Right-Hand-Man Virtual Assistant Services - BLOG

We're Now On YouTube!

2011-02-02T03:05:00.003-04:00

Beware Latest Facebook Scam

2011-01-25T23:08:00.001-04:00

Check out the latest scam on Facebook: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/01/20/my-total-facebook-views-scam/

Want to know your total Facebook views? Beware scam spreading virally | Naked Security

Want to know your total Facebook views? Beware scam spreading virally.

We are BACK!

2011-01-20T14:28:00.004-04:00

Right-Hand-Man Virtual Assistant Services is back after a 2 year hiatus. I took some time off to work in radio, becoming Vice President of Radio Operations for CJLU/CITA/CIOG.

We will be offering the same great services as before and adding new services for your busy lifestyle.

SWEETHEART OF A DEAL:

In celebration of Valentines Day being a month away AND being back in business, we are offering a great deal to new clients:

ONLY UNTIL February 14, 2011, Get 2 FREE hours with your first 5 Paid hours!

Great Virtual Assistant Tools

2008-12-23T23:53:00.003-04:00

Merry Christmas! Here are a few free "gifts" to enjoy and make your VA life a little bit easier.

I have recently found a tool that has helped me explain myself more effectively. It is called Jing.

Jing records what you are doing on your screen and it also records what you are saying. This allows you to show people what you mean when you say, "Move this here."

Another new thing I found online is 30Boxes. This is an online calendar, a lot like Google Calendar, but even better. You can do all the regular calendar things, but you can also add it to your website, personalize it and so much more.

One last little thing I found lately was a free talking head at Bravenet. These talking SitePals are a great way to tell your website visitors about new services, products, or sales.

Give the Gift of a Virtual Assistant

2008-11-25T10:52:00.000-04:00

Recently a client of mine "gave me" as a gift to a charity that helps children in Africa. I thought this was an amazing thing to do.

Are you tired of giving gifts that just sit around collecting dust? Do you want to give a gift that really helps someone out? Do you have a friend or family member that needs help with their busy life or business? Why not "buy" them a virtual assistant as your gift this holiday? You could purchase one hour from us for only $25.00 to get them started or you could give them 5 hours for only $112.50.

If you know of an organization that needs some extra help, you could give some hours to them in the name of your family or friends. This way you know that your investment in the organization is going to good use and will have the satisfaction of helping those in need.

I am sure that whoever you give a virtual assistant to will thank you for this gift that will "keep on giving".

Can't Believe It's Been So Long!

2008-10-22T23:23:00.001-04:00

I looked at my blog for the first time in quite a while and realized that I hadn't posted in months.

It has been a busy summer. Not only has my virtual assistant practice been busy, but my wife and I have opened a drop-in centre for local youth (http://thepostdrop-in.blogspot.com). With all of this and home-schooling, I haven't had the time to post.

I am making a resolution to post at least once a week, so keep coming back.

Scams are Everywhere!

2008-04-24T13:54:00.000-04:00

I recently responded to an ad in the local paper to conduct research survey from home. I went to the compny's website and filled out the form for more information. A few days later, I received an envelope in the mail from this company. Inside was a bank draft for $2,500.00, a letter explaining what to do with the bank draft and a customer survey to complete and send back.

I was supposed to cash the bank draft and go to my local Western Union office and send $2,100.00 to a certain person in Ontario and keep $200.00 for myself and pay the fees to Western Union. The first thing I noticed in the letter was that Western Union was miscapitalized in various ways throughout the letter. Then I noticed that the corporate logos at the bottom of the letter, from companies they supposedly have done reseaarch for, were all a little bit off. They looked real at first glance but when you looked closer, they were obvious fakes. My proofreading skills actually saved me from falling for this nasty scam.

I contacted the police and found out that a lot of local people had applied for this job and got the same response. One person actually cashed the bank draft and will be liable to the bank for $2500.00. These bank drafts are FAKE. They will get by the local teller, but when they get to the sorting office, they are found to be counterfeit and sent back.

The good news is that I did not cash the bank draft. I contacted the local television news department and they came and interviewed me today. I just don't want anyone else to fall for this scam. It comes in many different business names, but if you receive a bank draft or cheque in the mail and are asked to send some of it back, DO NOT CASH IT!

Page 1 on Google - "Virtual Assistant Services"

2008-04-23T12:04:00.000-04:00

I have finally made it to the first page of Google. If you search for "virtual assistant services" my website is at the bottom of the first page. This has taken a year of hard work, but it is worth it.

How did I do it? I didn't pay anyone to help me, but I did put out numerous press releases and quite a few articles. I added my site to many directories and joined a bunch of social networking sites. I used keyword and website optimization software to help me decide how my site should be designed and what words were the best to draw people to my site.

It does take a lot of work, but you can do it to. If you need some help, hire a VA to give you a hand.

Administrative Professionals Week

2008-04-20T00:23:00.000-04:00

Administrative Professionals Week starts today. It is an international celebration of the hard work and value that administrative professionals bring to the business world. It is celebrated during the last full week in April with Administrative Professionals Day falling on the Wednesday of that week.

If you are an administrative professional, celebrate yourself this week and the accomplishments you have had in the past year. If you are the recipient of the hard work that your administrative professional does, celebrate him/her every day, but especially this Wednesday.

Do you know what a Favicon is?

2008-04-12T21:43:00.001-04:00

I didn't know until today that a favicon is that little logo beside some website addresses in my address bar. I decided I wanted one.

Believe it or not, it is very easy to do. I found this website, http://www.chami.com/html-kit/services/favicon/ and all you have to do is upload a graphic and it will make the favicon for you. It then gives you the one line of script you will need to insert into your website html file.

It is a great visual aid for people who have a lot of sites in their favourites, which is where the "fav" in favicon comes from.

You can see mine at http://www.righthandmanva.com.

Virtual Assistant Anniversary Sale

2008-04-06T14:10:00.001-04:00

ANNIVERSARY SALE!

New clients receive 1 hour FREE with every 5 hours paid!

Valid until May 6th, 2008

Regular Rates:

Due to the high Canadian Dollar our basic rate is now only $25.00(CAD) per hour (+5%GST for Canadian Clients)

Billed in 15 minute increments.

• Starter Package -5 hours - $112.50 (10% Savings!)
• Entrepreneur Package - 10 hour - $225.00 (10% Savings!)
• Small Business Package - 15 hour - $318.75 (15% Savings!)
• Solo Professional Package - 20 hour - $400.00 (20% Savings!) Best Value!

• We offer a 15% discount for non-profit organizations, home school families and organizations!
We accept cheques, cash, bank drafts, and money orders. We also accept credit cards through Paypal.

• Billing is done in 15 minute increments.

• A deposit of usually 25% is required prior to the start of a project.

• Payment is due upon receipt of an invoice.

• There will be a $25.00 service charge for any NSF cheques.

• Clients will be billed for incidental expenses incurred on their behalf. These include, but are not limited to – photocopying, postage, stationery supplies, shipping, long distance phone charges, etc.

One Year of Virtual Assistant Success - Press Release

2008-04-06T01:07:00.000-04:00

Darrell Williams started his virtual assistant practice so that he could offer his expertise and still be able to remain at home to homeschool his 2 daughters.

The past year has brought with it a lot of success in the virtual world. Williams has been awarded VANetworking's "VAccolade Business Entrepreneur Award" and "Blog of the Week Award". He has also written 2 successful e-books on responding to and writing virtual assistant RFPs and another e-book on article marketing. He has served clients from all over North America and has gone from a solo practice to having a team of Associate VAs to assist him when the need arises.

The services Williams' practice offers have changed a bit over the year. He started offering basic administrative services, but has found his clients were looking for others, such as travel agent services and creative services. Williams believes that constantly updating his service list to meet the needs of his client base is one of the keys to his success.

Williams says, "Becoming a virtual assistant was the perfect fit for me. It allowed me to homeschool my girls and utilize the skills I have acquired in the non-virtual workplace and college. It has been a great year with a lot of learning along the way. I am so happy that I chose virtual assistance and look forward to serving even more clients over the next year."

In celebration of this milestone, Williams is offering 1 free hour, of virtual assistant services, with every 5 paid hours. To learn more about Right-Hand-Man Virtual Assistant Services and the "Anniversary Sale" go to www.righthandmanva.com.

Virtual Assistants Featured in Newspaper

2008-02-16T14:25:00.002-04:00

Today's local newspaper, The Guardian, had a full page feature article on virtual assistants featuring me and another local VA. It also featured one of my clients. It was a great article.

If you would like to read it you can go to: www.righthandmanva.com/GuardianArticleVirtualAssistant.pdf
or you can got to the newspaper online at: http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=108741&sc=100

Don't Love Your Work - Love Your Virtual Assistant

2008-02-14T16:54:00.000-04:00

Do you love your work? Do you love it more than your family, friends, relationships? Do you love spending more time with it than doing the things you really love? If not find a virtual assistant to love.

A good virtual assistant will help you not only help you "break-up" with your work, but will help you come up with solutions to keep you from falling in love with it again.

This Valentine's Day, sit down and make a list of all the work you are doing that you don't have to do and that is taking away all your free time. After you have written it all down, take some time to decide how much of it you can get someone else to do. Once you have done this, send me an email and let me know how I can partner with you to help you break away from your work.

After you have broken up with your work, you will fall in love with your virtual assistant. Your work will love the attention as well. I will love your work the way it should be loved.

Free Report - Search Engine Myths Exposed

2008-02-11T23:54:00.000-04:00

Jonathan Leger has released a new FREE report that completelyobliterates the following myths about Google (and then goes on to show you what DOES work)

Jonathon says, "Google is like the Holy Grail of marketing on the web. Rank well in Google and your profits are pretty much set.

But there is SO MUCH bogus information out there, often coming from the "gurus" themselves."

Myth #1: Google Knows All and Sees All
Myth #2: Google Will Not Rank Duplicate Content
Myth #3: You Must Get Links From Related Subject Sites to Rank
Myth #4: Your Site Must Focus On One Subject To Rank
Myth #5: High PageRank Means Good Rankings
Myth #6: To Maintain Good Rankings, You Must Add New Content
..and..
MYTH #7: THE BIGGEST MYTH: Ranking In Google Is Hard!

And did I mention he'll pay you for referring other people to this powerful FREE report? And that he'll pay you for anyone THEY refer as well? Find out more about that when you download your sample chapter from:

http://searchenginemythsexposed.com/?action=ref&id=9756

Pros and Cons of Working at Home

2008-02-10T18:10:00.000-04:00

Monday is Wear Your Bathrobe to Work Day. It is a celebration of people who work at home that have the luxury of wearing what they want to work. I thought I would share some of the pros and cons of working at home and how to turn the cons around to work for you.

This week I was invited to speak to a college class about working at home. Some of them had never thought about it before it came up in their textbooks, while others were already making plans to find work at home opportunities. I talked about the good, the bad and the ugly of working at home.

I think the first pro is the freedom you have. You have the freedom to dress the way you want, look the way you want, watch TV or listen to the radio if you want to, you can do whatever you want as long as you get your work done when and how it is supposed to be done.

The next pro that comes to mind is flexibility with your time. A lot of work at home jobs are fairly flexible. For me, this is key. I homeschool my daughters and having the ability to stop working for a while to help them with a project is invaluable. I can schedule my work around my life and not the other way around. Again, as long as I get my work done when I say it will be done, there are no problems.

The third thing that I love about working at home is the money that I save. I don’t have to drive to work, buy lunches or coffees, pay for parking, buy new clothes, or pay for all those little things that pop up when you leave the house to work. I probably save about $40.00 a week just by working from home.

Now for some of the cons. Distractions. It is easy to get distracted at home. The kids want your attention, the pets want your attention, your spouse wants your attention, and sometimes they forget you are not just at home but at work also. Another distraction can be telephone calls. If you have people calling that eat up your time, start screening your calls. I have a business line and a home line. This helps to decide which calls to answer.

Another thing that can be bad about working from home is isolation. Because you are by definition alone, you have to make sure you get out of the house once in a while. Treat yourself to a coffee with friends at least once a week, go for a daily walk through the mall, just make time to be with other people.

Another “con” of working from your home is scheduling your time. It can be hard to set a schedule and stick to it. You have to be on top of your game and set a schedule you can keep. If you are working at home for someone else, this may not be a problem. If you are working for yourself, make a schedule and then make sure everyone around you knows what it is. Don’t let people overstep your boundaries. Stick to your schedule and enforce it with family and friends. Get someone to help you keep your schedule. This could be a spouse a friend or even a virtual assistant.

For me, the pros of working at home far outweigh the cons. I love to set my own schedule, have more time for family and friends and to be able to go to work in my bathrobe. I just don’t think I could fit into a regular 9 to 5 job anymore.

What are some of the problems you have with working at home? Do you get distracted easily? Are you unable to stick to a schedule? Really look at your strengths and weaknesses and get help to work around your weaknesses. If you can’t follow a schedule, make yourself accountable to someone. If you aren’t getting enough time out of the house and spending time with other people, have a friend call you on a regular basis to check up on you. Come up with solutions that work for you.

It takes a certain kind of person to work at home. If you are one, congratulations, I think we have the best of both worlds.

What New Services Can a Virtual Assistant Offer?

2008-02-09T09:19:00.001-04:00

I have been thinking lately about the new kinds of services that a virtual assistant could offer their clients. I have come up with five:

1) Travel - Are you already contacting travel agents for your clients and making travel arrangements for them? You could be the one getting the commission for those travel plans. There are companies you can join to become a travel agent. I chose Pro Travel Network. It is the only one to legally offer travel agent status in Canada.

2) Podcasts - Why not offer the set up and even recording of podcasts for your clients. If you have a good voice, strong writing skills, and a mic, you are all set. It's another great way to get the word out about your clients' products or services. http://www.podomatic.com http://www.odeo.com

3) Suidoo Lenses - Now I must admit that I do not understand Squidoo yet. It seems to be a new and great way to share ideas and information. It might be just right for some of your clients. See if you can get a handle on it and begin offering assistance in setting up lenses for your clients. http://www.squidoo.com

4) Shopping Carts - If you are not offering shopping cart set up and maintenance, you may be missing out on a lot of business. One VA I spoke with recently has a booming shopping cart business. If a client is selling thins online, they probably need a shopping cart. http://www.1shoppingcart.com

5) Blogging - Do your clients have blogs? If not offer to set one up for them. If they want, you could even "ghost-write" their posts for them. If they want to post themselves, remind them to send you post daily or weekly and the rest of the time you could post links to other blog posts that are relevant to your client's business.
http://www.wordpress.com http://www.blogger.com

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking outside the virtual assistant box. What kind of services can you come up with that maybe aren't offered yet or are offered but can be tapped into. Always be thinking and offering your clients help before they even know they need it.

Virtual Assistant Speaks to College Class

2008-02-08T22:54:00.000-04:00

I was asked this week to come and speak at the college I graduated from this year. They are using a new textbook for their "Office Skills" module and it has a section on working at home.

Knowing I had my own business, one of my former instructors asked me to come and talk to the students about the pros and cons of working at home. It was a great opportunity and learning experience. It gave me a chance to practice talking about my virtual assistant business and it gave the students some new ideas about what to do when they graduate. (I also got a great travel mug as a gift for speaking.)

I encourage everyone to take every opportunity they have to talk about their business, to anyone who will listen. You never know - they may not need your services, but they may know someone who does.

I am learning this myself. To have a successful virtual assistant practice, I have to take every chance I get to tell everyone about the value of VAs.

Marketing the George Jefferson Way

2008-02-06T15:58:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been watching the Jeffersons. I have noticed why George was successful. George Jefferson was a master marketer. He was always ready to tell anyone who would listen, and even those who wouldn't, about his dry-cleaning business.

Even my 10 year-old has mentioned that George gives his business card to everyone. Every time he has the opportunity he gives his "elevator speech" and makes sure people know he is the owner of the largest chain of dry-cleaners in the city. In one episode, he was bailing Weezie out of jail and he gave the guard a card and he even gave the prostitutes in the cell each one.

Any time he had the chance to be in the media, he took it; no matter how ridiculous the reason. He was always trying to get the attention of anyone with money that could further his enterprise.

How are you about spreading the word about your business? I know that I need to learn how to be more like George. I need to tell everyone about my business at every opportunity. I have been doing this well online, and now I am going to start giving this more of my attention in the "real" world.

What is your "elevator" speech? What do you tell people when they ask "What do you do for a living?" How are yoou involved in your community and how is this helping your business? Are you meeting with other business people on a regular basis?

New Virtual Assistant Podcast

2008-02-04T09:45:00.000-04:00

I decided to join the world of podcasting. My first podcast, entitled "What is a Virtual Assistant and Why Do I Need One" was posted Saturday night.

This is definitely a new learning experience. It is great fun though. I really enjoyed the whole process. The only hard part was doing it over and over because I kept messing up what I wanted to say. I am so glad I found Audacity and figured out how to edit my podcast.

I am going to post a new episode every Saturday night. The podcast is hosted at Podomatic and Odeo.

Check it out!

http://righthandmanva.podomatic.com

http://odeo.com/channel/711083/view

VAnetworking Press Release and My Mistake

2008-02-01T01:20:00.000-04:00

Virtual Assistant Networking Association 10,000 Member Milestone.

After writing this press release I learned that VAnetworking has almost 10,000 members, but only just under 8,000 are active members and have corrected this in the body of the press release. I have apologized to Tanwya Sutherland, the founder of VAnetworking for this mistake.

Anonymous Comments - Pet Peeve

2008-01-31T09:45:00.000-04:00

If you are going to take the time to offer constructive criticism on a person's blog, leave your name. Yesterday I had an anonymous comment about one of my posts. Even though the person made some great points, they came across in a very negative way and didn't even leave their name or contact info. I made some changes to the post but can't thank the person for their comments because they were to afraid to leave their name.

If you don't agree with me, that is fine. Just don't be chicken about it. Stand up and be counted because there may be other's that will stand with you.

Vritual Assistants With Bad Grammar

2008-01-30T09:12:00.000-04:00

I came across this post when Googling "virtual assistants". Even though they are giving away 10 hours for free, you might want to consider the language barrier. If you operate your business in English, hire an english speaking VA, if your business operates in Spanish, hire a Spanish speaking VA. It is too easy for things to get lost in translation and this can cost you time and money trying to sort out. I don't want to pick on any particular company so I have taken out their name. The grammar is probably so bad in this post because it appears to be written in another language and then translated poorly into English.

"Many might be wondering how much would it cost them to hire the services of a Virtual Assistant as compared to hiring a conventional Personal Assistant, Admin Assistant or Secretary. We at ***** Services came up with Very Affordable Plans to be able to cater to all Busy Men for them to Outsource their Tasks to us for as low as USD$17/hour. These tasks could be as simple as data entry, task management, virtual secretary tasks and personal/administrative assistant tasks and complex tasks such as Website Design, Development, Internet Marketing and a lot more.
Most of you might also be thinking why you should entrust those tasks to us? ***** Services has the BEST Professional Backups in the field of Virtual Assistance today. Our Virtual Assistants are all College Degree Holders, Loyal and they are trained by Outstanding Professionals from various industry fields. Among these are; Management Consultants, Lawyers, Doctors, Accountants/Bookkeepers, Information Technology, Sales/Marketing & Customer Service Professionals. This simply means that in whatever field that you might be involved with, our Virtual Assistants are able to cater to almost any tasks that you would like to relegate to them.
Our facility houses Virtual Assistants working in shifts all day and at 24 hours, 7 days a week. These Virtual Assistants are Bachelors Degree holders and are fluent in speaking, writing correspondences or any articles using the International Medium which is of course, the English language. All of them are professionals working in a professional environment in our Offsite Office. They are all trained in various fields by Professional Trainors mentioned above. We anticipated the need of our customers and we at ***** prepared beforehand to meet their demands.
Right now, we have a FREE Ten (10) Hour Trial Promo for All Those Busy People out there who needs assistance in their tasks. Try Us Out and Enjoy Having Loyal Virtual Assistants working for you and live like a Royalty. Ain’t it nice to live like Kings and Queens? Leave Your Worries to Us!"

For the extra few dollars you would be spending to hire an English speaking virtual assistant from Canada, the US, Great Britain, Australia, etc. you would save in the end because tasks would not have to be done over due to grammatical errors.

You Never Know How Your Name Gets Around

2008-01-29T23:30:00.000-04:00

I was searching through blogs today and low and behold, I found my website suggested as a place to go for more information on virtual assistants. It was on a blog called http://www.thewebwhisperers.com/ written by Bill O'Hanlon. Bill is a renowned speaker and author and has even appeared on Oprah and has been published in her magazine.

Thank you Mr. O'Hanlon for choosing to put my link in one of your blog posts. You can learn more about Bill O'Hanlon at http://www.billohanlon.com/.

Building a Successful Virtual Assistant Business

2008-01-28T11:41:00.000-04:00

Having a successful virtual assistant practice takes more than hanging out your shingle and waiting for the clients to pour in. “Build it and they will come” means you have to constantly build your business.

In “Field of Dreams” the Kevin Costner character is told to “build it and they will come”. He worked and worked to build his field of dreams. If you have seen the movie, you know that he was ridiculed and there was a lot of work to do to turn that field of corn into a baseball diamond. But it was all worth it in the end.

What are you willing to go through to see your business become successful? How much work are you willing to do? Some people see becoming a virtual assistant as a get-rich-quick business. If you talk to any successful VA, you will find out this is just not true. They are successful because they have put the time and energy into their business.

I am not trying to discourage anyone from becoming a virtual assistant. I just want people to go into this field with their eyes wide open. Here are a few things to consider before you decide to take the plunge into the virtual assistant industry:

1. Definition – What is a virtual assistant? I like the Wikipedia definition: A Virtual Assistant (or simply VA), is an independent contractor providing administrative, technical, or sometimes creative assistance to clients--usually to other independent entrepreneurs and solo and small business practices, such as that of a lawyer or realtor. Virtual assistants work from their own office (hence "virtual"). Common modes of communication and data delivery include the Internet, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and fax machine.

2. Experience – How much experience do you have in the non-virtual world in the area of expertise you are going to market? Some organizations believe you should have at least 5 years experience before you start your virtual assistant business. If you have the experience and skills then go for it. If not, why not wait another year or two before stepping out on your own.

3. Training – Virtual assistant training does not train you how to use a computer, build a website, or send an email. It does train you to run your own business, create a business plan, and how to market yourself and your VA business. There are a lot of training options available. Make sure you are comfortable with the format of the training as well as the content. Don’t purchase anything you won’t be able to learn from.

4. Web Presence – This used to mean that you would have a website, but now it means so much more. Having a web presence now means to have a website, a blog, at least 3 networking page memberships (like MySpace), and membership in various forums and groups. You have to get yourself out there in cyberspace as much as possible.

5. Marketing – Marketing your business can take many forms. You can do it through your local Chamber of Commerce, newspaper ads, and other traditional methods. Your web presence is basically marketing. You can spend hours keeping up with marketing. Writing articles, press releases, and commenting on forums are great ways to get your business into the minds of prospective customers. Networking is another effective method of marketing. This can be done online or in person, but you have to keep up with it. Experts say your prospective clients need to see your information 7 times before it registers.

I hope you haven’t been put off becoming a virtual assistant. I just wanted you to be aware that it is a lot of work. Not only do you have to complete your client work, but you will have a tonne of stuff to do to keep your business running. If you let either fall behind, you will have no business at all.

Build your “field of dreams” but remember how much work it will take to build.