VA Newsday

Registration Opens Today for VA Classroom’s Social Media Marketing Specialist Program

VA Classroom, an acclaimed training site for internet marketing and social media VAs, is opening registration for their much anticipated Social Media Marketing Specialist Training Program.  This program is self-directed and focused entirely on using social media networks, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to accomplish marketing goals for clients. The demand for these skills is huge [...]

GoToAssist Express Beta Ending – Discount Offer

GoToAssist Express, the new remote tech support service for small organizations and sole proprietors, is ending its free beta program in February.  GoToAssist Express is a secure access product that allows VAs to connect to their clients’ computers to perform tech support or maintenance tasks.
Check out the list of features (from GoToAssist Express):

One-Click Session Start: [...]

Retainer vs. Hourly Billing: A Guide for Virtual Assistants and Freelancers

ClientSpot, a hosted project collaboration and time tracking site, today posted a timely article about pricing structures for freelancers  and VAs.  The article focuses on pros and cons of hourly vs. retainers, and mentions some interesting but less obvious possible outcomes of each approach:
Depending on your situation you will most likely use a combination of [...]

Sydni Craig-Hart Helps Executive Assistants Transition to Virtual Assistance

Sydni Craig-Hart, co-founder of Craig Hart Consulting, LLC,  recently launched EA to VA (Executive Assistant to Virtual Assistant) – a site dedicated to helping corporate executive assistants transition to entrepreneurial virtual assistants.
The site is packed with great information for emerging VAs. Sydni draws on her extensive experience as a successful VA (nominated for 2008 AssistU [...]

Productive Magazine Launches – A Monthly for GTD Fans

Devotees of David Allen’s Getting Things Done workflow methods now have a new resource to add to their reading list: Productive Magazine. The brand new monthly will be offered as a free PDF download with print editions available for purchase via LuLu.
Interestingly, the magazine is sponsored and published by Nozbe, a task management web application [...]

Remote Professionals’ VA Mentor Series Begins March ‘09

Remote Professionals, an association of Virtual Assistants and other freelance professionals, is launching its second Virtual Assistant Mentor Series in March, 2009.
Open to all VAs, freelancers and other outsourcing providers, the 12-week Virtual Assistant Mentor Series will feature virtual business veterans presenting classes on topics ranging from startup issues to finances to security:
The Mentor program [...]

Blog of the Week: My Self-Employed Life

Mikelann Valterra, MA, is a well-known author and speaker devoted to helping women earn their potential. As founding director of the Women’s Earning Institute, Mikelann focuses on coaching women of any profession expect (and get) proper compensation for their work.
Mikelann’s blog tackles some thorny subjects that most self-employed women contend with. Recent posts discuss dealing [...]

Test “Hi-Def” Teleconferencing for Free Until Dec 31

If you do a lot of teleconferencing services for clients, you may want to experiment with “hi-def”. No, I had no idea that such a thing existed either – but it sure sounds good! HiDef Conferencing is offering limited-time free services to promote its range of products.
The hi-def teleconference service is a bit more limited than [...]

VA Classroom Hosting Social Media Webinar – Oct 28

Craig Cannings of VA Classroom is hosting a free webinar about social media trends – and how VAs can position their businesses to capitalize on the exploding demand for related services. The webinar will focus on seven marketing services that will dominate the social networking landscape in the near future.
The webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, [...]

Blog of the Week: HubSpot

If you are at all interested in keeping up to date with web marketing trends – specifically “inbound marketing” (attracting traffic and leads) – check out the HubSpot Blog. HubSpot targets marketers and website owners with consulting and applications to maximize the potential for websites and social media to attract self-qualifying leads. From the HubSpot [...]

Industry Leader Stacy Brice Offering Group Coaching to All VAs

Stacy Brice, a longtime industry leader and Founder/President of AssistU, is now offering Virtual Assistance coaching to all VAs in a group format. Stacy’s many years of experience is shared via a choice of two  groups, one focused on experienced VAs, the other on VAs in the startup phase of their businesses:
I’ve been coaching individuals and groups [...]

Katie Baird Offers Advice on Choosing VA Training Programs

Katie Baird of LooseEnds posted an excellent article on her blog, Loosely Speaking, about current Virtual Assistant training options. She describes the recent explosive growth of virtual assistance, then spotlights both structured training, coaching/mentoring programs and books written by accomplished VAs:
If you are interested in this career and have decided the best means to get up and running [...]

Blog of The Week: EBook Writing and Marketing Secrets with Connie Ragen Green

Connie Ragen Green’s EBook Writing and Marketing Secrets blog is one of my favorites. An ebook marketing expert and prolific writer, Connie Ragen Green offers a wealth of tips about ebook preparation, marketing and promotion – even finding the inspiration and motivation to get that ebook written in the first place!
Many of the ideas featured on [...]

Twitter As Research Tool… A Case Study

Denise Wakeman of The Blog Squad
 describes her recent experience with asking her Twitter followers to help her find a good resource.  Denise was looking for a good product for online scheduling… and since many of her “tweeps” are also virtual professionals - she instantly received a lot of excellent suggestions:
I put my request out on Twitter and within minutes I [...]

Curious about “Live-Blogging?” – Check out CoverItLive.com

Despite my news-junkie status, I always learn about something new at VA Classroom. This week, the VA Classroom Blog features a great resource for anyone who has wondered how to “live-blog” an event.  CoverItLive.com answers that need by making it easy to post immediate, play-by-play updates of any event – super-useful for sporting events, tradeshows, meetings and [...]

Business Services, Etc. Re-launches VA Training Club Site

Erin Blaskie, of Business Services, Etc. recently announced a redesign and relaunch of her VA Training Club website. VA Training Club features articles and training videos by member VAs on a range of subjects, including business building, client systems, marketing as well as technical skills such as blogging and podcasting. VA Training Club also spotlights a VA [...]