VA Newsday

Working with A Virtual Professional? Avoid These Costly Pitfalls

I work with a lot of virtual professionals (VPs)  on a variety of different web projects. Most of my VP clients have their own team of other VAs/VPs that provide a range of services for their clients

Help Email Help You: My Top-Ten Tips to Avoid Mailbox Overwhelm

With all the buzz surrounding social media, RSS, video and every other online outlet… one standby that gets taken for granted is good ol’ email. We all use it (and some of us love it), but it also can be a source of enormous frustration that can eat up a lot of the workday. Much of inbox-related angst is easily avoided with a few simple changes in what you use for email and how you process it.  In no particular order, here’s my “Top-Ten” tips for helping email help you… 1.

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Things You Should Know Before Building Your Website: Control Your Domain Name

If you’re thinking of kicking off 2010 with a new website look for your business – congrats!  There’s nothing like the New Year to inspire a web makeover.  Planning a web project can be a lot of fun and there are great possibilities to increase your visibility with blogsites and social media too. With that in mind, I thought it would be a good time to post a series of articles to highlight what clients need to know before launching a website project. Today’s “Things You Should Know” is about domain name control.

DVVAA Hosting New Televent Series Featuring Cristina Favreau (Mar 25), Erin Blaskie (Apr 7)

The Delaware Valley Virtual Assistants Association is hosting a new teleclass and webinar series, open to all VAs, Coaches, Consultants and Entrepreneurs.
Upcoming events include:
March 25: Regaining Your Marketing Momentum with Cristina Favreau
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 from 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM (Eastern)
Cristina will share 3 underused marketing momentum strategies that could generate an additional 30 [...]

(Press Release) The Academy for Legal Virtual Assistance Announces its Spring Launch

[UPDATE]:  There’s a FAQ Call about the Academy for Legal Virtual Assistance scheduled for Thursday, Jan 29th at 3:00pm.  Please RSVP to Dana at academy4lva@gmail.com to join the call.  A recording will be available after the call for anyone that can’t make it for the live call. They should just send me an email requesting [...]

OfficeDeva Offering Free Teleclass on VA Subcontracting

OfficeDeva, an executive support Virtual Assistance company owned by longtime veteran VA Laura Pumo, is offering a free teleclass about VA subcontracting.  On the call, Laura will discuss topics that will assist VAs in becoming a successful subcontractors. Whether you are seeking to augment your present VA business or simply gain tips to better manage [...]

Blog of the Week: Collette Schultz Chronicles Her Business Startup

Collette Schultz is owner of Virtual Dream Office Services, a virtual assistance service based in New Lisbon, Wisconsin. Collette recently launched her new blogsite, chronicling her startup  while detailing her services and alliances. She also has a CertifiedVP Professional Certification and is a member of the Wisconsin Virtual Assistant Network.
Virtual Dream Office Services offers bookkeeping [...]

Kathy Zengolewicz Awarded VANetworking’s VAccolade

Kathy Zengolewicz, of The Virtual Independent Contractor, is the honoree of VANetworking’s VAccolade Business Entrepreneur Award.
Kathy Zengolewicz is Owner of The Virtual Independent Contractor is a Shopping Cart Certified Strategist and a Learning Management Solutions Certified Strategist. She assists other VAs with a variety of support services.  Visit The Virtual Independent Contractor website for more [...]

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 [...]

AssistU Nominated for Shorty Award in Two Categories (Twitter)

If you’re a Twitterer, you no doubt have heard of The Shorty Awards, given to the best producers of short content in 2008 (140 characters or less), on Twitter.  There are only five nominees in each category, and Stacy Brice’s AssistU is nominated in both the Education and Brand categories.  Voting is open to all [...]

RemoteProfessionals.com Revises Membership Rates

Remote Professionals is significantly reducing their annual membership rates for the duration of the economic downturn. The new annual rates, which went into effect on January 9th, are $75 for new and renewed Full Memberships and $35 for Startup Memberships. There will be a flat fee of $10 for all events for both Full and [...]

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: [...]

VANetworking 1/7 E-Seminar: CNN Called: How to Set Up Your Coaching Business So the Media Contacts You

VANetworking’s latest e-seminar is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan  7 – the topic is CNN Called: How to Set Up Your Coaching Business So the Media Contacts You.
The guest expert is Suzanne Falter-Barns,  a best selling self-help author, former  journalist and marketing consultant. Suzanne will be sharing her tips for getting the media to call you [...]

Time Boxing for Virtual Assistants – A Guide by Nora Rubinoff

Here’s a great productivity tip for any virtual assistant or GTD fan: Time Boxing. Nora Rubinoff  of At Your Service Cincinnati, Ltd. recently posted this guide to scheduling your client work and your productivity/Getting Things Done reviews in your calendar. An excerpt:
Instead of working at a task until it is completed, you time box the [...]

(Press Release) New DVVAA Board Members Ready to Rock in 2009

January 6,  2009 – Philadelphia, PA – The Delaware Valley Virtual Assistants Association (www.dvvaa.org) is pleased to announce its new Board of Directors for 2009.
DVVAA bids farewell to 2008 Board President, Carla Wilson, owner of Wilson Virtual Assistants and welcomes Mary Motz, Owner of ProVirtual Solutions, as its new President for 2009. Wilson commented, “The [...]

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 [...]

Cindy Opong Awarded VAccolade by VANetworking

Cindy Opong of Creative Assistants is this week’s recipient of VANetworking’s VAccolade Business Entrepreneur Award.
Cindy is owner of Creative Assistants and is President-Elect of International Virtual Assistants Association (IVAA). Creative Assistants offers social networking management,  marketing support, data analysis, bookkeeping and payroll support, CRM services and more.
Congrats Cindy!

VACOC Teleseminar: On Track Vision Boarding – Jan 15

The VACOC is hosting their first teleseminar of 2009 on Thursday, January 15th. The featured guest expert is Cari Vollmer, the Passion into Profit mentor and founder of LifeOnTrack.com, who will be presenting her famous vision boarding formula for success.
From the description:
Determined to make 2009 your [...]

Five Inspirational New Year Blog Posts

Now that there’s only a few hours left in 2008, check out these 5 inspirational new year blog posts – they are sure to provide motivation and food for thought for your 2009 fresh start… enjoy!

AFFORMATIONS: Better Than Affirmations? Part I
[Change Your Thoughts]
New Year’s Resolution: Four tips for writing your personal commandments
[The Happiness Project]
Are you [...]

VA Newsday in 2009 – Your News Stories Needed!

VA Newsday – it’s all about VAs… stories about virtual assistants,  virtual assistance and our web work lifestyle.  While we rarely have difficulty in finding stories to post here, we would love to hear from you.  All submitted stories will include a direct link to your original story.
So what’s a good candidate for a VA [...]

(Wired) Diary of a Self-Help Dropout: Flirting With the 4-Hour Workweek

Fun article about one freelancer’s experiments in productivity systems…
Diary of a Self-Help Dropout: Flirting With the 4-Hour Workweek.

Check out VA Networking’s VA Holiday Choir – Happy Holidays!!

Tawnya at VA Networking posted this very cute holiday video… check it out.

Online Event: Time Management for the New Year with Julie Morgenstern – Jan. 13

Hay House Radio is hosting an online event with organizational guru Julie Morgenstern entitled Time Management for the New Year on January 13 at 7:00 pm ET. Julie Morgenstern is the New York Times bestselling author of several time management books, including the productivity classic Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies [...]

Year-End Productivity Planning: Must-Read Blog List

There’s something about the end of the year that inspires us to reevaluate our own work habits and decide whether they are helping or hindering us. The advent of the new year and the desire for a fresh start (along with the usually-slower holiday week pace) makes it a natural time to clean out our [...]

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 [...]

VA Networking Wins Big in Startup Nation’s Home-Based 100

Tawnya Sutherland’s VA Networking was just ranked #1 in the “Boomers Back in Business” category of  Startup Nation’s 2008 Home-Based 100 Competition.
VAnetworking.com is a boomer-run business whose success is undeniable. [...]  created the world’s largest online social network for Virtual Assistants to gather learn share and grow successful virtual assistant practices. With outsourcing time management [...]

Tina Forsyth Creates Social Network for Online Business Management

Tina Forsyth of OnlineBusinessManager.com and author of the recently-released Becoming an Online Business Manager – Playing a Bigger Game with your Clients (and Yourself) has launched a specialized social network for VAs who are into – or looking to get into – online business management (OBM).
The network features news and info sharing on all aspects [...]

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 [...]