Tag Archives: virtual help

The idea of working with someone that is not physically by your side can be challenging. Just like any business, you must have a structured business plan that keeps your daily operations running smoothly. When hiring a virtual assistant, the same thought process applies.

Here are some important factor to consider when you are interviewing potential virtual assistants (VA) to work with.

Hourly Expectations: Your business may have specific hours of operation, so it is important that the VA you work with is available when you need them to be. If time-zone compatibility is important to you, then be sure to communicate that when you are looking for someone. Don’t bother interviewing a VA on the East Coast if you really need them to work during West Coast hours.

Response Notifications:  If you are the type of business owner that wants immediate email response to your requests, or will require fast turn around times on the work being assigned to your VA, then make sure the VA you work with is fully aware and agreeable to those expectations. A virtual assistant who will only commit to giving you a 24-48 hour response time may not be the right fit for your personality, and would probably not be the right VA choice for you to work with. Be sure to be direct and honest about what kind of response time you will require, so that expectations are clear at the beginning of your working relationship. This will help avoid confusion or frustration for both you and your VA as you start working together.

Knowledge Expectations: When selecting your virtual assistant, be clear about  what programs and software you need your VA to use. Let them know if you are an expert on these programs or if you are looking to the VA to take the lead on working with them.

By having a structured plan in place, you can eliminate the problem of hiring the wrong virtual assistants. Being very clear about your expectations and what you need your VA to do, is very important when forming a trusted and successful virtual business relationship.

Virtual assistants (VAs) continue to be in-demand and the role of a VA is varied depending on a business owner’s business needs and budget.

Below are 3 in-demand services a virtual assistant can help you with that you may not have considered .

Blog Services has been a popular VA niche for the past few years. We do not see a decline occurring soon. Not only are more businesses coming online and looking at blogs for marketing their products or services, but blog posts come up in Google search results and can help you attract new customers, just by having a blog.

Blog services can include:

  • WordPress installation and set-up
  • Blog marketing
  • Writing and scheduling content
  • Guest posting services (content creation, submission, engagement with readers)
  • Commenting services

Social Media Marketing is another in-demand service that VA’s offer. Social networking continues to grow, and new social platforms are introduced every year. It is no longer just about Twitter and Facebook. You also have to worry about updating LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram..

Social Media Marketing services can include:

  • Business page or profile set-up
  • Updates and engagement
  • Creating private groups
  • Researching content
  • Video marketing
  • Forum marketing
  • Local social engagement (Yelp, Foursquare, Meetup)

Author/Publishing Services are also quite popular. More and more authors are turning to self-publishing, which puts many of the details that would otherwise be handled by a publishing company in the hands of the author.

Author/publishing services may include:

  • Landing page or website setup
  • Social Media set-up, updates and engagement for book launch
  • Editing, formatting and submission of e- Book versions to online selling platforms such as Amazon, e-Bay or other appropriate websites
  • Assisting with virtual book tours
  • Preparing marketing materials

The possibilities are endless when it comes to the services a Virtual Assistant can offer to a business owner.  To see even more services offered, click here.

 

 

The world of outsourcing work to a virtual assistant is a very broad landscape.  There are so many options for a small business owner, and knowing what is right for you may be confusing.

Are you looking for a long-term relationship with a virtual assistant who you can outsource work to on a consistent basis?  Or, do you need a concierge-type virtual assistant to do small one-time projects like ordering lunch for a meeting, making dinner reservations or sending out thank you cards?

Does time-zone availability matter to you? Will you be outsourcing any writing or correspondence for your business? Is it important to have your virtual assistant understand grammar, and punctuation?

Once you determine what makes sense for you and your business, then you will need to figure out how much time you want to invest in finding, interviewing and working with your new virtual assistant. This is also a good time to consider if having your work sent overseas will cause any potential problems for you or your business.

A full service virtual assistant company, like Assistant Match, will do the following for you:
•    help you assess your outsourcing needs
•    write the job description that will be used to screen candidates
•    pre-screen US-based virtual assistant candidates
•    present you with the top 3 candidates

Many other virtual assistant companies will require you to do all of that, which is a huge time commitment and often something outside your area of expertise.

When clients have come to us in the past after going through some of the low cost VA companies, the main complaints they share with us are;
•    having to write their own job description
•    having to screen too many responses
•    not knowing how to work successfully with someone virtually
•    miscommunication between them and an overseas VA
•    no real business relationship

A full service virtual assistant company will provide you with more than just a virtual assistant.  Assistant Match offers a team of professional US-based placement specialists who provide an on-going relationship with both our clients and our team of US-based virtual assistants. This ensures the working relationship is as successful as possible.  But, in the event the VA/Client relationship doesn’t work out, than we find someone new and transition that person in as smooth as possible. The low cost VA companies do not help with that, which then puts the business owner back at square one and contacting us for help after lots of frustration and lost time.

We know that a small business owner puts their heart and soul into creating their company, building a professional reputation, and attracting clients.  Your business is generally a reflection of who you are and what you value. Professionalism, quality, and dedication is how a you want your business to be perceived by clients, investors, and the general public.  So risking your hard earned reputation is not worth saving a few bucks, is it?

Don’t get SPOOKED by the holiday rush this year! Halloween is creeping up on us and then the countdown clock begins. Plan on being proactive and get some virtual help to delegate tasks to.  Wouldn’t it be a nice treat to really enjoy the holidays, instead of being rushed and stressed out about them?

Here are 5 ways to utilize a virtual assistant right now:

  1. Get current with your book-keeping. End the year with your accounting in order. Make it a goal to enter the tax season organized and confident.
  2. Prepare you holiday cards.  A virtual assistant can order custom cards, setup client address lists, print labels or even set-up e-cards to be sent on your behalf.
  3. Do an end of the year marketing/sales push.  Give your ideas to a marketing virtual assistant and let them create an email marketing campaign, setup 1ShoppingCart, prepare creative graphics, etc…
  4. Attend Holiday networking events.  This is a great time of year to mingle and spread good cheer while reminding people who you are and what you can do for them   Have your virtual assistant research local networking events and put them on your calendar.
  5. Prepare a sale if your product/services are especially useful at the end of the year.  A virtual assistant can promote your products or sale through your social media accounts, prepare marketing materials and help you write and send out email blasts.

Be sure to plan early for some holiday help, because it will be here in a blink of an eye.

 

The world of marketing has changed drastically over the past decade, but one thing is certain, getting your message or offer in front of your customer, potential customer, or past customer is still the basis of a strong marketing campaign. But what is the best platform to do that on? There are many choices, but the email inbox is still a very personal way to communicate with them.

Email marketing is generally subscription based, meaning the recipient has given you or your company permission to email them. This list needs to be treated like gold, because what is given can be taken away, meaning there is usually an UNSUBSCRIBE option on all the emails sent to your list. Unsubscribe is often clicked on when you are sending out too many emails that are not providing value or relevant information to your subscriber list. Can you hit a “home-run” every time you send an email out? Not likely, but if you are strategic in your email marketing campaigns an provide useful information or exclusive offers your emails subscribers should grow and not shrink.

When you offer an opt-in box on your website for a visitor to be added to your email list, you need to have a welcome email setup in an auto-responder through your emailing marketing or e-commerce service. Some popular services are Constant Contact, MailChimp, Aweber, 1ShoppingCart, Infusionsoft and Shopify. Marketers have a huge opportunity with welcome emails. According to Skyline Technologies, welcome emails have an average open rate of 50-60%. With a high open rate you can see the importance of the welcome email to new subscribers.

According to Hubspot, a typical welcome email content should include:
• A link to confirm the subscriber did indeed subscribe to the email list
• A message of thanks for subscribing to the email list
• A request to mark you as a safe sender, or save you to their address book
• Some information about what content future emails will contain
• Your privacy policy to ensure their information will be used properly

The welcome email is also a great time to introduce your subscribers to your blog, with a direct link and description, ask them to join you on social media, again with easy links to your accounts, and give them the opportunity to contact you directly about your product or services.

After the initial welcome letter, be sure to have your email marketing plan in place so that your subscribers continue to receive your emails on a regular schedule. Managing your email marketing can be a lot of work, but you can’t ignore a list of people who have asked to receive updates from you. If you can’t handle it yourself, find someone who can help you with managing it. Don’t let your subscriber pot of gold turn into dust!

Making the decision that you need help in your business is easy, however taking the next step to delegate the work out to another person is not as easy.  We tend to think we can do it all, but the reality is we can’t, and we really shouldn’t try to do everything required to run a successful business.

Hiring a virtual assistant to take some of the burden off your plate usually turns out to be the best decision you can make for yourself and your business.  But how do you find someone that will fit your needs, the culture of your business and relate to your personality?

The easiest way to do this is to start making lists that include the following information.

List #1 : business operations that you would like to delegate.
List #2 : business operations that you hate to do.
Is it book-keeping, marketing, online research, scheduling appointments, etc…?
List # 3 : professional skills that you want a virtual assistant to have.

List # 4 : your personality traits and what kind of personality you think you would work well with.
Do you want to work with a creative mind, an analytical mind, someone who is not afraid to share their thoughts with you, or someone who will just take direction and do the job?

Once you have your lists completed, the best thing to do is to work with a professional placement company who can review your needs and discuss exactly what your objectives are for hiring a virtual assistant.  You will want to be matched with professional VA’s who have been pre-screened for you. Someone that you know will be equipped to accomplish your goals and will be an asset to your organization.

Working with the right virtual assistant or virtual team can give you the time to devote your full attention to your business growth and development.  Investing the time to build the right virtual team will help you scale your company to the next level.

What helped you choose your virtual assistant?

Business events are designed and implemented in many different formats.  There are online events (webinars, & video training) and events that require a physical location, like a hotel banquet room, conference room, or restaurant space.  Executing any of these takes time, preparation and planning.

A virtual assistant is the perfect solution to helping you with the following tasks when it comes to event planning.

  1. Researching possible event locations or online tools, including catering needs room setup or technical requirements.
  2. Creating the marketing and publicity through social media, email marketing or affiliate links.
  3. Managing the registration process either through your website with 1ShoppingCart or through an online event registration page link through Eventbrite.
  4. Preparing any and all training materials, including Powerpoint presentations, marketing sheets, and take away items.
  5. Keeping you on target by creating or managing a checklist for facilities, attendee information, speaker needs, etc…

There are plenty of other details and prep work required when doing an event, but these are just a few to get you thinking about delegating some of the work to your virtual assistant,

As the event approaches it’s a fact that you can expect last-minute alterations and possible drama. You really don’t want to be dealing with those especially if you are the main speaker at the event or training.  You equally don’t want to be bogged down in trying to find a solution in terms of any event you’re planning. Most Virtual Assistants have far more dexterity and problem solving ability than you do in these situations, if you’re honest with yourself.

Virtual assistants skilled in event planning have experience in negotiations, online tools, and much more .Executing a successful event should be your goal, and working with a qualified virtual assistant can make that goal a painless reality.

 

 

Earlier this week we discussed the many different social media platforms businesses are using in their marketing plan. Updating your social media accounts, monitoring and responding to the engagement is key to having a successful social media marking campaign, but most of us just don’t have the time in our day to devote to one more task.  Having a virtual marketing assistant is an investment you need to make in your business now.

A virtual marketing assistant can:

      1. Pull content off your website, blog, e-books and training materials and create short concise social posts that lead someone back to your website.
      2. Update your social sites by scheduling posts using tools like:
        Hootsuite
        Buffer
        Social Oomph
        TweetDeck
        SproutSocial
      3. Monitor and respond to engagement, or notify you if engagement is needed.
      4. Set-up contests or promotions using 3rd party tools like:
        Upickem
        Wildfire
        Shoutlet
        ShortStack
      5. Research and share trends or information related to  help educate your followers about your business or services.
      6. Monitor your reputation management on review sites like:
        Yelp
        Epinions.com
        AngiesList.com
        MerchantCircle.com

Remember that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter help drive traffic to your website so that someone buys your product or service, joins your email list or makes a donation. Publishing useful content on a blog and promoting it through social networking also helps you achieve better organic search engine optimization (SEO) results.  Sharing tools on social sites creates a viral opportunity for your business that didn’t exist before the launch of social media.

Have you invested in your social media marketing yet?  Are you attempting to do it on your own?  How is that working for you?

Social media is a term no one had even heard of 10 years ago.  Today it is a vital part of every marketing campaign of major brands and retailers.  As a small business owner we tend to watch what the “big brands” are doing and scale it down to fit our time and resource budgets.
Social media is an increasingly important business tool for communication, promotion, recruitment, and lead generation, and there are many different social media sites.  Understanding what site you should be on and why can be daunting.

The social networking sites businesses are utilizing today include:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google+
  • YouTube
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • Foursquare
  • Yelp, and many more.

The options can be overwhelming and many small business owners are not sure which social media tools may be most effective or the best way to get started. .  A professional virtual marking assistant can help you determine what social networking site you should focus on and he/she can help you set up and mange your social marketing strategy.

Later this week we will discuss specifically how a virtual marketing assistant can be a vital part of your social media marketing team.

A well-functioning team can’t function well if what’s important isn’t established.   As a business owner, it is important to relay the goals that you want to meet in the New Year with your virtual assistant or your virtual team.

Clear communication is the key to having a successful virtual team.  Schedule a conference call or Skype with them this month.  This kind of strategic communication allows your virtual assistant to fully understand your expectations and can alleviate any unnecessary confusion about your virtual assistant’s role in your plans.  You want to be clear about tasks you need help with and ask them for input on where they feel they can help you. Don’t forget that a virtual assistant’s role is to support you by accomplishing tasks that will help move your business forward.  If you VA isn’t privy to your business goals, than their professional input will be limited.

So,  schedule an hour  to talk with your virtual assistant or virtual team and let them know the goals, and the expectations that you have for making 2014 a prosperous year.