Monthly Archives: February 2005

Great customer service post

I have to start with the disclaimer that my husband is a part-time contracted employee with istockphoto.com. If you aren’t familiar with the site, it sells inexpensive high-quality stock photos and is growing in popularity (and profitability) as the years go by.

As referenced in this Get Out While You Can blog, they’ve got great customer service down cold.

This story serves as a great inspiration to being as helpful as you can to your current and potential clients. No matter how small the sale, you never know when that customer might be in the position to be a big spender.

Just a reminder to always give your customers your best. Not only will that customer be satisfied, but you never know who else he might extoll your virtues to.

:::stepping down off my soapbox::::

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Senses competing for attention

For some reason, ever since I read this, I keep thinking about it. In the Sunday, Feb. 20th edition of Parade Magazine, in the Ask Marilyn section, a reader wrote in, “I have fairly bad eyesight. But why is it that when I remove my glasses, I can’t hear people as well?”

Her answer, “You’re straining to see clearly, so your senses are competing for attention more than when you wear glasses. This is why people often close their eyes when trying hard to hear something. It’s also why listening to music isn’t conducive to studying.”

This makes sense. It explains why when we’re driving in heavy traffic and we need to concentrate, we turn the radio down, or we turn off the TV when we’re trying to have an important conversation with a family member.

How many people work with the radio on? Does it depend on what type of task you’re doing? Do you ever play a sound machine or elevator music while you work? How do you think that effects your concentration?

I look forward to hearing any responses on my deep thought of the day.

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Jumping on the bandwagon

Well, my husband has been encouraging me to make this change for a while….switching from IE to Mozilla. I’ve been ignoring him, it was just “easier” for me to use IE than switch to a new browser. But with all the security issues coming to light, it seems that many of my VA colleagues are switching, as is much of the rest of the population. So I’m jumping on the bandwagon and Mozilla Firefox is my new browser of choice. So far, so good.

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Advertising

A big part of my journey to build my business involves advertising. Wow. Even online, advertising can be very expensive. I’m trying to target smaller, niche-specific resources. I’ve set a small monthly advertising budget, and I’m trying a variety of different things to see where I get the best results.

At the end of January, I bought a 4-week ad through SpeakerNet News. It cost $195. Every Friday, their e-zine is delivered to approx 4,000 professional speakers and coaches. For the first two weeks I ran one 25 word ad, for the second two weeks, I changed the wording on it.

I also tried out Google Adwords. I’ve spent about $25 so far (for a month) and I’m not sure if I will continue that or not.

This month, I am getting some postcards printed up through Vistaprint.com. My husband, Ed Hidden, is a website designer, photographer, graphic designer, etc., so all my design work is done by him. He did a graphic that I have used on some other marketing materials that I’m going to carry over to this postcard. I’ve created my own mailing list of professional speakers and that’s who I’ll send this mailing to. I’ll probably do 50 at a time and see what the response is.

I’m also seriously considering blog ads. Not a proven strategy, but it’s not terribly expensive and nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Stay tuned…

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Just What Kind of VA am I?

This weekend I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my business, my blog, and where I want to take both of them. I’ve met (both in person and virtually) many VAs and I’m trying to decide where I fit within the occupation. I do traditional administrative-type tasks (like data entry, transcription, travel arrangements, etc.) but I also do tasks like writing, editing, proofreading, etc.

For a long-term goal, I want to be a “cooperative thinker” with my clients, I don’t want to do task by task projects. I want to work side-by-side with my clients and find solutions to their needs. I want to be able to be a resource to other VAs on building their business to what they want it to be, whatever that is. I want to be an expert VA, not necessarily someone who can flawlessly create a spreadsheet or create an awesome PowerPoint presentation, but one who is an expert on the industry.

Lofty goals? Sure. But just by writing them down, I’m one step closer to achieving them.

Watch this blog as I chronicle my successes (and hopefully not too many failures!) as I build my business.

Stay tuned.

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Wll traditional phone service become obsolete?

I was opening up some mail today and came across the phone bill for my business line. That bill always annoys me. When I originally installed the line, I was told that because it is for a business, it costs $10 a month more than a residential line. So, even if I make no long distance calls on it, it still costs me about $50 a month. This month it was $60.

Our home line does not have long-distance on it and it costs less than $25 a month. If we want to communicate long-distance, we use MSN messenger, email, Skype or our cell phones. We don’t miss having long-distance on our residential phone line.

The only reason I have a business line is so I “sound” professional. For a while I used my cell phone, but I like having a separate line. That way, if I’m working, I only pick up my business line if it rings and vice versa if I’m not. I like to separate my “home time” and “work time” when I need to.

But it got me thinking today how much longer I will need a traditional business line. It’s tough to keep up with technology today. When I was in college, a “virtual assistant” didn’t even exist. Now, I can run a business virtually and theoretically maintain a client relationship without ever hearing their voice or meeting them in person. I have a webcam (though most of my clients don’t) a headset to communicate over Skype (for free!), a resource to share tasks and files, and just about every other technology I could possibly need and the one thing I haven’t been able to find an acceptable work-around for is my business phone line.

Any suggestions?

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Write It Right Cover is finished

After a few re-designs, here is the cover of Write It Right: The Ground Rules for Self-Editing Like the Pros. It will be released this spring. More details as they become available.

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Rates-list them or not?

I’ve done some research about whether other VAs list their rates on their website. Some do, some don’t. I’ve seen rates as low as $25 an hour and as high as $45. One of the challenges with setting a rate as a VA is there are so many types of VAs out there. Someone who is a website designer, for example, may charge more than someone who does data entry. Because I offer traditional VA services, like administrative tasks, plus specialized editorial services, I have a rate range of $30 to $40 per hour.

Hopefully my website stats will reinforce this is a good idea. I had a lot of people exiting my site from the rates page. Maybe they thought I charged $100 an hour and were scared off by not seeing a number. So for now, my rates are posted.

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Dawn Josephson and Recognized Expert Marketing Radio

One of my favorite clients is on one of my favorite shows! If you haven’t yet visited Bob Sommers site, you need to. On his Recognized Expert Marketing Show he interviews marketing experts in a variety of fields. Dawn Josephson, of Cameo Publications, is one of his most recent guests. Her topic is irresistable writing and she gave a great interview. Check it out here. Don’t forget to vote after you listen!

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My thoughts on ethics

I was presenting my services to a successful and growing real estate company yesterday and one of the topics that came up during their monthly meeting was that of “ethics.” Ethics can mean many different things to different people, and since then, I have reflected on what my own definition is.

Ethical means keeping your promises, not breaking confidentiality, treating people fairly, and following the rules. It means, if you make a mistake, you own up to it and “make it right” to the best of your ability. Our ethics are challenged daily. Do you tell the cashier she gave you change for a $20 instead of the $10 you gave her? Do you tell the truth about how much experience you have when you’re asked?

What’s your definition of being “ethical?”

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