Jan 18

If you are interested in hiring a business virtual assistant, first of all, congratulations, your life is about to change for the better. Secondly, here is my experience and how I did it, hopefully this will help you.

The best ptc

Having a business virtual assistant (VA) has taken so much of a load off my shoulders, I can’t tell you how great the whole thing has been. I assume you already anticipate that, or you wouldn’t be reading this article, but the reason I bring it up is because I learned about virtual assistants last summer, and I made mistake number one: I didn’t jump on it. Why? I guess because I’m just a glutton for punishment and wanted to continue starting each day with more tasks than I could possibly do, and end it in frustration. Because that’s where I was at.

But once I got smart and realized I needed a VA here’s what I did:

1. Google. I searched for the term “virtual assistant” and looked through the various sites. I gathered information, asked people to contact me back, and generally researched the whole thing.

2. After discovering that there are two basic ways to go: through a service or direct to an independent, I decided I wanted to work directly with my own personal VA, so that’s the direction I continued in. The services are more expensive (between $10-15 per hour vs $3-4 per hour) and I just didn’t want to work with a committee. I just wanted one person, the right person, who would get to know me and work with me and be just like any other employee that I have locally.

3. I made a list. I listed everything I wanted my VA to do. For example, I wanted them to be able to work on my blog, so an understanding of HTML and wordpress went on my list. I wanted somebody that could help me distribute content and videos, and monitor my analytics etc.

4. I went to elance.com and posted my job. Elance has tons of VA’s in the system, and I was even able to be proactive and research good VA’s and invite them to bid on my job.

5. The bidding process. I was surprised how many people responded to my description, and I immediately had several qualified people bidding on the job. The two things that made the most difference in my final decision were how good their feedback was from other clients, and secondly how aggressively they were about getting my business. In the end, Prabhu really impressed me when he researched me online, found my phone number, and called me directly to introduce himself. He ended up with the job.

It has worked out just as I hoped it would, with Prabhu doing tons of important, but time consuming work for me every day. He has a great attitude, loves to work, and has great skills. He is currently doing projects that I didn’t even think of when we started, like posting advertisements, helping with my social marketing and groups, even checking my e-mail!

And he’s proactive in making my life easier. I asked Prabhu to help with this article, and here are his comments, in his own words:

“My name is Prabhu from India. I am working Virtual Assistant (VA) for Dave Sherwin. He is running a internet marketing firm, he does not have enough time to do everything that is the reason he hired me. Working with Dave is a joy and pleasure. Everyday Dave sent me list of tasks which is have with complete instructions. I finished the tasks and send him updates daily. I am very much pleased to work with him and looking forward to work with long term.”

Advertise for cheapest rates

Prabhu is college educated, smart, and efficient. You can probably tell form his writing that he speaks English as a second language, but we have had no communication problems. All tasks are detailed out in a Google doc that we share, which he up-dates daily, including his hours per day.

And did you catch the part about working with me being a “joy and pleasure?” I bet none of my other employees think that. I can’t wait for my wife to read it. But the fact is Prabhu and I work very well together, I don’t know how I got by without him. I highly recommend you start the process right now, and find your own VA.

Jan 17

The global reach of the Internet has enticed many retailers – from home-based businesses to large corporations – to sell their products online. Going from a web presence to selling online is usually not as simple as adding a picture of your product to a web page.

In this article i will give short intro where to start.

Good place for start selling Free Classified ads

Let’s take a closer look at today’s online experiences and the challenges they face.

1) Search and Comparisons

Many shoppers know exactly what they are looking for online. Others want to analyze and compare similar offerings.

Today, searching for the products can be quite complex. search, select, and product comparison online today is significant room for improvement. Ineffective search-and-compare functionality could cause companies with online stores to lose sales because shoppers who know what they want are deterred from completing their transactions. Therefore, it’s incumbent upon commerce sites to connect those buyers to the products quickly, load the products in the cart, and advance them to checkout—or risk losing a sure sale.

2)Personalization and Customization

Consumers expect to personalize their purchases. There are a lot of online commerce sites today do not allow shoppers to view personalized products before purchase, which can lead to high return rates.

There are many options available to purchasers today, but typically the process is tedious and sends the shopper down a hopeless linear path, forcing them to retreat through the process until they are back at the starting point. Offering highly visual interfaces to personalization and customization—approaches can yield larger order sizes, increase online transaction completion, and reduce returns.

3)Lift and Abandonment

Retailers strive to increase lift—the size of the shopping cart. By offering customers additional, related, or more appropriate products, you give them an in-store, satisfied experience while helping you yield higher conversion rates and increased lift. Cross-selling and up-selling online has been severely limited because customers have not been able to visualize the add-on items that the retailer wants to promote. Good solution for retailers to increase lift and reduce abandonment is by improving the visualization of cross-selling and up-selling offers and ensuring an intuitive checkout process.

Good pictures of your products is very important.

There is several tips how to visually present product on your site:

1) Use a tripod or rest the camera on something for a steady shot. Make sure the item is level in the viewer;

2) Get as close to the object as possible. Take a few pictures from different distances;

3) Have the item well lit, but avoid shadows;

4) Using a neutral, consistent background is recommended and is useful for later digital editing;

5) Take shots at different angles if new information is provided with a different view;

6) If your product has a variety of styles & colors, take a few photos showing all the variations together;

7) If using a digital camera, set both quality and image size at the highest settings possible.

Free Classified ads

Grab practical information in the topic of web traffic – welcome to your personal knowledge pack.

Jan 16

Is there a work at home opportunity with your name written all over it? Many potential online business winners dismiss the idea because they don’t have any idea where to start. The fact of the matter is that, although online businesses require a lot of work just like brick and mortar, real world businesses do, the internet is a great place for people without a lot of start up capital to get a winning business off the ground with a minimum of overhead. Here’s what you need to know about working on the internet and about good work at home opportunities.

First, don’t fool yourself into thinking that online business is a cake walk. It’s not. You can do thinks less expensively than in a traditional business, and you can set your own hours and reach people all over the world. But you still need to put in the blood, sweat and tears. You need to find out about the internet neighborhood your business will be a part of. Learn about your competitors and your customers. Learn where else your customers go so you can advertise. Take a page from your competitors’ books and see if you can learn from any of the mistakes they have made in the past. Figure out how much everything will cost to run. Write a business plan, even if you don’t need one, because it will help you focus your thoughts and be invaluable when it comes to developing who you will get your business off the ground.

One word of warning: be wary of business home online work opportunities that sound too good to be true. When you’re setting yourself up in business online, you may find that there are companies out there that claim they can help you get set up as a sales person for their product and that they will give you a website and know-how to pull in customers. Most of the time, these schemes end with you paying a fee for the site and then being put in the position in which you have to try and sell other people like yourself on the idea of setting up their own, similar website instead of actually selling a product. This is a pyramid scheme, just like a pyramid scheme in the real world, and it’s a good way to get hustled.

There are tons of more legitimate home online work opportunities you can tap into. Think about your skills, talent, experience and knowledge and look for the best ways to utilize them. For instance, if you are good with office work and software, maybe you could be an online assistant that handles secretarial work for a variety of companies. If you’re a good sales person, online auction websites might be for you. If you have a good eye for design and HTML knowledge, website design and maintenance might be the career choice for you. There are plenty of good home online work opportunities for you if you do your research and go for one that is the best fit for your skills and interests.

Find practical suggestions about how to get a grant – welcome to your own tips store.