If you receive notifications for New Forum Threads at VAClassroom, you may have seen the literal flood of RFPs coming in last week. During tough economic times like these, it’s very encouraging to see the amount of work available for talented Virtual Assistants and online professionals. But this begs the question, how do you effectively respond to an RFP? First of all, check out this video from 2minuteswithava.com for some great advice.

And now here are some more valuable tips to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward:

1) Read the two books recommended in the above video for more information on RFPs:

•    Entrepreneurial Freedom: How to Start and Grow a Profitable Virtual Assistance Practice by Jeannine Clontz and Lauren Hidden

•    Virtual Assistant, The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA by Diana Ennen and Kelly Poelker

2) Develop a proposal template that you’re happy with and simply tweak it to suit each RFP you apply for (especially if it’s successful!).

•    Our self-study VA Success Blueprint program contains some sample RFP proposals, as well as other important strategies and templates that may help you.

3) Be sure to include the following items in your response so the person evaluating has as much information as possible:

•    Date – Let them know you responded prior to closing date (if applicable).

•    Reference Number – Check the proposal for any reference numbers or specific proposal references so information is clearly communicated.

•    Reference to their original request – Repeat it either word-for-word so they can easily reference it, or rewrite their needs to show your level of comprehension of the project.

•    Outline your experience in relation to the project or tasks – Keep it organized and simple for the client to review.

•    Specific or special skills that you have – If they list special skills, let them know your expertise in that area. If you are still learning, just be honest and let them know how committed you are to continual learning!

•    Special connections that you share – Groups/People/Activities

•    Project estimate (timeline & costs) – Include how you calculate your costs and measure your effectiveness.

•    Any additional charges that you can foresee – Include any further information you think might help them.

•    Testimonials – Everyone loves to hear how successful you’ve been for other clients, so include some recommendations from similar projects in your proposal.

•    Contact information and availability – Don’t forget to let them know how to connect with you and the best way to do it.

4) Prepare your response carefully and thoughtfully, including the following elements:

•    Show some interest. Research the company, and if anything excites you about it, let them know!

•    Include any similar experience you’ve had. Describe how your similar or past experiences can benefit them.

•    Are you an industry expert? If you have worked in the industry before, include some specific industry information to show them how familiar you are in their area of expertise.

•    What specific skills do you feel would enhance their business? Shout out your strengths and tell them how your specific skill sets will impact their business.

•    Point out any spelling or technical errors on their site or marketing material. Impress them by showing them that you are paying attention and letting them know how to solve any errors.

5) Take note of how different businesses handle RFP proposals. For example, at VAClassroom, the process of responding directly to clients is handled a little differently than screened requests. Since the client has us to pre-screen the proposals we will be looking at a few key elements when we make our recommendations:

•    Specific industry knowledge & experience

•   Examples of similar tasks/situations

•   Availability and match of project scope/requirements

Hope these tips for responding to RFPs have helped demystify the process. If you are a VAClassroom Premium Member, be sure to check the Monday Memo and our forum for new job postings, a great way to add new client and income opportunities to your business!

If you have any questions or further tips on submitting RFP proposals, please leave us a note in the comment box below.

Top Five Tips for Responding to RFPs is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog

There are many emotions that can creep up during this time of year. For some enduring the challenges of tough economic times, there may be feelings of despair and discouragement. For others, there may be feelings of hope and great joy. As we head into this season, I feel a deep sense of gratitude, blessed to have a wonderful wife and family, great friends and of course our amazing team and community at VAClassroom!

I want to share a video with you that will likely require a box of Kleenex to be on hand. It will touch you to the core and if you are like me, it will give you a strong feeling of deep gratitude for all the good things and relationships you have in your life.

This video is about a young boy named Dax Locke, who was diagnosed with a rare form of terminal Leukemia at the young age of 13 months. The video highlights his life and how a family and a whole community came together to give this boy one last Christmas. I don’t think I watched a video this year that moved me as much as this one…

So, I head into Christmas with deep gratitude for what I have and excitement for what the new year will bring in business and life. When you have a moment, pop over to the comment box below and share with us “What this Christmas Season Means To You in 2010″.

Blessings to you and your family this holiday season!

Season’s Greetings from VAClassroom! is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog

While December can often be one of the busiest months of the year, at VAClassroom we also believe it is a great time to refocus and get equipped and ready for an amazing new year in your business.

So, with that being said, we are excited to announce the VAClassroom 2010 Christmas Special, which will give you an opportunity to access our most popular training programs at a special discount ONLY available in December.

Check out the below 2-minute holiday message and a snapshot of the available training courses included in this year’s Christmas Special:

Start 2011 off with a bang and a whole new set of skills!

If you have any questions on this holiday special, please post them in the comment section below. You can check out all the details on the 2010 Christmas Special here.

The VAClassroom 2010 Christmas Special is Here! is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog

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.

The Many Faces of WordPress is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog

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!

A Day in the Life of a VAClassroom Product Launch is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog

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!

It’s Here – VAClassroom’s Facebook Technology Readiness Clinic! is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog

Remember the scene in the movie Star Wars IV: A New Hope where Obi-Wan Kenobi views a holographic recording that was downloaded into a droid named R2-D2?

Princess Leia had used the droid’s recording and downloading software to hide plans for the Galactic Empire’s Death Star (a space station capable of destroying an entire planet) and to create a message begging Obi-Wan to help her by taking the plans to her father so he could analyze them.

This scene seems like the stuff of science fiction, but is it really that far off from what we’re capable of today? With the advent of smartphones and iPods, we too can download and transmit important information at the touch of a button.

Although as a Virtual Assistant you may not be on a mission to save a whole planet from annihilation at the hands of Darth Vader, you might still be looking for new channels to communicate important information to the world about your clients’ businesses. One effective option is podcasting.

Check out this great video, “Podcasting in Plain English,” explaining the convenience and power of this new communication tool:

The implications for marketing are powerful and undeniable. For a low cost, businesses can build their brand and gain more visibility with podcasting than they had before using traditional media and email marketing. With more and more people buying iPhones and iPods, there is great potential to reach a large target audience of customers downloading and subscribing to their favorite podcasts.

To help you gain skills in this area and leverage podcasting as a successful marketing tool, we are offering a brand new mini-course – Podcast Marketing Success Strategies, taught by Andrea Kalli, one of our talented VAClassroom Faculty Members, who specializes in podcasting and video marketing. Grads of this innovative program will be equipped with the most up-to-date skills and tools needed to effectively set up, produce and promote podcasts for businesses.

Move over, George Lucas. You don’t need R2-D2 to get your messages across in this exciting new world of Mobile Media… The right skills and tools are right at your fingertips!

A Podcasting Lesson from a Galaxy Far, Far Away is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog

Well, in business it is always nice to finish a year on a positive note! We have so enjoyed working with the 42 VAClassroom students who have been plowing through our live Social Marketing Specialist Training Program over the last 6 weeks. The Training program has exceeded our expectations and we have been super pleased with all the feedback received thus far.

Also, we were honored today to be listed with such reputable websites as Copyblogger.com and Stompernet.com as part of Andrea Kalli’s Top Websites for 2008 Thanks Andrea – much appreciated!

As we close out December, I will be sharing a few of my predictions for 2009 as it relates to Blogging, Social Media and the Virtual Assistance industry, so stay tuned!

VAClassroom Listed as One of the Top Websites for 2008! is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog

Well, it is Friday and I thought I would finish the week off with a story that might amuse you or possibly horrify you. All events in this story are in fact TRUE!

Have you ever had one of those days where you find yourself a step below “ROCK BOTTOM”? I had one of those days about year ago. I was one week away from launching a brand new web business and had ton of things flowing through my mind in preparation for the big launch (At least, that is my excuse now:))

One fateful Friday night, we were visiting with my in-laws at their house and I had brought my laptop along to give them a tour of our new website. Just as we were about to head home, I remembered we needed to pack a couple boxes into the back of our van. Now, I had my laptop bag over my shoulder as I was carrying a rather heavy box. It was dark and I placed my laptop bag on the ground so I could open the rear door of our Van and load the box. I then went into the house to grab one more box, loaded it and shut the Van door. Now can pick up what I am missing at this point?

I jumped in the van, started in up, kicked it in reverse (to head home) and started to back up………

Then I heard THE NOISE!! It was a gut-wrenching sound – CLUNK! My wife immediately yelled “STOP, I think you hit a cat or something”. As I was opening the door to go to back to see what I hit, a VERY dark and horrifying thought filled my mind……..

I JUST RAN OVER MY LAPTOP  – AHHHHH!

Now, remember, I am one week away from launching a new business and ALL my plans and important docs/ files are on this laptop. The first question you probably have: “Did you back it up?” YES, I had about a week prior, but had loaded some important docs on it in the last couple days.

My wife came around the back of the van to have a look. She kept saying…. “I can’t believe you ran over your laptop”.

After a minor meltdown, I collected myself, put things into perspective and headed home!

Now, here’s the principle…….Don’t run over your laptop – it is not fun!

No, but seriously…. here is the principle….. In your Business, you WILL face adversity and set-backs that temporarily discourage or even crush you! It is OKAY to have a minor meltdown at that moment – totally natural. But after your meltdown, the next response is the one that matters! Are you going to give up? Not a chance! It is not the point of adversity that defines you or determines your future outcome, it is how to choose to respond to the adversity that matters!

Interestingly enough…. I took my “pancake” laptop to my computer guy and surprisingly he was able to recover my hard drive:) Buy Toshiba – they apparently can handle being run over by a 1 ton van!

I remember saying to my wife after I had run over the laptop  – “Let’s keep this between the two of us”! Well, only a VERY small group have ever heard this story, but I was having a vulnerable moment today and thought I broadcast it over the NET:)

Enjoy your weekend and be sure back up your computers!

Honey, I Ran Over My Laptop! is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog

As many of you know, we are running a “much anticipated” webinar event tomorrow (Thursday, August 7th at 2pm EST) with Freshbooks CEO, Mike McDerment titled:

“Virtual Nirvana: How to remain inspired and productive when you work alone.”

Over the past week or so, we have been asking Virtual Assistants about the obstacles they are currently facing as Solopreneurs and have received some very interesting responses such as…..

- Concerns over getting new clients (a very common one).

- Learning to put plans on paper rather than “Flying by the seat of my pants”.

- Time Management issues – when I am “at home” , I am not at the office and feel like I need to be always working (Common work/life balance issue)

- Challenges getting my name out there.

- Challenges deciding where to focus my marketing efforts and sticking to it.

- Struggles in filtering the noise with all the things I need to do for the business.

- Confidence in abilities (new Virtual Assistant).

- Isolation, distractions within my home office.

- Feeling that my virtual work intrudes on my spouse, my home – hard to get away from work, spend more time working than enjoying life.

- Challenge keeping track of “To dos” and priorities.

- Worry too much about client work (Should I have done this , Are they going to be happy with this etc – mind never slows down…).

- Take on too much and then get overwhelmed.

- Keeping motivated

Can you relate to any of these obstacles? I sure can! I have been working as a Virtual Business Owner and have had to certainly overcome a few of these obstacles in the past few years.

We have taken all the feedback we have received and have incorporated it into tomorrow’s webinar to make it as relevant as possible. We also want to make the event as interactive as possible, so bring your questions!

Oh, one last thing… Freshbooks will be providing a $25 discount coupon code to all participants on the call towards one of their small business billing software packages. PLUS, we will be giving away one “Pure Digital Flip” camcorder sometime during the call.

Here is the link to our webinar page – hope to see you there!

VAClassroom Event Page

Obstacles Virtual Assistants Face While Working Alone is a post from: VAClassroom Training Blog