I was feeling like I was working myself to death for a while.  My small Business was going very well.  But at times I could never seem to keep up with anything.  I know I had phone calls that needed to be made, but I also have 6 jobs sitting on the production table that people needed by tomorrow! Here I go again – try to catch up with people during working hours, and engrave again during family time. Go to bed exhausted and do it again tomorrow.  I needed help!  I needed  something!  When I purchased my competitor out in August that was a very good move on my part – but it seemed to make matters worse as far as my personal time goes.

I was thinking of getting someone here to help.  I had a lot of friends in town that did it.  I had a lot of friends in the industry that did it.  Some were working out very well, and others had major horror stories to tell me. I was looking around my basement.  Where the heck would I place another desk?  I would have to purchase another computer.  Do I really want someone in the house?  What about the extra taxes and everything else that goes with an employee – can I afford that?  What a major headache if I make a bad choice.  On the other hand, do I really feel this is the time of life in which I should drop dead from exhaustion?  My husband took the kids out somewhere for a little while.  I decided to read some business articles online for a while.  I came across an article in Home Business Journal.  It was about Virtual Assistants.  I really thought – what a crazy idea!  I was up for a good laugh.  Why not!  The article told about how people can help you via your computer.  It listed an organization that actually trained people how to do this before listing them for hire: www.assistu.com.  Okay – looks interesting but I need to know a lot more.  So I went to the website, and looked around a bit.  Then it mentioned an 800 number you could call and listen to people talk about how they use their VAs (virtual assistants).  They spoke with all different types of people from all different types of industries.  How these VAs organized not only their businesses but their personal lives as well.  Even when they were on the road!

Okay, I was done laughing at the whole idea.  I filled out the form online as to my needs for my business.  It said that I would get replies within 3 business days.  Within a day I was getting resumes from people!  It was their business to help me.  The way I read it, again and again, was if we don’t find a way to step into your shoes and be a part of your business – this won’t work out.  They also work for themselves so if they can’t find some way of being an asset, our relationship would be over.  Being a VA was their business so it would be to THEIR benefit to do their best for me.  The same concept with us for our customers.  A couple of resumes looked very interesting.  I responded and they told me that they would be giving me a call.  All of them had websites.  Like in the real world, some of them were definite NOs!  But I picked out two that really clicked with me.  Here is the killer – one was in Texas and the other was in Colorado.

I doubted the whole idea again.  Yeah, Helen what you save in taxes you are going to be paying in phone bills.  They had kind of a high hourly rate.  I needed more questions answered.  For example, how are they going to bill me?  Then I found out they have a ticker on the computer.  When they work on my company stuff – ticker goes on.  When they are done – ticker goes off.  No, you don’t pay for the lunch breaks or for them to watch TV. The whole entire time they are billing you – it is all related to what you need done.  You are given kind of an “Instant Message” program that you talk to them with.  And you upload your outlook program to yahoo (or your program of choice)  and they take care of your tasks and have access to a phone book in case they need to call your customer/vendors for some reason.  They don’t do anything without your permission.  Hmmmmmmmmm  Here I go again thinking about how it would be nice to have someone make phone calls while I was engraving.  And how it would be nice to have someone do the research for my industry, do the paperwork and forward to me for me to make decisions.  Do follow-ups when I’m going nuts here in the shop.

I took the plunge!  I hired LaShay from Colorado.  I figured the first two months were going to be a waste because I needed to get her familiar with my industry.  That was going to be hard, I thought.  Most industries people can jump right in for the most part.  But there are so many factors behind the scenes with my industry – people have no idea.  LaShay and I jumped in together in January of this year.  That is my slow month, and I felt that would be best before everything hits the fan in March.  She wanted to know as much about my industry as possible.  I forwarded some industry “rags” to her.  I sent standard catalogs and vendor lists that I use all the time.  I had her download my research program.  Next I needed to have her do what would make my life easier.  She had a form I had to fill out on her end.  She asked things like: What do you hate to do?  What are your goals? Where are your bottlenecks?  It was about a 5-page form.  She needed personal and business information to be able to jump into my shoes.

LaShay now helps me with more than I thought possible.  It is funny to know that I have a phone message on my machine, and a note on my outlook telling me the situation was already taken care of.  I do a lot of the engraving during the morning.  LaShay either retrieves the message on the voice mail or the phone is forwarded to her.  She gets the tasks at hand going and, if needed, gets my input on how to finish it.  Handles the vendor situations and follows up with them.    Makes the quarterly phone calls to clients to see if they need anything, and does research for the products they are interested in.  I have a little screen on my computer that beeps at me if she needs anything.  Most of the time she emails people, but in those situations where that would not be good, she calls the customer.  Sometimes my computer beeps at me and I will get a message from LaShay saying “on the phone with Sandy from XYZ Company, can she have 10 badges done by Friday?”  “Not a problem LaShay.  Have her fax me the list of names”.  We all forget things when we are busy.  I don’t know how many times I thought to myself  “Oh Gosh!  I forgot to call that company back – go to my outlook to retrieve the phone number – and have a ‘LaShay’ message telling me she had already done it.”  She reminds me about birthdays – she will even do the shopping for you.  LaShay made travel arrangements for me when I took a business trip this year.  I had lists of things that needed to be done this year like do a business plan, revamp the marketing plan, and things like that.  I get an email from her from time to time with small portions of the projects to be filled in by me – takes me less than 5 minutes to do.  She puts those pieces together for me, and I don’t feel like I have this large hunk of work that is sitting on the back burner.  Also, when you work at home it is nice to have someone to VENT TO!  And, yes, she can be like my mom sometimes by saying “Be nice, Helen!”  Most of the time, she giggles along with me.

My son now thinks I have a lady that lives in my computer, and my daughter likes to talk to her when she gets home from school.  I pay her hourly rate and know I have accomplished something for the better.  She even got an 800 number for my customers to call her on.  I don’t feel like I have someone here working to get beer money for the weekend.  She wants my company to grow and get better, and if you think about, it is to her advantage to do so. Otherwise what do you need your VA for?  That alone is a nice feeling.  My business is not just a job to her.  Everyone has worked with someone like that!  You have someone working as hard as you do.  I still work long hours at times – it is my busy season right now!  It is funny when I’m going thru the tasks at hand for the next day and I am sending her emails – handling things on my end – and an email message comes back saying “Helen, I will go to bed if you do!”  LOL

http://www.virtualexecservices.com  Here is her site – LaShay Canady.

Since I had success with this article I will know search places to submit it!  Wanted to give my readers an example of what you can do to promote yourself!  Of course I would need to end with:

Helen is married with two children, and has been running an engraving business for over 13 years.  She has now decided to expand her knowledge online!  Watch her blog Nice Used Clothes For Charity  as she speaks of her hills and valleys of online selling for her store that helps a Ministry!

Boxing Oval Award Resin Trophy Gift Resin with Gold Accents

Part Number 54509GS

Boxing Oval Legend can hang on wall, or use the desk stand – see picture. This trophy, award or gift will be well received by your recipient! They come in specially designed boxes!

These are approx 8.5” x 8”, and we will send you engraved plate

The highly detailed sports figures are handsomely framed in an oval shaped resin and gold plaque. Something new besides the traditional awards we may have received in the past. I always get comments of PRAISE from these types of products!

You have a group that you need to buy for? NO PROBLEM…we can do groups for you as well! Please let us know the number you need, and we will arrange to get your what you would like for your engraving

website promotion
small business
home based business
virtual assistant
Marketing Strategies

I decided I was going to take this free SEO course that I found online.  SEO Training by GNC Web Creations is the name of it, and its all yahoo group based.  It has lessons that you do to learn.  I may not be able to apply EVERYTHING to my free website, but it will give me a good idea of what I need when purchase of webspace comes into the picture!

As you can guess the lesson today was about finding your NICHE!  One of the teacher’s examples was she does web design, and made a point of letting every one know just HOW MANY web designers there are!  She targets (for one thing) motorcyles websites!

She mentions that every page within your website is a door to people.  My example may not be as DYNAMIC, but I will give a try!  One page on my site may be dedicated to SOCCER TROPHIES, and another page BASEBALL TROPHIES.  If I have one page with all themes one page chances are good no one is going to stick around searching pass the cheerleader trophy, science club trophy, football trophy to get their SOCCER trophy!  She hasn’t said it yet, but I would assume you are to optimatize each page per theme!  It doesn’t matter if your customer comes to your site on page 2000 if that is where their product is!

Does this mean you leave out all those OTHER products that you sell?  Nope!  Just focus on the ‘special’ or ‘niche’ trophy in my case!  It may not even be TROPHIES for me.  I will have to see!

She had a good article on her site!

A Million Dollars   Check it out!

Baseball Flame Spinning Resin Figure Trophy Award or Gift

Baseball Flame Spinning Colored Sports Resins Award. This trophy or gift will be well received by your recipient! They come in specially designed boxes!

With this charming design you have the weight of resin material, and comes with a ball that spins. Something new besides the traditional awards we may have received in the past. Get noticed by giving something different, and exciting!

They are approx 8″ tall, and accept 7/8″x 3 1/2″ plate approx.
Part Number JDS302
We will send your engraved plates separately!

marketing strategies, website popularity, blogging, blog, traffic, search engines, keywords, keyword, home based business, website promotion, online store, articles noted, popularity, niche, niches, niche marketing

You can use the standard algebraic operators to construct your calculations—+, -, x, and / for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, accordingly. For example, to add 4 plus 2, enter 4 + 2 and press Enter. To divide 12 by 3, enter 12 / 3, and so on.

And Google’s calculator isn’t limited to basic addition and multiplication. It can also handle more advanced calculations, trigonometric functions, inverse trigonometric functions, hyperbolic functions, and logarithmic functions. Just enter the proper formula into the search box, and wait for Google to display the answer.

Its just to know even for my kids homework help (when I can’t even remember how to do it!).  I won’t tell them this just yet!

In addition to performing calculations, Google also knows a variety of mathematical and scientific constants, such as pi, Avogadro’s Number, and Planck’s Constant. It also knows the radius of the Earth, the mass of the sun, the speed of light, the gravitational constant, and a lot more.

For example, if you’re not sure what the value of pi is, just enter pi into the Search box and press Enter; Google returns 3.14159265, as it should. How about the speed of light? Enter speed of light, and Google returns 299,792,458 m/s. It’s amazing what Google knows.

The search engines are getting better and better aren’t they?  LOL At least some in areas!

Christian Custom mens printed or made t shirts Tee Shirts sizes 2XL

Pricing is for one Men’s 2XL size Christian Custom printed or made Teeshirt or T Shirt with your Custom Design or Imprint. Pricing discounts for more than one item is available as well! Please contact us directly for shipping quote! Please discount prices below!

If you have a favorite digital photo we can also add your scripture to it! You can also pick one of the pictures above as it, or pick your own scripture or message! Its totally custom and its up to YOU!

The printing process is a bit different than people are used to, because the images are permanently dyed into the shirt! There is no need for special washing or drying! It is not recommended by the garment manufacturer, but the image can be even bleached without worry of fading.

This image is printed on a T shirt made from Akwatek material using dye sublimation printing.
Fabrics such as Vapor Apparel’s Basic Performance T, CalCru’s CoolMax, Brooklines’s Akwatek and EvapR8 etc. are made out of moisture wicking fabrics that feel like a soft t-shirt material that will help keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Additional sizes are available in S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL
home based business, small business, search engines, online calulators, math tips, christian t

Above is a screenshot.  Above that he helps you with a html principal, and then asks you to use the screen to type in the html to see if you got it right.  I really got alot out of it, and wanted to share!

Diamond Resin Plate Trophy Award for Cheerleader, Cheerleading

Diamond Resin Plate Trophy Award for Cheerleading Cheerleader

These trophies include hanger and bolt for standing. They are Individually boxed and we will send you an engraved plate for it.

Comes in two Sizes!!

Size is appox 4.5″ x 6″
Plate area is approx. .75 x 2.25″
Part Number DPS63

Larger Size is 6″ x 8.5″
Plate area is approx. 1″ x 2.75″
Part Number DPS13
home based business, blogging, blog, html, html knowledge, html tutorial, small business

Google page basically allows you to make a couple of webpages for yourself.  You do have some access to the html, so you can dress them up a bit!  One requirement is to get the gmail (basically google’s email program) in order to do this.  I personally didn’t think it was all that big of deal!  You can still use your own email and passcode to sign into your google account.  My sign in name is the one I choose for gmail so don’t let it take you back when you see it after you sign in!  It wont’ show your email name that you opened your google account with anymore.

The more items you use OFF this program the more webspace you can use!  For example, I still use photobucket for my images.  My account as of now still has tons of space left!  The help section seems to be pretty active, and if you do a search for what you are looking for chances are you will find it!

I was reading the help section, and I came upon a poster that had his own googlepage with tips!  I went there and did some fast reading.  I learned that you can use templates from other places, and NOT use the ones avaiable!  That is all fine and great except you have to break the template UP and place in the separate sections of their TEMPLATE!  I found that out the hard way!  When you start playing around with it you see the button to edit the html, and so of course I did!  I erased all the html that was there, and then copied my template html that I worked on instead.  What I didn’t realize is that I placed my entire template within the header portion of the page, and it looked AWFUL!  You have to break up your template into the separate sections. 

The preview section isn’t all that helpful!  I found you must view it live in order to get a good feel for what it will look like live!  YES you can play around with it without it being LIVE on the internet, and if you decide to take it down off the internet it gives you that option also!

My page is still a work in progress!  Here is is!

Engraver For You

Now you can’t add meta tags or keywords into your html from what I have read.  You must make sure your page is keyword rich, and do this naturally!  Then make sure you get some of those one way links to drive up the page rank of your site!

Helpful tip page from another google page member

What I would LIKE to do is use this page for an entrance into my ecrater store!  I placed a note on my google page noting that if they click the ‘baseball’ button for example it will take them to the baseball trophy section of my store!  I will be adding additional sports trophies, and pages with time.   Remember to use your anchor text along with other items!

Car Magnet Full Color Design up to 72 Square inches

The Full Color Car Magnet images above are samples with approximate sizes. You may request the design or layout of any of these samples or describe what you would like and we will lay it out for you. Team sport magnets will be customized to your school colors (and mascots or logo if available).

Click on images above for larger view. 4″ x 18″ or 6″ x 12″ or 8″ x 9″ are popular sizes! Basically up to 72 square inches in a rectangle shape

googlepage, blogging, blog, keywords, keyword, search engines, search engines, small business, home based business, marketing strategies, html items, html, website popularity, ranking, keyword, web traffic, traffic, meta description, website promotion, google page creator, anchor text, meta tags, images, online store, meta

I went to the help section, and read other messages from people having the same issue.  One poster got a message back from googlebase that stated to add the shipping charge within the price of the product.  I’m sorry but that is insane if you want to look competitive, or what about if you have TONS products already live?  I wrote them myself and got some generic answer about “Check the help section”.  I wrote back a second time and FIRMLY asked them if they got rid of this attribute!  I finally got my answer!

Thank you for your email. Currently, we are unable to support the  shipping attribute. Please know that this was a recent change and we are very  sorry for any inconvenience it has caused you. Our engineers are working on a
resolution for the future, however, at this time, the shipping attribute will not function as normal. To resolve the errors in your file, please remove the attribute, and then upload your file again.Google Base is a beta product, which means that it is constantly changing and developing. As a work around, please include your shipping  information under the description attribute.Again, I am very sorry for the trouble. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.Sincerely,
Elaine
The Google Team

At first I was upset!  Then I thought about the datafeeds, and figured WELL it my listings take people directly to my site!  They will see the shipping there anyway!  What about the individual items you have live?  It sounds like you have to change ALL of your listings to accomodate this now.

My other posts regarding googlebase:

Payment Options for Googlebase

How Often to upload to Googlebase

Googlebase Bulk Upload Experience

Googlebase Attributes

Male Basketball Bobblehead Trophy, Award or Gift

Male Basketball Bobblehead Trophy, Award or Gift

Male Basketball Bobblehead Trophy Award or Gift is about 6″ (6 Inches) tall, and comes with a star on its base! Colorful and detailed and will be a hit with your next award or trophy event.

The Male Basketball Trophy is Part Number RBH-520 and we will send you an engraved plate. The trophy is individually packed, and will be shipped directly to you!

With this fun design will be appreciated for years to come! Grab something new besides the traditional awards you may have received in the past.
data feed, datafeed, blogging, blog, froogle, search engines, small business, home based business, marketing strategies, googlebase, google base, attributes, online store, shipping, tags

How to Get Your Blog Noticed Quickly and Widely
By Gregory White

1. Submit your blog to all of the directories listed on http://pingomatic.com/. Pingomatic will ping 15 services all at once.

2. Ping your blog after every post at http://pingomatic.com/

3. Here’s a real gem: Submit your blog to http://www.pingoat.com/ Pingoat will ping over fifty blog ping services all at once. So you don’t have to hunt for ping services and manually ping them. Pingoat pings over fifty blog ping servers (growing) with just one click.

4. Ping your blog after every post at Pingoat at http://www.pingoat.com/

5. Sign up for a free account at BlogExplosion.com and register your blog there: http://www.blogexplosion.com/

6. Submit your blog to all of the directores listed at http://www.rss-feeds-directory.com/blog_lists.html

7. Sign up for a “My Yahoo” at http://my.yahoo.com/ and attach your blog to your own “My Yahoo” account. This will get your blog included in Yahoo very quickly. This is worth the effort to stop what you’re doing right and do it, since Yahoo has a PR 9.

8. Use this code: “http://add.my.yahoo.com/content?url= http://www.yourblog.com/urblog.xml” in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own “My Yahoo” account.

9. Sign up for a “My MSN” at http://www.my.msn.com/, and attach your blog to your own “My MSN” account. This will get your blog included in MSN very quickly. This is also invaluable because MSN has a PR 8.

10. Use this code: “http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id= rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml” in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own “My MSN” account.

11. Place the link and description of your blog in your signature, so that any posts to Forums, Outgoing Emails, Autoresponder Courses, etc, will promote your blog.

12. Post a link and description of your blog on each of your sites.

13. Place your blog on all the major search engines. AddMe.com will submit your blog free to the top 14 Search engines here:
http://www.addme.com/submission.htm

SubmitExpress.com will submit your blog free to the top 20 Search engines here:

Home page

14. Use Article Directories as a resource for articles to post on your blog. Here are a few:
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://goarticles.com/
http://www.knowledge-finder.com/
http://www.informit.com/articles/

15. Locate blogs with a lot of traffic and place useful comments in their comment box. Be sure the blog and your comments are relavent to both your blog and theirs. Senseless posts won’t help you, they’ll hurt you.

16. Once you get around 5 to 10 posts on your blog, start a PR campaign and announce it to all relevant channels.

17. Make a blog post as often as possible. More than once a day is not really necessary. Remember, if you can’t write that much, go to step # 14.

search engines, small business, blogging, blog, home based business, RSS, Ping, Pinging, Marketing Strategies, linkback, web traffic, website popularity, ranking, online store, website promotion, articles noted, traffic, popularity,

 Emotional Abuse and Your Faith Presents, “The Destructive Secret” audio sermon, and its about 45 minutes long.  I was very impressed!

Jesus Heals Abuse  is a board online for abuse victims of faith, and gender isn’t an issue there.

Domestic Violence, Domestic Abuse, Faith, Suffering, Sermon, Moody Bible Church

People get so caught up in the logo process at times, and they forget at first that logo isn’t going to do much for them!  I’m not saying you shouldn’t do a good job in making one!  Of course that is important, but don’t waste a lot of money and NOT follow up with your customer service etc to make it WORTH something!

The logo will be worth something once you branded the company well enough!  They used the example of a well-known company that has a picture of an apple with a bite taken out of it!  You can imagine how well that logo would be recognized (and worth the price they paid for it) if their computers were not worth turning ON in the first place!

We had a local chamber here that was rather large!  They made the decision one year to change their image around, and go for a new look.  NOW that isn’t a bad idea all the time!  The problem with the organization was it didn’t need a new LOOK it needed to restructure certain areas of their organization to attract some untapped markets!  They were more geared towards BIG BUSINESS, and they were missing the boat on the small businesses in the area.  Their goal was to attract them with their new look.  They paid $6000 I think it was for this NEW look, but it didn’t attract what they were aiming for!  Why?  Their logo had nothing to do with WHAT they could do for the small businesses in that area!  Their attitude and services that they could provide for those small businesses just wasn’t there!  I’m sure at first they got their memberships, but the true test is renewal which they failed at.  Each year they are constantly on the run to make the up difference, and couldn’t figure out WHY retention is so hard!  Was their $6000 investment worth it?  The logo may have been if they took the time to work on things.

Logo’s don’t bring in loyal customers – service and good product does!

Bone Shaped Namebadge Nametag Engraved

This Bone shaped namebadge nametag is engraved with your information, and has a pin backing. We also individually package each one – See pictures! The bone shaped badge or tag is approx. 1.25 (h) x 3.50 (l)

**Please note LOGO is not included! If you would like your logo there is an extra charge. Contact us via email with your design for quote!

The plastic pictured is not the only color available, and please inquire if you would like other options!

This badge would be great for Orthopaedic Or Pet Related industries!

If you would like to have a magnet or (+2.00) or bulldog tip (+.50) we substitute that for you instead. Pinback is included in the price.

Please see the pictures for the visuals of the back of the badge, additional ways of placing your TEXT on this special shape!

This item can be resold, and our company would be happy to drop ship for you!

Have another special shape you would like? Drop us a note, and we will see how we can make that reality for you!!

Order more than 5 badges, and we will offer you free U.S.P.S. First Class Mail shipping!

blogging, blog, small business, logo, home based business, articles noted, marketing strategies, online store, images,

Great Informational website! Come and JOIN!