Does a Virtual Assistant Need a Blog?

To Blog, Or Not to Blog, That is the Question

Question

I have been researching the Virtual Assistance Industry for quite some time now and notice that most well-known and well-established VA’s have blogs.  Is this a critical component for my business success?

Rochelle, Modesto, CA

Answer

There is no hard and fast rule on this.  However… I do recommend that as you gain experience and confidence in your industry that you begin to speak about it and share your knowledge. And this is another “however”; unless you are willing to put in the time and effort required to update your business blog with great content, it is better not to have a blog than to have one that hasn’t been updated in months.

• Blogging demonstrates true commitment and passion to your industry.
• By writing knowledgeable and insightful articles you are building your reputation and creating a name for yourself within your industry or niche. A great blog can position your firm as thought leaders, creating greater authority within your industry.
• Blogging allows you to build your network, and let’s face it, people do business with those they know.
• Ideas spread. Blogging is viral. A properly built blog will notify Twitter of new posts, allow readers to “re-tweet” or share the post with their connections or communities, and subscribe to your feed.
• Blogging allows you to remind people that you and your products/services exist. Research shows that blogs are influencing purchasing decisions, which is critical for your VA practice.

A Few Things to Think About

If you are still on the fence about blogging,  here are a few things you can do to overcome your doubts.

1. Start a group blog with several authors to spread the workload. Do you have several team members or other Virtual Assistants that you work with? Arrange with them to share the responsibilities of publishing great and informative content.
2. Recruit guest bloggers whose work you respect.
3. Offer to write a blog post or two for a thought leader in your industry. The offer may, or may not, be accepted but you will never know unless you try!
4. Monitor popular blogs, news sources and events in your industry or niche and respond to what others are saying about the topics.  In other words, join the conversation.
5. Be sure to create a gravatar that will help people identify your posts on blogs and web forums.

To train with Denise Griffitts to become a highly technically savvy, highly paid, highly sought-after Virtual Assistant please visit Virtual Assistance University.

**You have permission to reprint in your publication or to your website/blog any articles by Denise Griffitts found on this Website as long as Denise Griffitt’s name and contact information is included. Denise Griffitts, Virtual Assistance Industry Expert, http://askdenisegriffitts.com, info @ virtualassistantindustry.com.

Manage Your Team by Tracking Productivity

We’ve all heard time and time again that to get things done, business owners must start delegating and outsourcing. This sound advice has its own darker side – time you spend tracking your team members’ and vendors’ performance and evaluating their productivity. To run our businesses more effectively we need to become very aware of how our teams use their time performing assigned tasks and use this knowledge to manage them appropriately.

For example, one of your vendors or contractors might not charge much per hour, but will take longer to complete each task, thus costing you more than a more expensive, but more efficient vendor. Or you might discover that small changes to communication process and work flow result in large productivity gains.

By tracking your team’s productivity, you will know when your team members are overworked and when they are underworked and adjust their work loads accordingly. You will also be able to identify and eliminate various online time-wasters and distractions your team deals with. Finally, by tracking how much time your team spent on each task, you can better quantify and analyze each task’s ROI.

Another benefit of productivity and time tracking in a team environment is that you will build a knowledge base of time requirements for different types of tasks and projects. This will help you create very accurate time and budget estimates for future projects.

I use an online productivity tool called Rescue Time (available for Mac and Windows) that allows me to easily and effortlessly track how productive my team members are each day.

Rescue Time actually allows you to specify a period of time you want to focus on the projects at hand and will block the parts of the web that you tend to go to without thinking or planning. You can set the number of hours you want to spend in a day on a particular site and Rescue Time will alert you on your email, RSS reader, or by SMS when you run out of time. You can create groups and compare your online stats with other users. There are Rescue Time widgets for blogs, iGoogle, and Netvibes. You can also create a white-list of sites that you want Rescue Time to pay attention to.

Check out the free trial here and please be sure to let me know your thoughts on this tool after you have used it for a while.

* To train with Virtual Assistance Industry Expert Denise Griffitts to become a highly paid, highly sought after Virtual Assistant Professional call 888-719-6711 or visit Virtual Assistance University.

As a Virtual Assistant, How Do I Find a Niche?

Niche: A place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing: to find one’s niche in the business world.

Question

I recently lost my job as an Administrative Assistant in a small company and decided to become a Virtual Assistant. I have been trying to find clients and recently downloaded one of your teleseminars where you were talking about niches.  How do I find a profitable niche?

Karen, Bronx, NY

Answer

Good morning Karen. This is a question that we hear frequently and as I hear it, you are actually asking two questions even though one may be undefined, and that is “How do I find clients?” We will tackle that thorny question in future posts so please bookmark this site and return often to ask questions and browse the answers that other Virtual Assistants are asking. You can also get blog updates delivered to your email box by subscribing to this site.

The first request I would make of you is that you sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and clearly determine what both your hard and soft skills are as well as where your true interests and passions lie.  By  assessing your own interests, work style, skills, and personality characteristics you will see patterns emerge that offer clarity about which services you would be passionate about offering. It will also offer clues to where you may need further training in order to achieve the success in your industry that you crave. Keep in mind that working in a traditional brick and mortar office is vastly different then working with a client, or clients, remotely. I cannot stress this enough!

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills

In the business world, “hard skills” are technical or administrative procedures related to an organization’s core business. For example if you are a Excel spreadsheet expert, this is a skill that is easy to observe, quantify and measure. 

“Soft skills”, however are difficult to observe, quantify and measure. Soft skills can be defined as “people skills” and are very critical to your Virtual Assistance practice either growing and thriving, or never becoming a viable practice at all.

When assessing your hard and soft skills, be very honest with yourself. On the hard skill, or technical side of the sheet, are you listing systems or processes that you have worked with a little but are by no means expert in? List them, but make a note letting yourself know that if these skills are what you would like to base your Virtual Assistance practice on, that you will enroll in a training program that focuses on the area of highest need.

Soft skills are needed for everyday life just as much as they are needed for business. Honestly assess how well you communicate with other people, with emphasis given to telephone and email interaction. Remember, you are working remotely and this is how you will communicate with both your clients and other team members or consultants if you are in a multi-VA team environment.  Give serious consideration to the following soft skills and add your own where appropriate:

• Communication
• Listening
• Engaging in dialogue
• Giving feedback
• Cooperating as a team member
• Problem solving
• Conflict resolution
• Proactive innovation
• Decision making
• Planning
• Delegating
• Instructing
• Observing
• Coaching
• Encouragement and motivation
• Team building

Once you have clearly defined what your current skills are, what areas require further training or coaching and most importantly, where your true passion lies, you can formulate a plan to focus on those clients/markets that most interest you and will continue to interest you over the life of your practice.

To train with Denise Griffitts to become a highly technically savvy, highly paid, highly sought-after Virtual Assistant please visit Virtual Assistance University.

**You have permission to reprint in your publication or to your website/blog any articles by Denise Griffitts found on this Website as long as Denise Griffitt’s name and contact information is included. Denise Griffitts, Virtual Assistance Industry Expert, http://askdenisegriffitts.com, info @ virtualassistantindustry.com.