There are many different ways to get your point across of course. For example, you could choose to make a video of your computer screen covering the particular issue in question with both audio and visual instructions. You could always send lengthy and detailed e-mails or drop instruction or files into file sharing solutions such as Dropbox. However, sometimes the problem is even more complex and it’s necessary to have two or even three-way input in order to work through to a particular solution. In this case, it’s good to be able to share your desktop screen with others across the Internet.

This has given rise to services such as GoToMeeting, ideal for Web conferencing with various individuals at once, Mega Meeting, Any Meeting and so on. At relatively affordable cost any number of outsourcers from your team can log in and view your screen at the same time as you go through training or instructions, while you discuss the project in the making.

Sometimes you might just want to share your screen with somebody else in order to sort a particular problem out. You might just want to access your screen at your home office if you are “on the road” somewhere. There are a number of remote desktop screen sharing applications available today such as Team Viewer. Both computers do need to have the Team Viewer software installed but it’s a relatively easy process and you can also use this solution for presentations and conferences.

One of the original tools in this marketplace was Show My PC. The advantage here is that both computers need not have the software installed and as far as convenience is concerned, it takes some beating. Another tool to generate a live telecast of your “show” is Screen Stream. You can share whatever you have to broadcast with any number of people and nobody needs to install any software here. Yuuguu is yet another solution. This is a cross-platform solution that you install on your desktop, or you can also gain access via a web-based option.

There are so many different options and solutions available to communicate with your team no matter where they may be, that there really is no excuse for not considering outsourcing as a fundamental business resource anymore.

I hope you found this article helpful. I’d love to read your comments, please comment below.

Some carriers have chosen to try and combine the familiarity of a conventional landline telephone with VoIP. Companies such as Sipgate for example will route all your calls via the Internet while still allowing you to make use of a telephone handset. However, in the world of online marketing we are far more familiar with systems and solutions that have grown to become household names. In the space of just a few short years Skype has now become the word for talking one-on-one with far-flung contacts either via instant messaging or in person, online. If the other party is equipped with Skype, a free service to download and install, then there is no charge for the call, no matter the distance. Calls on Skype to conventional landlines are significantly less costly than their traditional counterparts and the arrival of programmes such as Skype have forced the legacy carriers to completely review their approach to business.

Nowadays you can load up the best of the VoIP software solutions on to your smart phone as well as your PC. For now, Skype remains the leader even though we are seeing competition from heavyweights such as Yahoo and Google.

Services such as Skype have revolutionised the world of outsourcing and the ability of small business owners to work with virtual assistants, no matter where they may be located. Apart from the fact that you can instant message at no cost with all your outsourcers, the ability to actually “pick up the phone” as it were and talk through any particularly tricky issues at little or no cost again cannot be underestimated.

It’s also possible to find specific applications made for the iPhone and Android system. International calls made or placed to mobile phones can be extremely costly, as we all know. Apps such as Chat Time allow iOS users to call internationally at VoIP prices and the quality is usually first-class. Another iPhone app is iCall, making best use of 3G and Wi-Fi in order to make and receive calls anywhere in your local region at no cost. International calls do generate an associated cost, but once again it is considerably cheaper than what the service carrier itself might otherwise impose.

In the early days, calls placed via Skype were often a little suspect as quality was particularly dependent on the bandwidth, but now the level of consistency is up to par. VoIP has become more and more of an essential tool for small business owners today especially as they seek to remain in touch with international clients and members of their outsourced team.

Have you discovered the joys of Skype? Do you still use a landline or have you joined the ever growing numbers who use VOIP? I’d love to read your comments, please comment below.

When it comes to communicating with a virtual assistant or outsourcer, you often have to be very explicit if you want to achieve a certain result. Many of us are guilty of “assuming” far too much, but it doesn’t take too long before a number of incorrect or incomplete results teach us that we need to be a bit more explicit with our instructions.

Sometimes it can be quite difficult to explain what you want to achieve in writing, as well. You may feel that you need to add a diagram or two and this can become quite time-consuming to put it mildly. If you find that you are spending almost as much time trying to explain the final outcome as you might expect to do the job yourself, this is clearly not productive.

Thankfully, answers are at hand. One particular service, known as Jing Project, is a godsend. This particular creation is free to use, although with some limitations. Essentially, Jing enables you to show somebody how to do something by capturing an up to 5 min. video of your screen or a simple screen capture. It is “simplicity personified” to use and once you are finished recording your video you can upload it to screencast.com. From there you just send your Virtual Assistant the URL and they can view the video complete with detailed, visual instructions. At Arc Virtual Assistants all of our clients are given access to a client area to upload their work. To enable smooth running of the client area our clients are provided with instructional videos, created using Jing, an example of which is below.

Have you used Jing or Camtasia before? We’d love to read your comments.

As sad as it is to say there are people out there who get a great deal of pleasure out of trying to hack people’s passwords. Sometimes they can access financial sites and steal money. Other times they can access your e-mail lists and send spam to all your contacts. This is much more common than you might think. After all, if you do tend to use the same login details everywhere, hackers will go to sites that have typically poor security parameters, such as online forums and gain access to passwords there. Then, it may be as simple as using the exact same details to gain access to other, much more important sites.

The good news is that you don’t have to risk all of this, nor do you have to magically remember all of those crazy pass codes. There are a number of solutions online that also enable you to share your passwords with other members of your team.

Pass Pack now makes it possible for you to share secured passwords by using encryption. This is a handy addition to its own online desktop password manager. Here, all of your login details will be stored and automatically loaded whenever you visit the relevant URL. Your passwords can be synced using industry-standard encryption known as AES256.

It may be tempting to send login details including your password to a member of your outsourced team or Virtual Assistant via e-mail. How much of a risk can this be? The answer is it can be a significant risk. Once again, remember that this is especially so if you tend to use the same password across multiple sites including those that are extremely sensitive.

You should always ensure that the solution you use does all the encryption locally before it is sent across to this service and that the industry-standard cryptography algorithm is used. You certainly need to make sure that you remember your master password and of course this should never be something straightforward or guessable.

Many of the password managers are free up to a certain number of stored login details and thereafter are available for a small fee. This fee should be well worth your consideration, especially bearing in mind the number of unscrupulous people around these days.

Have you used a password manager before? If so, we’d love to read your comments.

Until fairly recently there were a number of “work arounds,” but they were either very time-consuming, far too tricky or simply too insecure. If you were sophisticated you might try to upload files to a remote machine by using FTP protocol. This was a very awkward way of doing things however and you needed the relevant information from the other party, login details and in short far too much “bother” for what should be a relatively simple task.

With the advent of cloud computing and storage, things have become a lot easier in recent times. We are used to sharing quite a lot – and in many cases more than we really appreciate – through the cloud as it is. Facebook enables us to share all kinds of experiences, but when it comes to dedicated methods for business purposes, companies like Dropbox have set the standard.

Dropbox is essentially free for infrequent use, but does come with a fairly low monthly fee if you’re transferring lots of files, or files over a certain size. Essentially, you upload the file to your account in the cloud and then send an e-mail to the entity you want to share the file with. Basically they login using their access details and you’re all set.

Another option is Google Docs. Once again, all you have to do is upload it and invite people to share it with. This is also a handy feature of other Google Apps such as Maps. If you need to share information about the location of a meeting or event for example, you simply input the details into your Map, create a link and send that to your contact.

Massive files can be a bit of a challenge under any circumstance. However, it’s very unusual to come across a multi-gigabyte file that you’re not able to compress. Exceptions may be a very lengthy instructional video file, but you should really be producing those in a format that takes up fewer resources anyway. You can host big video files in the cloud using a very inexpensive Amazon S3 account and simply send the URL to others in order to access it.

Little by little we are becoming accustomed to using the cloud as a fabulous resource. We can either access all the tools, software, solutions and resources we may need, or we can use it as a storage medium, making it easier for us to communicate with outsourcers and/or clients.

How do you share files over the internet? I’d love to read your comments.

These days there is simply no need to be out of touch or be unable to compose messages, or react to important e-mails on the spot. We no longer need to rely on static resources when we can use online options such as Gmail.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world are now used to using the free e-mail service provided by Google for their personal mail. While it is all very well to have an e-mail address that ends in “@gmail.com” you will almost certainly lose some credibility if your business e-mail address is similarly configured. Google has the perfect answer with Gmail for Business, which is part of the Google Apps empire. It’s not that difficult to make the switch over from resources such as Outlook either and Gmail for Business is available free or for very little expenditure on an annual basis.

Once you have configured everything so that all your e-mail is funnelled through Gmail, there are a number of added benefits. For example, you can instantly place telephone calls to mobile and landline phones from within the programme should you wish or initiate instant messaging or even video chat with other Gmail users. Your e-mail will be automatically synced with relevant Apps placed on your mobile communication devices and you also have access to a large variety of different applications from within the Google Apps marketplace. You could use some of these Apps to set up CRM solutions, for example.

There’s no need to worry if you feel that your business life is currently “trapped” within your Outlook application. It’s relatively easy to import everything from Outlook into Gmail if you follow the instructions provided by the company.

How will your productivity be affected if you have instant access to e-mail wherever you are? There’s a lot to be said for delegating a particular period of time to e-mail matters and time management issues are a whole new subject in and of themselves. However in a world where time and communication can be all-important, it’s good to know that you can access your e-mail threads and conversations wherever you have access to a browser, rather than having to rely on an ability to somehow connect with your local machine “back in the office.”

It’s true to say that there is still a certain amount of hesitation in some quarters when it comes to “trusting” where you host all your important information, contacts and documents. However, as each month goes by we are able to see that cloud-based office productivity solutions are all the more reliable, and trustworthy.

It also provides the added bonus that your Virtual Assistant can easily access and help you manage your emails on a day to day business utilising cloud technologies.

If you need any help setting up your business email using Google Apps, please do not hesitate to contact us as we would love to help.

Have you made the jump from Outlook to webmail? If so, was it an easy transition for you? I’d love to read your comments.

Some people say that there will be very little need for any storage capability on a local computer in the future. Laptops and notebooks will become thinner and thinner, as all we really need is browser capability after all. As we are increasingly able to access all the software tools and technology that we could ever need “through the cloud” and utilise a variety of first-class communications tools to reach our outsourcing team, why clutter our immediate work area with unnecessary resources?

Microsoft Office, as a locally hosted tool on your computer, is starting to be replaced by online applications, making it ever so much easier for groups to work together collectively on documents. If you have an important document that needs to be fine-tuned according to the input of various experts or professionals at scattered locations, then a product such as Google Docs is now perfect. Just like Office, you can access a variety of different types of document, such as text files, spreadsheets and presentations. Amendments are automatically saved as important work goes on, and you can share and collaborate with others on a particular document in real-time. Furthermore, a link to a particular document can be provided to an external user who can view the file simply by loading that link into a browser.

Don’t expect Microsoft to go down without a fight, however. Office 365 is their answer to the New World. Here you will find the online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. While this is still a relative newcomer to the cloud computing, document sharing arena, there may be a number of kinks to iron out. Also, anyone who is to be brought in to work on shared files has to have a Microsoft account ID, which is a little cumbersome.

There are a number of other interesting options including Zoho Documents and Teamlab, the latter having the ability to communicate in multiple languages. As is the case with most of the options, you can try it all out for a certain period of time before committing to monthly payment plans.

Have you ventured into ‘cloud’ document collaboration? If so, what tools do you use and how do you find working this way? I’d love to read your comments.

In the old business model, organisations may have chosen to keep everything in-house, to employ particular specialists under the same roof and thereby, to some extent, simplify communications at the very least. However, we know that a much more modern-day approach and one that is likely to return bigger dividends is to outsource whenever possible.

Outsourcing often requires the use of several different virtual assistants and individuals who may be located in far-flung geographical areas. No longer is it a case of going into the next office to discuss a particular element of the project while in progress, but it is often the case of working across different time zones and finding a way to communicate with someone who may be working while the rest of the team is effectively sleeping.

Web-based project management and collaboration tools are coming into their element, as a powerful answer to this particular challenge. Business owners who adapt and embrace these project management tools have the ability to be flexible when needed, to communicate clearly and proactively and help to keep the workflow moving.

Let’s look at a few of these options:

Basecamp is one of the better-known options available. This product focuses on message sharing rather than trying to make head or tail of e-mail threads. To do’s can be assigned and deadlines issued to individual members. Files, documents and other multimedia information can be shared both internally within the team and shown to the clients at the appropriate time.

Podio is a very flexible alternative. Here, you can create your own applications and work towards goals, shaping the way that you manage your projects. There’s an amazing array of customisable workflows and you can tailor the development of your project.

ActiveCollab, my project management system of choice, can be installed on your server or local network and can be configured as required and according to the growth of a project or your business size. As with many other options here it can be configured to allow access to unlimited users, set up for unlimited projects and infinite storage space.

Zoho Projects is another example where you can focus on milestones in order to organise projects, take ownership of tasks, and record your working hours for all those important invoicing purposes.

A project management and collaboration tool is an essential requirement for any expanding, modern online business in order to ensure prompt communication between various individuals responsible for integral elements. These tools take the guesswork out of project development and ensure that deadlines are met, consistently.

Do you use project management tools in your business? If so, I’d love to read your comments.

There’s been a meteoric rise in the number of people going online to interact with others through social media channels. In fact, it’s now a way of life for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Whenever people are focused on interacting with a wide variety of social media sites this is also an opportunity for the smart business marketer to engage. So even though you may feel as if you’re lucky enough not to need to “push” for new business, you should still be interacting with your present customers online at the very least.

To begin with you need to determine your best course of action. You do not necessarily have to dive right in and sign up for each and every social media network or site under the sun. Some may simply not be appropriate for your demographic or customer base, although it seems to be a really good idea to have a Facebook presence no matter what kind of business you’re in these days.

As Facebook is by far the dominant social media site it’s not surprising that such a high percentage of the population is involved. This is a truly great platform, especially if you use it wisely once you’ve created your own business “fan” page, thereby providing a platform to interact, inform, educate and entertain your clients and prospects.

Professionally, LinkedIn is the dominant business-to-business network and this is a site you should consider to help generate leads, good business contacts and to find new members of staff.

When you create a YouTube channel you have a fabulous repository for all of those videos you should be creating, to help educate people in your niche and to effectively showcase the products and services that you have available.

Of course the ideal mouthpiece for any business these days is the blog. It’s relatively straightforward to set up one of these, especially if you use the dominant WordPress platform. However, you need to be sure that you are populating it on a regular basis and publishing a mixture of self-generated content, as well as other content gathered from around the Net, modified to promote your particular point of view.

As a small business owner, however, you have to ask yourself a very pointed question. How much of my time is this going to take? The answer is quite a lot. In addition to the amount of time you’ll be investing in setting up and configuring a presence on all of these sites, you may find that you are allocating valuable time on a daily basis to do one job or another to help maintain your presence. This is why you should put the entire series of projects in the hands of your virtual assistant, who is experienced in the vagaries associated with each platform and who will allocate a specific schedule, based on your exact requirements, to interact with each one.

In fact, Tumblr is more of a hybrid, in a manner of speaking. Anyone who signs up for the service can gather together a listing of followed blogs within what is effectively a dashboard. This is something similar to the typical newsfeed page that we are all familiar with on Facebook. Here, you get a collection of the latest news from all the blogs that you sign up for, gathered together into an easily viewed list. The dashboard feature is what many online marketers find to be attractive. It allows organisations to post commercial offers such as coupons without being seen to be obtrusive.

Tumblr appears to attract a particular type of demographic. More than 50% of monthly visitors to the platform are in the up to 34 age group, almost evenly split between male and female. This can be a very profitable demographic as we know and thus if you have a business approach that’s tailored toward this market, Tumblr should certainly be a consideration alongside other social media initiatives.

Evidently, more than 25 million people visit Tumblr to access the various blogs within their personal dashboards. Remember that Tumblr blogs are all hosted at the parent site and unlike WordPress, for example, cannot be self-hosted. Furthermore, there is a limit to how much you can manipulate the look and feel of your blog pages and there’s definitely a difference between this platform and the other, more established programmes when it comes to configuration.

Another statistic may be of interest according to your particular business model. The company tells us that more than 7 million of the 14 million daily posts are centred on imagery, rather than text. We should all know by now that graphics and videos represent the most appealing type of content these days and according to feedback from Tumblr, these image-based content posts get the most traffic and bookmarking.

Tumblr may not be for every business and may not represent a sophisticated blogging platform for those who have a somewhat serious story to tell. However, it’s worth investigating if you’re able to spread your message by using more dynamic forms of media. Just as Twitter has proven to be successful by adopting a simple approach, Tumblr may have found another niche by being something of a cross between micro-blogging and social media sites.

If you do make the decision to jump on board this bandwagon, remember that regular and consistent interaction is required and this is again an ideal task for your virtual assistant.

Do you have a Tumblr blog? If so post your link below.