Time to Upgrade

Well… the computer man came knocking on my door the other day. Not someone you like to see there either!!

As I have been building my business the past two years I have added more and more resources to my business. And as a Virtual Assistant (VA) my business is pretty much my computer and eventually when you keep adding to it, you run out of virtual space.

This happened to me last week. I started getting little errors that there was not enough memory to run my program and to shut some windows. Eeeks! You didn’t have to tell me twice! Even though I have two backup systems, my biggest fear is a ‘computer crash’.

I immediately sent an email to my ‘Tech Department’, a great guy named Chris. I explained what was happening and what I needed all the while looking to the future. He sent me a list of what I should look at buying and the reasons why. I picked up the items, dropped them off and in a few days I had my new computer.

stop growth 150x150 Time to Upgrade Upgrading is something many people need to think about doing with respect to their professional life as well. I have been taking several courses over the past year to improve my skills. I do this for the same reasons I upgraded my computer. In many cases, as hard as it seems – changing and upgrading may be necessary for growth. Sometimes life can zip by so fast that you cannot imagine taking time out of your day for a class or a seminar. What you really need to remember is what the upgrade can ultimately do for you? How can learning those new skills help you and in turn, help your business.

Is it your Time to Upgrade? Think about what you are really missing by stopping your growth…

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Learning to Market a Blog

A Mini-Course on Blogging!  Great idea to learn more about marketing your blog and all in 2 weeks!

VAclassroom is a favourite learning place of mine, much of my social media training was done with them.  This month they have rolled out another innovative way to learn virtually – the Mini Course! The first one is all about Blog Marketing!  What a timely topic too considering that more than 10,000 blogs are started everyday according to WordPress

The 2-week mini-course titled, “Blog Marketing Tips, Tools & Tactics” and starts on August 10th, ending Aug 24th.  The program includes self study as well as live components.

The registration doors are officially OPEN NOW and seats are going fast. They have 60 32 3 seats still available for this training program.  You can use this discount code VABLOG to knock $10 off their special price of $67 when you register.

Whether you are looking to learn for yourself as a blogger or new to blogs, or are looking to add to your services offerings – it’s a fantastic way to learn more about blogging and in a condensed time period at a great price!

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FoVA was Fantastic!

Well… I am back from Niagara Falls and the FoVA (Forum on Virtual Assistance) and have had a little rest to gear myself back up at work again.

What I find most different about this morning as I sit at my desk is that I have a new outlook on how I plan to run my business and work everyday.

The people I met at FoVA were so very inspirational and full of experience and insight into running a successful VA business! Virtual Assistant Leaders from all over the world came and shared and taught us so much invaluable information! I would like to thank each one of you for taking time out of your own business so that new people like myself could meet and learn from you.

As I said in my anticipation blog post about going to this conference, I was really looking forward to meeting so many people in person. People who I have been connecting with online for the better part of this past year, mostly at VAnetworking and CVAC, and they did not disappoint! I have solidified relationships that had already started and created new ones as well.  And many of these relationships, I feel will turn into more than that – friendships developed as well.

I said it before and will repeat again – Conferences are so needed and valuable for any business owner, but even more so for those of us working from remote or home locations.

Off I go to start working with so much more motivation and ideas than ever before!  Thanks FoVA and friends!

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Interested in Social Media?

As many of you know I have been doing some additional training in order to become “certified” as a Social Media Specialist – my kids actually refer to the word “certified” in a  much different manner. “Oh there’s Mom, on that Twitter thing” … anyhow, the point of my post today is that many people are jumping into Social Media, even if only to try it out, as truly it may not work for all types of business and people.

If you are looking to do this type of work and want to learn more or even get into social media for yourself , then you may want to try out VAclassroom’s Social Media course .

The course takes you through 8 modules and covers Strategy and Planning, Profile Management, Marketing on Twitter, Facebook, Video and other Social Media channels.  Reporting and Online Reputation management is also covered in the course. [Read more...]

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Resources galore

Having joined several online groups and forums, I have found that there are many, many user-friendly tools and resources out there to help businesses, finding them and having the time available is holding people back. Whether it’s by teaching you something new or showing you how to use something you already own,  there are many resources out there to help you and your business.

Just yesterday I was speaking with a friend who had bought a headset for her computer so she can participate in one part of a course she is taking.  I told her to call me when she had it and I’d show her how to chat with me on the computer using Skype.  Since that chat, she has looked into signing up for one of Skype’s accounts that will save their business money each month. Until I talked to her, she never even knew it existed.

I have been doing weekly seminars online through several groups – learning many new things that help my business. As a Virtual Assistant, there are many options and methods of doing work for clients, keeping on top of new ways is mandatory if I want to better serve my clients.

[Read more...]

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