by BlondieWrites on March 12, 2010
How to Become a Successful Virtual Assistant
Companies are using outsourcing as a way to lower their costs. This is good news for those who work from home. One opportunity it creates is for the virtual assistant.
What is a virtual assistant? Many might think of them as glorified secretaries but they are so much more than that. A virtual assistant is an entrepreneur that can do everything from sending out letters to managing websites to managing your marketing campaign. They do it all and operate away from the office.
If you are thinking about becoming a virtual assistant, consider a few things first. What is your working background? What skills can you offer that would be in high demand? Do you manage your time wisely?
All of these points are important for the virtual assistant. Your clients will not only be large companies but smaller ones, writers, self-employed individuals, website owners and an entire host of others. Your client base is dependent on the arsenal of skills at your command.
As with any business, you need a plan. Your plan will include what skills you hope to offer to your clients. There are basic skillsets that most virtual assistants offer such as those you would perform as an executive assistant: mailing correspondence, answering emails, organizing documents and such. But, beyond that, is where you will set your virtual assisting business apart from others.
The new virtual assistant offers his or her expertise in a number of growing fields. Companies or individuals with online enterprises need someone to run the website, compound data into various programs, deal with legal or tax issues and many other services. One road to success begins with specializing or nicheing into a specific area such as real estate, medical services, legal or financial services. With your knowledge of the jargon and workings of these industries you become a valuable asset to anyone looking for help.
Get credentialed. There are several reputable virtual assisting courses of study online to get you started on the right track. The programs teach how to set up a business, business ethics and the finer points of operating as a virtual assistant. Formal training lends credibility to your business and inspires trust in clients.
Make yourself visible. No one will hire you if they don’t know that you exist. The best thing about virtual assisting is that you can live thousands of miles away from your clients as long as you are connected in some way. As such, use the Internet to build your business base. Set up a website of your own to advertise your services.
This is your window on the world. Showcase your work experience. Use testimonials from past clients. List what services you plan to offer.
Virtual assisting is a booming business. As an entrepreneur, you are providing a much needed service to others.
Popularity: 2% [?]
by BlondieWrites on February 6, 2010
If you’ve always had a skill for planning birthday parties and other events, you might want to think about starting an event planning business from home.
This is an ideal choice for moms who can do much of the planning from home and even have business meetings in their house. You do need to attend the party of event, of course.
What do you need to know?
If you want to start an event planning business, you should have either experience or training in event planning, or a combination of both. You can actually get a degree in event planning or management. There are many 2-year and 4-year schools that offer such degrees.
If you have done event planning in any capacity in a professional manner, you can us that experience to help you establish yourself in your own business. Think about the skills you might have acquired from other jobs. Have you had to arrange travel or luncheons?
In addition to any specific jobs you might have done before and your desire or ability to get a degree in event planning, you also should know some basics of how to plan an event, how to organize people and how to acquire the necessary items for a party.
Although having planned your own wedding and your children’s birthday parties might provide some experience in event planning, you can’t rely on this alone. Try to acquire more experience through a professional job or specific training.
What skills should you have?
Aside from specific experience, you should have some basic skills. Most important of these is organization. You should know that you are very organized and can plan an event from beginning to end without too many bumps in the road.
You should also be a self-starter and independent worker. Some customer service skills are also necessary, since you will be working with clients who might or might not know exactly what they want. They might also be stressed while planning and during the event and your ability to stay calm and professional is essential.
How to start your event planning business
Knowing people is the most important component to getting your business going. You need to connect with people who can give you business, or connect you with those who can give you business. You should take advantage of the connections you do have and let them know that you have an event planning business.
For many moms, event planning businesses start as birthday party planning business. If you have a real skill at putting on spectacular birthday parties, you can make a small business from that, and often your contacts will turn up larger events, from formal dinner parties to weddings.
To get the word out, have business cards printed up, and perhaps make a flier offering information about the services you provide and sample prices. Include any information about previous experience you have.
This kind of business requires in-person networking skills. You might attend local community events and talk to people about their event-planning needs. You could go to the chamber of commerce luncheons and offer to do some event planning for free. You can build a website and offer limited information about how to plan events. If they want more information, they must call you for the information, which allows you to market your services further.
If you want to start an event-planning business, just make sure you have the contacts, the experience and the know-how to get it done.
Resources:
Become an Event Planner
Popularity: 3% [?]
by BlondieWrites on January 15, 2010
As you think about the myriad of work-at-home opportunities, you could be overlooking one important thing – you have skills that you can turn into a career. Although it’s easy and sometimes tempting to sign up with a company or to begin selling a product, there are many skills that each of us bring to the table that can help us to create our own successful at-home enterprises.
Before you settle on a work-at-home job, carefully examine your skill set and determine if you can make a solid at-home work opportunity out of your skills. Though there is no harm in joining an already successful company, many moms are more interested in starting their own businesses. If you are that kind of mom, consider your skills first so you choose the right at-home business for you.
Money
Have you ever worked as a cashier? What skills did that require? If you had to reconcile your cash drawer, you have some experience with bookkeeping. You also likely have some customer service skills. Many women work at home as bookkeepers or as assistants to accountants.
Office skills
If you have ever worked in an office, you might have a long list of beneficial qualities that would help in an at-home job. These include phone skills, customer service skills, software experience and perhaps even some marketing or public relations skills.
Office skills and experience (as well as any training you might also have) can be used in a variety of ways with at-home jobs. Many moms work at home as virtual assistants, for example, which require customer service skills, software experience and basic office training.
Other moms with office skills can work at home for a local business. To save money, local businesses are more likely these days to hire people to work from home to handle calls, mail and basic clerical duties.
Technical skills
Those who have worked in graphic design and website design are perfectly positioned to take advantage of the work-at-home job market. That is, you can easily turn your graphic design and website design skills into an at-home business. Your services will likely cost another business less than using an in-house designer and if you provide the same – or better – quality, you can create a niche for yourself that others might not be able to easily fill.
Other technical skills that might be useful for at-home businesses include computer repair, specific software application training and other skills that you might have learned in a previous job, in college, or that you took specific classes for.
Entertainment
Many moms have had success turning their entertainment skills into an at-home business. Your ability to put on a beautiful party can be turned into a business that puts on tea party birthdays for young girls. Or you might start a catering business from home. Or you could become a personal chef. Some moms start successful home businesses that are borne out of their theater or singing experience.
The key to turning your skills and experience into a successful home business is to be honest about your skills. Know what you can do and what you are weak at. Perhaps you know that you can run a lucrative web design business, but you can’t handle money. Maybe you can hire another WAHM to do your bookkeeping for you. In that way you help yourself and another mom at the same time.
Make a list of the skills you have and those you might like to acquire and from that list, create some ideas for your at-home business. You might be surprised how much you bring to the at-home business table.
Popularity: 4% [?]
by BlondieWrites on December 20, 2009
Chances are, you enjoy creating and designing websites. And in this day and age, every business needs one, and the more creative and effective, the better. You can set up your own web design business and provide a needed service while making an income.
Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. Learn HTML. You probably are already familiar with the workings of HTML, but if not, you can take advantage of the multiple online resources such as ebooks and articles. Offline, there are many books in print that can help familiarize you with HTML.
2. Develop a plan. As with any business, you’ll need to take the time to organize your goals and the processes necessary to reach them. Do you have the time to devote to running a business? Do you have a reliable internet connection and computer? How are you going to pay taxes and are you aware of tax deductions for your business? What is your target market and your area of expertise? How much money do you want to make? These are some of the questions you’ll need to ask yourself as you embark on your web design business.
3. Services. Determine what services you are going to offer. In addition to designing and creating a website, you may want to offer hosting or tutorial videos to help small business owners.
4. Create your own website. This is where you will refer all potential clients, and it needs to be a good example of your skill. You will also need to have a folder of sample websites on your site that prospective clients can review. If you have not yet worked for a client, design a few sample websites and put those in your samples folder.
5. Pricing for Services. Determine what you’ll charge for your services. In your plan, you determined how much income you need. You’ll also need to determine the number of hours you can work per week or month, and divide this by the amount of money you’d like to make. In other words, if you want to make $1000 a month and can devote 100 hours a month to your business, then you need to be making at least $10 per hour. While you don’t have to charge by the hour (you can charge by the service), you need to make a reasonable estimation of how long these services take and charge accordingly so that you average $10 an hour (or whatever you want to make).
6. Promote your business. Offer to design a web page for a well-known company for no charge and use it for a sample on your personal site, and see referrals come your way. Contact past employers and let them know you are in the web design business. You might consider setting up a profile on sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, and use social networking as a source of contacts.
7. Beware of Scams. Watch out for resources that make false promises. As you look for online sources of information, be on the lookout for sites that promise you that, if you follow their business plan, you’ll make millions of dollars overnight. Steer clear of anything that sounds too good or too easy to be true. Developing a business is rewarding, but it requires time and effort to make it happen.
Popularity: 3% [?]
by BlondieWrites on November 7, 2009
Starting a home business is not tedious. In fact, there are many advantages in starting a home based business. You can enjoy the fun of working in a home atmosphere and can work at your convenient schedule. But running an own business requires lot of dedication and effort. You must know how to manage time for work and family. However, your hard work and effort would be rewarded well.
Before starting work at home business, consider the following:
1. Whether you would have the freedom to choose when and where to work?
2. Whether the home business would allow you continue your current job and work at home?
3. Would the business require publicity or gimmicks?
4. Would the home business require heavy investment?
5. Are there any risks in starting a home business?
6. Do you have complete training and support to improve the home business?
7. Do you have acquaintance with any successful home business owner who can help as a mentor to you?
If your answer is positive to most of the above questions, you can start work at home business. Another important consideration in starting a home business is to do what you are really passionate about. This is because of the fact that you can put greater effort without any difficulty because you really love it.
Starting a child day care center, candle business, decorative gift baskets, wall paintings, fashion jewelry, photography, party rentals and some other home business is really inexpensive and straight forward. However these businesses may be time consuming and require lot of effort. But once your business is up and running, you can get better rewards for your efforts.
If you have a pc at home with an internet connection, your home business opportunities are vast. You can start work at home internet business if you have adequate knowledge and excellent communication skill. You can start your own online dating site which can provide more profits from every member that joins you site.
However you would need some investment. The dating website can earn you handsome profits when members subscribe for premium membership and when existing members renew their membership. The main benefit of this business is that you need not have any previous experience for this.
You can start work at home business if you want to enjoy the fun and freedom of working at home. However take the time to get an organized plan for your business. This helps you speed up and improve your home business.
You can allot a room in your home for business purposes. Then arrange the essential things like a chair, computer, cabinet, phone etc. A comfortable chair is very important if you have to work for hours at the computer. Also consider filing the essential paper work in a cabinet. Keep it organized!
If you need to spend more time on your home business, then schedule your household routines accordingly. Time management is very important to start a home based business. You need to have the ability to prioritize your work so that you can achieve success.
Popularity: 3% [?]
by BlondieWrites on October 27, 2009
Are you an individual who would like to start your own small business? If you are, you are definitely not alone. When it comes to starting a small business, there are many other individuals out there who have similar goals and dreams. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to accomplish their goal of starting their own business or turn their dream into a reality. Many actually give it a try, but many find that their small business ends up costing them much more money than it made them. To prevent yourself from being one of those small business owners, ones that often can’t make it past the two year mark; you will want to make sure that you carefully choose which type of small business you want to open.
When it comes to deciding which type of small business you would like to open, there are a number of important factors that first need to be examined. Perhaps, before focusing on the type of business that you would like to run, like whether you will end up selling products or services and what, you may want to focus on how you plan on running your small business. For instance, do you plan on running your small business out of your home? Do you want to rent a commercial building space? Do you want to run an online business? Do you want to do a combination of them all? How you want to run a business or how you are able to run a business should have a significant impact on the type of business that you are interested in starting.
When examining the type of businesses that you can start, it is advised that you sit down and create a list of things that interest you or topics that you are knowledgeable about. For instance, do you like working with children? If you do, you may want to think about starting your own daycare center or preschool. If you have a little bit of a teaching background the better your chances of success are. Another example can involve your love for pets. Do you enjoy working with pets? If you do, you may want to think about starting your own pet supply store, dog grooming business, or pet sitting service. Starting a small business based on something that you not only know, but also love, will up your chances of your business being a successful one.
Although it is advised that you choose a start a small business based around something that you know and love, that shouldn’t be the only factor that you examine. You also need to examine your competition. When running an online business, you can expect to receive a lot of competition online, as that is just how the internet works. When it comes to starting your own local business, you will want to start a business that has a relatively small amount of competition. In fact, the smaller the amount of competition, the better it will be for you and your business. For instance, if you live in a small town and there are already two or three pet setting services available, it is advised that you do not start another one, as the demand will not be as high as the supply.
Since most businesses, even those that are locally owned and operated, do have competition, it may be a good idea to check out the competition before you decide to start your own business. When checking out your competition, this is easier done if the competition is a retail store or an establishment that you can walk right into. What you will want to do is examine the products or the services available for sale, as well as the costs of each. If you do not think that you can compete with your intended competition, it may be difficult for you and your small business to make a profit; therefore, you may want to refrain from going with your intended business idea. That doesn’t mean that you can’t start a small business, it just means that you should carefully choose which type of business you start.
Popularity: 1% [?]
