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08/02/2019

5 Email Marketing Tasks You Can Outsource To Your Virtual Assistant

Email marketing has become a staple of the new digital age and for good reason. It has the power to reach many types of audiences, it feels more personal than social media marketing in some ways, and it gives companies a way to build more meaningful customer relationships. If executed correctly and....

09/09/2017

Virtual Assistant Canada provides internet and remote staffing services to businesses. We help you get more done & focus on what matters most. Canadian!

12/02/2016

5 Essential Google Analytics Tips

Most businesses start their forays into the online arena in the same way. First you contract for custom website design that is sure to catch the eye of target consumer demographics. Next you seek out premium SEO services to optimize your pages and grow your online presence.

The next step is to hone your marketing strategy to encourage lead generation and increase sales. However, you definitely need to use tracking and analytics tools to measure your metrics and follow up on other efforts. Without proper analytics, you’ll never know how well your efforts are working, which efforts are working the best, and ultimately, how to improve.

Google Analytics is something of a gold standard when it comes to tracking pertinent data, especially since most of your marketing and SEO efforts are geared toward Google. However, you also need to know how to use the tools to your advantage. Here are just a few essential Google Analytics tips to improve your online sales.

1. Know Your Goals
Creating specific goals in Google Analytics allows businesses to track related data in order to better understand how their efforts are helping them to reach goals, or alternately, holding them back. From there you can track pertinent data to see how well you are working toward your objectives.

2. Consider Keyword Suggestions
The keyword game has become competitive, and many small businesses can’t necessarily afford to bid for top keywords. Yet, you still need to find ways to boost rankings for relevant searches if you want to continue to bring in business and improve sales.
Keyword suggestions can help you find adjacent keywords in order to target a specific audience that is seeking your goods and services. You can do this without having to spend major money competing for more generic keywords and phrases.

3. Set Up Conversion Funnels
Conversion funnels track the activities that lead consumers from clicking through on an ad or search results to completing a purchase (or not). Setting up these tools can help you to see how and why purchases happen, or alternately, where you fail.

4. Try Custom URLs
Testing new ad campaigns or other efforts can be difficult when you have a lot of irons in the fire. A custom URL gives you the opportunity to track a specific effort directed only at that page.

5. Focus On Quality Referral Sites
Most businesses get traffic from a number of referral sites, and you need to know which ones are delivering top results. From there you can focus your efforts and increase targeted traffic and sales.

11/02/2016

HOW TO HIRE A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT TO SAVE YOU TIME AND WORK

Entrepreneurs are famous for running themselves aground from overwork while fretting over how to find someone to help with their business, often feeling that they can’t delegate, don’t have time to train a new employee, or that there isn’t enough work to justify an assistant.

As an entrepreneur you need to spend your precious — and limited — time doing what you do best: creating and bettering your product or service. It’s time to hire a virtual assistant (VA), a self-employed, remote professional who provides administrative, technical, or creative assistance to clients.

No more late-night struggles demystifying QuickBooks or pulling out your hair trying to learn Photoshop: A virtual assistant can have an immediate and beneficial impact on your business’s productivity and your sanity. You’ll, of course, want to find a qualified virtual assistant who’s perfect for your role, and to find the right person, you’ll need to do some ground work.

The 4 Benefits Of Hiring A Virtual Assistant

Flexible Pricing: VAs have a far more flexible pricing program than regular part- and full-time assistants because they typically work on a per-project or per-hour basis or on a sliding scale.

Targeted Skills: You can also find VAs with specific skillsets, such as graphic design, writing, marketing, or technical skills. Rather than hire an assistant with limited skills or an agency – which can escalate costs – you can pick and choose your virtual team with specific skillsets for just when you need them.

Reduced Costs: A VA works as a consultant, not as an employee, so you won’t have to pay employment taxes or benefits for your VA. Also, you’ll be able to determine the price of your VA based on his or her skill level/experience; you can even bid per project.

Quick Turnaround on Your Project (Generally): Unlike office assistants, VAs don’t need to be trained on all aspects of their job; they only have to focus on one project, and they’re usually a experts in that area. If you have a project you need completed ASAP, your VA will be available — at all hours — to turn it around.

Identify Your Needs

Begin by sketching out exactly what it is you need.

VAs can perform many business maintenance tasks for you, but simply having them on staff in case of an emergency is the wrong strategy. Instead, prepare a list of delegatable tasks that reach beyond your expertise (e.g., accounting) or exist under your paygrade (e.g., data entry).

Once you know what you need your VA to do, it’s easier to search for a person with the right skill and technical level.

Here are some common tasks to outsource and what to look for:

Writing: Ensure that your VA candidates are native speakers of your business’s target language, and examine their portfolios thoroughly. Writers with more experience can generally turn out content quicker, understand your direction, produce higher-quality work (fewer spelling and grammar errors for you to catch), and generally don’t require as much back-and-forth editing. They’re also quite a bit more expensive. If you have the time to hold an entry-level writer’s hand, or you simply need a researcher with only some writing chops, hire someone new to the market.

Data entry: Data entry is key task for entrepreneurs to delegate; it’s tedious and time-consuming. At the same time, seek out a tech-savvy and analytical VA who won’t get tripped up by a spreadsheet, is a fast worker, and won’t require a lot of supervision. Although the position may seem basic, it’s always a good idea to check references to ensure your candidate is reliable.

Administration: Look for a personable VA who’s a natural and clear communicator. Again, it always helps to check references.

Field/Software Expertise: VAs with expertise in a particular field or software do not come cheaply, but they’ll relieve you of having to learn complicated technologies. If you are a born salesperson but struggle with financial management or sales software, by all means hire someone who is an expert in these fields. Look for certified software consultants — they’ve taken and passed a competence test.

Research: Rather than spend hours pouring over the infinite information online, use a VA to find relevant sources for you.

How complex will the delegated tasks be? Do you need a technically savvy VA or someone who just needs to be proficient at data entry? These are the types of questions to ask yourself.

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Stop running yourself into the ground performing delegatable tasks.

To grow your business, you need to leverage your strengths and give less meaningful tasks to someone else. Virtual assistants might be your way of making that happen.

Let us know about your experience with VAs in the comments.

10/25/2016

5 Surprising Tricks for Selling More By Doing Less

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Some of the most successful salespeople out there are also the laziest. It’s true! Salespeople can be “lazy” and still regularly outperform all of their competitors. How do they do it? By implementing a strategically lazy sales approach that helps them close more sales without doing more work.

1) Just sell.

Take a look at your to-do list. How many daily tasks and responsibilities do you have outside of selling your product or service? Delegate everything on your list -- besides actually selling­ -- to somebody else. When you dedicate 100% of your energy to selling, and get rid of the superfluous tasks and “busy work” that waste your time, you’ll end up having way more time than you need. That means you’ll be closing more sales than you ever have before, and you’ll still be left with free time to spend however you’d like.

2) Say goodbye to low-level buyers.

Quit selling in the trenches -- and start aiming for ideal prospects with the decision-making power and the budgets to invest in your product or service. To the best of your ability, only sell to executives. Your pipeline should be completely rid of buyers. If you can’t sell to presidents and CEOs, at least begin selling at a higher level than you are right now.

3) Let the tiny fish go.

If you want to do less but sell more, you absolutely must focus exclusively on big sales. Think about it this way: 100 sales at $10,000 or five sales at $200,000 will both result in a million dollars of revenue. However, they require vastly different amounts of work and effort.

Refer tiny sales opportunities to someone who will appreciate them, but don’t prioritize them yourself. From now on, only go after the big fish, and you’ll see your sales become more profitable with less time and effort required.

4) Trade cold calls for referrals.

There are two ways you can reach out to new prospects: You can make cold calls all day or you can ask everyone you know for referrals through introductions.

Cold calls are more difficult and less effective than introductions. They also take way more time. If you want to be both lazy and successful, you have to hold yourself accountable to asking for introductions all the time. Set a measurable goal for introductions each week -- and stick to it.

Now that you know these four surprising tricks for selling more, by doing less, what will you do differently in your own sales approach? No matter what industry you sell in, these tips can have a dramatic effect on your sales numbers in a short amount of time.

While you’re busy transforming your selling system, check out this powerful special report on the three closing questions you must ask to close the sale. What changes will you make to become lazier yet more successful? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

5. Use a VA for the less important jobs to clear your task list then focus on getting those deals closed.

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10/24/2016

Give us your to-do list and get on with your love-to-do list.

Get started by having your VA set up meetings, manage your busy schedule and streamline all the information that pours into your inbox. They can help remind you of that important call, deal with the phone company, track your packages and plan your weekend getaway.

10/24/2016

5 Reasons to Choose a Virtual Assistant For Your Business

The Virtual Assistant (VA) field is in its prime, and more people are becoming familiar with the term Virtual Assistant but are unsure how using one would benefit their business. Whether you are a large company, a start up or a one man shop, there are several advantages to working with a VA. It makes business sense to keep overhead costs down and one of the biggest benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant is cost savings as they are are paid only for the hours they work. Many outsource the tasks that they don’t have the skills for and don’t have the time to learn. When using a VA their skills and training are already in place so they can take on your workload and hit the ground running.

Here are five different ways a VA can save you money:
5 Reasons To Choose A Virtual Assistant

Only pay for the work you need, when you need it. Working with a VA allows flexibility since they work with your schedule. Whether you need a set number of hours per month or help with a seasonal project, a VA can assist you. Imagine cutting back on overtime! Outsourcing your overflow or specialised work directly to a VA is cost effective.

Minimize overhead costs. Hiring a full time employee comes with a list of overhead costs that include benefits, vacation/sick time, office space, and equipment. There are no overhead costs when working with a VA. Since they are a business owner and independent contractor they have their own home office and equipment needed to get the job done.

No down time or training expense for specialised skills. If you need a specific skill or expertise for a project, hire a Virtual Assistant that has the skills you need. Working with a VA allows you to get the job done without the extra expense of employee down time and training costs. Our team specialises in administrative support, online marketing and event planning and management, read more about our services.

No agency fees. Temp agencies usually charge an agency fee to work with them. While using a temp is one way to augment your staff, there is no guarantee you will get the same person each time you need help. Working with a VA allows you to partner with the same person for consistency and at the same time gain valuable knowledge of you and your business needs.

Delegate the small stuff. Do you spend nights and weekends trying to keep up with your administrative type tasks? Why not outsource those items to a VA? Hiring a Virtual Assistant to accomplish these tasks is a win-win. The tasks get completed and it gives you time to concentrate on the things most important to you, like growing your business or spending time with family and friends.

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10/12/2016

25 Tasks You Can Outsource to a Virtual Assistant Today

One of the biggest reasons why entrepreneurs nowadays struggle to grow their businesses is because they are trying to do to many tasks at once.

They work in all areas of the business because they are the business!

It’s just plain smart to leverage your time with talented workers on your team, than try and do it all yourself.

Getting Started with a Virtual Assistant is the Biggest Hurdle
To help business owners get started I decided to put together this post today to give you ALL a kickstart in the right direction – and that direction is a working with a Virtual Assistant. In case you’ve never worked with VA before, this is the one role that I suggest every entrepreneur fill’s in their business, before any other.

Your VA can help alleviate the workload, streamline your business and help keep you on track.

27 Tasks to Outsource to a General Virtual Assistant

1. Email Management/Filtering
2. Setting up Autoresponders
3. Booking appointments with clients
4. Following up with clients/customers
5. Receptionist duties
6. Calendar Management
7. File Management
8. Database building
9. Research on certain topics for blog posts and newsletters.
10. Personal errands
11. Hotel and Flight Booking
12. Transcription
13. Taking down minutes of meetings
14. Creating basic reports
15. Website Design
16. Social Media Marketing
17. Recruitment
18. Set-up Social Media Accounts
19. Manage and update Social Media Accounts
20. Manage your Blog
21. Publish posts on your Blog
22. Filter and reply to comments on your blog
23. Answering support tickets
24. Blog commenting
25. Participating in discussion forums or message boards

http://GetAssistant.com

Get More Done Today! Your Own Team of assistants Ready for Your To-Do-List. Use Any Device to Simply Send Tasks to Get Completed, Any Time of Day. Find Out More! 7 Let us handle your to-do list so you can focus on what’s important. Jump start your day by having your Virtual Assistant set up cloud pr...

09/14/2016

Amazon has added over 900 virtual assistant services to Alexa in the past six months.

Amazon’s popular virtual assistant called Alexa, has learned some new skills in the past six months. The tech giant said on Friday that Alexa skills has grown to 1,000. A 900% growth from their last announcement earlier this year.

Alexa has become well known for its ability to answer questions, turn on lights, order items like diapers, and even call you an Uber taxi through the e-commerce giant’s voice-controlled home devices Echo and Echo Dot and from the streaming device, Fire TV. Users simply utter a command instructing Alexa, like “Alexa, order an Uber to home.”

“Less than a year ago we released the Alexa Skills Kit, making it possible for any developer to create voice experiences for Alexa,” said Rob Pulciani, Amazon’s director for Alexa in a statement. “Today, we have a large vibrant community of developers who are learning about the service, bringing useful and innovative skills to every aspect of Alexa customers’ lives, and introducing their own users to the magic and simplicity of hands-free, voice-driven interactions. We’re excited about the 1,000 skills that are already available, and can’t wait to see what developers create with the next ten thousand.”

Other interesting skills Alexa has to offer includes ordering a pizza from Domino’s, controlling the temperature in the home, checking credit card balances, and monitoring calorie intakes and physical activity.

Alexa’s skills and technology have also helped Amazon turn the Echo into a new hardware hit. Unlike some of Amazon’s past tries at hardware, including the Fire phone, Echo has become so popular that Amazon sold out of the Internet-connected appliance, which retails for $180. Amazon started selling more Echo devices in April, but quickly sold out again. Now, new Echo devices won’t ship until June.

Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said this week that Alexa could end up becoming the fourth pillar of Amazon’s business, adding to Amazon Prime, its cloud business AWS, and its retail marketplace. Bezos also said that he has more than 1,000 people working on Alexa’s technology.

But Amazon could face steep competition soon. Google debuted its Alexa and Echo competitor, Google Home, in May. Apple is also reportedly working on a similar technology that will work within its streaming device, Apple TV.

http://www.getassistant.com/misc/amazons-virtual-assistant-alexa-has-more-than-1000-skills/

Amazon’s Virtual Assistant Alexa Has More Than 1,000 Skills by Team GetAssistant | 0 comments Amazon has added over 900 virtual assistant services to Alexa in the past six months. Amazon’s popular virtual assistant called Alexa, has learned some new skills in the past six months. The tech giant said...

06/18/2016

Work from a Coffee Shop and Keep Your Productivity High

Sometimes I need to get out of the office and find a nice coffee shop to get some work done. I know the pain of finding the perfect spot in a busy cafe (outlet at my disposal, right next to the router, comfiest chairs) and then realizing I have to go to the bathroom. This post is designed to help you optimize your task list, schedule, and even drink orders to get the most when working from a coffee shop.

Selecting your coffee shop

Your coffee shop story doesn’t start when you step into the cafe. It starts when you select it.

One thing I look at when I decide where to work is the cafe location. If it’s in the center of Main St., it’s more likely to be busy, which means more people and noise, fewer chairs and available outlets, and longer lines for the bathroom. It also means they can afford to charge more for their drinks and snacks, which can add up over time. I like my cafes a little out of the way (see: hidden) but still close enough to other establishments that I can step out for a walk if I need to stretch. In an ideal world, the coffee shop would be within walking distance of my apartment, too.

You should also look at the logistics of how the coffee shop works. Are there outlets? Are there enough that you could reliably get one before your laptop runs out of battery, even if it’s busy? Tip: I try to keep my laptop fully charged when I go to a cafe, just in case I have to work while waiting for an outlet to open up.

Do their bathrooms have stalls, or single person restrooms? I prefer single person facilities because it’s safer to put down your items in them, but if it’s a fairly busy day the lines may get long.

Ask about the WiFi situation. Do they charge to use the Internet, does each user have a WiFi time limit, or do you have to make a minimum purchase before connecting? Even if you have your own Internet connection like tethering mobile data, it’s good to have WiFi around to fall back on if your Internet is slow or doesn’t work.

The ideal coffee shop is: close to home, not too busy, has affordable coffee (or tea, or whatever you enjoy while working), has outlets, and offers fast (& free) WiFi.

What to order

Keep in mind you’re taking up electricity (if you’re plugged in), bandwidth, and a seat where another paying customer might sit. Be considerate of your coffee shop and baristas by ordering at least one item every hour you’re there, and leaving a nice tip.

I try to limit myself to one cup of coffee a day and at least one healthier menu item. So if I’m at a coffee shop for 4 hours, I might start out with a latte, then go to a salad, then a cup of tea and honey, and then a baked good.

Be sure to keep yourself hydrated in between your orders. If you can drink 3 cups of coffee in one sitting, be sure to sip on water as well, or order tea or juice in between them. Beware of all that liquid, though, because they quickly lead to bathroom breaks…

Going to the bathroom

Some remote workers like to work in pairs, which solves the bathroom issue completely. One person can use the restroom while the other watches the laptops and other valuable items. However, if you didn’t bring a friend to the coffee shop, going to the bathroom is at best an inconvenience and at worst a security risk.

If you’re alone, when you go to the bathroom you should bring your wallet, phone, and anything else that’s valuable and can easily be carried away. If the coffee shop is fairly empty, you might consider leaving your laptop while you run to the restroom. If it’s a busy day, some remote workers ask their neighbors to keep an eye on their items (I don’t really recommend this) so they don’t lose their spot.

I highly recommend getting a laptop lock so you can take your bag to the bathroom and have your spot and laptop waiting for you when you return.

I usually use the restroom when I arrive, and then when I’m done with work, pack everything up, use the restroom again, and head out.

Type of work

What kind of work can you do in a coffee shop? If you need a huge table, a whiteboard, or to make/take a lot of calls, coffee shops probably aren’t for you. Try a coworking space instead.

However, if you can do most of your work from a laptop without taking up your neighbors’ tables, a coffee shop is a nice haven to work from. I know programmers and writers who love coffee shops, and designers who enjoy working from home because of the volume of equipment they use (second monitor, tablet to draw on, etc.).

Working in a coffee shop is great for tasks that aren’t loud, don’t take up much space, and don’t require a lot of extra equipment. If you aren’t sure about whether your work is great for coffee shops, try it out with one or two quiet coffee shops around your area to test it out.

Avoiding distractions

The smell of coffee and baked goods is a great distraction, but coffee shops also come with other inconveniences. Someone might be taking a call next to you, a couple may be arguing a few tables over, and there might be a cute dog sitting close enough for you to play with.

Your first defense against distractions is selecting a good spot. You should have access to an outlet, but your spot should be somewhere more secluded. If you can choose a corner spot, all the better. You may even benefit from a spot looking out the window, so if your eyes wander there’s a sheet of glass preventing you from eavesdropping on the people you watch or going and saying hello to someone you think you recognize.

You can stay productive by tracking your time. When I start my timer I tend to hone in on my task since I know I’m recording billable time.

Use headphones and ambient noise to block out the sounds of a coffee shop, especially if there are people nearby talking more loudly than the background noise. I recommend Noisli to customize your ambient noise, or, ironically, Coffitivity to simulate the sounds of a coffee shop (ha-ha!).

What are your tips for working in a coffee shop?

I hope these practical tips help you in your remote work journey. If I’ve missed any, please add them in the comments below!