The virtual service industry in general is like an aeroplane, carrying a variety of different passengers, let’s call them clients. In order for the plane to fill its seats, it offers various different classes to its passengers and the passengers pay in accordance with what they can afford, or what they are simply willing to pay for the journey (or in our case, the service).

The industry also has a variety of different options for the client to choose from, varying in price depending on what VA you hire (or airline you travel with, or class of seat you want to purchase). The likes of us who want to travel freely and often, and don’t have a great deal of money to spend will tend to stick to the budget airlines, low cost flights etc… This is of course fine, all they literally want to do is get from A to B, and they don’t care much for the service on the flight in between, as long as they get a seat and have their basic needs catered for – and of course turn up alive at the other end. Nothing wrong with that.

On the other hand, there are passengers who do have the money to spend that little bit extra and get a 1st class seat on the plane. They care about the overall experience, and what happens from A to B, they want to pay for the additional perks they get along the way that make their experience more pleasant, a comfier chair, or a bed, better air con, champagne, a 5 course dinner, very attentive service, closer toilets… Whatever – overall they want more features and benefits than the people travelling in economy.

How do your clients travel?

Personally, I like my clients to travel first class, in fact, I invest a lot into providing the attention to details, and I don’t want to offer anything less. My business (or hypothetically speaking ‘airline’) caters for the people who are not paying economy class. The reason I do this is because when I was striving to bring the cost of my service down, I was unable to do that without the overall level of it coming down as well – from 1st class to economy seats, and then that would have just left me feeling crappy, and unhappy with myself. Who wants that, right? When I think about being less of a professional in my field and compromising on my ‘baby’ – that is of course my business – I just don’t want to do it, and would really rather the client went off to purchase an economy ticket elsewhere.

What airline are you operating and what passengers are you catering for? The fact is we most certainly need both types of airline and we need both types of ticket, economy and 1st class, they are essential for everybody in the world to be able to travel, and I feel everyone should be able to travel.
The point is there will always be people booking economy class, flying cheap, and there will always be those opting for 1st class – and sometimes, they’ll do both, depending on the situation. Whatever you do – economy or 1st class, do what feels right for you. Both RyanAir and Emirates do a good deal of business, and at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about – as long as you do business the way you want to.

A very interesting thing happened in my VA Business, which meant that, technically I had no clients as a Virtual Assistant...
I started my company officially back in 2007, and one of my very first clients was a very intelligent and enterprising individual. He had an online business, and his business had grown to a point where he had one regular VA working with him, but he wanted additional support as his business was continuing to grow, and he was clearly a man with a plan to expand and grow dramatically.

I was very happy, and also eager to work with him, as it was great ongoing regular work, which I knew I would enjoy, and after a phone consultation, I was hired. I had serviced this client, as a virtual assistant doing billable time for 5 years. Now, over the years, my business has evolved, and I began shortly after taking on this contract with this client, breaking away from the billable time myself, to a group of individuals, a.k.a. my awesome team at Virtual Miss Friday, and I have managed to do that completely, taking on a purely online business consulting and project management role within my VA services company, concentrating on business development and learning new skills and techniques to provide a rather special, unique service to my clients, but throughout this time, and due to the nature of the work I was doing, I have always remained a Virtual Assistant to this particular individual, and have always done everything for the client personally, no matter what has been required.

Whilst he had always been extremely happy with my services over the years, he had come to a turning point in his business where virtual staff were just not going to be appropriate for his business plans. His company had grown to such a vast extent, that he was moving completely away from the virtual world and was now moving into offices, and hiring employees (yep, traditional style employees) to replace his virtual team – I was in contact with another VA who worked with him who also got a similar email. We were given about a month’s notice that our contracts were ending.
Fortunately, I have a very active company and client base, and despite the client ceasing to use my service, my company will of course still exist, this was just a really big milestone for me, as I am now running a company where I am completely detached from processing the administrative work. It actually feels good, and will allow me now to focus 100% on my goals, my consulting clients and business development, not to mention make way for new clients. It’s not so much an end of an era, but the beginning of a new one.

What I can pass on to you from my experience…

#1 – You are not indispensable.

No matter how magnificent you are, you are not indispensable if the client’s circumstances change. I was working with this particular client since 2007, for 5 years… And despite him really being grateful for my service over the years, it simply no longer featured in his plans for his business.

#2 – It’s not all about economy.

We would naturally assume that a client would discontinue our services if they were no longer able to afford them due to the economy and if business for them was on a downer – but in fact, it can also go the opposite way. If a client is doing so well that they need offices and employees, they could also cease to need your services.

#3 – Don’t get too comfortable.

I mentioned being very lucky, in that if a client ceased to use my services immediately, I would be okay, but this may not always be the case for everyone. Consider your own situation, are you getting comfortable with your client-base because of the length of time you have worked with a client, or the constant awesome praise you are getting for your services? What if the client was to shut up shop, or grew to a point where they needed an on-site support team (even if they have a completely 100% online business – which my client had)? Just be aware that even though things appear to be going well, we don’t have crystal balls for this type of thing.

It’s actually a very positive transition for me, opening up additional time for pursuing other things, including of course, a new client! I hope that this post will show you that even the best of us have unexpected ‘ups and downs’ in business.

I’m going to go through with you a solid plan on how you can stay current and up-to-date with the latest trends in online business when you’re restricted by both time and money. It’s kind of a Two-For-One answer, because I am giving quite a bit of context at the start in the first half to help you understand why you need to really think carefully about your knowledge intake to focus on what really matters. Then the plan comes in the second half at the end.

Part 1 – The story

This is not about social media, it’s about productivity, but I think it would help if I gave you a little background info. In February 2012, I attended the Small Business Summit from Social Media Examiner. I have always admired how they have been at the forefront of social media and I have to say I tend to ebb towards their blog when I’m looking for advice to help a client or for my own business, more so than Mashable now.

After studying all the summit material, seminars, videos, transcripts etc, the attendee can take an exam at the end to test their knowledge, it’s a test with around 70 questions. Fortunately I was able to pass this exam and obtain a certificate (the first academic style exam I have ever taken since I was 16!) So, I’m feeling pretty chuffed with myself.

If you are able to attend, a Small Business Summit, I would highly recommend it. What I learnt is going to be a tremendous help to both my business and for servicing my clients, and I have already taken in a new client this month from waving my new certificate around (virtually of course) who is familiar with Social Media Examiner and their credibility.

Something the summit confirmed to me, unrelated to social media, is to maintain a focus in a particular area of my business and have a plan. The summit did not cover multitudes of social media accounts, in fact, it focussed primarily on just 4 – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google +. This is a huge thing, because it tells you that those are the sites that matter, and if you are looking to start specialising in social media marketing, those are the ones that should hold your attention. I offer services to clients only on the sites where I know I can achieve results – these are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, I am also now working on experimental marketing techniques and strategies with YouTube, Google + and Pinterest. All the other many and varied sites are not on my ‘to do’ list.

Why? Good question. Because at the end of the day, I am an online business consultant, I don’t just focus on social media, so for me to stay ahead of my game, I have various other areas of online business that need my attention, and because of this, I have to place my research and learning into manageable portions, therefore placing restrictions on my range of skills within a certain area. Yes folks, I don’t know everything nor do I claim to.

Prepare Yourself For Implementing The Plan That Follows.

So that’s a bit of background for you as to how much knowledge you really need to think about taking in when you want to stay ahead – don’t try and keep up with everything and become overwhelmed, keep your knowledge sources restricted to a certain degree. For example, on the subject of social media, if you’re a social media marketing consultant or assistant and that is all you focus on then you should have the time and the inclination to expand your horizons in social media and experiment and learn more techniques of marketing. If you also offer services such as administration, or website design and development, or graphic design, then you may find that you’re spreading yourself too thin, trying to keep up with the ever changing trends within all of these departments.

If you can attend a highly-focussed summit like the one I went to, then I assure you it saves a LOT of time, you get extremely valuable, undiluted knowledge from credible experts, and it’s well worth the investment, it’s not something everyone can afford to do though, so here is a plan you can use for keeping current and up-to-date within your services business, especially when you’re restricted by time and money.

Part 2 – A FREE plan you can implement now!

Follow these steps for a superb way to keep on top of your business online for FREE.

Step 1 – Know What You Must Watch Out For.

I segment my business into departments and within those departments, I list things which are changeable, for example, I offer administrative services, and work in a select number of systems, I list those systems and make sure I am always up-to-speed with the latest versions. I offer WordPress services, so I have a list of all my WordPress sites for clients and also myself and run updates when the latest version comes out, I update plugins regularly, and make sure I keep the technical side of things running smoothly and continuously functioning.

You need to know, and list or categorise every system, service or software you use, and then make sure than you are regularly monitoring the progress of those systems and services. I’ll show you how…

Step 2 – RSS Subscribe.

Get yourself a really good, robust RSS reader. Google Reader is fine, it’s free, or you could use an iPad or Mac App. Whatever you choose, make sure you can stream multiple feeds into it, and then be able to clearly label or organise them into the different departments of your business like I demonstrated above. e.g. Social Media, Website Development, Administration, Graphic Design etc…
You then need to go to all the sites which you work within, or need knowledge on, and subscribe to their RSS feeds to get the latest updates delivered to you automatically.

Step 3 – Newsletter Subscribe.

Then, create a separate email address segmented away from your normal email. If you use Google Apps you could make this an alias, such a news@yourdomain.com, then create a specific label for it in your Google Apps and filter all the email into that label, make sure you opt to skip the Inbox, you don’t want these updates coming into your main email stream as it’s going to be very distracting. If you are less disciplined and tend to check all your mail, create a free Gmail account so you can login separately.

Once you have your email account, subscribe to the newsletters for all the important sites (or you could subscribe to the RSS if they have one going to email if you prefer).

Step 4 – Expert Subscribe.

Once you get all the ‘functionality’ subscribed to, keeping you up-to-date on the things happening there, you then need to subscribe to the real experts in the different areas of your business, for example, do you do social media marketing? Find the TOP experts in that field, such as Social Media Examiner and subscribe to the RSS and newsletter. Do you do copywriting? Subscribe to the top copywriting sites such as CopyBlogger. Do you provide services online? Subscribe to me  The VA Passport was so I could offer useful valuable content and information from my own business (that is in practise and works) which I know people really need in their online service businesses and could save them heaps of time.

If you’re using Google mail you’ll want to separate the experts out from the system updates, e.g. don’t mix your Subscription to the Freshbooks.com, or the LinkedIn blog with Mashable.com for example, keep ‘functionality’ and ‘experts’ separate using filters and labels. It will help you focus and separate the two.

Step 5 – Schedule And Plan.

Then, set yourself a plan, either daily or weekly, (I do twice weekly), to check your feeds and email. Depending on your time available you may want to break it down, and check RSS feeds on a Tuesday and your newsletters on a Friday… Whatever you choose to do, keep it consistent, and restrict it to looking at everything since the last time you checked in one time, I usually need about an hour a week to check up on everything.

When you incorporate a new system or service into your business, or if a client asks you to help them with a new system, make sure you add that into your subscriptions so it becomes a part of your schedule.

Step 6 – Manage The Randomness.

I suspect if you’re anything like me you’ll still do social media maintenance on a daily basis and will come across great articles or random bits of information which you think would be useful for you to know, but you may not want to subscribe to the feed. What I do with these bits of information, articles, images, blog posts etc… is I clip these to a system I use called Yojimbo which is an App I purchased from the Mac store, but before I switched to Yojimbo, I used Evernote, which works in a very similar way, and could easily be used for the random snippets of info you come across.

Conclusion.

By following these steps, you can significantly reduce the amount of noise throughout your week from updates, but still stay on top of everything that really matters.
The most important thing you can do, and going back to my story above regarding spreading yourself too thin, is make sure that the information your are subscribing to is either “Essential” e.g. if you use Freshbooks, you should be subscribing to their updates because you actually use the system, or “Quality” – when I say experts in a field, I mean really good quality, credible sites, producing excellent relevant or specific content for you to learn from regularly.

I hope this helps with your productivity and staying up-do-date.

Life is a funny thing, we get so consumed by our work, and especially as online business entrepreneurs, the amount of time working can consume more hours in our day than say our children, or family time, or even personal time where your brain is engaged with things other than deadlines, emails and where the next client is coming from.

When I work, I can be super-fast and super-productive given the right circumstances, for example, I am well rested, no distractions, and in comfortable surroundings. But when I start to lose my groove, I can become like a butterfly flapping around in a closed jar looking for the exit, it’s like going back and forth over and over in multiple directions all leading the same way – nowhere. Do you know what I mean?

I can sit at my computer for an hour and clear multiple tasks off my plate, but at some point, maybe after many hours of working, or simply feeling exhausted, I can start flitting around my computer screen, opening windows, files, websites, but never really achieving anything, then I start drifting from one task to the next not really finishing anything. This usually happens quite late at night. Sometimes I get frustrated with myself because I’m not accomplishing what I hoped and I’m behaving like a complete pleb. During these times it’s always best to stop if you can so you don’t crack up, or waste your time unproductively sat at your computer, but occasionally, I won’t have that luxury due to the amount of stuff on my plate I need to work through.

Keep Calm And Turn It Off And On Again.

One thing I find really helps me is to close all the windows, applications and files on my computer, and do a quick tidy up of my iMac desktop, then shut down my computer. I make a drink, come back and turn it on again. It’s like wiping the slate clean, resetting my brain and starting from scratch, on the first task, then the second etc…

When you have to push yourself, and you are feeling like you’re working like a butterfly trapped in a jar, try simply turning your computer off and on again, it has a significant impact on me when I do it, like I am just starting with a clear, clutter free mind and workspace, as opposed to having been sitting there for hours not really achieving much of anything, being about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Our second week in Crete, I had so much planned to catch up on and do; I had projects I needed to finish and personal deadlines I wanted to meet, but on Saturday morning we were invited to a party of sorts, it was the Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday here on Crete and the neighbours were having a gathering next door to celebrate with a feast. They had been fasting for many weeks, no meat or dairy, and then at the end they have a rather meaty shindig – how could we possibly say no to this?

So, I decided to give myself a break, and go to the party. I am SO glad we went, it was awesome!

The people on Crete are different from any type of people I have ever met in the world, they are friendly, outgoing, happy, welcoming and very kind – certainly not what you would expect from a country supposedly in crisis. One of the locals did point out to me that Crete is not in Greece, Crete is Crete :) . We brought them bread and Ouzo, ate their food, drank their wine, mingled with their family, our kids played with their kids, and they didn’t know us from Adam.
In the village where we are staying, it’s fairly rural, I like rural, my business is such a busy place, that when I switch off the computer, I also switch of the busy ‘fast pace’ of my online life, it’s like living in 2 worlds at the same time, and also having the best of both worlds. We got asked by several people at the party how it was possible for us to live here for a year or more without work, basically how we could work from anywhere in the world; when my husband and I tell people we work on the Internet doing online business, I just hope they don’t think we sell porn – seriously, in most places I have visited, the people think the Internet is for checking email, chatting on IM or looking at porn – Ahem… anyway. People smiled and nodded politely.

The feast was amazing, all the family was together cooking, talking, drinking – above all laughing… the old men were peeling beans they had grown in the garden, and I also believe the meat was supplied, courtesy of the sheep flock, also at the end of the garden! What a life… A pig and sheep were roasting on a spit, there was a fire built on the ground where legs of lamb were being cooked on skewers, this was real outdoor ‘living off the land’ at its finest.
When we came to eat, the family and friends that gathered were fine with me doing a bit of filming, although I felt reluctant as it was a family gathering.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, and I ate the best ‘freshest’ lamb I have ever tasted. Sometimes you just have to say ‘sod it’ and take the day off, you never know where you might go, and what could happen. We left shortly before the Greek Karaoke began lol!

When you have a lead or a potential client who you’re eager to secure short or long term work from, you may be wondering how to increase your chances of securing the client into your business. It’s a fact that without the right upfront interaction you run the risk of creating a misunderstanding or the wrong impression because working online is less personal than face-to-face business.

Here are my top tips for maximising the possibility of converting the client.

Super Confidence.

You need to be really confident about what you do and how you do it, especially on a phone consultation. If there is a question you are asked which you don’t know the answer to don’t worry about it, seriously, it’s not an issue, confidently say “this is an excellent question, let me look into that for you and I’ll get back to you with an email summary within 24 hours” or whatever time you need to get the answer. Make a note, then move on. You don’t have to, nor are you even expected to know everything all the time, and the worry of being asked something you can’t answer can make you nervous and knock your confidence – it’s fine to not know everything immediately when you’re asked, and long as you have the “I’m on it” response.

Follow Up.

Always follow up on anyone you want to work with – I usually do one follow up as a courtesy these days, for anyone who looks really interesting, you could do 2 or 3 until you get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. Mention in the 2nd or 3rd that it’s your last follow up, but if they are interested in working with you in the future, they can contact you anytime, and you’ll be happy to help. People want to work with people who want to work with them; if you skip the follow up process, they may assume you’re “just not that interested,” or worse, you simply can’t be bothered.

Charge What You’re Worth.

Don’t be afraid to state your price, whatever that may be, I once answered a question from a VA who was worried about “charging too much” for her services. It’s your business and because of this, really you can never charge too much, the important thing is to charge in accordance with your skill, service levels and experience. We would all like to eat in the best restaurant in town, but if you can’t afford it, you go to McDonalds and get a cheaper meal, clients will have to accept this too. If you state your rates, and you’re happy with them, but the potential client isn’t – do you seriously want to work with them anyway?

But Be Open To Flexibility.

This is something at your discretion – entirely. Say the guy went to the expensive restaurant, and say I own it, and the guy said, “Look, okay – I’m new in town, I have never eaten here before, and I’m looking for a place to eat lunch everyday for the next 6 months, could we negotiate a reduced rate for this first meal, just so I can try it out, then if everything goes okay, I’ll eat here everyday for the next 6 months?” Hell yeah, I would do it if I had a good feeling about them, I liked them, and wanted to serve them my food.

But here’s the thing…

I would also charge them a week of full price lunches in advance, and each week moving forward to avoid being shafted. It shouldn’t be a problem if their request was genuine. If we’re scratching backs, I’ll want mine scratched too. Remember, this is your party, your rules. Only do this with people you get a good feeling about, your instincts are usually always right.

Unique Selling Point.

If you don’t have at least one solid USP then you need to get yourself one. This is what will separate you out from the crowd and also give the client something to think about. Do you make a point of never missing a deadline? Then why not shout it from the rooftops as a USP? Often things we do which are a given to us, are not a given for a majority of the population. Do you always respond within 24-48 hours? Do you provide a free serviced and managed client area? Do you guarantee your proofreading work to be without errors, or you’ll fix it for free? Whatever you can think of that gives your service the edge, use it as a USP, don’t assume clients will always know you do these things.

Be Yourself.

Time to completely ditch the employee mentality, it will hold you back. You’re not a robot, you’re not on a job interview and you’re not even ‘trying’ to impress anyone, if you have to try too hard, then you’re not being yourself, and it means deep down you know the client might be looking for someone who is just not you… if that’s the case then it’s better they don’t work with you. You are looking to be honest, upfront and give good solid reasons why you’re the best for their requirements, but even if you’re the most amazing online business consultant, online business manager or virtual assistant on the planet, sometimes it’s just not to be.

In the industry today people are looking for real, genuine people they can trust to help them elevate their business. Believe in yourself, and your service, and it will carry across naturally to the client, just don’t force it to hard. If we want to be happy in our work which is obviously very important, we want the client to accept us for who we are, not how we want them to perceive us to be.

Smile & Be Positive.

Nobody likes a Debbie/Danny Downer.

Formally welcoming clients to your virtual assistant practise is like inviting someone into your home as a guest. The client is now on your turf, and will likely have no idea what to do once they are there, so it’s really important you give them a warm welcome and some initial guidance as to what they do next, including how you can cater for them.

I am often surprised at how some VA’s will let the client lead the way, e.g. “my client doesn’t like using my project management system” or “my client prefers to have invoices sent via another system” – when it’s essential, even crucial that the VA is the one in control of this situation, as it will set the scene for things to come in the future. Really, at this point, you need to make sure your client is fully aware about how you operate. At the end of the day, once a client learns your ways, and it won’t take them long providing you go about it correctly, they’ll likely stick to them, providing it’s explained from the offset – Day 1.

Having a larger company I have a very specific way I work with clients, to the point where if I deviate from this is any way, it could potentially cause issues. The organisation of multiple clients and team members takes skill and requires a much higher degree of organisation than someone on their own, I know, I worked on my own when starting out as a VA and life was much simpler when I only had myself to manage! Certain systems, procedures and processes need to be put in place, then quickly and easily communicated to the client about where their part is in all of it.

Welcome Page.

Traditionally there used to be talk of a “Welcome Pack” amongst the VA community, sounds very corporate doesn’t it, and while this is fine for some folk, it seemed a little tedious to me. I am a 100% digital girl, so instead I created a simple “Welcome Page” which contains short, concise instructional videos for the 4 core systems I use with clients.

Those videos on the dedicated client welcome page are for:

1. Appointment Scheduling (Talking To Me)
2. Online Office (Collaboration and Task Management)
3. Support Site (General Help, New Tasks and Enquiries)
4. Billing History (Estimates & Invoices)

I also have other important links on that page to things like client training areas and terms and conditions.

Welcome Dashboard Message.

I mentioned in point 2 above that I have an online office. All work is processed through this secure space via an individual client area, which myself, managers and selected team members are assigned to. Every client has one, and while many take to it quickly, if people prefer to just collaborate over email I have the support site for that so I can give a unique reference code to every piece of communication – I leave nothing to chance, but either way, I set up a welcome message on their dashboard with step-by-step instructions on how to communicate with us, and also links, so when they login to their client area, they have that welcome message as a reminder of what they need to do, with all the useful links they would need to find anything related to their client account or working with us.

Welcome Email.

But of course we also need to give the client their login information to this area, and show them where the client welcome page is with the videos so they can see how it works, and how they can collaborate with us to get their work started, so for this, I send out an email with a nice message, stating their login information and mentioning everything they need to know to get started is in the main dashboard.

So there are 3 parts to my welcome process as a whole, and none of them involve a “pack,” paper or even a business card, unless you count my online one

1. The welcome email.
2. The welcome message on the main dashboard of their client area.
3. The client page with short concise video tutorials and useful links.

The welcome you give your clients is not only the first impression they will have of working with you, it also determines the way of working, so make sure it’s on your terms, and you state, clearly, with step-by-step instructions and videos if possible what they need to do to make their experience working with you, the most efficient and productive. I often receive compliments on my systems, and clients enjoy working with me online because I make, at every point possible, the experience seamless, and easy for the client to grasp. Welcome your clients in with a plan, and impress them with your confidence in your systems and organisational methods of running youronline business.

I seriously had not considered how spoilt I have been over the years. I have been on travelling around for over 2500 days, and this has without doubt been the most challenging move I have ever endured. Generally I am so organised with my country hopping moves they are a breeze, maybe with one or max 2 problems along the way, nothing too major… And whilst it has been a little complex it has also been one of the most special. I’ll walk you through the really ‘EEK’ moments, then move onto the special one.

Day 1. Italy To Greece.

We packed up the car on Thursday and left Italy early Friday morning to get on a boat from Ancona port to Patras port in Greece. That part was fine, we found the port in Italy, the kids were fine, we got the tickets and boarded the ferry, so far so good, apart from in the evening we had a bit of a shock after we ordered 2 drinks at the Ferry Bar and they amounted to 27 EURO!

We also met a lovely English man on the boat, a truck driver on his way to Athens who lived with his wife and 4 kids in Belfast, we chatted about Greece and the Greeks of course, he was explaining to us about the Greeks on the roads, and how they drive on the hard shoulder, since I was the driver this made me a little nervous, funny to say that when we arrived it was true, most roads are single lane so the people seemed to make it into 2 lanes by halfway driving on the hard shoulder – that was pretty hairy as you essentially had to drive into incoming traffic to get past the hard shoulder drivers and hope the incoming traffic also moved over to let you through, anyway… Next step…

Day 2. Greece To Crete.

We arrived in Patras, drove off the boat and pulled over so I could set the Europe “Sat Nav” to take us to Piraeus where we had to catch the next ferry. We were really tight on time, we had 5 hours to do a 3 hours drive, but the boat was an hour late so that gave us 4 hours, which was still fine. When you have small children you never know when you may have to stop, so we figured it would allow us time even with a margin for error if we got lost or with stops.

As I was attempting to set the “Sat Nav,” I had a sinking feeling like no other… Greece was not on there, it only seemed to do all of central and western Europe, stupid I know, but it’s something that never occurred to me to check before we left. Without a ”Sat Nav” or a map, we were completely lost, especially when we couldn’t even read the signs. There is some English listed, but even then the names are so foreign they’re difficult to reference quickly, to say the least. So we headed out of the port to try and find a garage… After no sleep and the worry of missing the next boat, I went into a stunned silence.

Patras was in my opinion pretty awful, crowded roads, run down buildings, graffiti everywhere, I was really hoping Crete was different, I had never been. So we found a garage, the guy spoke very little English, but was able to point us in a direction where there might be some shops that sold a Tom Tom or some other direction giving device. He also did mention that at 4pm all the shops would be closed until Monday, this was Saturday, and it was 3.35pm, we had around 25 minutes to find a shop that sold a ”Sat Nav,” or it’s likely we would not be going anywhere and miss the boat… Stress!

So we drove, and came to a large supermarket but with no electrical department, my husband jumped back in the car and we carried on driving, we came to a mall, there was no electrical shops but my husband spoke to a man in a kiosk who had some English, he said there was a shop that sold electrics a few minutes down the road and he gave us the name, so we started driving. We drove right past the shop, it was a busy main road, no parking, I eventually managed to cut across a lane of traffic, into a solitary parking spot, it was 3.58pm, and my husband had to run back to the electrical shop in the hope they hadn’t closed. 15 minutes later he came back - ”Sat Nav” in hand.

It took us a little while to set it up, get it operating in English, and programme in the destination. The instructions were all in Greek, with no obvious language selection. Anyway, we did it, and by this time, we were running 20 minutes late according to the ”Sat Nav” estimated time of arrival. There was no way I was missing that boat, so I drove like a maniac, and just made up the 20 minutes we had lost, plus adding on a bit of a time driving around trying to find the right terminal to get the boat, but it happened.

When we went to get the tickets for the boat, apparently they only had myself, my husband and my son in the system, so there was no ticket booked for my daughter…. Sigh…. Fortunately I had the confirmation with her name on it and they let us all on without extra charge. By this time it was late, we were all stressed, including the kids, so we ate something, showered and went to bed. The kids didn’t really allow us much sleep, understandable, and we had to be up at 4am for when the boat arrived a little later.

Day 3. Crete To Home.

We then, in the early hours of the morning, did the hour drive from Chania to Rethymnon, this was after also discovering that we could not find the papers I printed on how to access the house – fortunately I had them on the Macbook Air on PDF so we fired that up and managed to get to where we needed to be from that. So we arrived Sunday morning, as many of you know I always make sure I have an Internet connection before I arrive anywhere for my virtual assistant business, and the same goes for this time, the house came with Internet installed and working…. But then… We arrived looking everywhere for the box – no box. The landlord came and explained he changed over to a faster connection (6Mbps) knowing how important it was to us, and it should have been connected on Friday, he would sort it out Monday – Okay.

Day 4. Monday. He arrives at the house with the box – Joy! Apparently the Internet was connected on Saturday and ready to go. So we plug it in, the lights are on but nobody’s home. We call the Internet company and go through a series of steps… Still nothing happening.

Day 5. Tuesday. We try again, still nothing. They then explain they will send out a man to come and fix everything.

Day 6. Wednesday. The man comes and checks everything, only to find that there is a fault on the line, and in fact the telephone connection altogether has vanished. They need to report it to the company. Seriously I have never been out of action for this long since my business opened…

Day 7. Thursday. Waiting…. By this time I was climbing the walls. We purchased (2) 3G Internet sticks from Vodafone and low and behold, one of them was faulty – Ahhhhhhhhggggghhhhh!!!!

Day 8. Friday. We have the Internet back!

Seriously I hated not being able to connect, I was like an alcoholic going cold turkey, I even developed a slight twitch in my right eye. Thanks so much to my amazing team who so beautifully held the fort for me while I was away. I have a huge amount of catching up to do, but a beautiful place to do it in.

So moving on – the very, very special part about our move to Crete, is that for the first time in years, despite all the hiccups along the way, I am in a place which ‘feels’ like home. And so our year in Crete began…

At times I have to be away from the helm of my business for a few days while I travel and settle down in a new country. This is no different to taking a holiday, going away for a few days, being too ill to work, or having to drop everything due to unforeseen personal circumstances. I am not available to work as I would normally work.

Clients and work still exist and projects, tasks and assignments will still need to be processed in my absence, especially for those clients on retainer agreements, and naturally any client facing the absence of their VA may be wondering what happens while that virtual assistant is away.

Whether you have a team or a virtual business partner where you ‘cover’ for each other’s clients while you are away, there is a way that you could introduce a “point of contact” for your clients so they know how to get in touch if they need something or something has gone wrong while you are absent.

Introducing Plaxo.

You may have heard of this nifty online system before. Plaxo.com is a contact and address organiser online, which can sync with your various computers, email clients, like Google Apps, and devices, like iPads and iPhones.

It’s a great solution for making sure all your contact information is up to date and the same across your business tools. They also have something called a “Contact Card” (this is mine) which is a free service and comes with their “Free” account option. So what you could do is set up an online contact card to introduce people working with you in your business to your clients, professionally. In this instance it’s for when you’re away, but you can also use it to introduce people on your team who are going to be helping you with servicing your client.
While I am away, I have chosen one of my managers to ‘hold the fort’ and handle decision making and action taking, or to make me aware of any issues that are essential to my attention. So I’ll post an update to clients to mention that while I am away, if they have any questions or concerns they can contact this person, and I can link to their online contact card so they can ‘see’ who they would be liaising with. Whilst many of my clients will know each manager already, some may have only worked with one or two, so by doing this it just clarifies that the client isn’t left to their own devices while I am away, and I’ve still got their back even when I am away.

If you have a VA partner where you just cover for each other on occasion, and you would like them to remain anonymous to your clients, simply set up a contact card with an email address from your company, so your clients have a name and a face, but won’t be confused by expecting to contact a different virtual assistant company altogether. You could also keep their surname anonymous by just using their first name, and your own company details to fill in the rest of the gaps, I have several clients who use me as a point of contact and might have different business cards set up as their companies, just to allow that seamless ‘point of contact’ experience.
Try it! It’s a great way to introduce your co-workers and colleagues to your clients.

2500 Days!  This week is an interesting week for me. It’s my last full week in Italy, a place that will live on in my heart for several reasons. After 8 months of mouth watering food, sumptuous wine and beautiful views, I feel ready to take the next plunge into the unknown (Greece), and looking at my little “Days On The Road” widget from the Vagabond Family website, today (23rd March 2012) is marking my 2500th day since I decided to leave my life behind in the United Kingdom and pursue something a bit different – a bit more “me.”
A lot has happened in the time since I started my journey 2500 days ago, for a start I discovered virtual assistance – this industry has been like a warm safe blanket for me on my travels. Occasionally it slipped off, and I was left feeling a little cold, but for the majority of the time, it has been the one consistent comfort-zone I have had. It has given me the means to live life in a way that I could only have ever imagine while reading National Geographic…

Multi-6 Figure Virtual Assistant Company.

The “Virtual” side of things meant that I could clearly communicate to clients that I was not available for any direct interaction, and I am only available virtually – online – in cyberspace so to speak, and whilst I am very fond of all of them, they remain at a distance, and we connect digitally, online which means that it doesn’t matter where I am, and it doesn’t matter where they are – in a nutshell – I freaking love being virtual, and it’s the global, virtual nature of my business that I personally thrive on!
The “Assistant” part meant that I get to do what I do best, and help people with their businesses to achieve what they want, or need, or both. It’s phenomenal that I connect with people I work with on my team and my clients across 6 out of 7 continents in the world. I never would have believed this if someone had told me 2500 days ago that I would be doing what I am doing now. The business is progressing and moving forward daily, I am powered by my desire for learning new ways to work with clients online and collaborate. I am hungry to learn more when online services come out that could improve productivity and communication. In a sense, I’m addicted to Internet technology, and how it can not only improve my own business, but also that of my clients. I experiment, I research, and that is why this virtual assistant business has become to me, like a seed that I planted and nurtured, and tended to, every day, so it became a beautiful flower, and when I look upon it, it brings me an enormous feel good factor, that I would never let wither away.

30 Years Old.

But moreover – (according to my husband, this is something I feel I should be a little proud of.) The business I started to research in Egypt 2500 days ago, which I started freelancing at, hoping I could earn a few hundred pounds a month for myself to live on and to get me from A-B turned into a multi-6 figure, multi-faceted entrepreneurial endeavour before my 30th Birthday. So I went from knowing nothing about how to run a business, or market it, or manage it… let alone the type of work I was getting into online, to it becoming what it is today, through research and online learning, all while I was in my 20’s and all while I was travelling through places with questionable Internet connections. I also left school at 16, so even higher education was not a contributor – you don’t need a fancy degree or letters after your name to do this. Because of the love I have for my business, and the way it’s such an integral part of my life, and family life – you could say, I retired the day before my 24th birthday – the day I left the UK, and “real world” work

1 Husband.

I mentioned my husband just a moment ago. An American man who happened to be passing through, walking the same road as me. Someone who shared my love for travel, and was equally as adventurous (or equally as mad, whatever way you want to look at it) – we have now been together since 2007. The evening I met him, on a friend’s balcony overlooking the river Nile in Luxor, was the evening I found my travel companion and my best friend – in the whole wide world. We went from travelling as single people, to teaming up as a duo, and then came…

2 Children.

We then proceeded to have a bouncing 10.¾lb baby boy (complete surprise on both parts having had 4 doctors declare me clinically not able to ever conceive without some sort of medical intervention) and that baby boy became the reason – my entire reason – why I became so highly focused, determined, and committed to the life I chose. I was no longer freelancing, or dabbling in a little business idea, I had an impeccable reason to push myself hard, really hard… Having a baby, and trying to provide enough income for a family home in Europe from one small online business in amongst foreign countries, planes, trains and automobiles, plus learning to be a mum for the first time, was shall we say – challenging… and character building!
When my son was 6 months old, I became pregnant again, this time with my daughter who was born in France. Fortunately it didn’t matter during the delivery that the midwife had no English, and was about 18 years old… I was a pro at that stage. The day she was born, I checked myself out of the hospital and was back home checking my email and collaborating with unsuspecting clients who had no idea I was even pregnant, and a majority had no idea I was in France. I never went public about my location and travel lifestyle until I started blogging on here in 2010, I look back on that, and I smile – very few people knew about my nomadic lifestyle.

0 Regrets.

I take such pleasure every day from the simple things I discover about the world, and also about me, which is a result of having this kind of freedom, from how big the spring onions are in Spain (never seen them that big – seriously), to watching fireworks on New Year’s eve from an Italian hilltop, to gazing upon the pyramids in Cairo. My life is not “peachy” in the sense that I don’t have a care in the world. I work long hours, I have all the usual bumps and bruises from being a mum, I get tired, I worry about money to a certain extent, the business is (and has always been) the sole household income to provide for the family, to keep a roof over our heads, I have things I want to save for, and I make huge investments of both time and money into projects I believe in to help other people who are as thirsty for life online and offline as I am.
But we all have those things… Call them ups and downs… Call it life.
I can tell you this now, I swear on my last 2500 day journey – I have NO regrets. I wish that words would do this feeling justice, but they don’t. Living life on your own terms, even if you fall and get back up again, will still feel a million times better than living a life that’s not of your own choosing. Now, I may have simple requirements, some might say I’m easy to please, whereas others might say, I’m a complicated so-and-so with a complex life…
The fact is I remember the last time I cried tears of unhappiness… unhappiness with my life and my choices, and it was well, well over 2500 days ago. I may feel sad very occasionally, and I have had the odd moment where I have cried throughout this time, but such moments are only induced by fear… fear of going back, and it’s that fear that has always made me stronger, more eager and even more determined.
Whilst I have had difficulties and struggled, I have never lost sight about what I am aiming for in life, and how I am going to get there. If anyone should envy someone like me because of the life I have, (I get emails sometimes from people who say this) then that’s just strange – what they should be envious of, is the ability I have found within myself to never give up, or back down, or stop believing that my way, my choices for my life, (and now my family’s life) are worth fighting for and following through on. By taking what seems like “the easier option” I could easily end up with regret, remorse and maybe, I might shed a tear of unhappiness for the choices I made which went against my better judgement, and my gut instinct.
I urge you – start today – make a decision, decide to do whatever will make you cry your last tear of unhappiness with your life, and who knows where you could be in 2 days from now, 200 days… or 2000 days… the time is not an issue, as long as you have the will.

There are actually multiple solutions out there for backing up files, and if you are looking for an online solution, it generally doesn't matter what operating system you use, as everything is online.

These are the range of services and techniques I would recommend.

Online File Storage With Back Up.

There are 2 services I like for this.

1) DropBox - You can sign up for a Free Account and then upgrade for more storage. I tend to use this for transferring "Active" files which are linked to current project between my clients and my team.

2) SpiderOak - This is the online storage system, also with a Free Account option. I would use this for "InActive" files which needed to be stored and backed up, but were not "In Use." I move those archives from DropBox into SpiderOak. This is a more cost effective solution, but not as popular or as accessible as DropBox.

Offline Back Up.

For this I use a portable external hard drive storage device, I like Freecom the most, and have always had a good experience with their hard drives.

Online Computer Data Backup.

For this I would use a service like CrashPlan. This is one of the more popular data back up services. They have a Free "personal" solution, and you can download it to your desktop. It works with both Windows and Mac.

This really all depends on your own personal preferences and the types of services you offer. The most important thing you need to first figure out is what services you want to offer. Once you have chosen your services, you then need to think about how you are going to package them and offer them to clients. Below I’ll take you through a few options, which you could use, or adapt to suit your individual business model.

By “Type.”

This is the option I have always used and whilst I have adapted it over the years, it’s still the best way for me to offer services in my virtual assistant business. If you package by “Type” you are offering a cluster of similar services related to a particular skill-set in one place. So for example “Creative” services, “Technical” Services and “Administrative” Services. You can then break those services down a bit further so each of those types becomes an umbrella, for example “Creative” services can then contain Graphic Design, Logo Design etc… Categorising by “Type” is a very straightforward, easy to follow option for both you and your clients.

By “Market.”

If you are someone who caters to a specific market, then you can consider structuring your services around that market. So for example, you may choose to work with “Real Estate Agents” and if your market is specifically that trade, your services would reflect all the options available to Real Estate Agents, such as uploading property information or arranging appointments for viewings. You would need to research what kind of things they need, and what kind of things you are able to provide to come up with a core list of offerings. They could be narrow or they could be broad, it’s up to you what you feel comfortable offering, but you really need to put yourself in the shoes of the potential client in that market or niche, and consider what they would really need from you.

By “Skill.”

If you are limited to only one skill, such as transcription, you can still offer a variety of services, so for example a transcriber can transcribe videos and audios generally, and that may feel restricting in terms of services you offer. In this case you need to get a little more specific and open the mind of the client to the scope of your transcription services, such as transcription of podcasts, audio books, radio shows, press conferences, meetings, Skype consultations,video blogs etc.  If you are offering by “skill”, you can essentially take what may be seen as 1 service and turn it into many services. So now you have a few ideas on how to offer your services, whether you have a multitude to offer for a larger VA company, or whether you have just one for a smaller practise, there is a way you can offer them which will appeal to the client.

The Sentence Compilation Blog is an idea I nabbed from one of my followers @GeoffTalbot – he has a site slash blog called http://sevensentences.com/– I am sure you can probably guess that his blog posts are compiled of text of around 7 sentences. Genius…

These types of blogs are made up more of profound thoughts and muses… You could choose to do a daily post of 1 sentence if you like, you had better just make it freakin’ good!

Here is what you do.

Think of a topic, and basically write out the most important point you could consider about that topic. If more points spring to mind, keep them for a different day, or make a topical series each week, just make sure you can come up with enough things to talk about, and you are skilled at making them awesome in a short piece of text.

It’s no secret that visual representation is BIG in social media. Facebook posts that contain images are far more likely to get a reaction. I have an idea using Pinterest, which is ohhhh so popular right now, and quite rightly so. It’s awesome. My idea would be to have a new board each week that you dedicate to the pins you have liked that week. I am going to implement this idea for my e-Magazine “Paperless Entrepreneur” to make a feature of the pin board.

Here is what you do.

You’ll need a Pinterest account, and you would need to create a new board each week, a board is a little bit like a place to collect and sort images.

Pick a day each week that you want to start collecting your images for the following weeks post, and then label it something like “My Awesome Blog [DATE]” and then collect pins – Try to make them topical so you can craft a great blog post heading, like “Top 10 Motivational Quotes For Clients.” You could then “embed” a few pins from that week into a blog post using the embed options on the images and then link back to your board, or embed all the images, get creative, mix it up a bit.

This I thought was pretty cool, the idea came from a man called @CharlesCrosbie from http://charlescrosbie.com/ he does a weekly compilation of his Tweets in the form of a blog post. This is one of the most creative ways of starting a blog, without having to think of what topic you’re going to post on… it’s the same every week. You round up your best tweets and away you go! This is something I think I’ll be implementing on my blog for our online service provider community, full credit to the idea goes to Charles.

Here is what you do.

Use Twitter as you normally would each week, and as you go, make a list of your top tweets and retweets. Gather about 20 (which shouldn’t be too hard because you should ideally be posting on average no less than 10 per day) and then once you have your list – turn it into a blog post. Here is an example from Charles’ site:

For 2 alternatives, you could use “Embeddable Tweets” in your blog, or you could also set up an automated version of this using something like Twylah at http://www.twylah.com/ but it won’t have the same appeal to clients I don’t think, because they won’t be cherry-picked posts, and another big down side is that the blog would not be hosted on your domain.

I get asked a lot of questions, one of the questions I get asked very often is, “How do I do a consultation?” Good Question.
I have always been very reluctant to give people help with this, I think they expect me to offer a template or a form of questions or some sort of “How To” – there are plenty of people out there offering the standard consultation questions, and if that works for them, great – but I don’t do things that way, and whatever I don’t do – I would never pass on to you guys. It’s my oath to my colleagues (that’s you).

What I do, is approach consultations with a view that every single one is unique, because they are. Well, every one I have ever done is, and now, my contribution to helping colleagues with the consultation process is to actually record a consultation and deliver it to you guys so you can hear what I am saying and how I react to the client. You also learn how the client responds and reacts to me. It is my belief that this is MUCH more powerful information for you than any template could ever offer.

The Consultation “Process.”

I mentioned consultations are unique. When you meet someone on a bus do you naturally pull out a list of questions to ask them? No… I treat my online interactions in the same way. But let’s first look at the consultation process, and why we do them, because this is always consistent:

1. We want to offer a direct contact between ourselves and our potential client.
2. We want to provide them with an “idea” or a “framework” of what we can do for them.
3. We want to secure any potential business.

Simple enough to grasp, but not so simple when you’re on the phone and you want to WOW the client with your consultation process.

Consultations are like a movie that hasn’t yet been played out, you have the cast, (you and the client), you are the lead role (we’ll come to that later). You have your scenes, always the same, 2 people from distant lands (or houses) on the phone, and you have the trailer for the movie, you know roughly how it’s going to play out, but you are yet to discover the true ending. You’re in suspense.

Consider consultations like this and you’ll feel less concerned about them – they aren’t scary I promise.

The difference between a movie and a consultation is there is no script. You don’t have the lines already prepared in front of you – but that’s the good thing, because if you did, consultations wouldn’t feel natural, and one thing I have found of vital importance, is that I’m more successful at achieving the desired outcome when I am natural – in other words – I am human, not a consulting robot that spits out the same questions to every client like I’m doing a survey. This is a primary reason why I don’t like the script/template of questions method, I don’t want to sound like every other VA they contacted, so “think improvisation” – we can ALL do it and it’s much easier than trying to box the consultation in, the more you learn to do this, the better you’ll get at it. You won’t be great overnight, but with every consultation you do in this way, you’ll get better and better at coming up with things out of your head, instead of a Word doc. — Clients will respond and react better to someone who is both professional, but also “real and unique.”

How You Succeed At Consultations.

The 2 things you will always need to learn off by heart are:

1. Your client intake procedures – how you welcome clients in, and how your business works.
2. Your services – You need to know your services inside out, and “how” you offer them.

First you need to think about what you want from the consultation, and anticipate what the client may be asking, so you can start to build up a list in your head of the kind of things you want to discuss, and how you want the consultation to play out, I call these “Scenes” and there are 4 scenes to every consultation. Next you need to anticipate what the client may ask you – and if you don’t have a clue – don’t worry, it’s all good, it will come out on the call. Again, go with the flow, not with the flock, don’t be afraid to tell the client what makes you better than everyone else. It’s like you are revealing a hidden gem that they are very lucky to have found.

The Consultation “Scenes”.

So as I mentioned, consultations are like movies, and they have scenes, here is a general layout of the scenes in the consultation:

Scene 1: Rapport & Roles.

You call the client and you exchange pleasantries and establish rapport. This should be a personal conversation between the two of you to gauge at this time whether the client is strictly business or is more friendly. At this point I always try to consider how the client may want the consultation to go, whether they want me to take the lead role, or if they do. I do this because nearly every consultation I do this way is successful. I am the one who adapts at this stage.

Scene 2: Purpose.

Once we establish who is leading – say it’s me, I then try to establish what they want. Why they contacted me, what’s on their mind. Treat this like when you see someone who looks like they have something to say to you and you don’t know what it is yet. Put a line out there, and then see what they come back with – let them take the floor, this is their moment.

Confirm what you know and let them fill in the gaps.
Say something like – “So let’s get started, I know that you have company XYZ and you deal in 123, you have contacted me regarding BLAH, and it would be great at this stage if you could go into the reasons why so I can best tailor our discussion so you get the most value/benefit from our time.”

• CLIENT: Takes centre stage, they begin speaking.
• YOU: Silently LISTEN, give a few mmm’s and okay’s so they know you’re still with them on the line

Scene 3: Potential.

Once you have let the client do the talking, and you have asked any additional questions you feel at the time you need to know, you then need to move onto the “potential.” This scene is the KEY element into securing the client. Potential is what you are able to make happen for the client. This is where I dip around into my skill set and experience, you really want to have a standing ovation after this.

The golden rule of securing the client.
They need to feel emotion through your words – thrills, excitement, adrenalin, vision – give them something to really stir the senses.

You want them to come back with positive affirmations, so things like this need to happen…

• They asked you to do something – offer them something better.
• They asked you to carry out a task – give them a way to automate it and save them money.
• They asked for 6 different things for 1 outcome – give them 1 thing to obtain 6 outcomes.
• Tell them about something they have never heard of or come across before, a system or tool that is relevant to the conversation.

Catch my drift? Leave them thinking they could be nuts if they don’t hire you, and the only way you’ll get the client excited in this way is if YOU are excited, speak with passion, with purpose, with interest in the client and their business, and you WANT the opportunity to work with them, (but not in a desperate psycho kind of way) and they’ll want you back.

Be excited about the possibility of working with them, and they’ll be excited about working with you too. Just by helping them to understand you want to know their business and you would be really delighted to be a part of it, plus you can add value to it, speaks volumes to a potential client.

Would you seriously give your child to a babysitter who didn’t know what they were doing or talking about, and on top of that sounded like they couldn’t really care less? NEXT PLEASE!!!
If you want the part. Act like it. But by demonstrating you are the right person for it, you’re the best fit, you walk the walk, and you talk the talk.

One thing to mention here is that I don’t focus on a multitude of things I can do, I home in on one, the most important one I find that touches the client’s interests, and then try to branch off and expand from there, but still staying on topic. If you weave and dart around you’ll sound like a bird flapping around a cage. Soar in one direction, once you secure a small amount of business from the client, you can always get more later, this isn’t a pile it high all you can eat buffet – it’s a several course meal that you have to savour, with each course.

Scene 4: Finale.

Once you have explored possibilities and got them pumped to start, offer to summarise everything on an email or an estimate for the work after the call closes, I wouldn’t ever try and get them to close at this point, unless they prompt it. If you record consultations like I do, this will make it much easier for you at the end, super quick and also it’s always appreciated from the client’s side.

So where can you see this – FOR REAL?

I recently recorded a phone consultation with a client, I had no idea what they were looking for beforehand, it just came through on my appointment booking system. I went through stages 1 and 2, learnt that I should be the leader and that the client was professional, yet passionate about their business. I learnt what they liked about me in particular, and the reasons why they were drawn to me, and booked the appointment which also helped.

At stages 3 and 4, which are the crucial moments of the consultation, I packaged them up into a transcription, video, audio and post client consultation questionnaire so you can see and hear first-hand what you need to do to secure the business. The client’s identity has been completely removed so you will only hear my voice, but you will be able to read on screen in the video version the responses from the client, each time I speak, and also follow it on the transcription. The client is now on the books with Virtual Miss Friday – the fact is, what I do really WORKS. It just takes a bit of time to master it.

This client in particular initially wanted a simple website, by the end, I have tagged on other services, a recurring passive income opportunity and future ongoing business, while still staying on topic and focusing on what is really needed. Once the client is with me, I would later arrange a follow-up consultation where I would do a full administrative review of the client’s business. If you would like to download this consultation, I am charging a small fee, because of the work invested into producing this, but it’s worth it.

Initial FREE Consultation.

So, the recording for the consultation I gave shown in the screenshots above is available ONLY in the VMF Ltd store. For full details of what is included in the package, Click Here.

Guide To “Advanced Virtual Business Performance Consulting.”

Focus first on the primary need of the client, so this may be one individual package or service, and then once they are with you, offering a follow up consultation to see how else you can help them. If you would like to learn the method I use for these consultations, check out my, “Advanced Virtual Business Performance Consulting.”

Facebook have rolled out their new timeline updates for business pages. You can see my page here MichelleOnFacebook.me

Some of you may take to it like a duck to water, and others may feel like a kid on their first day at a new school… I know I did. Everything was the same, but different, and I was feeling a little insecure about the situation, but I found a few posts which helped me get to know my new Facebook page, which I will share with you below.

But first, the slightly annoying bits.

There is one thing I really find a bit annoying, and that’s the large amounts of scrolling that needs to be done, content doesn’t seem to be as accessible as it used to be at a glance, and there seems to be a lot of ‘gaps’ in between certain content, but that is just something to get used to over time – or learn how to bridge the gaps.
The page also feels a little cluttered, but maybe that’s because I am a neat freak when it comes to online real estate.

Jump in and go for it!

So to save the new timeline from driving you nutty, (because I think it might have a tendency to do that to some people until you fully understand it and become at one with your FB page) below are the top info posts I have found online to help you get started with your new look. My advice is to jump right in and just get going with it. It’s pretty cool, and the pages do look much smarter.

Top New Facebook Timeline Posts.

The Complete Guide To Setting Up A New Facebook Page Design.

From the HubSpot Blog.

Timeline For Facebook Pages. A Complete Overview Of The New features.

From Inside Facebook.

Facebook Introduces Timeline For Brands: It’s Cleaner, It’s Creative and It Kills Landing Pages.

From Digital Trends.

Facebook Page Changes To Timeline Design.

From Alicia Rittenhouse.

Facebook Timeline Brand Pages Are Here.

From Mashable.

Facebook Brand Timelines: 6 Big Changes Every Marketer Needs To Understand.

From Mashable.

Don’t get your virtual wrists slapped!

Also don’t forget to brush up on the rules and regs for the new pages. From Facebook.

This is a great tip for anyone who is looking to target a certain market or group of people for their online service business. The best part of it all, is that the stream of connections come through daily, in real-time through Paper.li – a totally free service which runs through your Twitter account.

Now you can either do a highly specific targeted paper, or you could do a general paper or you could do several! The idea behind Paper.li, is that the paper will choose content from your followers for the newspaper based on certain parameters. Now a lot of the papers out there are set to post just from your followers, but your followers base may not always be targeted enough for you to know if they are potential client material – but now you can filter the ‘Hot’ leads via your daily, and this is how…

#1 Create Your Paper.

First you have to create you Paper.li account, this is easy because you just sign in using your Twitter account at http://paper.li/ – Give it a name and move onto step 2!

#2 Choose Your Hashtags.

You can then choose your filters and settings, below shows what you are permitted to use, and there is a restriction of 10, so this is crucial you choose wisely, and monitor results, you can always go and change them if you’re not happy with the content coming in.

The best (top 3) options you can choose from I have found are coming in a 3 - ”Keywords On Twitter”, then 2, “Keywords On Facebook” and finally, in the number 1 spot, and what has produced the best results for me, is finding suitable hashtags for the keywords you’re looking to target, so for this article, I’ll focus on those – the more hashtags you can find the better, because these produce the most highly targeted results, so for example let’s say you provide virtual assistance to cyclists, and you want to target cyclists as a potential client market – here is what you need to do.

a) Go to Hashtags.org, and put in a variety of potential words in the search related to Cyclists – it will either come up with results or not. If you get a decent set of results for a word, check those results out and see if you can spot any other good hashtags, until you find a decent set of tags for your paper.
e.g #cyclists, #roadies, #cyclesafe, #cycle, #race etc…
b) You then need to add those hashtags to your Paper.li

#3 What To Do With Them.

Once you save it, and your paper propagates you’ll have a bunch of results for those tags coming in, you’ll probably wonder what you do next!
Well, each result has a publisher name e.g. Your VA Lisa in the example below from my own Paper The Virtually Anywhere Daily:

You can either click the link on the name of the person and you’ll be able to see whether they are someone from your market who you can then connect and interact with, or you could just click Follow, or Favourite if you like the look of them. What you’ll be looking for is to retweet, interact, introduce yourself, share you expertise with assisting cyclists – or of course whatever your target market is, and generally just be social. Now, this is the thing, you could go into your strategies for converting them into a lead and then a client, but I wouldn’t do that with these types of connections, I would approach them more subtly, and explain what you do, and ask if there is a possibility of you telling their community about you through a guest post on a blog, webinar, telecall or slot in a newsletter for example, something indirect – and by doing this you are opening the door to a much wider targeted audience than simply working on an individual.

So! There you have it, another simple, yet automated way of connecting you and your business with the right people in ‘Real-Time”. If you would like to see a tutorial of how I put together my own Paper.li check out this link http://passport.virtualassistant-live.com/trip-011/

One of the many things I have had to learn over the years, especially in my virtual assistant business, is knowing when I don’t want to engage myself with a certain client, or in a certain project. It’s not easy to learn how to say “No,” even when knowing in your heart of hearts that this is the right thing for you to do.

“No” is so negative, it’s a bit like saying “Thanks, But No Thanks.” I guess when you say “No” you feel like you’re letting people down, or maybe even in a way that you’re not adequate enough if you are simply unable to fulfill the needs of that client. I freely admit that I hate having to say no to people who need me, but also I have to take into consideration my own business and sanity first, primarily for the sake of me, my family and my clients. The outcome required from “No” is essential to any business.

So one day, I realised that I was actually skilled enough to never have to say “No,” but still obtaining the same outcome as if I had… If not a better one! All of a sudden I could turn what could be seen as a negative situation to my advantage, and in the end it was easier than I thought, and it also made me a better, and more sought after online business consultant, because I could say “No” in a roundabout practical, professional and resourceful kind of way, and still be helpful. So now every circumstance that requires a blunt “No” from me turns into a challenge of my own skill, and a boost for my reputation as a quality service provider.

Obviously when you want to say no to someone, it means that any of the following may apply to the situation:

1. You Simply Are Unable To Engage, For Whatever Reason.
2. You Simply Don’t Want To Involve Yourself With The Work.
3. You Simply Don’t Want To Involve Yourself With The Person.

Rather than feeling conscience-stricken over saying no, I still like to assist the person I am saying no to, in some way, on their journey to achieving a more successful outcome.

The Art Of Never Saying No

Don’t  give people a dead end, give them a re-route, and a new way forward.  Here is what I do, try it next time you get a situation you want to say “No” to.

When someone wants to work with me, and I can’t help them.

“Sure, let’s take a look at your request. First of all thanks so much for your interest and the opportunity, having looked at it, I won’t be able to do this for you directly, due to (capacity, capability etc…) I do know of someone who might be able to, would you like me to put you in contact with them?”

When I don’t want to work on the project or task.

“Thanks so much for thinking of me, sure, let’s see how I can help you with this. Whilst on this particular occasion I am unable to provide you directly with what you need, what I can do for you is recommend XYZ, which should help. I am copying them in on this email to see if this is something they can assist you with. Do let me know if I can be of further service to you in the future.”

When I don’t want to work with the person.

“I very much appreciate you thinking of me, but unfortunately I won’t be able to assist you further with this, what I can do for you however is offer some advice. If it was me, I would do XYZ.”
Most of the time, I get a very nice email come back thanking me for my help, even though I really just said No… But rather than cut a cord, I end up leaving an opening for a potential referral, or recommendation, or becoming the “Go To” person people tell their friends about, knowing full well, that even if I can’t help them myself, I may know someone or something that can (I usually do), meaning that as long as they keep coming back, there could be something I am able to do for them. Also by doing this, I may also be creating an opening for a colleague or acquaintance, so you never know what can come from it, maybe that colleague might also do the same for me one day.

So, I rarely say “No” these days, if at all, but instead, I demonstrate to people that I am capable of providing support, indirectly, and that is a very nice place to be in when it comes to reputation and doors opening up later on.

I get asked this question a lot, whether it’s possible to start and essentially run a VA practise while working full time. I personally haven’t done it, I quit my day job to start my business, but because of the number of hours I put in, and the varying times I worked, in various time-zones, early in the morning, very late at night, weekends etc… I know when you work full time, you have some of those ‘outside hours’ available, and if you feel inclined, you could very well run a VA business in them. What a lot of people aren’t aware of is how they can organise the logistics of working in this way, because most times, the job is a ‘day’ job. Well folks, that’s the beauty of working on the Internet, there doesn’t have to be a night and day, it’s a constant. I have a few tips for you that will help you while you’re working to keep your business flexible enough for you to not burn out.

#1 – Don’t have response “times” – have response “hours.”

So basically you should not say you’ll respond between 9 and 5 – because you can’t, you’ll need to set up an autoresponder on your email saying you’ll respond within, for example ‘24 hours’ – this will allow you time during those 24 hours to respond without having to rush anything.

#2 – Schedule calls.

Get yourself an online appointment calendarand block out all the time you are not available to take calls. Then, open up as much time as you can outside the hours when you know you will be available, even if it’s in the evening, in this industry it doesn’t really matter too much, in fact, most of my own business calls and consultations are in the evening after 7pm central European time. Then make sure that all calls and appointments are scheduled via the calendar.

#3 – Call answering.

There are many call companies that will only charge you by the call, to take messages or schedule appointments in your calendar, so a handy thing to do is hire one of these services to take calls during your ‘office hours’ while you’re at work, and then use the calendar from #2, to schedule a call back for you. If you would rather not go for call answering, get a Skype-In number with Voicemail, and leave a message, “Thanks so much for calling XYZ Company, there is nobody available to take your call at the moment, please leave you name and email address after the tone, or visit XYZ.com/appointment to schedule a call back.” Why don’t I ask for a number?.. Good question, because I get calls from potential clients across the globe, and as a rule, I don’t call them back unscheduled unless I know exactly what timezone they are in, and it’s a bit long winded asking that on a message.

#4 – Deadlines for Billable Time.

Basically to me, billable time is when you are working directly on a client’s task and/or project in exchange for money, and when you do this, you will need to make sure you are working to mutually agreed deadlines, allowing yourself enough to time to complete the tasks and assignments for your clients, knowing you can only do it outside of your normal work hours.

#5 – Stick to what you know.

This is my final tip. If you are going to start a VA practise and continue your full-time job, you’ll want to limit stress as much as possible, because it’s likely to be a difficult period in your life doing this transition, so with clients and services stick to what you know, and if you want to learn and expand your services repertoire, do that when you’ve got to the point where you can quit your job. There is nothing worse than feeling the pressure of a job, the pressure of learning and the pressure of running your own business, and marketing it too. So these are my tips if you are planning on working a job full time, and setting up a VA Business. I hope you’ll find them useful!