VA Newsday: Latest Headlines from the World of Virtual Business

A Social Network “Unstrategy” for Finding Freelance Gigs

When I began freelancing full time I decided to try social media on the basis that it might help me to promote my services. Now that I’ve been freelancing full-time for a year, I decided to revisit my predominantly ad hoc approach to social media.

Why a Premium Telesummit Model Beats a Freemium One Any Day

I’ve started hosting ongoing preview calls limited to just 10 people. I call them huddles. I give 10 minutes worth of content, then I open the floor to questions for the remaining 20-minutes. I answer one question, then I move on to the next person. Mary Pat revealed to me recently that due to my basketball

Real-time May Be Nice For Search Engines, But What About Personal Lives?

The lives of journalists online are increasingly hectic and frenzied, according to a somewhat sensationalistic piece in the New York Times. But the underlying phenomenon the Times is describing seems far more universal than that: it is the increasingly “real time” nature of all our lives.

Got a Problem? 13 Reasons Why You Want One

Problems aren’t all bad. Well, they usually do stink, but most have a silver lining, too. Here are a few good things that can come from a problem.

How To Keep Urgency From Ruining Your Life

Life is incredibly distracting. No matter how enthusiastically you set goals, it’s just too easy let yourself get pulled away from taking action on them because of daily urgencies and reactive thinking – and then it’s weeks/months/years later and you’re sitting around, asking “where did all the time go?” The…

Determining Your Virtual Assistance Rate

Determining your rate is something that every virtual assistant struggles with and there are many, many theories on how much you should charge. A forum I belong to posted a link to a freelance calculator which might be helpful in determining your starting rate. The link is: http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/ A calculator such as this one will

Managing “Busy-ness”: What Gives?

As more demands are placed on you, tasks that once seemed extremely important become trivial. You have one hundred things to do and a limited amount of time to do them in. So the question becomes, what do you give up?

Moving to Mac: Use Thunderbird to Switch from Outlook to Mail

If you read Scott’s recent Moving to Mac series, you’ll know that transitioning to Mac from Windows is not as tricky as some might fear. However, there is one area that can cause a lot of pain, and that’s moving email between Outlook and Mail.

Letting Go of Paper

I’ve been surprised at how difficult it is to let go of my paper. As I move more and more of my paper to a digital format I keep finding myself hesitating when I get ready to shred a document. We are trained so very well to keep our paper records. Has

Series- Biz Lessons from the Super-Fabulously Successful: Featuring Adelaide Lancaster

This week we are pleased to bring you our last feature of the Summer: The Super- Fab Adelaide Lancaster, Co-Founder of In Good Company Workplaces, NYC! Adelaide Lancaster, co-founder, is a successful entrepreneur who excels at making business ideas a reality and helping businesses grow to their potential. Adelaide

SEO Mini-Sites: Four Things You Need to Know to Make Money Online

There is a certain assumption amongst small online businesses, a belief that search engine optimization is primarily for major players and websites with hundreds, sometimes even thousands of indexed pages. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We hear about long-term SEO strategies and conjure images of giant websites – online authorities…

AppSumo: A Discounted Bundle of Great Web Apps

Taking its cues from the hugely popular MacHeist bundle of Mac apps, AppSumo presents time-limited offers on collections of hand-picked premium web apps. The current bundle, which is available for another 11 days, includes six-month subscriptions to BatchBook, MailChimp and Formstack and a $120 voucher for Freshbooks.

Communication Tips for VA’s and Clients – Hearing is Not Always Listening!

Throughout my various experiences in the business world, and I am sure yours as well, there is always a question of…Are you listening to me, or are you just hearing me? There is no doubt a huge difference. Taking it a step further into the emailing era… the question can become, are you just reading

Market Like a Mind Reader

You don’t need to visit a psychic to find out which subscribers will be pleased to receive your next email. You can find out yourself by segmenting your list . Sorting subscribers into segments based on various criteria means you can send them the emails you know they want – all without reading their minds

Payment Terms for Your Virtual Assistance Business

The first thing you’re going to want to do is determine whether you are going to charge on an hourly rate, a pre-paid package or both. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each of these options as well as what it includes. Hourly Rate With the hourly rate, you basically track the time

How to be Insanely Productive and Still Keep Smiling

Do you want to be more productive? Maybe you do, but I’m sure you don’t want to feel stressed, overwhelmed, or unhappy – which happens to many super-productive people.

Testimonials: The Ultimate Social Proof

Your email marketing relies on that one decisive moment when someone cruising around the internet ends up on your landing page and signs up for email updates from your company. Once visitors click around and develop interest in your product, it’s natural for there to be some hesitation. People are very protective of their inboxes, but one surefire way to combat that tension is to use testimonials. It’s a tactic that stems from the logic of social proof .

In Recovery: No More Tweets

I own every major Twitter client for the iPhone, and many for the iPad. Some were free, but most were bought and paid for. They each have their merits and I’ve used them all variously at one time or another, though some more than others. But no more.

How To Avoid Blowing Your Customer’s Mind

Recently, we took the kids to Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Because we stayed three nights we got discount, and paid about $300 a night. I think the regular price was a little over $400. Great Wolf Lodge is where it’s at for the under-12 set. Four-story waterpark. Indoor river. Wave pool. Talking Related Posts How To Avoid…

My team is smarter than me… eek?

I’ve always been the smart one… In fact i’ve taken great pride for most of my life in being a very smart person – the one that people turn to when they need answers. (I distinctly remember in grade 3 deciding I was going to be smart and had straight A report cards all throughout school

Social Media for All of Us Old Farts and Dweebs

Guest post by Mark Silver In the spring of 1984, I was ducking out of yet another high school pep rally. I had somehow managed to get the master key to all the classrooms (how did I get that again?) and was hiding out in the school newspaper’s computer lab. I never made it to Social Media for All of Us Old Farts and Dweebs is a post…

Video Marketing Techniques to Convert Viewers Into Buyers

Your videos may have plenty of views, but what do you do when, despite your efforts, the campaign isn’t yielding any return on your investment or any return at all? Take a look at some of these tips to learn how to transform idle viewers into actively engaged buyers. Show the Viewer Benefits, not Just Details The Article by Andrea…

Choosing a Name for Your Virtual Assistance Business

Your name is an important piece of your business as it lets people find out more about you before ever visiting your website or reading about your services. A business name is something that describes not only YOU as an individual but your business as a whole. When you initially name your business, try not

Mobile Uses for Evernote’s Trunk

Evernote is my dumping ground for research ideas, quick notes, and web pages I’ve come across on the Internet and want to save for future reading. When Evernote announced its new Trunk service on Wednesday, I was immediately skeptical and derisive.

Share with SlideShare

Valuable content that positions you as an industry leader is the backbone of social media marketing. And today I want to introduce you to a free tool that makes your content easy to share – SlideShare.net SlideShare is just like YouTube for documents and presentations. It allows you to upload your presentations (from powerpoint, keynote,…

Road Map to Virtual Assistance Success

Having a roadmap is important. It is the tool that helps you get from Point A to Point B with little to no stress or confusion. Just like a real roadmap, you can make decisions about which way to go but the basic route is always the same. Some people call this roadmap a business

How to Get Exactly What You Want

J. Paul Getty was quoted for his formula for success: “Rise early, work hard, strike oil.” When I first ran across this quote ten years ago, I had to laugh, because it looked like Getty was saying you have to work hard and hope to get lucky. But fifteen years later, I can see the more relevant meaning, and I’m about to share with…

Managing “Busy-ness”: The Shift

In this two-part post, I’m going to talk about managing “busy-ness,” or what Timothy Ferriss describes in “The 4-Hour Workweek” as “working for work’s sake.” As your business grows and your workload increases, it becomes more and more important to manage “busy-ness.”

Evernote Book

Brett Kelly has written a book called Evernote Essentials. If you’ve been considering using Evernote, this is the guide you’ll want to makes you are getting the most out of it. The PDF is well illustrated and covers a lot of the details that you probably won’t discover on your own. It took me about

Authority Blogging: Five Tips for High Power Blog Posts

Once upon a time, massive archives of low quality content was the standard amongst bloggers. Blogs were monetized with Adsense and affiliate products, and what mattered was not the quality or relevancy of the content, but the amount of space which was available to plaster with Adsense advertisements and sponsor information. Now, things are…

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VA EVENT UPDATE…

Grow That List! The 7 Streams of List Building with Ali Brown – July 14
Do you know the best foundation for creating a thriving business in this internet-based world? It’s by creating a targeted list of prospects. List-building is SO important for your business growth that Ali Brown is hosting a complimentary teleseminar to give you the LATEST information on list-building on Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 7:00 pm […]
How to Remove the Stench of Mediocrity from Your Next Telesummit
[ July 21, 2010; 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm. ] I love telesummits. However, the current model is no longer working. When my friend, Milana Leshinsky, pioneered the telesummit format back in 2005 with her Coaching Telesummit, it was new, fresh and innovative. Since then, many have gone on to create their own telesummits in various niches. Yet, as the years... […]
Teleclass: eProduct Flight Plan (June 23rd)
I’m very excited to announce a new teleclass that I will be doing with my very good friend and colleague, Mary Motz, next Wednesday called E-Product Flight Plan. This is the first in a series of learning events we will be offering as the Virtual Learning Team! Here is a short video introduction: In this teleclass, Mary […]
VAClassroom Launches Summer Skill Camp 2010
VAClassroom is offering its new Summer Skill Camp beginning in early July, 2010. Enrollees attend 10 90-minute webinars over ten weeks, focusing on new and in-demand skills. Topics include Facebook pages, social media services, developing high-conversion sales pages and more. An Early Bird Registration special is available until June 30. Enroll now and r […]
It’s Finally Here! The Perfect SEO Copywriting Course for OBMs
Would you like to learn how to “Write a Site” – for you or your clients – in just 30 days? My friend and colleague, Marketing Strategist Karri Flatla has created the SEO Copywriting Course and it starts June 22nd. I’ve been bugging Karri to offer a course like this forever, and I guess she finally gave […]
Teleclass on June 23rd– From Underearning to Prosperity
Well, I can’t make it any easier than this! Our events calendar is now up. Every month I will offer a one hour teleclass on some aspect of improving your relationship to money, for a whopping $37 bucks. (These calls are free to my current Financial Recovery Coaching clients.) I’ll teach for 40 minutes and Related posts:7 Symptoms of... […]
New Teleclass: E-Product Flight Plan – June 23rd
I’m thrilled to announce a new teleclass that I will be doing with my very good friend and colleague, Carla Wilson, next Wednesday called E-Product Flight Plan. In this teleclass, Carla & I will be presenting a how-to guide on how to sell your knowledge online. If you are a coach or consultant and have […]
Live Webinar – End Your Website Shame
Confession time – do you have Website Shame? You know it when you have it – the hastily crossed out URL on your business card, the missing “website” field in your social networking profiles, the horror of a potential client accidentally discovering your site, the botched attempts at “fixing” things that left you... […]

Recommended Virtual Business Resources

Erin Blaskie's Blog Design Bootcamp 3.0 Self-Study, new & updated for 2010! Learn high-paying blog design skills at home, or just fire your webmaster. Click here for details.

Become a Virtual Event Specialist and supercharge your virtual professional career by offering the most sought-after skills that small-business marketers are demanding now. Click here for more.

Interested in becoming a high-end virtual support professional? The demand for Online Business Managers far outpaces the supply. Click here to learn more about becoming an Online Business Manager.