Remember that post I made a couple of weeks ago? Well, we’re getting much closer to the goal! And I promised that some lucky people would win prizes along the way.
If the following people would like to get in touch saying they’ve seen this post, they will be forwarded their choice of book from my VA shop.
Debie Brockhoff
Sharyn Munro
Emina Redzic
Jan Bowdery
Kerrie Anderson
Stay tuned for more lucky prizewinners and that lucky 1,000th member!
My favourite RSS feed reader is Google Reader and I have it saved as one of my home pages in my browser.
It allows me to read blog updates at times that suit me (like over breakfast for example) although I never fully keep up with them these days. I’ve subscribed to a lot and some have more than a few updates weekly – some several a day.
The RSS feed is also useful for some of the chat forums I belong to as I can see what’s been discussed without logging in and then I can choose to respond to posts if and when I have time.
Below is a small list of interesting reads I’ve comes across this week:
Aussie Bloggers Forum also has a blog and encourages its members to contribute. I’m an active member there and invite you to come check us out! Planning Queen wrote the post I’ve linked to, about great dining on the Great Ocean Road (Vic).
There’s an interesting post at Copyblogger about why should anyone read your blog?
Chris Garrett has been doing a test on pop up email subscriptions for his blog (wonder if I should try that?) with mixed feelings.
At ebooksandreviews, there’s a post about reading and eyesight, worth looking into. I had to succumb to wearing glasses a few years ago and being able to both read and write in comfort is important to me.
Yaro writes about a JV Partner Invitation at his blog Entrepreneur’s Journey. If you’re on the hunt for such partners, might be worth investigating!
If you have a blog you think I should be subscribed to on my reader, please leave a comment here and I’ll take a visit and consider it!
You would have had to have your head underground or off the planet, not to know what’s been happening in recent times. And everyone’s thoughts are about tightening their belts and wondering about their jobs or their businesses.
In the VA forums discussions have turned to whether business is increasing or decreasing? Many have reported the former and it’s been good to see this response.
Why is this? A recent article at Farifax’s SMH site talks about how support staff are usually the first hired and the last retrenched, and on page two Virtual Assistants were mentioned:
In the US, Harris Interactive found that 41% of employees in small businesses were satisfied with their jobs, compared to 28% of employees in large companies.
While he’s seen no evidence of pending retrenchments, James Adonis believes that virtual assistants will become popular for project work and replace the role of some data administrators and PAs in small business.
”So rather than paying $60,000 a year for a full-time office manager, companies may choose to hire a virtual assistant to do a power point presentation, invoicing or the minutes of meetings to increase productivity.”
To read the rest go to Angels of the Office.
The above is good news for Virtual Assistants but even before the rumours and unrest became quite noisy this year, it was evident that our industry was beginning to boom. If you have good computer skills and good admin skills, there will always be a need for your services and as the general business arena becomes aware of our existence the requests for work to be done will continue to increase.
So, what should new VAs be doing to benefit from this? They need to be mixing and mingling with other VAs in forums so they can learn from their peers. But it’s important to remember that the work doesn’t come from that avenue for the most part (although some VAs do sub-contract to others). Networking with business owners from many industries will assist a great deal in letting them know you exist and for you to show them how you can assist them.
I’ve written often here about networking and marketing, and even the value of volunteering on committees to demonstrate your abilities. With a bit of forethought and planning you can build up a client base within a year and before you know it you’ll be celebrating your 2nd, 5th and 10th anniversaries in business and beyond.
Many of you know that I’ve been experimenting with Facebook and have set up a business page, separate to a personal profile. I wrote about this previously in September and have also been sharing about it on another blog.
I was discussing Facebook with a guy at my husband’s mountain bike race on the weekend and he mentioned something I’d not thought of before. He said it was the new way of developing a mailing list and when he said that, it made me realise he was probably right in that thought. You can have a Fan Club where people can sign up without you being notified and you can also have a friends’ list where you approve each connection. You can send messages out to either or both.
A contact of mine has been sending out her newsletter via her Facebook list, something I hadn’t thought to do but I have been promoting events I speak at and the release of my newest book ‘It Happened By Design‘. And just recently I’ve sent out an invitation for the Forum on Virtual Assistance event I’m speaking at next June in Canada. Their website is www.forumonvirtualassistance.com but it hasn’t yet been updated for 2009. The Facebook link above though is current.
So, it’s worth exploring Facebook- I know that many VAs and other business people are today and as Facebook continues to woo business people, the number of applications and services available are sure to increase.
I got the most astounding and rude email this week. I sent out a follow up email to a number of people who had filled out the application form to join my Virtual Assistant team but never took it any further. Basically I was just making sure they had realised there were more steps – I wasn’t sure if they’d seen the autoresponder messages (only 2 of them from a new service) after they’d filled out the form.
One response came back very quickly with two very loud and bolded words telling me where to go. Not signed off but when I scrolled through past emails for that particular address I was soon able to determine who had sent it, where they lived and other information based on the form they had originally filled out only a month ago.
Why are people so rude online? Or is this person like that all the time? I simply responded reminding them they had filled out the form (and sent them a copy of what I’d received) and hoped they had a better day from now on.
What they forget is that email can be forwarded on or saved and if this person contacted me again further down the track I’d be very wary of their ability to manage a business as a VA, be a representative of my team and treat clients in the way they should be treated – politely and with suitable language.
I encourage you to think carefully before hitting send. There are days when you can get annoyed or angry about something but don’t take it out through the email you’re sending – it could end up being the reason why you miss out on a job, lose a client or something else.