However, and there is always a ‘however”, it is critical to create time in your daily schedule to care for your body. I quickly learned that sitting at my desk for 10-12 hours a day working on virtual assistance tasks, building websites, or just generally running my businesses quickly took a toll on my weight, my energy levels and in some notable instances, even my ability to put together a cogent sentence.

In order to run your VA practice successfully you quite simply MUST take the time to move your body, energize your system and take the time to get, and remain fit and healthy.

Now I am not saying that this schedule works for everybody, but it very definitely works for me. In fact on days that I don’t make it to the gym, it is very apparent to me by early afternoon that this was not a good idea. In fact, it was a really bad decision on my part.

I also have a small rebounder, or mini-trampoline in my office that is in my opinion, a MUST-HAVE piece of equipment. In fact it is right up there with my scanner. When words begin to blur on the screen or I am having trouble concentrating it is a simple matter to walk over the the rebounder, bounce on it gently for three or four minutes, grab a bottle of water and get back to work. It is amazing what that does for my energy levels. Just for fun I counted how many times I got on the rebounder during a particularly time-crunched day and found that I had bounced 8 times during the day (24-30 minutes total though out the day). I had a great day, powered through all of the work and had a fabulous evening with my husband.

One thing that I am getting ready to do in early June is a detox program with The Fitness Jeanie. I downloaded her free CD the other day and found it to be the perfect accompaniment to my rebounder bounces.

Summer in the Deep South is difficult even with the air conditioning running 24/7. The humidity can sap energy quicker than anything that I have ever encountered and I am really looking forward to this detox program to arm myself with a healthy system before summer really slams into us.

Your job should always be to get and keep customers and clients. The more time-sapping tasks that you can delegate to your virtual assistant or virtual assistant team, the more time you have to concentrate on building and growing your business as only you can do.

This is a list of things that you should consider handing off to your VA. This is not by any means an exhaustive list, but it should get you started on building your process list which gives you a very clear idea  of where your “time-seepage” is.

• Email
• Phone calls
• Mail
• Customer Service inquiries
• Processing manual orders by phone, fax, email
• Processing refunds
• Scheduling business and personal appointments and interviews
• Scheduling coaching or consultation calls
• Business and personal travel arrangements
• Confirming appointments, calls, interviews, travel arrangements
• Mapping driving directions to locations of meetings or conferences
• Contacting new prospects (telephone, mail, email)
• Entering business card / contact information into Outlook, ACT, etc.
• Signing you up and scheduling you for teleseminars, teleclasses and workshops
• Produce your workshop or event
• Ship products and handouts to locations where you are exhibiting or speaking
• Invoicing clients / customers
• Receiving and paying bills
• Reconciling bank statements
• Tracking expenses and track records
• Working with your accountant or tax preparer
• Assisting with paperwork to incorporate or LLC your business
• Business and personal shopping: Business software and hardware, gifts, Christmas cards, etc.
• Ordering of office supplies - postage, shipping materials
• Comparison shopping for health plans, credit card deals, business loans, joint venture partnerships, etc.
• Creating information products - CD’s, reports, manuals, etc.
• Design simple marketing materials
• Design business cards
• Design forms for internal use, or for use with clients / customers
• Format e-books and create PDF files
• Design PowerPoint presentations
• Website and Blog creation and maintenance
• Squeeze pages
• Track website statistics
• Shopping cart creation and maintenance
• Manage affiliate programs
• Setup e-mail autoresponders
• Article Submission
• Ezine management
• Newsletters
• Product Launch
• Handling registrations for teleseminars, teleclasses, workshops
• Promoting teleseminars, teleclasses, workshops
• Creating teleseminars, teleclasses, workshops for your business- Reserve bridge lines, send confirmation email to attendees, load email reminders into autoresponder, upload recorded call to website, send MP3 link to list, etc.
• Social networking - Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
• Press releases

As you can see, the number of tasks that you can delegate to a professional virtual assistance are limited only by your imagination.  You can’t build a million dollar online business by doing $20 an hour jobs! Delegate, delegate, delegate! In other words, do what you love best and outsource the rest.

Your Virtual Assistant is uniquely situated in the virtual assistance world.  We can do it all. Our forte is working closely with online entrepreneurs who know exactly what their business should look like and can perfectly envision it, but who quite simply do not have enough hours in the day to do all that needs to be done. Not only can they hand over a huge amount of projects and tasks to us, but once the burden of learning how to build squeeze pages, write html code, launch products, create blogs, etc., is lifted from their shoulders, they are instantly able to get back in touch with the creativity that brought them to the internet and become more joyful and excited about their online business.

We quite literally become your “partner in success”. As you grow and learn, so do we.

Please give us a call  at 888-719-6710 to schedule your free 30 minute telephone consultation to see how we can help your business become a million dollar baby.

We are here to help!

What is a Virtual Assistant?

As a thriving Virtual Assistance firm this is a question that we heard a great deal in the early days, but now potential clients have a very clear idea of just what a virtual assistant is and how they want their virtual assistant to partner with them. 

Our clients are not looking for simple administrative support any longer.  Rather they want, need, and expect their virtual assistant to become a strategic partner, almost a manager if you will, who will work energetically and proactively to help them build and grow their brick and mortar as well as online business(s).  Our clients recognize that we are not only home office based contractors, but entrepreneurs in our own right who bring a rich knowledge base to bear on client projects.  We live and work on the internet!

Virtual assistants provide much of the same services as an onsite employee, but without the added tax and insurance burdens that the employer must bear.  VA’s work from fully equipped home based offices which are often better equipped than the average professional office.  At a minimum, your virtual assistant will have the following basic office equipment and software:

Powerful computer with high speed connection (DSL, cable)

Backup server

Fax Machine

Scanner

Copier

Shredder

CD / DVD burner

Professional telephone system with unlimited long distance

Professional voice mail (We use GotVM)

Postage meter

Office supplies (printer and copier paper, mailing supplies, etc.)

Software

Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, PowerPoint,  Access,  Word, Outlook)

HTML editor: Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Expression Web

Adobe Acrobat

Instant Messenger (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Skype, etc.)

Anti-virus software

Bookkeeping software

Client management software

Your Virtual Assistant is a consummate professional who looks at your projects and tasks with an eye to automating processes, building long-term relationships and growing with your business.  We are here to assist you by taking care of the tasks and projects that grow daily more burdensome and prevent you from doing what you love best.  Our clients are excited to learn that they can turn over the minutia of their daily business and turn their minds to the creative thought processes that brought them into business to begin with.

Please call us toll free at 888-719-6710 to schedule a free 30 minute telephone consultation.  At the end of the call, you will walk away relieved, energized, and excited about all of the possibilities that will open up to you after you hire professional help.