BUCKEYE V.A.

Archive for the ‘Work from Home Ohio’ Category

Working from home is an exciting journey, but like all journeys, there can be some set backs. Such set backs are temporary and may include not knowing exactly what business you want to start!

The work at home trend has produced many options for moms who want to spend more time with their kids. But the fact is that a lot of these options require you to do at least a small part of the work away from home. There are, however, some exceptions. One of those is proofreading and editing.

Advertising your services online and in publications can provide you with work. That work can be done in the comfort of your home, on your computer. In most cases, the work can be transmitted electronically, eliminating the need to mail or delivery of the finished product. But the ability to do the majority of the work from home is just one of many reasons that proofreading and editing are great for moms.

Proofreading and editing do not require a specific degree. While many publishers that hire on-site editors require a college degree, most freelance work does not. Gaining clients and demonstrating the knowledge and ability to produce quality work can help convince new clients that you are worthy of the job. Even large clients will often consider experience in lieu of a degree.

Flexibility is one of the most desired qualities of a home business. A proofreading and editing business can deliver lots of flexibility. While you will often be working with deadlines, you can work the hours of the day that are best for you. Whether you prefer to work early in the morning before the kids get up, during the day while your school-aged children are in school, or late at night when everyone else is in bed, you can do it. Proofreading is quiet work, so you don’t have to worry about waking anyone up.

Those trying to work at home with small children often have a hard time scheduling phone time. Interruptions can make it difficult to have a productive conversation, not to mention that they make a bad impression. There is little phone work involved in proofreading. An occasional chat with a client may be necessary, but it’s not one of those jobs that require you to be on the phone a large portion of the day. Any calls that must be made can often be put off until the children are napping or some other convenient time. Questions can even be sent by email to most clients, cutting out the phone altogether.

Editing and proofreading provide a profitable and enjoyable home business opportunity. The services are in great demand, and providing them allows for great flexibility and minimal travel. These traits make proofreading and editing an ideal business for moms. If you consider good spelling and grammar and attention to detail some of your strong points, you could do well with a proofreading business.

To find out exactly how you can start your own proofreading business from the comfort of your own home click here to instantly access your step-by-step guide.

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Stephanie Fish, owner of Buckeye V.A. enjoys assisting online business owners with their social media and article marketing business tasks. If you’re looking for a virtual marketing assistant, please contact Stephanie at Buckeye V.A.

Work from Home Survey

Working from home can be such a mystery, that is when you taking this journey on your own! With so many resources, paid and no-cost, available to you on the web no wonder you don’t know where to start. By taking this survey you’re on your way to get your work from home questions answered.

I hope to give you helpful resources, so make sure you answer each question on the work from home survey. Don’t forget to leave your name and email so I can contact you!

God Bless,

Stephanie Fish

Virtual Internet Marketing Assistant for New Online Business Owners~

Getting started online in today’s world is so easy! The hard part startes once you have your webstore setup.

• Make sure your domain name is available
• Make sure it is not registered with your Secretary of State or is Trademarked
• Then purchase your domain name (make sure you use your keywords so your potential customers can find you!)
• Grab yourself a hosting company with a Fantastico De Luxe so you can add your WordPress blog

If you are selling handmade items, such as crafts, purses, soaps, dolls, ect make good use of your Keywords by adding them to your:

• Meta Title
• Descriptions
• Categories

Now you need to —>NETWORK! If you are NOT leaving your house to network then you are missing out! You can not depend on the ‘internet surfers’ to be your primary clientele. You have to purposely meet other people to BRING them into your ‘virtual store’. Yes, social networking (online) is a much needed addition to your marketing plan but it does NOT replace the physical networking.

If you are looking for advice, have questions or don’t have time for online management please contact me today!

The BIG Question

Before I even opened my virtual assistance business I heard other business owners talk about ‘elevator speeches’, I honestly didn’t think much of it..that is until this past month when I had some local business owners ask me what it is I do from home, exactly.  I told them I was a” virtual assistant servicing small and home-based businesses with their online business needs”, in return I received some blank stares and a quick ‘oh, that’s interesting.’  Needless to say, I completely failed the ‘elevator speech’ guidelines!

Enter challenge!!

Do you have a 30 second ’speech’ memorized for potential customers/clients? It sounds like an easy question, but once you think you have it down and then repeat it out loud, what does it sound like? What is the reaction of your potential customer?

I’ve done that for my virtual assistant business over the past month and it just doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound natural. So my challenge this week, for you and myself, is to get your 30 second speech down without a hitch.
So the next time someone asks you ‘what do you do from home’ you can give them an intelligent answer that catches their attention and gets them to ask more questions about your business.

Good Luck!

P.S.Don’t forget to subscribe to my feed (on the home page).

P.S.S. I’m currently accepting new clients. This is the perfect time to outsource the day-to-day business chores, especially if you plan on taking a vacation and spend time with your friends and family! Contact me today for your free consultation!

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.

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

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.

Buckeye V.A.~ Social Media Manager and Online Marketing Assistant:

If you’re looking to delegate your internet marketing tasks such as:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Transcription of your mp3, video or audio
• Article submission
• Press Release Submission
• Blog Submission
• Social Networking Manager

Then you’ve come to the right Online Marketing Virtual Assistant

VA stands for Virtual Assistant. A virtual assistant is an entreprenuer who works from their home office servicing many different types of small businesses.  Perhaps you’re an online business owner who would like to increase your productivity this year by outsourcing to a virtual assistant, if so, please contact me today: stephanie (at) buckeyeva (dot) com