Season’s Greetings from VAClassroom!

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!

The VAClassroom 2010 Christmas Special is Here!

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.

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!

Choosing the Right Venue for Your Virtual Events.

Often times we’ve discussed the growing importance of Virtual Events and the undeniable fact that they’re quickly replacing offline meetings as a more economical and environmentally friendly option. But how do you choose the right Virtual Venue for your big event?

Just as you would investigate conference rooms, hotels or restaurants before booking an offline meeting, it’s important to investigate different types of Virtual Venues so that you can choose the one that’s most appropriate for the type of event you’re hosting.

One of our VAClassroom graduates, Carlana Charles, recently published a blog post entitled “Virtual Events – Why They are Hit” and featured a video that explains the different options that are available:

Let’s look more closely at the four options discussed here and see which types of events are best suited to them:

•    Webinars –Since these are typically one-way, from the speaker to the audience with little audience interaction, they work best for online teaching sessions or workshops. We’ve used Yugma or GoToWebinar in the past, which also offer the option of connecting participants via a phone line, VoIP or an online chat box.

•    Internet Live TV – This venue works great for presenting dynamic talk shows, presentations or interviews, the types of shows you would normally broadcast on television. In this case, Ustream or Livestream is used, and the presenter has a webcam on themselves and a camera on other presenters.

•   Internet Live Radio – This is a good option for events that require or invite audience participation, as people can call in live and interact with the presenter via a tool like Blog Talk Radio. Another advantage is that they are syndicated and can be listened to and subscribed to long after the event has taken place.

•    Teleseminars – Since these involve mainly audio, they work best for conference calls or group coaching sessions. Usually there is a certain period of time devoted to a presentation, followed by a question and answer session. Often online handouts will be given out for participants to refer to during the presentation. In this case, tools like GoToMeeting or Skype can be used to facilitate the event.

So there you have it – four popular Virtual Event venues to choose from! There are many factors to consider, but as the tools become more streamlined, the choices are becoming easier to make, and the emergence of Virtual Event Specialists has provided business owners with a valuable resource to draw on when planning their big events.

What Virtual Venues have worked for you or your clients in the past? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic!

Connexions Group

Title: Connexions Group

Link out: Click here
Description: The “Connexions” group will provide you with an opportunity to connect, dialogue and discuss the training courses and other pertinent Internet marketing topics with VAClassroom Staff and other members. Connexions will offer a casual,non-structured atmosphere that will be directed by your questions, comments and perspectives. Of course, we will add our own 2 cents for what it\’s worth, but we ultimately want the content of these sessions to be dictated by you! Our hope is that these times will help to further stretch your Internet Marketing learning and knowledge to the next level.
Start Time: 13:00 PST
Date: 2009-09-24

Six Keys to Building a Thriving Virtual Assistant Practice in 2009

Happy New Year! I definitely took a long hiatus from my blog, but have re-charged my creative batteries and am officially ready to go!

I have had the privilege of working with a whole variety of Virtual Assistants over a number of years and have been able to assess the particular traits or characteristics that make some of them  very successful. As we head into a New Year full of much promise here are six keys to building a thriving Virtual Assistant Practice in 2009:

KEY #1 – Be Active in Social Networking – I continue to hear great testimonies of some of our VAClassroom students finding new ideal clients through such popular Social Networks as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They are building their network with a target audience and are finding opportunities emerge through these connections! So, one of the keys to sustaining a Thriving Virtual Assistance practice in 2009 is to become a “Master Networker” in the key social networks, forums, groups and online communities!

KEY #2 – Build a Compelling Web Presence - I have also had the opportunity to review many different VA websites and I noticed that some of them still do not market themselves super well. The page sometimes is super text heavy, with no multimedia or compelling images. As an Internet Business Owner (who currently works with 4 VAs), I love coming to site that has a YouTube Video, compelling graphics, an optin box to a free PDF guide, Twitter & Facebook Badges and possibly a blog. This shows me that this business is cutting edge and savvy! So, here’s a test….

Go to your website right now and ask yourself: “If I was a prospective client, would I be drawn to my website?” Now is the best time of year to make changes!

KEY #3 – Participate in Blogging and Social Media Content Sharing - Many of you who are blogging right now know the value of being of thought leader in the VA industry and building credibility with your prospective client base – not to mention the great SEO value of regularly updating your blog! The key with your blog is to create content that would be relevant to your target client audience. For example; I saw a PDF guide that a VA was offering called “101 Reasons to Use a Virtual Assistant in 2009″ – this was great and relevant content for small busineses, which certainly could pave the way to new client opportunities!

It is imperative to build your traffic and web presence through sharing content in such sites as HubPages, Squidoo and EzineArticles. This again positions you as a thought leader and drives traffic and Search Engine results back to your website!

KEY #4 – Establish a Clear Business Niche - As you know, the Virtual Assistant role is constantly in flux and means many different things to different people. Many VAs are bloggers, web-designers, social media marketers, bookkeepers, event planners, PR specialists and so much more! The most successful VAs have been able to establish the right niche at the right time to create the best opportunities for their business. For example; businesses are screaming for VAs with Social Media Marketing expertise, which is why we recently launched our Social Media Marketing Specialist Training Program.

Also, it is important to identify the niche audience you are targeting. Is your ideal client audience, Real-Estate Agents, Business Coaches, Women Entrepreneurs, Internet Marketer, Ecommerce Sites etc..?

KEY #5 – Proactive Marketing Strategies – I always love the saying “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”! Translation: A Pro-active Virtual Assistant will create the best opportunities for their business! As you know, the clients may find you on Social Networks or via your website, which is great, but for the most part, you will need to go out there and connect with your ideal client audience in creative ways. For example; One of our VAClassroom Students mentioned that she was putting on workshops for small business associations in her local area on “The Power of Social Media Marketing”. Well, this served as an excellent avenue for her to position herself as an authority and build some new client opportunities.

KEY #6 – Highly Committed to Continual Learning – Of all the industries I have be apart of in my career, none has moved faster than the Internet Business. New technology and web trends are evolving at a rapid pace and 6 months is like 5-10 years in another industry! It is paramount that you are actively pursuing learning and training opportunities in your niche to ensure that you remain on the cutting edge and at the top of your game in 2009.

So, there you have it…. Six keys to building a thriving Virtual Assistant business in the New Year!

I am sure there are other “Keys” and would love to hear yours!

VAClassroom Listed as One of the Top Websites for 2008!

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!

Recording of VAClassroom Webinar with Freshbooks CEO

Hey, I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!

If you didn’t have an opportunity to listen “live” to last week’s VAClassroom Webinar event with Freshbooks CEO, Mike McDerment, I have included the 77 minute MP3 recording below. Mike provided some excellent insights into overcoming many of the obstacles and challenges we face as solopreneurs or Virual business owners who work alone.

Virtual Nivana: How To Remain Inspired and Productive When You Work Alone

Enjoy!

Winner Announced for VAClassroom Contest

We have a winner! As many of know, we ran a “Win a VA Business PowerPack” contest that included a Web/Blog Site Redesign, Marketing Makeover and some cool VA business web tools. Well, we are pleased to announce the winner of our contest…….

Mary Howard from Virtual Office Professionals (US)

Mary is very excited about the package and is just trying to decide between a blogsite and website design. We are naturally a little biased toward Word Press Blog sites, but look forward to providing an excellent re-design for her. We will actually be featuring the “before” and “after” post in the near future, so you can see the key elements we included to further enhance her client appeal!

One other noteworthy item….. Our VAClassroom Special Membership Offer for our Blog readers and subscribers has been extended to May 26th at Midnight, so be sure to check it out if you haven’t already.