BUCKEYE V.A.

Archive for April, 2009

O.k. I can hear you saying “Steph, come on..how is weekly article submissions going to get me customers?” Well, I’m here to tell you that the correctly written article, submitted on a (no less than) weekly basis can help you get seen (and noticed) by your target market, resulting in successful sales for your business.

Articles are like blood types; they come in positive and negative.

1. Negative: if your article is poorly written, bad grammar, incorrect
information, misleading or promotional.

2. Positive: written correctly, no grammatical  mistakes, correct information,
educational.

All of your articles should be written to educate your target market by telling them how your product/service can make their lives better or why your service is something they need. By educating your target market on the benefits of your product/service, your more apt to gaining their trust that you’ll provide what they need. 

A great way to find new topics to write about is by doing your online research: find out where your target market shops, searches for (keywords/keyword phrases), likes and dislikes,ect.  This is the reason why your research needs to come first! This is one reason why you have to have a focused business before marketing your business, otherwise, you’ll waste a lot of time and money. Remember, you can always outsource these tasks if you don’t have time to do them on your own or if you’d rather not do them on your own.

Well, if you decide not to write your own articles for whatever reason you have 2 choices:

1. Ghost Writer- This is a more expensive option in which you hire/contract with a professional writer to write exclusive articles that you are for your use only.

2. PLR (private label rights) Articles- These are articles written by professional writers, that give you the right to rewrite them anyway you want, the distribute them to your readers, blog, newsletter and website. These are both great options to help you get the content you to educate your target market and help you in your quest for better SEO results! (I’ve listed my affiliate link for EasyPLR.com for your convienence.)

Remember, your virtual assistant is willing and able to help you succeed in your business and is most likely a great source to go to for help with your marketing efforts. If you’re looking for a virtual assistant, please contact me! I’m currently taking new clients and would love to speak with you!

God Bless,

Stephanie Fish

Buckeye V.A.

*If your looking for a Virtual Assistant, may I suggest you contact me to see if my services can help you with your small business needs.

How is your virtual store working out for you? Have you spent more money the design than on the marketing? Don’t get me wrong, your website says a lot about yourself and products, but having a beautiful, hip website isn’t good enough in today’s tough market. If you are not actively marketing your business, you are missing out on potential customers.

Marketing doesn’t cost you anything except time. Either you spend your time marketing your business yourself or you spend money to buy time from a virtual assistant. When you buy time from a virtual assistant, you aren’t purchasing any marketing secrets, you’re purchasing her time to market your business in a professional way. Chances are, your virtual assistant has many marketing ‘miles’ under her belt, which means you’re getting more for your money than doing it yourself.

Marketing helps your business in a few ways:

• Helps the search engines ‘find’ you by the content your submit online, such as articles and press releases. Not to mention your blog posts.
• By regularly submitting ‘virtual’ information (as mentioned above) you become a ‘real’ person to your potential customers
• Can set you up as an expert in your field

Potential customers are spending hours every day searching for your products, but if you don’t actively market your website how will they find you? Perhaps you have a website that is not performing as well as you’d like, maybe the rankings are low.  Marketing is one of the most important business tasks you can perform, so do it well and do it often.

To your success!

I’m currently accepting clients, please schedule your free 30 minute consultation today!

Marketing – an action that must be taken by the business owner on a regular basis and should be scheduled by the business owner. You have to be purposeful in your marketing efforts, whether online or offline. If you have found yourself spending way too much time on your  marketing and not enough time on the other business tasks such as: sewing, holding home shows, attending craft shows, speaking at webinars, ect  then I highly recommend that you outsource to a virtual assistant.

Your offline Marketing Kit may include:

• Business Cards
• Business Letterhead
• Business Return Labels
• Business Car Decals/Magnets
• Ink pens with your business logo
• Business Brochures
• Business Postcards (direct mailing!)

Your Online Marketing Kit may include:

• Email and Forum signature lines that contain your business information
• Press Release submissions
• Article Submissions
• Searching out podcast interviews
• Regular blogging
• Speaking at webinars and/or  teleseminars
• Donating e-books or e-reports 

When putting together your marketing kit, no matter what contents you use, make sure they are professionally designed and printed. Nothing says “amateur” like smeared ink, bent corners, misspelled words or missing contact information…which is why I use Vistaprint.com for my business marketing kit printing & design. Remember, having a professional website isn’t the end of building your business, its just the beginning.

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Stephanie Fish is passionate about assisting small business owners with their marketing, research and SEO efforts. If you’re looking for help but are not interested in hiring staff, the contact me today!

Life comes at you fast...are you prepared?

I was so excited to see that I was nominated for the “Attitude of Gratitude” Awardby Tracy Zdelar of Hall of Fame Moms Thanks Tracy, this is so cool!

I’m no stranger to hard times, sad times and whacked-out crazy days! Most mom’s aren’t strangers of those things either. Growing up our family had much and lost much but always stayed together during it all.  My personal relationship with Jesus Christ (my Heavenly Father, Savior, Counselor and Friend) has been with me through everything. From the time I had to say good-bye to my daddy to the day I had to say ‘see you soon’ to my dieing toddler…my Heavenly Daddy & family have been there for me. When you’re faced with hard times you have 2 choices to chose from:

 1. Take the heavily travelled road where everything ‘looks’ easy and fun and miss out on the “blessings in the tears”

~OR~ 

2. take the road less travelled knowing that you might stumble and possibly get scrapped up knees and hurt feelings, and know that in the ‘end’ your Father will reward you and say ‘Well done, thy good and faithful servant’. You see, we all were given a ‘free will’ to chose!

According to the rules of this award, I need to nominate 10 blogs that I follow but I don’t have that many right now, so I’ll share these with you.

Bloggy-Friends

Tishia Lee: she’s a VA also and I enjoy reading her posts. Even when she’s ‘down’ she’s ‘up’ Keep smiling Tishia Lee…it ALL works out!

JoDitt Williams owner of OohandAahWeddingInvites.com: She’s one of my first VA clients and is so very talented with all those beautiful customized wedding invites (and graduation invites)

Regina Baker- she knows her business and her ‘why’!

Latara Ham-Ying: I enjoy reading her posts and talking to her ‘secretively’ via facebook…she’s genuine

 Erin Chase: She is the ’5 dollar dinners’ lady! I love the fact that I can feed my family healthy and on budget

Sheri McConnell: I just found her blog and can’t wait to dig in!

The Rules of Accepting and Sharing this Award

1. Put the logo on your blog or post
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs that show an attitude of gratitude
3. Link to your nominees within your post
4. Comment on their blogs to let them know they have received this award
5. Share the love and link to this post and the person who nominated you for the award. Tell us how you have come to have an attitude of gratitude.

Now that I’ve got your attention, you’re probably thinking ‘Why is a virtual assistant writing about this topic?’. Wait no longer, here’s why:

 I think today’s busy business owner has multiple affairs and they don’t even know it! The affair I’m talking about is the one where your business has taken you from your family and friends, you know ‘an affair with time’.  At first you might have only worked “one extra hour, the kids are watching t.v. anyways..it won’t hurt if I check my business emails…right?” or maybe your affair looked something like this, “It’s late at night, everyone is in bed so I might as well finish this last project before heading to bed.”

I’m guilty too! I’ve allowed my love for my business to cheat me out of my time for my family and the real reason WHY I work from home to begin with! No more, I’m putting my foot down! I will only work a specific schedule so I no longer ‘cheat’ my family or my business. What about you, do you see any ‘affairs’ in your business life? Are you becoming more involved with your business than your family?

If you’re tired of the ‘love affair’ and see that you have way too many business tasks to juggle on your own then perhaps you need to reach out to a virtual assistant and outsource those ‘extra’ time stealer’s.

I’m currently accepting new clients who need help with their online business tasks. Contact me today for a free 30 minute consultation

Spring is in the air and that means craft shows are ‘springing up’ everywhere! Whether you’re a crafter or a lover of crafts (or both like me!)  as soon as Spring arrives you know that the crafters aren’t far behind.

I’m going to talk about the two-sides of the craft business: (1)being a crafter and (2) being a lover of crafts.

Crafter Side:

As a crafter I can relate to the late night sewing frenzy and the early morning rush to get your remaining products in your car so you can be on your way to the next craft show.  Growing up in a family of crafters, I would stay up late and help my mom with her ‘hot glue gun’ tasks (boy did those blisters hurt!!) and I’d wake-up early to help her load the family’s station wagon. Off we’d go to the craft show, some as far as 4 hours away from home! 

One of the biggest (if not THE biggest) decision that needed to be made was “how should I place my products on my table!”  No matter how you place your items make sure you do two things:

1. Stand to the side or out-front of your table to meet & greet your potential customers
2. Give away something of value in exchange for their full mailing address and/or email address

Lover of Crafts Side:

When I go to craft shows one thing that drives me nuts is when the crafter is sitting behind their table or they don’t smile! Remember that you are trying to sell your crafts, which means you have to ‘sell yourself’ first. Let me explain, if you were to walk into your local clothing store and the sales persons were just sitting there, not smiling or even acting as if they cared you were there to make a purchase, would you stay in that store? Would you make a purchase? Or would you go to the next store and spend your time and money?

Table Tips:

• Grab their attention! Don’t sit or stand behind your table, stand out to the side or in front of your table, meet & greet your onlookers…they just might be your next client or customer
• Give someting to get something! Get their contact information, don’t leave it up to them to contact you for their next purchase…be proactive and get their physical mailing address and/or email address. 
• Open your mouth! Just by smiling you are opening the door to a conversation, and conversations are how you are going to educate your potential customer on who you are and about your crafts.

If shoppers are stopping by your table, that means they are interested in what you have for sale. Don’t let that opportunity pass you by! Have your mailing list book open with a working ink pen and have your business card in your hand to hand out.

To your success!

Stephanie Fish, Online Researcher, Marketing & SEO helper for the fellow crafter! Did you know that crafters can outsource business tasks such as:

• Mailing list setup and mailings
• Setting up your online business
• Marketing your online business

Feel free to contact me at anytime to schedule your free 30 minute consultation today!

I’m guilty! I’ve been so focused on building my online business  for the past 5 years, that I’ve neglected my local community. I didn’t do it on purpose, but rather I got into the mindset that my local community didn’t need me or what I had to offer. Well, I’m here to say that I have seen the light! What about you? Have you been neglecting your local community too? Does your community even know you exist? Is it fair to say there might be a ‘fear’ of telling locals’ about you and your business?

Here’s some suggestions on getting to know your locals’ this year:

• Join your Chamber of Commerce
• Seek out networking groups (a.k.a meet ups, coffee talks, mom’s group, etc.)
• What local mailings does your target market read?
• Post a professional poster at your target markets shopping area
• Can you place an ad in the local restaurants menu?
• Check out that cafe’, everyone stops there for a drink!
• Join a fundraiser, such as a walk-a-thon or bowling for kids sake. This will show you care for those in need and provides for that much needed person-to-person social drought that work from home persons feel!

Just because you (me too!) work from home doesn’t mean we should ‘become’ part of our home! Get up, Get out and Reach out to those in your community. It will do you and them good.

Good Luck!

Steph

As a virtual assistant I enjoy providing virtual services a variety of business owners.  Today I’m going to talk about the specific  needs of  Crafters, Party Favor providers, Authors and Green Product creators.  Do you know what these businesses have in common? They all provide products that consumers can purchase and hold in their hands (as oppose to down-loadable products such as ebooks).

5 Tasks a Physical Product Seller Can Outsource to a Virtual Assistant:

1. Upload product pictures that need resized and saved for the web
2. Add product descriptions using your keywords and phrases
3. Setup ’links’ page & research quality links
4. Add keywords to current products & categories
5. Setup & build social networking accounts 

If you are looking for help with your business then I welcome you to request your free 30 minute phone consultation today!

I’m asked the question all the time, you know the “where do you work” question. When I answer “I’m self employed” some people say that’s nice others want to know more information. I tell them that I am a virtual assistant then the conversation gets real fun! I actually like to explain what I do and what types of clients I assist.

The month of March was so full of learning experiences that could even make the strongest business owner want to throw in the towel, but not me…not right now. Instead, I was thinking about the lessons has something ‘bad’, I see them as an answer to my prayers since they got me to start ‘thinking out of the box”.

Do you know what type of businesses can benefit from outsourcing to a virtual assistant? I’ve come up with a short list:

• Doctors Office- outsource web design, web maintenance, newsletter creation and broadcasting. Basically keeping your patients in the ‘here and now’ with your office.
• Web Designers- outsource research, project management if you have more than 1 designer working with you
• Hosting Owners- outsource customer service, article marketing, press release marketing, manage newsletter, manage your affiliate program
• Content Writers- outsource your clients article submissions, this would free up your time so you can continue to write
• Landscapers- outsource your website design, newsletter creation and broadcasting, article and press release submissions
• Personal and/or Life Coach- outsource your website design, newsletter creation and broadcasting, article and press release submissions, locate interviews online an offline, research speaking engagements
• Authors- outsource your website design, newsletter creation and broadcasting, article and press release submissions, interviews, speaking engagements
• Virtual Assistant- outsource your over-flow work or the tasks you can’t stand to do
• Crafters- outsource your website design, newsletter creations and broadcasting, article and press release submission, speaking engagements, research your competitors, add product pictures to your website

As you can see there are no limits to the type of business that can benefit from outsourcing to a virtual assistant. Think of it this way, if you were to hire and staff an assistant to come into your office, then most likely you can benefit from an assistant that works virtually.

Good Luck!

Stephanie Fish, owner of Buckeye V.A. has a current full-time opening, as well as, by-the-hour services. Contact me for a free 30 minute phone consultation.