Even though I am not a Mom, I was approached by Sandy Naidu of DotComMothers to be interviewed for their website of successful business women. To read my interview, visit http://www.dotcommothers.com/virtual-assistant-personal and hope you have time to read the stories of other inspirational and successful women business owners.

Thank you Sandy for sharing our stories!

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The content of your emails plays an immensely important role in gaining trust from your subscribers. Although the quality of the information you send out is still the most important element in building trust through your content, there are a lot of other factors to consider. Listed below are the most important ones.

Give more than what you’re asking for. Every email marketer knows the importance of providing relevant and engaging content in order to gain traffic and money in return. Providing timely information related to your niche but without direct benefit to you may work best especially if you don’t publish any obvious call to action. Subscribers who receive such content from you on a regular basis are more likely to trust you and become loyal to your online business than if you simply sent them content produced specifically to prompt them to make a purchase.

Always keep your promises. Your brand has a certain reputation that serves as a promise. No matter what your brand is, there are things that people expect from you. These expectations are something you must meet through your content. For example, if your brand is known to have a fun-loving and edgy personality, the content of your emails should reflect that. As long as you match the expectations you’ve set in your subscribers’ minds, you will be able to keep their trust and loyalty.

Proofread your emails. The content of your emails should be perfect before sending them out to your mailing list as one typographical error can have serious consequences. Spelling and grammar mistakes can breed distrust as your subscribers may tend to think of you as unprofessional or an unreliable source of information. It also helps to get a fresh eye to go through them for further improvement.

Communicate like a human being. In email marketing, you need to communicate with your subscribers in a way that doesn’t intimidate them. To do this, compose your messages in a tone similar to how you speak in casual conversations and avoid using corporate jargon and marketing buzz words. Doing this will allow you to make your subscribers feel that they can relate with you and that they can trust what you have to say.

Another very important factor in building trust through your content is to avoid using templates that come with your email marketing tools. Compose your own welcome messages as well as auto-responses and customize them to suit the personality of your online business. Doing this will further help you in gaining trust from your subscribers.

Implementing a successful email marketing campaign does not just entail sending out information in exchange for click-throughs. Much of your success lies in how you gain trust through your content.

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I had the pleasure of being interviewed on The Sassy Ladies’ Blog Talk Radio Show this week. I was interviewed by Wendy Hanson, one of The Sassy Ladies’ and the subject of the show was on the Benefits of Partnering With a Virtual Assistant. By the way, Wendy has been a client of mine since 1999.

The Sassy Ladies’ are the authors of the book, The Sassy Ladies’ Toolkit for Start-up Businesses, where they share their knowledge and expertise, as well as the advice of several women entrepreneurs, to help shorten the learning curve for any woman interested in starting her own business.

To listen to the show, please visit http://tobtr.com/s/1050745.

I would be more than happy to answer any questions you  may have about working with a virtual assistant.

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President Obama signed into law the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act, which is focused on accelerating the hiring of unemployed workers.

The HIRE Act has many provisions that impact employers, including a payroll tax exemption, and increased tax credits for employers that meet certain eligibility requirements.

Social Security Tax Exemption

The 6.2% Employer Social Security Tax exemption applies to previously unemployed individuals hired after February 3, 2010 who have worked less than 40 hours during the 60-day period prior to employment and whose 2010 earned wages after March 18, 2010 and before January 1, 2011 do not exceed $106,800.

Employers can save the 6.2% Employer Social Security Tax, whether they hire a $40,000 worker, or a $90,000 worker. Employers, including nonprofit organizations, and colleges and universities, would not have to wait until 2011 to benefit from this tax relief because savings would accrue with each payroll processed.

Tax Credit

Employers will receive an income tax credit, which is either $1,000 for each qualifying worker hired after February 3, 2010, and employed for at least 52 consecutive weeks, or 6.2% of wages paid to the qualifying worker over the 52-week period, whichever is less. Wages during the last 26 weeks must be at least 80 percent of wages paid for the first 26 weeks.

Neither the 6.2% Employer Social Security Tax exemption nor the retention tax credit is permitted if a person is hired to replace another employee “unless such other employee is separated from employment voluntarily or for cause.”

Additional information and criteria as to what makes a new hire qualified as well as downloading W-11 forms, please visit www.irs.gov.

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Everywhere you turn, you hear the words “going green”. As a small business owner you probably wonder what you can do to help the environment. Can I really make a difference? Well you can, and here are a few steps that you can start implementing to create a positive impact on the environment. Going green does not have to be hard, it can be the easiest thing you do.

1. Recycle. Permanently place a recycling bin in arm’s length from your mail bin so you can quickly get rid of that junk mail fast. To take it one step further, you can get off those junk mail lists by registering with Direct Marketing Associates at dmachoice.org. You will see a significant reduction in mail in about 3 months.
2. Scanning. Another way to get rid of unwanted paper, scan. Scanning saves valuable file space especially when working out of your home office where space is at a premium.
3. Pay bills online. Pay your bills online or set up automatic bill paying from your bank account. No envelopes – no postage – and not to mention no late fees if you are on an automatic payment plan. Most banks offer this service free so check with your bank.
4. Office Printer and Copier. Configure your printer or copier to print on both sides of the paper. Check your printer’s owner manual to see if you can print on the opposite side of paper that has already been printed as you can damage the printer head on some printers. If you are in the market for a new printer, look for one that allows you to print double-sided. Remember to recycle your used printer cartridges. Major office supply retailers have recycling bins set up in their stores or even offer you money for bringing in your used ink cartridges.
5. Computer. If you will be away from your computer for more than 20 minutes, switch your screen preferences to go to ’sleep mode’ if inactive for 20 minutes. The settings are in your control panel under screen saver, power management.
6. Lights. Switch to energy star rated CFL bulbs, they use 75% less energy and last 10 times longer. If you are going to be out of the office for a long period of time, don’t forget to turn off the lights.
7. Faxing. Switch over to either eFax or another online fax service. You receive your faxes via email, another benefit when you are on the road and not accessible to your fax machine. For sending out faxes, these companies offer software which allows you to fax directly from your computer. There are a number of companies who offer this service at a very nominal monthly fee. Another advantage, you will not hear your fax machine ring in the middle of the night.
8. Power Strips. Make sure all your equipment is plugged into surge protection power strips. At the end of the day, shut down the power strip.
9. Green Vendors. Work with green vendors. Many printers have switched to environmentally friendly inks and paper.
10. Video Conferencing. Video web conferencing is gaining popularity for small business owners. It allows you to connect with the key decision makers even if they are located across the country or in the next town. You can provide training, offer valuable customer support and best of all, you will cut expensive travel costs as well as gain valuable time and less stress with not having to fight highway traffic.

Start off with a couple of these suggestions gradually implementing all over time. Remember to have fun and feel good about doing your part.

If you have implemented some “green” in your company, we would love for you to share with us.

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In this present state of economy, many firms have had to make the hard choice of laying off key employees in order to keep costs in line with their profit margins. With eliminating employees, companies also save on health care costs, no 401K contributions to be made, and no vacation, holiday or sick pay to administer. But just as the savings may outweigh the benefits, the work is still there and still needs to get done so they pass it along to other overwhelmed staff or decide to contact a temporary agency.

Many businesses are not aware of an alternative to hiring a temp and that would be to hire a Virtual Assistant. You will find many well-qualified virtual assistant professionals, who in most cases come from the corporate arena, and are very well qualified for the tasks needed to tackled.

The benefits to working with a virtual assistant over a temp are:

1. If you hire a temp, you may have one temp one week and another temp the next week which means overwhelmed staff will need to take more time away from completing tasks in order to retrain the new temp. Working with a virtual assistant, they can be your “permanent temp”, there when you need them, with the client always receiving work from highly skilled professionals.
2. Virtual Assistants charge their clients for the amount of time it takes them to complete the task. With a temp, they are paid for the time they spend in the office either working sitting there with nothing to do.
3. Virtual Assistants are small business owners who are highly skilled and educated. They regularly attend software webinars learning new tools and resources to make the client / virtual assistant relationship run even better. No need to have an office equipped with all the latest equipment and software – this is something that the virtual assistant already has in place.
4. Working with a Virtual Assistant will result in you receiving the best job possible from highly skilled professionals. They are small business owners who want to make their clients happy and can be an integral part in helping that client build and grow their business. A temp usually looks at the job assignment as a paycheck and another company to add to their resume.
5. If there is a project that the Virtual Assistant is not familiar with, the Virtual Assistant can tap into their resource network and find the right Virtual Assistant for the client rather than having a temp attempt the project with not so great results which have then cost the client time and money and possibly a client.

Temporary agencies have been used by many firms, both Fortune 100 and small business companies, for many years now but they are not the only solution in handling administrative overflow in the workplace. Virtual Assistants are proving to be a cost saving option.

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In this present state of economy, many firms have had to make the hard choice of laying off key employees in order to keep costs in line with their profit margins. With eliminating employees, companies also save on health care costs, no 401K contributions to be made, and no vacation, holiday or sick pay to administer. But just as the savings may outweigh the benefits, the work is still there and still needs to get done so they pass it along to other overwhelmed staff or decide to contact a temporary agency.

Many businesses are not aware of an alternative to hiring a temp and that would be to hire a Virtual Assistant. You will find many well-qualified virtual assistant professionals, who in most cases come from the corporate arena, and are very well qualified for the tasks needed to tackled.

The benefits to working with a virtual assistant over a temp are:

1. If you hire a temp, you may have one temp one week and another temp the next week which means overwhelmed staff will need to take more time away from completing tasks in order to retrain the new temp. Working with a virtual assistant, they can be your “permanent temp”, there when you need them, with the client always receiving work from highly skilled professionals.
2. Virtual Assistants charge their clients for the amount of time it takes them to complete the task. With a temp, they are paid for the time they spend in the office either working sitting there with nothing to do.
3. Virtual Assistants are small business owners who are highly skilled and educated. They regularly attend software webinars learning new tools and resources to make the client / virtual assistant relationship run even better. No need to have an office equipped with all the latest equipment and software – this is something that the virtual assistant already has in place.
4. Working with a Virtual Assistant will result in you receiving the best job possible from highly skilled professionals. They are small business owners who want to make their clients happy and can be an integral part in helping that client build and grow their business. A temp usually looks at the job assignment as a paycheck and another company to add to their resume.
5. If there is a project that the Virtual Assistant is not familiar with, the Virtual Assistant can tap into their resource network and find the right Virtual Assistant for the client rather than having a temp attempt the project with not so great results which have then cost the client time and money and possibly a client.

Temporary agencies have been used by many firms, both Fortune 100 and small business companies, for many years now but they are not the only solution in handling administrative overflow in the workplace. Virtual Assistants are proving to be a cost saving option.

If you have used a virtual assistant, what have you found to be the benefits?

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Beginning January 1, 2010, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be:

• 50 cents per mile for business miles driven
• 16.5 cents per mile for medical or moving purposes
• 14 cents per mile in service of charitable organizations

The new rates for business, medical and moving purposes are slightly lower than last year. The mileage rates for 2010 reflect generally lower transportation costs compared to a year ago.

To read the complete IRS announcement.

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Article marketing allows writers to promote themselves, their customers, websites, products and services, or literally anything by writing about them and making the content freely available for reproduction on other internet sites.

So how does it work and what does it offer as a marketing tool? First, you need to write an article on whatever subject it is that you want to promote, or on a related subject to your business or product.  Once created, the article can be uploaded to any number of article directories which will allow website owners to ‘reprint’ your article on their site, usually for free.  The area that some writer’s don’t put enough thought or effort into is the article bio, a small section of text, usually at the end of the article, where links can be included. This is sometimes called the resource box.  If you have produced a well-written, high quality article, it’s likely to be picked up and reproduced on a number of other websites, probably all relating to the same subject.  You will get some traffic from these websites as well but the fact that one link has now turned into several links without you having to do anything, will have a positive impact on your search engine results page rankings.  It is well known that the more backlinks you can get to your site across the web, the greater the perceived importance of your website. The more your article is picked up by others, the more times your backlink will be reproduced.

Having your work reproduced, carrying your name around the internet, can give you some excellent reputational benefits.  If you’re intent on building a personal reputation, your bio may focus more on you and less on a target website that you want people to visit.  Again, writing quality articles will help you build your own reputation and standing as someone who knows their subject and you can, through time, establish yourself as an authority on your own particular subject.

Many webmasters get frustrated that their article is not getting traffic or that article marketing is not working for them.  In most instances, the article being written is an ad for their business or website and is not well-written. Many unsuccessful article marketers make the mistake of using sub-standard articles and expecting good results.  Your article should always be of as good a quality as you would use for your own site.  If it isn’t, then you are telling prospective visitors or customers that quality is not important to you and that they can expect poor quality information on the target website.  Equally, website owners will not wish to reprint a poorly written article on their website and so the reproduction of backlinks that you so badly want, will not happen.

Remember, your article needs to be for the audience you are targeting, not for internet search engines to browse with their robot spiders. You’re looking to have your article picked up and reprinted by real readers so that you can promote yourself, your subject or whatever you’ve included in your bio.

To make article marketing work for you, remember to:

• make sure your article is related to your target market and is relevant
• make sure you use good quality, well written and original articles
• remember that your article will be read by a human being, so make it readable and interesting
• be patient. Traffic and backlinks don’t and won’t appear overnight but I have seen updates from Google Alerts appear within 24 hours.

Third Hand Secretarial Service can assist you with submitting your articles to the Top 10 Article Submission Sites. Please email or call us today for a copy of our Top 10 Article Submission List. If you want to target specific audiences, we can certainly research additional sites for you.

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You are a highly sought after professional speaker traveling the country and motivating your audiences. So how do you keep up with all the administrative tasks when you are back in the office? Who is motivating you to get these tasks off your desk? Do you wait until you get back in the office and then find yourself going through emails from the past week as well as deleting that endless supply of SPAM messages? A solution to this administrative overwhelm, partnering with a Virtual Assistant. Using a Virtual Assistant to handle some of these administrative tasks will allow you to the time to debrief your recent speaking engagement with your client and prepare those new programs that have been on your task list.  Below are 5 tasks you can easily delegate to a Virtual Assistant allowing you the time to generate additional revenue and focus on growing your practice.

1. Travel Arrangements. The VA can research flight options for your upcoming speaking events as well as handle your hotel and car arrangements. While you are out of town, the VA can monitor your email and voicemail and most importantly delete all those SPAM messages that are clogging your inbox. Upon your return, all your telephone messages can be typed up and any important email messages noted. One other thing, the VA can ensure that your letter of agreement is sent to the new client upon initial contact of engagement and returned prior to your speaking engagement.
2. Update Website. The VA can update your website with your current event schedule as well as update your product page with any new products being offered or articles written.
3. eNewsletter. If you have been thinking about sending out a monthly eNewsletter, the VA can set up your template in your email marketing program such as Constant Contact or Vertical Response. Your client database can be converted and uploaded to the email service provider you will use. You then provide the VA with the copy and the VA will draft, edit and proof before sending the final draft for your approval. Once finalized, the VA can set up the launch date and then provide you with bounce, opt-out and click through reports.
4. Fulfill Product Orders. Your new book is just about ready to launch and you have a few DVD products that will be launching in the next few months. You wonder how you are going to be able to handle the processing and shipping of these orders when you seem to be on the road more than in your home office. Well worry no more, your VA can process the credit card payments, prepare the invoice, prepare the product and ship as well as add the new contact to your master database for future announcements.  A VA can also get you set up in 1Shopping Cart.
5. Bookkeeping Services. A VA can assist you with your monthly invoicing using QuickBooks or preparing manual invoices. The VA can also assist the professional speaker with monthly bank reconciliations and preparing monthly Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet financial reports. It is important for you as a business owner to review your financial reports each month. This will allow you to see which services are profitable for you.
6. BONUS TASK: Database Management. When you return from your seminars with the list of seminar attendee’s who asked to be added to your mailing list – do they sit in a pile until you have time two months from now? Upon your return, you can fax the list to your VA who can update your database file and eNewsletter subscriber list. Also those business cards you have collected over the years, they can be scanned and then imported into your database file as well as into your eNewsletter program for future mailings. If you are working on your CSP designation with The National Speakers Association, the VA can maintain a spreadsheet listing all the details of your speaking engagements for submission to the National Speakers Association.

It is important to communicate to the VA what tasks you really feel overwhelmed with or perhaps just don’t like to do. The VA will work with you in finding ways to easily transition those tasks.  The next stage will be the letting go, which is hard for all small business owners – this is your business, you have been doing most or all of these tasks yourself. You have found the perfect VA to work with so just start off with smaller tasks and once you start seeing the benefit and the extra time you now have, those other tasks will be much easier to let go.

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