Free gifts for VAs on Administrative Professionals Day
Today is Administrative Professionals Day - to celebrate we’re giving away one free gift each hour to virtual assistants who post on our Facebook fan page.
If you want to participate, just post on the page what your area of specialty is - what type of clients you work for (for example, business owners, real estate agents, consultants, doctors, etc.).
If you’re just getting started as a VA and don’t have clients yet, put down what type of people you want to work for.
That’s all!
We’ve given away 2 tshirts already, and it’s only 9:45am. There’s something every hour through 8pm Eastern tonight. Check out the full list of prizes here:
ProResource Prizes
So if you’re a virtual assistant, head over to the site and enter!
(And if you want to fan us while you’re there we won’t object. Yes, that’s our secret plan - to get more fans.)
Happy Administrative Professionals Day, everyone!
Learn How to Set Up a Nurture Program
Are you a virtual assistant?
Would you like to learn a new service you can offer to clients?
A nurture marketing program is something virtually every business needs.
- It’s work that needs to be done every month, so you get steady income.
- It has a lot of value for your clients because it helps them bring in more business.
- It is easy to sell to your clients - they get excited about having you do it for them.
We’ve developed a new webinar where we teach virtual assistants how to do nurture programs.
Want to attend?
Here’s what you’ll learn:
1. What nurture marketing is
2. What the benefits are for your business
3. What the benefits are for your clients
4. How it works: what steps you go through, what you need from clients
5. How to upsell, increasing your hours and adding more value
6. How to get started
Since this is the first time I’m giving the webinar, it’s free.
Title: How to Set Up a Nurture Marketing Program for Clients
Date: Thursday, April 1, 2010
Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
Sign up here:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/658291706
Hiring a Bookkeeper?
Some people are born organized. With seemingly no effort, they can put their hands on any receipt or any invoice. They happily pay their bills on time, and always have financial statements ready to hand.
That’s not me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love numbers as much as the next person. Probably more. Calculus was one of my favorite subjects way back when. And I’m pretty well organized (although you can’t tell by looking at the mess on my desk).
But I really dislike dealing with finances for my business.
Paying bills always gives me a headache.
My kids know, if they come into my office and I’m dealing with invoices or bills, just turn right around and head back out.
So hiring a bookkeeper was one of the smartest things I ever did.
The relief of being able to handle all those tasks over to someone who actually enjoys doing them was absolutely huge for me. Much less stress. And the confidence of knowing that everything is going to get done on time every month.
If you’re like me, you’ll love this week’s free template:
Interview Questions: Bookkeeper
It includes 10 questions to ask when you are interviewing a bookkeeper - questions that will help make sure you find someone who will be a good fit for your company and that help you make sure you are on the same page about the work you need done.
What Can A Virtual Assistant Do For Me?
I get asked this question a lot.
The short answer is that a virtual assistant can help you with almost any administrative task.
Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that.
Ideal tasks for virtual assistants are those that don’t require deep knowledge about your business, don’t need a lot of explanation or training, do need to be done on a recurring basis, and also help you make more money.
However, most businesses don’t have a lot of “ideal tasks.” After all, if something is easy to hand off, you’ve probably already delegated it.
The trick is how you get things done that are NOT easy to hand off.
Here’s the strategy that works for us…
Begin by finding a competent person and committing to work with them over time.
Then make the first projects you give your virtual assistant work that can be done without knowing a lot about your business - but that will teach them about your business as they do them.
These projects should be things that need to be done over and over again, so once you teach your virtual assistant how to do the work, they can take responsibility for it (and get it off your plate for good).
Start with marketing projects…
We like to begin with marketing projects, because they need to be done over and over again each month (which means you can keep your virtual assistant busy without it taking a lot of your time and effort to keep coming up with new ideas for projects).
Marketing projects also directly influence revenue (when you make more money, it’s easier to justify paying for a virtual assistant).
Plus it’s easy to find instructions other people have written that you can give your virtual assistant so they know what to do. (Shameless plug… We sell these instructions, which we call “Easy Projects,” as part of our Help Without Hiring Toolkit. But you can also find them on places like eHow.)
Sales projects and customer support projects are also good starting points.
All 3 of those types of projects - marketing, sales and customer support - can be easy to give someone (without it taking a lot of your time), are recurring, and help you grow your business. They also teach your assistant a lot about your business - your assistant comes to understand your products and why people buy them, gets to know your customers, and learns how you like things done.
Then hand off other projects…
Once your virtual assistant has been working for you for awhile, you can start handing off the non-ideal projects - those projects that require a deeper knowledge of your business to do properly.
You’ll find them a lot easier to hand off when you are giving them to someone who knows your business.
Want more information about what a virtual assistant can do for you?
This week’s free template lists 70 projects a virtual assistant can do for you:
Project Checklist: Administrative Tasks
Here’s an ebook written by Karen Reddick, a virtual assistant who specializes in working with authors, for $12.95 that lists even more ways to work with a virtual assistant:
A to Z Guide: Best Ways to Work with A Virtual Assistant
Here’s an FAQ from the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce that has tips about how to use a virtual assistant:
Client’s Guide to Working With a Virtual Assistant
Interviewing Tips and Techniques
Interviewing can be fun. Or one of the most time-consuming and frustrating parts of the outsourcing process.
Choose fun.
Use screening and preliminary interviews to cut back the the number of people you interview to a minimum. Then use your time on the phone with them wisely - listening more than you talk - so you get the information you need to make the right decision.
When you only do a few interviews and keep the time they take to a minimum, you can focus on the best part - meeting and getting to know people who will contribute their time and ideas to help you propel your business to the next level.
This week’s free template offers tips for interviewing a virtual assistant or freelancer. Good questions to ask the person you are interviewing are included in 4 other templates; good questions to ask references are included in another.
This template focuses on the interview process:
- What to listen for during the interview,
- What you need to find out by the end of the interview,
- Doing preliminary email interviews to save time,
- Evaluating skills, and
- Finalizing your decision.
Download the free template here:
www.proresource.com/freetemplate.html
Need Marketing Project Ideas?
This week’s free template is a checklist of marketing projects that you can outsource to a virtual assistant or marketing freelancer.
Some are simple and easy to outsource; others require a fair bit of knowledge about your business and would be more suitable for someone who has been working for you for awhile.
If you’re working on a marketing plan for 2010 or just want to spark some ideas, this is a good starting point.
As always, you can get the free template here:
Help Without Hiring Toolkit - Free Template
Want more marketing ideas? Check out my other blog at www.MarketingIdeasYouCanCopy.com…