Standing Out

Posted in Other Stuff, blogging | 1 Comment »

This is totally not related to VA success at all - that is my disclaimer. But it’s good to have non-work-related fun every now and again, right?

I am always patrolling the web, looking for great new Wordpress themes. I always find neat ones, and if they’re free I download them and if they’re not, sometimes I purchase them.

Anyway, one of my favorite new blog designers is holding a contest (and I do apologize for the girly-ness of this post in advance :)) and I want to win so, here goes. I have to post this text and links, and then the winner is selected at random. And guess what? There are already over 250 entries. Looks like someone’s doing something right with their blog, huh!?

“Teresa is giving away a cupcake scented gift set by Embrace Bath & Body, over at her personal blog. The contest is for USA and Canada only.”

Wish me luck! OR, go and enter yourself!

*Tia*

Posted in Marketing, social networking | 2 Comments »

If you haven’t discovered one of the better social bookmarking tools out there - StumbleUpon.com, I have good news - it’s not too late.

There are two good reasons to use Stumble:

1. Find content worth reading. People “discover” web pages, thereby giving it an automatic thumbs up. That gets a web page into Stumble circulation. Then, when people “Stumble” (I’ll explain later), Stumble shows random pages that others have discovered. People either vote for the content or vote against it. Eventually, the page you “discovered” will be Stumbled upon, too.
2. Promote your stuff. On any given day, the highest number of unique hits to my blog are from posts that I’ve Stumbled. It’s almost instantaneous, too. One day (a weekend) my daily hits went from less than 20 to over 200 in a couple of hours because I Stumbled some content.
3. Get recognition and exposure. When someone has Stumble installed and they perform a Google search, next to the search result, a link to the user who discovered the page on Stumble is displayed. This is really nifty. Other Stumblers will check out your profile, and you might just get a few fans that way.

Are you “Stumbling” yet?

Posted in Virtual Assistants, Websites, blogging | 1 Comment »

This is the 2nd post in my VA site review series. It wasn’t that easy deciding which site to post here - I’m very particular, I suppose!

I am particularly interested in good blogs to review, so if you have a suggestion, please leave a comment with the URL to the blog so I can go review it!

Virtual Assistant Site Review #2: Vadirectory.net/blog/

This VA blog, authored by Kathie M. Thomas, is called Virtual Assistant - THE Blog About Our Industry.

I’ve been to this blog on several other occasions, but I think it’s important to note that I found the blog through Technorati. That’s a great place to go when sourcing websites or blogs or news.

What I Like About It: Kathie’s style of writing is unpretentious, informative and entertaining. She also has some very interesting series - my favorite being “Has Anyone Worked with a Virtual Assistant?” where she profiles people who’ve worked with her or other VAs and writes about their experiences. If you’re new to the industry, those are great reads for you. (Maybe Kathie will turn that series into a book…)

Why You Should Visit: Kathie tries hard to make sure she’s offering her visitors something of value, which is essential when you’re blogging for business. I find her material easy to digest and interesting. My suggestions are: VA Networking, her trackback to A Tale of Two Assistants, and one of my very favorites is her post about supporting the client and its interesting take on when to push back (those are my words, not hers)

Tips We Can Learn From This Site: Categorization! Kathie’s done an excellent job of categorizing her posts effectively - something we can all learn (in fact, I have plans to re-categorize everything very soon!) Categorizing your posts effectively is important so that people can find what they are looking for. Sometimes, blog design makes that difficult.

How to Get There: Visit http://vadirectory.net/blog/

Great job, Kathie!

Posted in Growing Your Business, Marketing, Virtual Assistants | 1 Comment »

Hi there - I will set aside my normal banter and sarcasm for this post because it’s really important and I don’t want the message to get lost.

Do you have an internet marketing plan?

I guess It’s OK if you don’t, but I highly suggest creating one ASAP. I’ve discovered in my work that a lot of people believe that if they just put up a website, clients will just magically show up. That couldn’t be further from the truth. People will only know you exist if you or someone or something tells them that you exist. The marketing plan ensures that you or someone or something is out there, telling people about you!

There are basically two sides of the coin: you either have an internet marketing plan or you are flying by the seat of your pants.

Marketing plans don’t need to be difficult. Put the marketing plan in place and then let it work - don’t keep fuddling with your marketing plan. Just let it work.

Components of a Simplified Internet Marketing Plan

A good internet marketing plan should answer the following questions. It should also frame all of these questions with a time period. For example, create a quarterly marketing plan or a yearly marketing plan. Marketing plans are not “forever!”

1. Who are your clients? What do they do and what do they need? This is essential in any marketing plan, not just an internet marketing plan. Determining what they need is critical, because you can use this information to help you figure out where you should promote yourself.
2. What online medium do you plan to use as your BASE location, where people can find out about you and contact? The obvious is your website - but I’ll let you in on a little secret: it doesn’t have to be. You can start a blog and make that your home base, or you can have a LinkedIn profile instead, or a Biznik profile, or a Squidoo page…think outside the box. If you don’t have a LOT of time and money, you might really consider one of the alternatives to having a regular website - get that up and running first and then take your time in creating your website masterpiece.
3. How will you find your clients? An internet marketing plan assumes you are finding your clients online. But where? Layout specific details here. Will you network on sites such as StartupNation and Biznik? Don’t forget less traditional methods such as Clickbank - if you sell a product.
4. What advertising methods will you use, if any? Banner ads? Pay-per-click ads? Link swapping (be wary of this and do your homework)?
5. How will you drive visitors to your base location? Think social bookmarking and social networking as well as online PR and article marketing.
6. How often will you market and by what methods? Create a calendar and lay out your desired marketing methods and intervals.
7. When your visitors arrive at your site, what will you use to compel them to contact you? this is so overlooked, but this is one of the biggest parts of your whole marketing effort. Try to imagine a clear path of least resistance to your contact page, signup page, free consultation page, etc.
8. How will you capture your visitor’s contact information, so you can follow up? E-zines and newsletters are popular and they work. You should also TRY to make sure it’s very clear how to get in touch with you from the very first page. Burying your contact information is a sure-fire way to lose a potential lead.
9. What materials and expertise do you need to implement and support these efforts? If you’re planning to do it all by yourself, give yourself enough time to really do it well. Consider outsourcing (even VAs can outsource!)
10. How much money will that cost? YES! Promoting yourself online costs money. It doesn’t need to be ridiculous, but it does cost something. Don’t be unrealistic and DON’T be cheap. Try and find free resources where you can but don’t skimp on things like autoresponders, affiliate software or graphic design. Remember that shopping carts cost money, too. Even Paypal really isn’t “free” - they keep a hefty chunk of change for themselves when your clients pay you through Paypal.

Make sure that your marketing plan is realistic. Executing a marketing plan is like going on a diet: if it’s totally unrealistic for you it won’t work.

Here is a great internet marketing resource: http://www.cumbrowski.com/default.asp

Posted in Virtual Assistants | 5 Comments »

The definitions of commodity, in and of themselves, are not all bad. But we are going to concentrate on the one that is relevant here. From Merriam-Webster Online:

commodity:  a good or service whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (as brand name) other than price

I’ve heard VAs express a fear that virtual assistance is becoming a commodity (definition above). The fear is that we’re so widely available that the prices and value for what we do is going down. Is that your belief? What experiences lead you to believe that?

One thing’s for certain: there is a wide availability of virtual assistants. I know this and you know this. But do your potential clients know this?

And what of the services we provide - is that a commodity or are we as virtual assistants a commodity (or neither)? I separate this for one reason: just because there are a lot of us, clients aren’t always getting what they really need or want.

I believe that the virtual assistance industry follows the same 20/80 rule that nearly all of life falls under: 20% of us are doing 80% of the work. The reason is that only 20% of VAs really know the work that needs to be done.

Case in point: recently, a client of mine and I decided together to split the work I was doing into two parts: pure admin and the rest, which involves a lot of internet marketing and website maintenance. When we look over time sheets for the past 4-5 months, the bulk of the work is in internet marketing and website maintenance.

Here’s the problem: it’s really difficult to find VAs who can do that! You could say, but Tia, there are internet marketers and website developers who could do that. To that I say, yeah right! Truth be told, I am not entirely silly: I know that there are internet marketing companies and website development companies.

But (1) they also follow the 20/80 rule, (2) they usually cost an arm and a leg and have a target market not of sole proprietors and entrepreneurs but of successful small or large businesses that can afford them and (3) they are not the “small task” type: e.g., can you shoot over something like, “hey, Tom, can you add this ONE product to the shopping cart…now?” They are tied up in projects that help them support the staff that they really need (or that yacht they just bought).

But I digress…back to the conversation of commodity.

My personal opinion is that my own service is not a commodity - at least not yet. It’s a highly valuable thing which is why I get calls and requests all the time. I don’t believe that your service is a commodity, either. Right now, believe it or not, we are still lucky enough to be blessed with the impact of the universal law of supply and demand. There is still more work to be done than there are VAs (at least, if you don’t count the VAs still hiding under a rock).