Rita Cartwright | RJ's Virtual Assistant Services Blog

Another Term for Virtual Assistant

June 5, 2009 at 2:21 pm | Posted in Bookkeeping, Entrepreneur, Online Business, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | 9 Comments
Tags: Entrepreneur, Online Business, Outsourcing, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants

ritajoblack1 So, you are still not quite sure exactly what a Virtual Assistant (VA) is or what they do. Think of a Virtual Assistant as your online administrative assistant. Your first thought may be, “Geez, they are expensive.” When you pencil out the benefits you reap from working with a Virtual Assistant, your thought will be, “Wow, they are not as expensive as I first thought.”

When you work with a Virtual Assistant, your business operations will run as smooth as silk. Your VA becomes familiar with how you operate your business and, as a result, are able to complete the tasks you hand over to them. Remember, virtual assistants are also business owners and have to deal with their own business operations. Therefore, are very versed in this area.

You won’t have to worry about time-consuming tasks, such as, your e-mail marketing campaigns, maintaining your website, following up with your clients, bookkeeping, creating a new blog, to name a few. Being able to take back your life is priceless, while at the same time, your business is booming.

Next time you hear the term Virtual Assistant and are not exactly sure what that means, just think of what an administrative assistant is and the tasks they complete; except, they are online.

An Online Business Tool for Virtual Assistants and their Clients

May 12, 2009 at 3:21 pm | Posted in Entrepreneur, Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Survey, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | 2 Comments
Tags: Entrepreneur, Online Business, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants

ritajoblack1 Those of you who have been following my blog posts know that when I discover useful information I like to pass it on to other small business owners. If you need to create an online survey, I recommend using SurveyMonkey.com. It is very user-friendly, and the basic service is free. Although the basic service is limited, there are a lot of features included with the free version.

The survey is very easy to design and includes option of templates, as well as over a dozen types of questions; for example, multiple choice, drop down menus, and rating scales. You also have a choice of how you want to collect the data. You can put a link on your blog or send the link via e-mail. I used Aweber for one of my clients to send out e-mails because we needed to set up an auto responder follow-up e-mail. You can also send your e-mails through Survey Monkey. If you use Survey Monkey for your e-mail distribution, you can see who responds to your survey, as well as send follow up reminders to those who don’t.

Another feature is you can analyze the results as they are collected in real-time, including filtering and cross tabulation. In addition, you can download the results in multiple formats.

Remember, if you don’t have time to create your survey, outsource it to your Virtual Assistant(s).

Communication Tool for Trade Shows or Conferences (Updated Post)

April 1, 2009 at 12:30 pm | Posted in Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, San Diego, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | Leave a comment
Tags: Entrepreneur, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post on free video services. It occurred to me that this would be a great communication tool for those of you who will be attending trade shows and/or conferences. My video is an example of the type of video you can share with the attendees. I chose music as my audio, but you create a recording explaining your services and/or products as the audio. It has to be in MP3 format. Once you create the video over at One True Media, you can publish it to YouTube. Once you have published it to YouTube, you can create a playlist at YouTube with the same video; so, it appears it is on a loop. This would be an excellent idea for a trade show booth. Your video is repeatedly playing describing and displaying your services.

As I mentioned in my previous post, although it is easy to create your videos, it is very time consuming. If you don’t have time to create the videos, outsource the task to your Virtual Assistant.

Information for Entrepreneurs & Small Business Owners, Including Virtual Assistants

March 28, 2009 at 3:45 pm | Posted in Entrepreneur, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | 6 Comments
Tags: Entrepreneur, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants

ritajopurple Whenever I come across valuable business information, I like to pass it along to other entrepreneurs and small business owners. One of my clients, Karen Pina, Owner of Gifts Ordained by Direction, shared this information with me regarding creating free videos so that I could design one for her. I was so impressed with the software, I thought I would share it with you. Click here to learn more about One True Media and design your own video. If you don’t have time, outsource the task to your Virtual Assistant.

If you would like a sneak peek at the video I created for Karen click here. If you have been following my blog posts, you may remember me hosting one of Karen’s virtual book tour stops at my blog, a few months ago. If you missed it, click here to read all about it. If you would like to check out the video I designed for my business, RJ’s Word Processing Services, click here.

Remember it is free! Also, it is very easy to learn; however, it is time-consuming. As I mentioned earlier, if you don’t have the time, hand the task over to your Virtual Assistant. Enjoy!

Virtual Assistants Can Help You With That Also

February 27, 2009 at 1:24 pm | Posted in Clients, Entrepreneur, Online Marketing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Social Networking, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | 1 Comment
Tags: Entrepreneur, Online Marketing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants

As an entrepreneur and small business owner, you are aware of the importance of using social media networking as a marketing strategy. You also realize how much time is involved in social media networking. I can spend an entire day on Twitter alone networking with other entrepreneurs. In order to save you some valuable time, virtual assistants can help you with your networking efforts. Keep in mind, virtual assistants use the same social media networking techniques and know their way around social media sites. A virtual assistant can set up your social media profiles at various sites, as well as filter through posts for any relevant information pertaining to your business. On Twitter, a Virtual Assistant can check your DMs (direct messages) and your replies (posts directed to you) to see if there is anything you need to respond to. A Virtual Assistant can also post pertinent information about your company and products and/or services. Larger companies are starting to use Twitter to communicate with their customers about their products and/or services, in addition to getting their feedback. Another feature of Twitter is you have people following you and people you choose to follow. A Virtual Assistant can research the ones following you to see if they are viable potential clients. In addition, s/he can search for possible clients for you to follow on Twitter.

As you know, social media networking allows you to create business relationships, as well as give your prospective clients the opportunity to learn more about you; therefore, it is necessary for you to spend some time networking on these social media sites. However, virtual assistants can help you save a huge amount of valuable time; time you can use to focus on your clients. Virtual assistants can help you with social media networking also.

A Marketing Tool for Your Online Marketing Strategy

February 26, 2009 at 11:30 am | Posted in Blog, E-book, Entrepreneur, Marketing, Online Business, Online Marketing, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Book Tour, Virtual E-book Tour | Leave a comment
Tags: E-book, Entrepreneur, Outsourcing, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Virtual Assistant

Recently I went on a virtual e-book tour to promote my newly released e-book, “Online Marketing Tools for Today’s Small Business.” For us entrepreneurs and small business owners, writing can be an inexpensive way of marketing our small businesses. This can involve writing articles, blog posts, and/or e-books. It is not necessary to be a well-known author in order to write or have virtual book tours. If you choose to write e-books, you can go on virtual e-book tours to promote your e-book. As a result, your services and/or products, and your business will be promoted at the same time. If you are an author, you, too, can do virtual book tours to promote your books.

Because of today’s technology and blogs, book tours can be done virtually, and it is an inexpensive, creative tactic to advertise your e-books or books. However, coordinating virtual book tours can be time-consuming. If you don’t have time to arrange the tour, outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant. The process consists of you (or your Virtual Assistant) and blog owners coordinating dates for when you will stop by their blogs. On the date of your tour stop, the blog owner can interview you or you can participate in a question and answer session with the blog owners’ readers. If you choose to do an interview, you supply the blog owners with the questions and answers for them to post on their blogs, which is the standard procedure in the current media world. Periodically, you check in to see if there are any questions or comments from the blog readers you need to address regarding your interview.

To encourage the blog readers to get involved, hold some type of random drawing for anyone who submits a comment or question. At http://random.org/, you enter the e-mail addresses of the participants in a list randomizer and a random e-mail address is selected. This would be your random winner. On my tour, I gave away free copies of my e-book to random winners who participated, as well as to the blog owners as a way of expressing my gratitude for them hosting my tour stops.

In my e-book, I discuss various online marketing tools and strategies, which include virtual book tours. If you would like to learn about additional marketing tools that you can use in your online marketing plan, click here to purchase my e-book, as well as find out more about it.

How Do Businesses Economically Survive Inclement Weather?

February 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm | Posted in Business, Clients, Entrepreneur, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | 8 Comments
Tags: Business, Entrepreneur, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants

ritajopurple Since I live in Southern California, I never think about being snowed in because of inclement weather. I can’t even fathom it since I have never lived in that type of climate. However, I am aware that in severe weather, businesses are sometime forced to close; whereas, in other cases, businesses can remain open, but some of the staff may not be able to get to work because of the road conditions.

However, one way businesses can economically survive during periods of inclement weather is to work with virtual assistants. The administrative tasks will be completed no matter what the weather is or if the business remains open or not. This can save companies money or, at least, reduce the amount of money that would have otherwise been lost. Another domino effect is the cost to the economy. Jill McLachlan of JMVA in the UK stated that in her country, according to Federation of Small Businesses, the cost to their economy may rise to $4B, because of a recent snow storm. Approximately 20 percent of the staff could not get to work.

The same holds true for parts of our country that deals with this same type of weather. Businesses may want to consider having virtual assistants as a backup to their regular staff for these situations in order to economically survive inclement weather. Small businesses who work with virtual assistants on an ongoing basis never have to worry about their projects and/or tasks being completed during harsh weather. Virtual assistants do not have to commute to their clients’ offices to provide the administrative support they need in order to keep the operations of their businesses going.

When Working With a Virtual Assistant

January 27, 2009 at 3:15 pm | Posted in Clients, Entrepreneur, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | 4 Comments
Tags: Entrepreneur, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants

ritajoblack1 With all of the recent layoffs, more and more people for various reasons are opting to start their own businesses rather than seeking employment. These new small business owners will require some type of administrative assistance and are turning to virtual assistants for their administrative assistant needs. Due to the increase popularity of virtual assistants, I feel it is necessary to reiterate the working relationship between a client and a Virtual Assistant.

When working with a Virtual Assistant, it is important to remember a Virtual Assistant works “with” you not “for” you. Clients don’t hire virtual assistants (VAs), they retained their services. Clients don’t interview VAs, they have consultation sessions. Virtual assistants are not employees; they are small business owners as Minda Zetlin points out in her blog post titled, “Why You Need to Hire a Virtual Assistant.” Although, I don’t agree with some of the terms that Minda used, she discusses valid reasons why small business owners need to hire a Virtual Assistant. Click here to read Minda’s blog post.

Although the Virtual Assistant industry has existed for nearly 10 years, due to downsizing and layoffs, VAs are suddenly in high demand. However, clients and virtual assistants need to recondition their concept of what a Virtual Assistant really is and what they do or don’t do.

Virtual Assistant/Client Working Relationship

January 24, 2009 at 7:57 pm | Posted in Client, Clients, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Services, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | 3 Comments
Tags: Entrepreneur, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants

ritajoblack1 When working with a Virtual Assistant (VA), there are some simple communication processes that can be put into place, which will help to make a Virtual Assistant/client working relationship a success.

Communication is the key; just like in any type of relationship. If you are retaining a VA services on an ongoing monthly basis, it is a good idea to give your VA some type of schedule listing the projects and tasks you need completing, along with anticipated completion dates, for the entire month. This way, if your VA has other clients, he or she can schedule your tasks accordingly ensuring that you will have your completed tasks in a timely manner.

Another suggested method of communication is a check-in report that you and your Virtual Assistant complete weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. The report will have the same set of questions that both of you will answer; for example, how has it been working with me for the past several weeks, what have you enjoyed most, what have you enjoyed least, is there anything you’d like to discuss, etc.? You may think this is too time-consuming, but it is highly recommended in order to have a successful working relationship.

One other method of communication, of course, is e-mail. It is less intrusive than the telephone and takes less time, which allows your Virtual Assistant to stay on track and focused. Needless to say, at times, a phone call will be warranted.

A client’s and my working relationship have been quite successful due to implementing the above-mentioned methods of communication. They leave no room for assumptions. The key is communication.

When Choosing Your Niche

December 30, 2008 at 5:46 pm | Posted in Advertising, Clients, Entrepreneur, Marketing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Target Audience | Leave a comment
Tags: Advertising, Entrepreneur, Marketing, Rita Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur

ritajoblack1 As an entrepreneur and/or small business owner, one of the decisions you make when starting your business is which portion of the market is going to be your niche. In order to choose your niche ask yourself, “where in the market will my products or services fit?” Has a new market been created, because of changes in technology or society, which has a potential demand that is not being met? Once you have answered these questions, you have chosen your niche.

In your niche, you will find people with shared characteristics (market segment). The factors (characteristics) that determine market segments are geographic, demographic, behavioral, and psychographic (attitudinal). Your advertising message and marketing strategy will be based on these factors.

It’s ironic how people are more alike than different. The aforementioned factors will affect how a group of people will behave. We tend to be creatures of habit, which causes us to be “sitting ducks” for advertisers and marketers. We leave clues, based on our needs, wants, and mental files, that tell where we live, how we shop, what we buy, and how we spend our leisure time. The same holds true for the market segment you choose to target with your products and/or services. They will have similar needs or wants and behave in similar ways.

In the market place, there is an area or subset where your products and/or services will fit (niche). In the market place, there is a group of clients who can use your products/or services (market segment). As an entrepreneur and/or small business owner with limited advertising and marketing budget, it is important to choose a niche, as well as a segment, in the market.