posted on by May 6, 2013

This is the time to start collecting editorial calendars so you can begin creating your media plan for next year.

Contact the advertising department at each newspaper and magazine where you want publicity and ask a sales rep to send you a calendar or lead you to it at their website. Editorial calendars list special sections and other topical features being planned for specific publications.

They tip you off to sections where your story would be a good fit. Find out who edits the section, write a pitch, and then deliver it. Using editorial calendars will put you miles ahead of everyone else who’s pitching. Here are three more tips for creating a media plan:

–Less is more. You’re better off targeting fewer media outlets and writing customized pitches for each, rather than delivering the same one-size-fits-all pitch to dozens of media outlets, many of which will have very different audiences.

–Use the social media sites to find journalists who cover your topic. If you find a beat reporter on, say, Twitter, follow him. Pay attention to topics he’s writing about. Retweet his content. Start the conversation. And then pitch.

–Thing of ways to repurpose your publicity, using multi-media. If a local newspaper prints a story about your company’s new product, don’t stop there. Create a video for YouTube. Post photos to Flickr. Feature the product on Company Pages on LinkedIn. Consider hosting a free webinar showing people how to use the product, and offer replays of the video at your blog.

If you aren’t creating a strategy right now to generate publicity in the next 12 months, in another month or two, it may be too late. Long lead times for some media outlets, like national magazines for instance, mean you need to be pitching stories six months before the magazine goes to press.

But you don’t have to start creating a plan from scratch. Let me help.

“How to Create a Media Plan” is a graduate-level course on how to get worldwide attention for your product, service, cause or issue, by creating and following a well-thought-out, month-by-month strategic plan that also leaves room for publicity ideas when there’s breaking news. It’s available as electronic transcripts, CDs or MP3s

Read more about how it will shorten your learning curve at http://budurl.com/PubHoundMediaPlan

 

Reprinted from “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy cheat sheet “89 Reasons to Send a Press Release.”

Top 10 Reasons to Have a WordPress Blog Website

Posted on by May 6, 2013

I have become a huge fan of WordPress Blog websites. I have one myself.

Jason Saeler of Saeler Enterprises had been trying to convince me for the longest time to convert. Well, I converted and he has made a beleiver out of me. So much so, that I am now creating and hosting wordpress websites as well.

Here are 2 that I have recently finished:

American Standards Renewable Fuels Corp. and SandyRees.com

What are the Benefits of Using WordPress for Websites?

WordPress is an open source content management system which is easy to use and offers many user friendly features. It provides you the most innovative and contemporary publishing platform. The biggest plus point of WordPress is that it focuses on all web principles and usability. No doubt, WordPress has become a popular choice for website development. Discussed below are top 10 benefits of WordPress development.

1.Affordable: One of the biggest benefits of WordPress design is that it is very cost effective. The themes are available at a very affordable price. Compared to other content management systems, it is very cost effective.

2.Better SEO rankings: WordPress helps to optimise your search engine results. It ensures that your website lands on the first page of Google results, which increases the possibility of getting more visitors. The more visitors you get, greater are the chances of getting maximum profit.

3.User friendly: Another benefit of using WordPress is that it provides WordPress designers with convenient and simple applications. This not only makes the designers feel comfortable using it but also makes it user friendly for the users. You do not require any technical skills to use it. If you can send an e-mail or use Microsoft Word, you can very well use WordPress easily.

4.Quick installation: It is very easy to install WordPress. All you need to do is to just click on the WordPress link to install WordPress on your website. The software will ask you some basic general information, then WordPress will be installed successfully.

5.Enhanced functionality: WordPress allows you to set a specific functionality you want your blog to perform. There are various WordPress Plug-ins that will help you do things you would like to do. There are nearly 8,000 WordPress Plug-ins on the WordPress.org website and thousands more that are not in the WordPress database.

6.Various add ons: It also provides you with various add on features that are available as plug-ins and widgets. Most of the designs and themes are either free or readily available as premium themes. You can even change them as per your own specific requirements.

7.Automatic upgrades: The automatic upgradation is automatically done without requiring any manual process.

8.Better Administration: WordPress can easily survive traffic spikes; it can easily balance the server load and ensures that the website runs smoothly.

9.No Backup required: WordPress keeps backup of your blog (but I would recommend it).

10.No Spams: Pre installed Akismet helps in blocking spam in the background.

To see a list of services that Serenity Virtual Assistants can do for you, please visit my wordpress website!

Are You Feeling the Mompreneur Wave?

Posted on by June 8, 2011

“They are all over the TV, newspapers and online media; they are “mompreneurs,” and they prove that it is possible to be both a nurturing caretaker of little ones and a successful business mogul. Here’s what is means to be a mompreneur, and why these five moms are getting so much well-deserved attention.” As quoted by Linsey Knerl.

Ok, I agree, there are a lot of mompreneurs that are extremely successful and knowledgeable in their fields of expertise.. There is no doubt in my mind.

The problem that I have are the inexperienced mompreneurs that are undercutting experienced Virtual Assistants such as myself and others that have been working for years to establish ourselves as experts in many areas on the interenet.

An experienced Virtual Assistant will not need to be micro-managed, and the ‘learning curve’ is minimal. This enables entrepreneurs/business owners to spend their time doing what they do best; to work on their business instead of in it.

I bring this up because I had a recent experience with a client that decided to hire a momprenuer to take over the tasks that I had been managing for her. Now, I don’t get upset at losing a client, but what corks me, is that the new VA didn’t know anything about what was needed to complete the tasks. No, html experience, no shopping cart experience and so on.

I was asked by the client to train her. I agreed.

I have spend hours, weeks, days and months honing my skills. I have participated in endless webinars, teleseminars and so on to learn these skills.

Again, I am not getting “down” on mompreneurs, but let’s have a little respect here.

Barnes and Noble’s Nook E-Reader–Why You Should Be Publishing Your Content

Posted on by May 28, 2011

I recently sat in on a webinar hosted by Joan Stewart and Daniel Hall. The subject matter was “How to Publish a Nook Book”. This webinar was chock full of information on how to publish you content.

So, why publish your book on Nook? There are quite a few reasons:

  • 44% of e-readers make more than $80,000 per year (they have money to spend).
  • 83% of parents allow or encourage their children to read on an e-reader (NY Times).
  • 27% of e-readers have Master degrees or doctorates (Nielson).
  • Some publishers are now considering including advertising in their ebooks (Wall Street Journal).
  • Nook now has 25% of the market share….inching up on Kindle and
  • Nook pays 65% on public domains works and Kindle only pays 35%.
  • The Nook is a better platform for books with pictures and graphics.

These are just a few of the advantages of publishing your content to Nook.

What content, you ask? It can be blog articles, a series of blog articles. Books or chapters from books. As long as you deliver what you promise in the title, you can publish it.

Daniel stated in his webinar that his goal for this year, yes, just this year, is to publish 20,000 items to Nook.

This is just one of the many tasks that a virtual assistant can help you with. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to be on the front end of publishing your content to Barnes and Noble’s Nook e-reader. If you have a blog or have articles, publish them and see the $$ roll in.

What is a Virtual Assistant?

Posted on by May 16, 2011

Wikipedia.org defines a Virtual Assistant as the following: “A Virtual Assistant (or simply VA), is an independent contractor providing administrative, technical, or sometimes creative assistance to clients – usually to other independent entrepreneurs and solo and small business practices, such as that of a lawyer or realtor. Virtual Assistants work from their own office (hence “virtual”), thus making it a fairly popular (and growing) profession.” In simple terms, a Virtual Assistant acts as your own “satellite office”… without the office overhead!

The use of virtual assistant services is especially beneficial to small business entrepreneurs who need various administrative tasks/projects completed, but may not have need nor budget for full-time employees and office space. Virtual Assistants are responsible for their own taxes as self-employed sub-contractors, and do not collect standard employee benefits. Virtual assistance is used only on an as-needed basis.

Why You Should Hire a Virtual Assistant: As a business owner, you understand that managing details does not make optimal use of your valuable time, and has a directly negative impact on your bottom line. Yet, you may not have need nor budget for office space and full or part-time employees.

Delegating administrative tasks to a Virtual Assistant only makes good sense for your business. An experienced Virtual Assistant will not need to be micro-managed, and the ‘learning curve’ is minimal. This enables entrepreneurs/business owners to spend their time doing what they do best; to work on their business instead of in it.

How Virtual Assistance Works: A Virtual Assistant generally charges a set hourly fee, keeping track of all tasks performed, and the length of time spent on each task. The Virtual Assistant then provides each client a detailed invoice at the closing of a pre-determined invoicing period, (usually on a monthly basis) In some instances, a Virtual Assistant and client may agree upon a flat rate for larger projects, on a case-by-case basis. While the hourly rate to hire a Virtual Assistant may be higher than that of an in-office assistant, the overall cost is considerably lower than maintaining an office and hiring a year-round employee, with or without benefits.

Here are just a few items that a virtual assistant can help you with:

  • Set up a blog Blogger, Typepad or WordPress
  • Set up Google alerts so you can find content for your own blog or post comments
  • Keyword research to help you to maximize your website for search engine optimization
  • Set up and manage your social media accounts

If you are a virtual hesitant and need more ideas on what you can do to assist your client, see “How to Help Your Boss or Client with a Publicity Campaign” A Graduate-Level Course for Assistants, Virtual Assistants & Interns taught by Joan Stewart, AKA, The Publicity Hound for an in-depth training.

If you are a business owner in need of a virtual assistant see “How to Find a Virtual Assistant to Help with Your Publicity Campaign” with Cindy Greenway and Diana Ennen