Top Five Tips for Winning New Clients through Offline and WOM Marketing Strategies

Before we begin, let’s pause for a moment of self-reflection. Take a quick look at the below video and see if you can relate to this man:

An extreme example, of course, but sometimes working from home as a Virtual Assistant or online professional can become lonely and isolating, and we need to find opportunities to get out of the house. Furthermore, as virtual business owners, we need to be intentional in seeking out strategic opportunities to connect and network with like-minded professionals in our respective industries. There is a lot you can do through the Internet and Social Media, of course, but in order to be effective in marketing your business, it takes both offline and online marketing strategies to reach your potential.

So, here are some ways you can step away from the computer, get out of the house, and win new clients through offline and word-of-mouth marketing strategies:

1. Be visible in your local community and industry.

•    Join your local chamber of commerce.

•    Approach your local Rotary Club or community college.

•    Join a Meetup group in your area.

2. Ask for referrals from your current clients.

•    Thank them for the referral with lunch, flowers or a gift certificate.

•    Give both your current and potential clients more than one business card – one to keep and two to give away.

3. Attend industry events.

•    Network at events like the annual IVAA Live Summit.

•    Volunteer to help coordinate a local business organization’s event.

•    Set up a vendor booth at an event and promote your business.

4. Develop your own branded promotional materials.

•    Create brochures, fliers, special reports, and business cards to give away.

•    Make sure all materials, including presentations, are branded with your website URL, logo and contact information.

•    When marketing at a vendor’s booth, have a poster designed to promote your business and consider handing out some kind of inexpensive branded gift.

5. Find creative ways to talk about your business.

•    Practice a great 30-second elevator speech.

•    Share presentations with various networking groups.

•    Place an ad or start a column in the business section of your local newspaper.

Now, depending on where you find yourself, you may experience success either offline or online; however, we hope that the above tips can help you broaden the horizons of your marketing scope. While those of us involved in the Virtual Assistant industry may spend a lot of time in our online marketing strategies, participating in offline events has a viral word-of-mouth effect that some online strategies don’t.

The following quote from a blog post entitled “Bring Your Online Social Networking to Offline Success” provides some further food for thought:

Body language is very important, especially in business. Online networking lacks body language. You may not realize it, but people use body language a lot. It can often say more than the actually words that are being spoken. Body language can reflect attitude, emotion and true feelings. Many aspects of communication come through body language and when you are only communicating online you lose that dimension of communication.

Both of those indisputable benefits allow offline networking to deepen and reinforce relationships while adding credibility to your reputation.

So be creative, spend some time away from your computer (or cat), and let us know what strategies have or have not worked for you in your offline marketing endeavors. You can connect with us in the comment box below or on our Facebook Page.

YouTube, Facebook and Google – The Golden Marketing Triangle for Any Type of Business

Remember the Yellow Pages… you know, those thick yellow books with phone numbers and ads in them? In your virtual business activities, have you used one lately to actually find a phone number, or are they more likely to be used as a coaster for your cup of coffee or a paperweight for your desk?

These days, more and more people are moving online, a trend that could soon make the Yellow Pages obsolete. A December 2010 report from the Pew Research Center titled “Generations Online in 2010” lists certain key Internet activities that are becoming more uniformly popular across all age groups:

•    Email
•    Search Engine use
•    Seeking health information
•    Getting news
•    Buying products
•    Making travel reservations or purchases
•    Doing online banking
•    Looking for religious information
•    Rating products, services, or people
•    Making online charitable donations
•    Downloading podcasts

And what does this recent trend mean? Well, with Internet activities increasing among both younger and older adults, a lot of the people who would traditionally thumb through the Yellow Pages to find information about businesses could now be searching for this info online through sites like YouTube, Facebook and Google.

This creates an exciting opportunity for businesses to capitalize on. Check out the below video, where we talk about these three sites, the Golden Marketing Triangle for any type of business:

So, times are changing, and both online and local businesses could surely benefit by changing their marketing strategies from the yellow phone book to the golden triangle.

And as final food for thought, consider the increasing power of a local marketing strategy. A blog post by Econsultancy.com, titled “Why You should have a hyperlocal Facebook Strategy,” discusses their research on Starbucks Facebook pages and their engagement rate (ER) – how much fans engage, and response rate (RR) – how much the pages responds, in three months from November 2010 – January 2011. Here, measurements show that Facebook users are engaging on average three to four times more with local than global Facebook pages, with the local pages typically growing on average twice as fast as global communities.

Over the past year, there has also been a huge increase in the use of popular local social networking tools such as Twitter, Foursquare, Groupon and Yelp as local businesses are realizing the potential of leveraging this social medium to bridge the gap between the online world and offline customers.

Amazingly, for only a fraction of the cost of a Yellow Pages listing, these tools can quickly and easily boost a business’s brand recognition, stimulate meaningful connections with a target audience, build a loyal following and ultimately ignite a business’s customer base and revenue.

What are your thoughts on this? As a Virtual Assistant or online professional, do you see ways you could integrate this golden marketing triangle into the services you currently offer local or online business clients? Do you see an increase in the number of local businesses marketing online in your community? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.

5 Awesome Technology Tools You Wish Santa would put in Your Stocking This Year

It’s the holiday season, and many children around the world are looking forward to Santa coming down the chimney and filling their stockings on Christmas Eve. If you have kids, you might have already hung their stockings up in anticipation as they write letters to Santa.

Well, in the spirit of the season, we thought it might be fun to hear from a Santa that Virtual Assistants and online business owners can relate to. Check out this video:

So if this Santa were visiting your house, what would he put in your stocking? Here are five technology tools you might want him to bring for your virtual business:

1. Apple iPad – What can we say? The iPad is one of the hottest gifts around this year… and it’s pretty cool too. In a recent blog post, “The iPad and The Marketing Professional”, Mitch Joel quotes Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder and CEO, as saying that the iPad is “the device that lies in between your computer and your mobile device.”

So why would you want it in your stocking? Well, iPad apps can also make this a powerful tool for business professionals. Some examples that Mitch Joel recommends are Dropbox, iA Writer, FlightTrack Pro and Flipboard.

2. Google Apps for Business – Speaking of apps, if you aren’t already using Google Apps, you should really consider asking Santa for it. For only $50 per year, you can subscribe to a suite of secure web-based office tools, including Google Docs, Google Calendar, and many more.

The benefit of subscribing to this solution is that you don’t have to purchase any additional hardware or software, and you receive 25GB of email storage per person, so no matter how large your team is, you will save money and facilitate better collaboration between team members. It will also save you the time and headache of having to host and maintain your own communication and collaboration tools.

3. iPhone with TimeScroller widget – This is a handy technology tool that can help you find an appropriate time for an overseas phone call or conference, especially handy if you serve clients who live worldwide.

TimeScroller for iPhone and iPod touch is available at the App Store. Here are some features listed on the TimeScroller website:

•    Simple, compact display shows up to 9 cities without needing to scroll.
•    Takes into account daylight savings time for all cities.
•    Configurable to show different colors for different times of day – for example, “green” for normal office hours, “amber” for the evening, etc.
•    Unique suggest time feature.
•    Draft email listing times.
•    TimeScroller does not require an Internet connection.

4. Skype – This is another tool that we highly recommend at VAClassroom, especially for those accessing our live teleseminars outside of the U.S.  Skype is a software application that enables users to make voice calls over the Internet. Calls are free of charge to other users within the Skype service, while calls to landline telephones and mobile phones are paid for using a debit-based user account system.

Other features include:

•    Free video calling
•    Send files
•    Screen sharing
•    Conference calling
•    Voicemail

5. Virtual Gifts – For the Virtual Assistant who has everything, another great stocking stuffer is a virtual charity gift. For example, World Vision, an international relief and development organization, has launched a Facebook Page called “The True Spirit of Christmas”. Here you can send your Facebook friends a free virtual gift from the World Vision gift catalogue to “help spread the word about a great way to change children’s lives.”

In addition, there are many sites worldwide where the proceeds of purchasing a virtual gift benefits a certain charity, like the WWF Adopt an Animal charity gift.

We hope you are having a wonderful holiday season! We’d love to hear what’s on your wish list this year! If you have any suggestions, please comment below so that Santa knows what to put in YOUR stocking!

The Many Faces of WordPress

A deep thought for today – the history of WordPress in a nutshell:

WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

Indeed, for some, the advent of this powerful web platform was life changing. This video by Glenda Watson Hyatt describes how using WordPress has given her a voice and brought new employment opportunities:

And now it’s no secret that WordPress has become the most popular web platform among entrepreneurs and small businesses today. On the WordPress site, you can even see a whole Showcase featuring the many websites that have been built using WordPress functionality. In the past, WordPress may have been seen as a platform for delivering blogs, but with new technology and lots of innovative plugins, WordPress can also serve as a platform for systems like Content Management, Social Networking and Ecommerce.

Even some high-profile Internet Entrepreneurs, including Ryan Deiss have been powering their latest online product launches with WordPress. They have been using this platform to build their list, share content, and socialize with their audience. This week we saw a perfect example when popular Information Marketer Ryan Deiss launched a brand new product at Facebook Evolution using the WordPress template, Optimize Press.

Here at VAClassroom we’ve been watching these trends, and we know this is a niche that could prove very profitable for the Virtual Assistant and online business community, so we’ve created a new “Product Launches Powered by WordPress” Clinic that will provide a compelling case as to why businesses should seriously consider WordPress as their preferred choice for product launches. On December 8th, we are offering an exciting opportunity for Virtual Assistants to enhance their WordPress skills and specifically discover the templates, plugins and tactics for being able to launch any type of product using WordPress. This live 3-hour clinic is scheduled for Wednesday, December 8th from 12pm – 3pm (PST). Here is a quick overview of a few of the topics we will be covering in this informative session:

•    Selecting the BEST WordPress templates and themes to create squeeze pages and product sales pages.

•    Integrating Powerhouse Plugins for a complete product launch, including sales pages, testimonials, product countdowns and content sharing.

•    Creating compelling videos for your WordPress squeeze / sales page process.

•    Building a powerful WordPress mini-site to strategically use during the pre-launch process.

•    Integrating the right Social Media Plugins to socialize your product launch campaign.

•    Setting up eye-catching optin forms and integrating autoresponder software.

•    Adding common CSS snippets to enhance your Squeeze/Sales Page templates.

•    Keyword Research and SEO tips for getting your WordPress sites found on Google.

•    And so much more!!

If you are looking to expand your services and opportunities in 2011, this clinic will certainly help you to carve out a nice WordPress niche for your business! If you have any questions about this program, please submit your comments below. Check out the new WordPress Clinic Here.

Five Tips for Simplifying Your Business Systems and Processes

A recent CTV report gave Canadians promising news last week. It described how a group of researchers in Ontario discovered a way to shave 20 minutes off the 90-minute time period it usually takes to get heart attack patients into surgery.

The report says that one of the key changes involves allowing paramedics to speak directly to the cardiologist on call at the hospital and then letting the patient completely bypass the emergency department and proceed directly to the procedure room. Dr. Sheldon Cheskes, the medical director of the Sunnybrook Osler Center for Prehospital Care, who led the research, explained that they now bypass anything that causes delays in the system. According to Cheskes, “From a mortality point of view, our mortality rate before we started our program was about 6.5 per cent. Our mortality currently is 2.1 per cent, which is a huge, significant increase.”

So what does this have to do with online business? Well, the life of a business often depends on the efficiency of its systems and processes too, and building a simpler yet stronger foundation can breathe new life and vigor into your work as a Virtual Assistant or online professional. For example, are you spending an excessive amount of time billing and invoicing when you could be out there networking and meeting new clients? Do you have a system for handling your clients’ tasks, or do you have to backtrack every time and try to remember how you did the same thing before?

Well, here are some quick tips for simplifying your business systems and processes:

1. Write a list of all the tasks you do more than once – According to Pam Ivey, six-figure Virtual Assistant Extraordinaire, everything you do more than once should have a system created around it, so start by determining which tasks need a system and which ones can be handled on a case-by-case basis.
2. Talk to a mentor or a “Systems Chick” like Kristi Pavlik, creator of www.systemschick.com – If you don’t enjoy outlining systems and processes, it is possible to find others who do, so don’t hesitate to find an expert who will sit down with you and figure out how to streamline your activities.
3. Put together a manual with templates and checklists – For tasks like responding to new RFPs, responding to FAQs or providing welcome packages to new clients, it helps to create a resource that allows you to quickly build customized content. Not only does it speed up these processes, but it also allows you to hand over your business activities to someone else if you need to take time off.
4. Find the best productivity tools for your business – Especially for activities like time tracking, invoicing and billing, it is imperative that you find a tool that works best for you and allows you to perform these tasks quickly and accurately. FreshBooks is an example of a great online invoicing, time tracking and billing software that can meet the needs of many types of virtual businesses.
5. Sign up for our newest VAClassroom Training Program, the “Virtual Assistant Business Success Blueprint” course – We are thrilled to have partnered with Pam Ivey to bring you this innovative new program, which is designed to help you develop the right systems, tools and templates for quickly growing your business heading into 2011. This program is ideally suited to both newbies as well as existing VAs who would like to improve and enhance their business systems and marketing strategies. It is both a start-up and a business-building program!

We hope these tips will help give you a plan of attack so you can grow a thriving and successful online business. With the right systems in place, your work as a Virtual Assistant or online professional will become much more enjoyable, and you may even free yourself up to take some much-needed time off!

If you have any other suggestions that have worked for you, please comment below.

A Review of Google Instant Preview

To click or not to click – that is the question search engine users ask themselves, and Google has just made their decision easier with the recent unveiling of a new feature called “Google Instant Preview,” which essentially gives users a sneak peek of a website before they actually click on the link.

To see it in action, check out this YouTube video tour produced by the e-Strategy Internet Marketing Blog:

Now, unlike Google Instant (which was meant to speed things up but sometimes did the opposite), Google Instant Preview truly does speed up the search process by not only giving you a graphic overview of search results but also highlighting the most relevant sections.

According to The Official Google Blog, you can use Google Instant Previews in the following ways:

•    Quickly compare results – A visual comparison of search results helps you pick the one that’s right for you. Quickly flip through previews to see which page looks best.
•    Pinpoint relevant content - Text call outs, in orange, will sometimes highlight where your search terms appear on the webpage so you can evaluate if it’s what you’re looking for.
•   Interact with the results page – Page previews let you see the layout of a webpage before clicking the search result. Looking for a chart, picture, map or list? See if you can spot one in the preview.

And, yes, it does provide those benefits… unless a website has been designed in a way that doesn’t show up properly in Instant Previews. Then it proves detrimental to both search engine users and online business owners who may be missing out on a powerful way of drawing more traffic to their pages.

The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog provides some valuable tips on how you can optimize your site for Google Instant Preview. Here are some important examples:

•    Keep your pages clearly laid out and structured, with a minimum of distractions or extraneous content. This is always good advice, since it improves the experience for visitors, and the simplicity and clarity of your site will be apparent via Instant Previews.
•    Try to avoid interstitial pages, ad pop-ups, or other elements that interfere with your content. In some cases, these distracting elements may be picked up in the preview of your page, making the screenshots less attractive.
•    Currently, some videos or Flash content in previews appear as a “puzzle piece” icon or a black square. We’re working on rendering these rich content types accurately.

But most important of all, if you are a Virtual Assistant or online business owner wanting to attract search engine users to your site, you need to make sure you have aesthetically pleasing pages with a well-designed layout that shows up great in Instant Previews. First impressions are going to matter, and since the size of each preview is too small to read much content, elements like colors, graphics and large branding are going to play a huge part.

Now the question on a lot of people’s minds is “Will Google Instant Preview affect SEO?” Well, as in the case of Google Instant, the jury is still out on that matter, so it remains to be seen whether we will need to adjust our SEO strategies.

In a blog post entitled “How will Google Instant Preview Affect You?!” the author suggests that the Instant Preview diminishes the importance of the ad copy beneath the search query titles. She also predicts that if your Preview turns off users, your click through rate will drop, your cost per click will go up, and ultimately your business costs will rise. These things could be true, but only time will tell, so we’ll need to be vigilant and monitor how our sites are doing along the way.

So Google is taking all of us online professionals on another adventure, but it’s an exciting challenge and a great opportunity to improve our branding and our websites’ first impressions. How will you respond to the challenge of Google Instant Preview? Please share your thoughts and comments below!

The Worst Product Launches in History

William Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” meaning that it doesn’t matter what something is called, only what something is. In marketing, this often holds true, as history shows us time and time again.

In our own lifetime we have seen some amazingly popular brands attach their names to some really bad product launches that provide us Virtual Assistants and online business owners with some pretty powerful lessons on what not to do.

For starters, you may have noticed the clothing retailer Gap’s recent attempt to update their image. On October 6, 2010, they debuted a new logo on their website and did away with the blue box that had become synonymous with their brand. Throughout the Social Media community, there was a huge public outcry against the new logo, prompting Gap to return to its original blue box logo only a week later on October 12.

The below video creatively summarizes how Gap responded to the Social Media community and finally reached their decision to pull the new logo:

A blog post entitled “The Gap: Defensive vs. Proactive Social Media Strategy” gives an insightful opinion of what the company may have done wrong here:

Its logo-creation process and the subsequent reaction reflects the transition from the previous era to the new one we’re in now. The logo was developed “internally” and “top-down.” It would have been better for the Gap to solicit input on a new logo proactively before rolling one out. But use of the “old” process put the company on the defensive, though it has been very good about communicating around the new design — after the fact.

In another blog post, the same author, Greg Sterling, goes so far as to call this incident “Gap’s New Coke Moment.”

Remember New Coke? What a mistake! This hugely unpopular reformulation of Coca-Cola was introduced in April 1985 and then discontinued only three months later after a major outpouring of negative feedback from consumers. It was the first time in recent history that a company rolled back a big product in response to public outcry.

By now you’ve probably thought of a few more marketing failures, but here are some we’ve retrieved from the annals of history:

•    Heinz EZ Squirt Ketchup – colored ketchup products that eventually included green, purple, pink, orange, teal and blue, introduced in October 2000 and discontinued in January 2006.

•    Windows Vista – Microsoft operating system released on January 30, 2007, that became the target of much criticism and negative press, making many PC users turn to Macs for solace.

•    Crystal Pepsi – a colorless caffeine-free soft drink made by PepsiCo from 1992 to 1993 and marketed as a “clear alternative to normal colas.”

We could call these some of the worst product launches in history for many reasons, but for Virtual Assistants and online business owners, one of the MAJOR stumbling blocks for Online Product launches is no strategy or proper system in place! This is why so many new businesses are in desperate need of someone to support them in building the right strategy and system for their product launches.

For this reason we have launched our fourth major certification at VAClassroom: “The Product Launch Support Specialist Program“. This cutting-edge training program will equip Virtual Assistants with the skills, tools and resources to effectively set up and launch all types of products on the web for themselves and their clients! The Certification Program starts on November 15th!

For more details or to register for this innovative training, check it out at:

http://www.vaclassroom.com/product-launch-specialist

And as food for thought, we’ll leave you with a quote from Yum! Brands Chairman David C. Novak, the creator of the Crystal Pepsi concept:

It was a tremendous learning experience. I still think it’s the best idea I ever had, and the worst executed. A lot of times as a leader you think, “They don’t get it; they don’t see my vision.” People were saying we should stop and address some issues along the way, and they were right. It would have been nice if I’d made sure the product tasted good. Once you have a great idea and you blow it, you don’t get a chance to resurrect it.

A Day in the Life of a VAClassroom Product Launch

Wow, what a week it’s been! Between improving our Membership Center and preparing for our upcoming Spanish Channel launch, things have been hopping around here at VAClassroom! On top of that, we are gearing up to release our fourth certification program, the Product Launch Support Specialist Certification. Well, last Thursday we experienced first-hand the emotional roller coaster involved in an online product launch when our new VAClassroom Membership Center and updated website went live!

As many Virtual Assistants and online business owners know, launching a new product online can be very stressful.  No matter how much you prepare for complications, unexpected things always pop up. This launch went relatively smoothly for us, with the exception of some minor hiccups that were quickly resolved, including a brief outage that was thankfully much shorter than the Great Facebook Outage of 2010.

For us, though, the important thing was to communicate with people and let them know what’s up. For example, we posted this on our Facebook Page to let everyone know things were back to normal again:

Hey, if you were trying to access our VAClassroom Site this morning and couldn’t, we had an outage, but it is back up again! Hey, our turn-around time was even better than Facebook:-) Of course they do a have few more members than we do!

Groundwork laid before the launch was also very important. As Ali Brown writes in her article, “Follow 5 Steps to a Powerful Product Launch,” a key strategy to a successful product launch is building up demand by communicating with customers through low-cost or no-cost Internet Marketing tools like e-mail newsletters, social media, group calls or teleseminars. Therefore, leading up to the launch, we made sure we outlined some of the upcoming changes in our Monthly Newsletter and Monthly Members Event.

So now that it’s up and running, we’d like to highlight some of the exciting changes you’ll see on our updated VAClassroom.com website:

•    New video on our home page – We are very excited about our new video featuring both VAClassroom co-founders, Craig and Kelly Cannings. You can check it out here:

•    New “My Training” layout – Students logging into their online training center will see a simpler layout in the “My Training” area with new tabs for certifications, courses and clinics.

•    New FAQs on our Support Page – Before submitting a Support Request, you can now take a look at our list of FAQs as most likely we have provided an answer to your question. If your question is not answered, you can simply scroll down and send us a message. We will add your question to our FAQs and get back to you within 24 hours.

•    New Membership Home Page and Additional Features – Our current VAClassroom members will notice a more streamlined home page when they log in to their “My Training” Portal. We have also added some additional features like Success Case Studies, “Take Ten” Demos and Special Reports.

•    The addition of a FREE membership and Paid Annual Premium Version – If you haven’t already signed up for a VAClassroom membership and would like to do so, check out our home page, where we outline the features of both our FREE and Premium Memberships. You can choose which membership best suits your needs and access it right from this page.

We are very excited about these changes and how they can help us better serve the needs of Virtual Assistants and online business owners heading into 2011. If you haven’t already done so, please check out our website and let us know what you think of the new features. We’re here to serve you, so we’d love your feedback!

Five Tips to Building a Strong Client Base in a Down Economy

Won’t it be great when we don’t have to talk about the Recession any longer? In these tough economic times, there are many challenges to face, and in online business, many Virtual Assistants and online service providers complain that their greatest challenge is finding new clients and maintaining a strong client base.

Fortunately, this is not an impossible hurdle to overcome because even in today’s weakened economy, the Virtual Assistance field is growing and thriving. In fact, many companies are now choosing to hire a VA instead of a traditional employee because VAs can be way more cost-effective and flexible.

So how do you attract these clients and keep them coming back for more even during this period of belt-tightening? Well, below are five tips that we hope will help:

1. Create an “irresistible offer” – Even during a recession (and especially during a recession), clients need extra help, and your job is to “become irresistible” so that they will hire you to deliver the Virtual Assistance services they need and to perform the tasks they don’t have time to do. Check out Krishna De’s video below, where she provides some great advice and food for thought:

2. Develop an “Internet Marketing Mindset” – Use Internet Marketing strategies to aid you in your client recruitment. In a recent blog post we talked about “Mastering the Art of Email List Building”. Here are some other things you can do to market your services online:

•    Create keyword-targeted video content to build your visibility and credibility with your audience.
•    Create a Facebook Page designed to support your target client audience’s ongoing questions and needs.
•    Develop visually appealing, brand-building PP presentations and distribute them through the web with SlideShare.net.
•    Use Twellow.com to research and build a highly targeted base of followers in Twitter.

3. Join Meetup groups – Meetup groups in your community can be a great place to network face to face with other virtual professionals and meet potential clients. To find one in your area, check out the Meetup website at http://www.meetup.com/.

4. Visit brick and mortar businesses in your area – As mentioned above, many companies could use a Virtual Assistant to perform some much-needed tasks without having to hire a traditional employee. In this case, a low-cost way of marketing yourself could be to take a walk through your community and visit brick and mortar businesses in person. With your “irresistible offer” and some great ideas for how you can specifically help them in their local business, you could entice them to become your next clients too!

5. Take care of the clients you already have – An interesting article called “Keeping Clients in a Down Economy – Is Giving Or Taking Better For Your Bottom Line” suggests that one of the most effective ways to find new clients is to be generous with the ones you already have. Here’s what the author says:

“Rather than spend more time, energy and money to recruit new clients, I’m showing current clients how much I value them by going above and beyond, thus creating raving fans who are telling others and then those others are coming to me.”

So ultimately, a strong relationship with your existing clients could go a long way towards building a stronger and bigger client base even when times are tough.

We hope these tips help generate your creativity so you can face the challenge of attracting more clients to your Virtual Assistance business in a down economy. If you have more ideas that have worked for you, we’d love to hear them, so please post them in the comment area below!

It’s Here – VAClassroom’s Facebook Technology Readiness Clinic!

We’d like to share a few exciting details about our upcoming VAClassroom Facebook Tech Skills and Tactics Clinic. In today’s web world, Facebook has quickly become one of the most prolific brand building and marketing channels for virtually any type of business online today. As Facebook membership continues to grow and reach well beyond the 600 million mark, business owners are enthusiastic about the potential this social network has for growing the visibility and presence of their company online.

However, keeping up with Facebook’s continuously evolving changes and advancements in technology proves to be a challenge for a lot of Virtual Assistants and online business owners seeking to leverage this powerful social network. As we discussed in a previous blog post, there have been a few key changes and announcements from Facebook that have had a huge effect on Facebook Pages. Well, we here at VAClassroom have a reputation for being “Trend Spotters”, and so we made sure we created a course that will equip you with the technical knowledge, skills and tools to successfully navigate these changes and build a compelling Facebook presence for you and your clients.

Check out the below video, where we introduce our groundbreaking Facebook Tech Skills and Tactics Clinic:

Again, here are the topics we will cover in this highly relevant one-time training opportunity:

Skill #1: Strategies for selecting and implementing the right Facebook Social Plugins for your blog or website

Skill #2: Preparation tactics for the NEW Facebook Changes

Skill #3: Integrating Facebook Connect to a blog or website

Skill #4: Understanding IFrames

Skill #5: Setting up Facebook Insights for your website

Join us for this live, interactive half-day clinic coming up on Wednesday, October 13 from 12pm – 3pm PDT (3pm – 6pm EDT). The technological shifts and advancements at Facebook have created a unique and profitable opportunity for you to be your clients’ Facebook Technology Advisor. They will need you to help them properly address the new changes that will be coming at the beginning of 2011, and we will make sure you have all the skills you need to do that!

The Social Network: Truth or Fiction?

There’s a lot of talk going on about Facebook these days, from the massive outage on September 23 to the new movie, The Social Network, coming out on October 1, a story about the founders and origins of Facebook.

Biographies are intriguing, and for Virtual Assistants and Online Professionals involved in Social Media, this movie is particularly compelling. We’re advised to take it with a grain of salt, though, because there’s a bit of controversy brewing about whether or not the movie gets the facts straight.

According to a blog post on AllFacebook.com, most people don’t know the movie is based on a fictionalized and sensationalized story about the founding of Facebook as described by Eduardo Saverin, one of the initial co-founders. This story became Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires and then was adapted into a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. Apparently Saverin presented co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in a bad light because he was bitter about being kicked out of the company, and AllFacebook.com says, “It’s pretty clear that the movie is an attack on Mark Zuckerberg’s character.”

In an interview called “Aaron Sorkin talks ‘The Social Network’“, however, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin asserts, “We were meticulous in The Social Network about sticking to facts,” and goes on to explain the type of online and first-person research they did.

Another point of interest is the fact that neither the screenwriter nor the director of this movie has a Facebook account, which makes you wonder what their perspective is towards Facebook.

But regardless of what people think of this movie or Facebook in general, this is a tool that has become firmly embedded in the fabric of our culture, and for that reason (as Virtual Assistants and business owners), we need to look at ALL the ways we can leverage this powerful tool for our business.  So whether the movie is true or not, Facebook Marketing is definitely a reality that has provided tangible results for businesses seeking to build their brand and customer base.

Now we’d like to hear your opinion! Do you plan on seeing the movie, and would a shady past change your opinion of Facebook and the role it plays in your business?

Bananas and Branding in a Social Media World.

“I’m Chiquita Banana and I’ve come to say, Bananas have to ripen in a certain way…”

(lyrics from the original Chiquita Banana theme song)

Does your food talk to you?

Probably not.

Does it ask you to talk to it?

Maybe.

In this new social media driven world, even food has become interactive online, as you may have seen last week in a recent post on our VAClassroom Facebook Page. When Craig grabbed a banana as a quick snack, little did he know it would have a sticker on it that read “Chiquita – find us on Facebook to vote!” As he said, “This is a web 2.0 banana I am eating – banana branding at its best!”

So we checked out the Chiquita Banana Facebook Page, and this is what we found:

•    Facebook Page summary – “This is a page for all things banana. Pay a visit to our site and see just how bananas our bananas can get. Eatachiquita.com. Or follow us on Twitter @ChiquitaChatter.” (Chiquita Bananas are also on Twitter!)

•    Info tab – containing a link to the Chiquita Banana website, as well as a Company Overview and a list of Products.

•    “Organics” tab – promoting organic bananas and inviting people to vote. Chiquita will donate 10% of organic banana sales sold in September to the environmental non-profit organization with the most votes.

•    Photos tab – with photos from Chiquita as well as from fans. (Wow, a lot of people really like Chiquita Bananas!)

•    Page Terms tab – explaining the Chiquita Banana Community Guidelines. (This is a great idea!)

•    Several other tabs and an active Wall – with posts from both fans and Chiquita Banana itself.

Chiquita adds posts regularly to the wall and is great about interacting with fans by replying to any questions or comments.

Here are some examples of Chiquita’s wall posts:

•    Contests – e.g. “Chiquita Banana Sticker Design Contest” and “Chiquita Champion” (nominating an athlete or an athletic team who has accomplished something amazing)

•    Product Advertisements – e.g. “Exotic” varieties like red bananas and Manzano bananas

•    Fun Facts – e.g. September 21 is National Banana Day.

And if the response is any indication, people are “eating up” this Facebook Page! At this time, Chiquita Banana is “liked” by more than 20,000 people!

Moreover, the contests attract people to the Chiquita websites themselves as they are mostly held off of the Facebook Page. For example, in honor of National Organics Month, Chiquita is hosting an organic smoothie recipe contest on their blog. This is a great way of directing people to read the blog posts!

So what do you think of this banana branding and use of Social Media? Many of us had parents who told us, “Don’t play with your food,” and now here we are, entering Chiquita Banana contests and “talking to our food” on Facebook.

The great thing about this Web 2.0 world is that it can foster a sense of collaboration and trust between businesses and consumers. As companies use Social Media as a way of branding their products, consumers can interact, voicing their opinions and concerns.

A quote from the blog post “Social Media Case Study: Cindy Cieluch, Photographer Building a Brand” sums it up perfectly:

“… Whether you’re a small, medium, or large business there are small and simple things you can be doing with social media that will help with your brand building efforts while at the same time building those relationships and getting people what they truly want which is a relationship with the company before they make business and do business with them.”

So, as a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Owner, how would you use a Facebook Page or other Social Networks to build your brand in this New Media World? The possibilities are endless, so we’d love to hear your ideas!

Google Instant: Friend or Foe of SEO?

What do you think of Google Instant? It’s now been a week since Google unveiled this new feature, and it’s creating a lot of buzz, even more than Google Buzz did.

In fact, the Internet has been flooded with blog posts and articles about it, critiquing it and predicting how it could affect people’s search behavior and Internet Marketing activities like Search Engine Optimization.

But let’s back up for a moment and examine what Google Instant is meant to be. According to the Official Google Blog, “Instant takes what you have typed already, predicts the most likely completion and streams results in real-time for those predictions—yielding a smarter and faster search that is interactive, predictive and powerful.”

Now, the best way to understand this is to see it in action, so check out this creative video that demonstrates Google Instant with some help from singer Billy Joel:

According to Google, we should be seeing the following core features:

•    Dynamic Results – Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
•    Predictions – One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.
•    Scroll to search – Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

Yes, Instant does seem to offer those features, but it also introduces changes that could impact the Internet Marketing business and your tasks as a Virtual Assistant or online business owner.

Google says the primary benefit of Instant is time saved… but is it really? It seems like the primary benefit should be relevant results, and initially it seems to take a little longer to search as we train our eyes to scan the results below to see if we need to refine the search terms we’re typing. Google is not a mind reader yet; however, Instant may train users to be more thoughtful about the keywords they choose so that the correct results pop up.

Now how does Google Instant affect our Internet Marketing activities? Well, we want those “relevant results” and query predictions to point to our businesses and our clients!

So this is where Google Instant could change businesses’ SEO strategies, as users change their behavior and lean towards either long tail or short tail keywords. The blog post “Google Launches New Search Interface: Google Instant” predicts that as people spend more time refining keywords, they will ultimately focus more on long tail keywords, thereby creating a shift towards focusing even more on higher rankings for specific long tail keyword phrases.

On the other hand, the blog post “Google Instant: Personalization, The Paradox of Choice and Altered Behavior” argues that Google Instant will create a “bias against extremely long-tail queries,” predicting that users will decide against typing an extremely long query if they want to find the most relevant result for their search. Here the suggestion is made that smaller sites relying on long tail traffic may have to adjust their strategy to target shorter keywords.

Well, the jury is still out, and only time will tell, but this is definitely an opportune time for Virtual Assistants and online professionals to review their Search Engine Optimization strategies and determine how Google Instant affects them. This is where continual learning and updated Internet Marketing skills will serve you well as you catch Google’s newest wave and see where it leads your business and marketing activities.

So what do you think of Google Instant? Will it have a profound effect on your business and Search Engine Optimization? We’re eager to hear your thoughts, so please post a comment below!

Seven Must-Have Google Tools for Maximizing Your Business Productivity

Do you love Google Tools as much as we do? Google has a talent for coming up with features that often cater to the needs of Virtual Assistants and Online Business owners and can even help brick and mortar businesses take more of their activities online. For example, the blog post “Free Google Tools Changing the Way I Do Business” talks about the way Google’s suite of tools can streamline people’s work in the Real Estate business, providing quick access to email and documents.

If one of your goals for the last part of 2010 is to maximize your business productivity so you can hit the ground running in 2011, Google Tools can help you do that.

So without further ado, here’s a list of the ones we’d highly recommend:

1. Gmail – Google’s web-based email client provides you with 7+ GB of storage, as well as mobile access and a very effective spam filter. With Gmail we’re able to access our messages on any computer and on mobile devices when we’re on the go. Some other features we like about Gmail are:

•    Google Search within Gmail
•    Labels, Filters and Stars to help organize messages
•    Always-on HTTPS encryption

2. Google Docs – We’ve discovered Google Docs are a great way to create documents (also spreadsheets, presentations, forms, and drawings) to share online with colleagues or clients. Here’s how you can use them:

•    Upload any files from your desktop.
•    Edit and view them from any computer or smartphone.
•    Invite real-time collaboration on documents.

3. Google Calendar – Our VAClassroom team has just started using this free online calendar to enhance our productivity, and so far it’s working really well. Here are some of the things it’s allowing us to do:

•    Share our schedules with each other so we can synchronize our activities.
•    Access a mobile version of the calendar.
•    Customize reminders so that we’re notified by email or text when an upcoming event or task is approaching.

4. Google Reader – It’s very important to stay on top of what’s happening in your industry, but trying to monitor all your favorite blogs and websites for new content can be frustrating and time-consuming. Google Reader allows you to input the names of your favorite sites, and then it will check them regularly for new content and display it all on one screen. Here’s what else you can do with this tool:

•    Recommend articles to friends, colleagues or clients by sending them relevant links.
•    Add a customizable clip to your website or blog sidebar to display your latest shared articles.
•    Access your Google Reader on your mobile phone browser or from any computer.

5. Google Blog Search – This is an invaluable tool to use when writing blog posts for your business. It allows you to research blog posts on particular topics to see what other people are saying and what’s been written about before. With the advanced blog search, you can search using several criteria:

•    Words or phrases in post or title
•    URLs
•    Dates (useful when you’re looking for the most recent blog posts on a topic)
•    Author

6. Google Chrome – The Google Chrome web browser has proven to be faster and more stable for us, especially when viewing our VAClassroom training videos. Often if students are having difficulties viewing videos on other browsers, we recommend Google Chrome. So far it’s also offering these benefits:

•    Greater speed
•    Sophisticated security to allow safe browsing
•    Auto-updates

7. Google Alerts – As mentioned before, keeping apprised of certain topics related to your industry can be tricky and time-consuming. In addition to Google Reader, you can also use Google Alerts to keep on top of what people are saying about you, your business, your competitors or your industry in general. When you set up Google Alerts, you receive email updates of the latest relevant Google results according to the topic you chose. You can preview and then customize your alerts based on the following criteria:

•    Type of alert (News, Blogs, Updates, Video, Discussions)
•    How often you’d like to receive alerts
•    How many email results you’d like to receive

So there you have it – seven must-have business tools for maximizing your business productivity heading into the latter half of 2010. As the Internet landscape changes and evolves, most likely Google will come out with some more cool tools, and all of us involved in the Virtual Assistance business can benefit from anything that helps streamline our work with clients and all our Internet Marketing or Social Marketing activities.

So now we’d like to hear your thoughts! What Google Tool has had the biggest impact on your business productivity? Please add any other favorites to our list!

Five Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Online Newsletters

Do you subscribe to any Online Newsletters? As Virtual Assistants and online business owners, we often talk about Email Marketing from our perspective, but often it’s helpful to turn the tables and look at it from a subscriber’s perspective.

In an earlier blog post, “Mastering the Art of Email List Building,” we discussed the new Email Marketing 2.0 system and how it’s about adding value and building relationships, loyalty and trust with a niche group of subscribers rather than direct selling and building a huge generalized list of subscribers.

Infusionsoft CEO and Co-founder, Clate Mask, gives a terrific definition of this innovative marketing system:

This way of approaching Email Marketing has implications for the communications we send out to our email list and certain expectations that can turn people away or attract them to our business. So, given that definition, what would make you unsubscribe from an Online Newsletter?

The blog posts “5 Reasons Why No One Is Reading Your Email Newsletter” and “Email Newsletter Do’s and Don’t” have some great advice.

We did some thinking too, and here are the five common mistakes that might make us unsubscribe from an Online Newsletter:

1.    Boring, irrelevant content – There’s nothing worse than wasting time reading a newsletter that has no value or practical application to your business. Life is too busy for that, so be sure to provide your subscribers with valuable high-quality content that means something to them.

2.    Too many graphics – If there are too many large graphics, the images may be blocked by an email server or may be too difficult to load for people with slower Internet connections. Next stop – the Unsubscribe link!

3.   Inconsistent communication – Be sure to set a consistent schedule for your newsletter. If you call it a “monthly newsletter” but miss a few months here or there, people will begin to wonder if you’re serious or may even just forget about you.

4.    Too many ads or promotions – Even if you have a great product that you’re eager to sell, don’t be too heavy-handed with your promotions. Also, be sure to promote products that are appropriate for your target audience and that will be useful to them and their business.

5.    No options to provide feedback – As a way of building trust, it’s important to always encourage feedback and interaction somewhere in your newsletter. It’s frustrating to receive an old-style Email 1.0 newsletter that sounds like it was sent by a used car salesman who has no interest in anyone’s opinions or concerns.

So the next time you’re writing an Online Newsletter, step out of the Virtual Assistant shoes for a moment and take a look at your Email Marketing from the subscribers’ perspective. If you wouldn’t subscribe to your newsletter, chances are they wouldn’t either.

Now tell us your opinion! What mistakes do you notice in some Online Newsletters, and how do you think they affect a business’s relationship with its subscribers?

The Power of Article Writing in a Web 2.0 World

Does article writing still have a place in this new interactive Web 2.0 world? It’s a question many Virtual Professionals and online business owners may be asking themselves as Social Media Marketing and Video Marketing gain prominence.

Well, we would argue that article writing does have a place and that it is still a prolific marketing channel in this Social Media Arena. Here are some of the key reasons why:

• Increases brand visibility and interest.

• Establishes authority and thought leadership.

• Ignites SEO potency (Tons of backlinks).

• Creates opportunity for your content to go viral.

• Generates targeted website traffic and sales.

As an illustration, check out this case study described in “Article Marketing – An Hour A Week To Web 2.0 Success!”

Here the author reports how spending 45 minutes writing three articles (targeted to his sites and online products) yielded the following results one week after being uploaded to a professional online article submission service:

• 55 pages indexed and live in Google showing his resell rights article

• 43 pages indexed and live in Google showing his Article Marketing article

• 51 pages indexed and live in Google showing his Affiliate Marketing article
He summarizes the results this way:

“That’s 149 more places for people to run into my name and solid info from me online, 149 more links back to my sites, each capable of attracting tightly-targeted traffic to my salespages and affiliate marketing pre-sell pages. For one hour’s work, total. That’s the immediate benefit to article marketing – almost instant spidering by the search engines, and a number of new profit conduits set up aimed at your payment button or affiliate links.”

In addition to uploading your articles to online submission sites like EzineArticles.com, you can use Social Media channels to further maximize the exposure of your content. Here are some common ways of doing that:

• Use the EzineArticles.com Bookmarking feature.

• Schedule article tweets in HootSuite. (Send it out 2-3 times.)

• Share your article in targeted social network groups and forums. (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning)

• Include the article link in a relevant blog post.

• Submit your article to other general and niche social bookmarking sites. (Digg, Delicious)
We cover this in more detail in our Internet Marketing Specialist 2010 course since it is such a crucial step in harnessing the power of Social Media to mass-distribute your articles.

And when you’re writing, always remember the Golden Rule of Article Marketing: CONTENT IS KING! The credibility and influence of your Virtual Business will grow if you consistently provide valuable content that is directed towards your target audience.

Now we’d like to hear your thoughts! Have you used articles to promote your Virtual Business? Do you feel Article Marketing is still an effective marketing channel in the Web 2.0 world?

Facebook for Business – a Love / Hate Relationship

We love Facebook, don’t we? Yes, we do… most of the time.

As Virtual Assistants and online business owners in general, many of us have come to love Facebook Pages as an effective Social Marketing channel to build brand awareness and community. With such features as Static FBML, we have devoted a lot of time to customizing our Pages and adding unique features that make them stand out from the rest.

For example, on our VAClassroom Facebook Page, we have added featured members photos, banners and navigation bars to the left-hand side. Now some sweeping changes due to take effect the week of August 23 will have a profound impact on our Page and many others.

Here’s a summary of the changes according to the Facebook Profile and Page Roadmap Update:

•    The “Boxes” tab, boxes on profiles and Pages, and application info sections will be removed.

•    Beginning the week of August 23, all profile and Page tabs will be resized automatically to a new width of 520 pixels.

According to a blog post by AllFacebook.com, “the removal of the boxes tab is a sweeping change that will see the disappearance of all profile boxes on the left-hand side of Facebook Pages.” A Facebook spokeswoman advised AllFacebook.com that the removal of those boxes will require page owners to move that information to the info page or a custom tab. Page owners also need to be aware of the fact that the new narrower tab width may affect the appearance of their Pages.

So how can page owners best prepare for these changes leading up to August 23?

A HubSpot blog post entitled “3 Ways Facebook’s Pending Page Changes Affect Marketers” has some good advice:

•    If you’ve created any custom tabs for your Facebook page, click on these tabs to make sure the look and feel of each page hasn’t been distorted. Because pages will now be narrower, it’s possible that images or banners you’ve added or formats you’ve used previously will now need to be resized or reformatted.

•    Be sure to take a look at the boxes on your page’s sidebar and in your Boxes Tab ahead of time so you can decide what you will need to create custom tabs for once the boxes disappear.

So, it seems that Facebook consistently makes changes that can present headaches. And yet, the upside is that is an amazing channel to connect with the right audience and has so many cool apps and tools that enhance the business pages.

For now, this newest change will create a lot of work for Virtual Assistants who serve as their clients’ Social Media Specialists. In the long run, will it have a positive impact on Facebook for business?

We’d love to hear your thoughts. How are Facebook’s changes affecting you and your business page? Please share your comments below.?

Social Networking Management: A Comparison of HootSuite, TweetDeck and Seesmic.

As a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Owner in general, do you find it difficult to manage your Social Networking activities? If so, you’re not alone. With the emergence and growing prominence of Social Media Marketing, it can be overwhelming to keep everything organized and ensure that your activities are well timed and effective.

For this reason, some cool tools have been created to help Marketers get the most out of their Social Networking and save a lot of time and frustration. The most popular ones are HootSuite.com, TweetDeck.com and Seesmic.com, and we’d like to show you a little comparison of them so that you can decide which one would work best for you.

First of all, check out this video showing how their dashboards can be used to manage Twitter activities:

Thankfully, though they began as Twitter clients, these tools have in some cases also begun to integrate multiple social networks, a great improvement as Social Marketing activities are certainly not limited to Twitter.

Below is a comparison of some of the more distinguishing features of HootSuite, TweetDeck and Seesmic:

HootSuite:

•    Entirely web-based
•    Manages multiple social networks
•    Tracks link statistics
•    Tabbed layout for different accounts
•    Schedules tweets and status updates
•    Built-in URL shortener

TweetDeck:

•    Has Desktop, iPhone and iPad browsers
•    Manages multiple social networks
•    Ability to customize tweets with groups, columns, saved searches and automatic updates
•    Schedules tweets

Seesmic:

•    Has web-based, Desktop and Mobile applications for iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and Blackberry
•    Manages multiple social networks
•    Ability to customize columns and save searches
•    Ability to personalize the application

Paul Sutton’s blog post “TweetDeck v Seesmic v HootSuite: Which is the Most Awesome Twitter Client?” has a great analysis of the big three and concludes that “HootSuite is best for those who need to manage several distinct accounts, and anyone who wants integrated statistical link reporting. It’s also very useful as a tweet scheduler in its own right due to the integrated URL shortening. Seesmic, on the other hand, is best for everyday management of Twitter accounts and engaging in conversations, making it easy to keep on top of timelines with its clear views and unobtrusive but effective notifications.”

In terms of TweetDeck, however, Sutton feels it has some good features, but “the white on black interface is hard on the eyes and is stylized to the expense of usability, and the column functionality is limited, especially when compared to that of Seesmic.”

Tastes may vary, though, so check them out and see which one works best for you in your Social Networking and Virtual Assistance services. If you already have a favorite, please comment below and let us know which tool you like and how it has helped you and your clients!

Harnessing the Power of Free Information Products in Your Virtual Assistant Business

Recently we held our fourth Summer Skill Camp session for Virtual Assistants on “Leveraging the Power of Free Information Products to Attract and Win New Clients.” In today’s Web 2.0 world, a revolutionary new business model has developed that uses Free Information Products to build community, brand exposure, and lucrative results in an authentic way. This is in contrast to the old model, where free products had strings attached and were all about generating a sale.

Nowadays, Free Information Products serve to build connections, add value, grow brand influence and thought leadership in a way that can ultimately lead to new clients, all the while increasing the credibility of a business.

A July 2009 Reader’s Digest article, “Chris Anderson on the Meaning of Free,” talks about Anderson’s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. In his book, Anderson describes how the comedy group Monty Python were frustrated by seeing low-quality pirated versions of their sketches posted on YouTube, so they created their own YouTube channel and posted their own free higher-quality versions, letting fans know that complete DVD versions of the sketches were available for purchase. Amazingly, sales of Monty Python DVDs rose by 23,000 percent.

Anderson explains:

“Free worked, and worked brilliantly … People are making lots of money charging nothing. Not nothing for everything, but nothing for enough that we have essentially created a country-sized economy around the price of $0.00.”

But what form do Free Information Products take, and as a Virtual Assistant, how do you know which ones would be suitable to offer on your site?

Here are some examples of products you can offer:

•    White Papers, Special PDF Reports, eBooks

•    MP3 Audio Interview Series

•    Screencast Presentations

•    Pre-recorded Tele-Events (with Transcript)

•    Email tips series

•    Visual Slide Show Presentations

•    Online Newsletters

•    eCourses

And how do you know which ones to choose?

Think carefully about your online business and decide which of these products would provide the most value to your target audience, which ones could serve as a solution to any problems they might be having.

Once you have created your Free Information Product, be sure to position it for mass distribution through multiple social networks so that it gains as much exposure as possible and reaches your target audience through a wide variety of channels.

You’ll see that providing this valuable information for free will help establish you as a thought leader, a mentor, and ultimately build the credibility of your business, potentially leading to the addition of new ideal clients. Remember: the most valuable gift you have to offer your clients is yourself.

What do you think? Has providing Free Information products led to increased sales in your virtual business? As a Virtual Assistant or business owner, how do you maintain a balance between providing free and paid products and services?

Please share your comments below.

Seven Ways to Have an Ultra Productive Summer for Your Virtual Business.

Before we begin, we just want to apologize to our readers “down under” for yet another reference to summer when you are experiencing the cold of winter right now. In many parts of Canada, summer is so short, we just love to talk about it while we can!

One of the things we’re talking about right now is how to stay productive in our online businesses during the summer months. When the weather turns warm and the kids are out of school, it’s tempting to want to sit back, relax and put work on hold for awhile. That’s definitely a healthy thing to do in order to be refreshed and rejuvenated; however, as Virtual Assistants, often we are unable to take a lot of time off from our work and need a way to stay motivated and productive even when the sun is shining and the neighbors are outside barbecuing.

Here are a few simple tips to help you have a productive summer:

1. Try to establish office hours for yourself that will still allow you to participate in fun activities with your friends and family. (Often the anticipation of an event will make you use your time effectively.)

2. Don’t burn the candle at both ends. (While making time for friends and family, do remember to leave yourself enough time to finish your work and get a good night’s sleep – one of the biggest thieves of productivity is lack of sleep.)

3. Get some fresh air. (Take advantage of warm summer weather and go for a walk or take your kids to the playground – refreshing for both the mind and body.)

4. Give your office a makeover. (Clear any clutter that could be distracting you and create a pleasant space to work in – maybe even treat yourself to a vase of fresh flowers.)

5. When you’re feeling distracted or unmotivated, use that time to try out some new reading materials pertaining to your industry (i.e. blogs, eBooks, ezines, or a new book from Amazon.com).

6. Connect with colleagues and fellow Virtual Assistants. (Keep each other inspired by talking via Skype, telephone, Social Networking or even Meetup groups.)

7. Enrol in a training program like the VAClassroom Summer Skill Camp and set a goal to learn some great business-building skills by the end of the summer!

We’re keeping ourselves productive here at VAClassroom by continuing to develop top-notch training opportunities for you during the summer months, and we’re excited that our very first Summer Skill Camp for Virtual Assistants and Online Professionals will be starting in just one week!

How do you keep yourself productive during the summer? We’d love to hear any tips or advice you have!