Join the Alliance for Virtual Businesses - Australian Chapter at our next monthly Webinar scheduled this Friday 21 October, 1-2pm.

Webinars take place on the third Friday of each month at 1.00pm Australian Eastern standard time.

Would you like to communicate more effectively with others? Do you need to present yourself more confidently when speaking to new groups? In this webinar Mark Kyte, presentation skills coach, will share with you the secrets used by the “pros”; and the tools that you can use to speak to others in a confident, assured, and engaging manner.

In this session you will receive practical advice and techniques that will help you:

1.    Know what the audience is thinking before you start speaking 2.    Look confident and assured 3.    Learn the tricks great communicators use to overcome nerves 4.    Capture your audience from the very first word 5.    Become an engaging speaker 6.    Be remembered (for the right reasons)!

You can read more and register here – www.a4vb.com.au/webinars

Don’t forget to come and join our Facebook Page!

When you hear the term "Summer Camp", nostalgic thoughts of campfires, canoe trips and camp fire sing-alongs might come to mind!

Well, our friends at VAClassroom with re-invented the concept with their new Summer Skill Camp designed to equip you with high-demand skills that businesses are seeking today. Sorry, no campfires, just top-notch, virtual skill-based webinars certain to give your business a much needed boost heading into the last half of 2011.

This year's Summer Skill Camp features eight high-calibre 90-minute webinars happening at specific times throughout the month of July.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the timely topics that will be covered this year:

- Success Strategies for Creating a Social Media Monitoring System
- Creating and Promoting a Compelling Facebook Contest.
- Tips and Tactics for Building an Effective Social Media Measurement System
- Discover the Fine Art of Setting Rates and Building Packages for Your Services
- Creating an Effective Mobile Marketing Campaign for Local Businesses
- Set up an Ecommerce Platform with 1ShoppingCart
- Master New Tactics for Increasing Your Search Engine Listings
- Maximize Productivity and Enhance Communications using Google Tools.

Each webinar will include practical checklists, templates and resources to ensure that you can effectively apply what you learn to your business.

Our friends at VAClassroom have established a good reputation for creating training programs that produce a very positive return on investment for their students.

Currently, they are offering an early-bird registration and a $100 discount, making this a very affordable training program.

To join this year's Summer Skill Camp and get all the details, visit this page HERE.

Enjoy!

I attended my first OIVAC (Online International Virtual Assistants Convention) last week. Unfortunately, due to time differences as it was co-ordinated from the States, I only managed to attend a few sessions and I will listen to the recordings of those I missed. One session I did attend was delivered by Queenslander VA Lyn Prowse-Bishop titled ‘Offshore freelancers: threat or opportunity’ and Lyn shared this video in her session. It’s worthy of sharing because the off-shore VA business you see in this video is a far-cry from the sort of Virtual Assistant business you would have supporting you from Australia. Other than the obvious lure of free beer to this workplace, what other differences jump out at you?

You may have read it in our April Newsletter or seen it about on various social media arenas that my business has been nominated in the 2011 Telstra Business Awards. This is super exciting for this little virtual business and yes, I have made sure I shared this exciting news...with everyone!

Another component of the Awards is the people's choice Awards and I'd be thrilled if you could add your vote by visiting the link below and hit the "RECOMMEND" button. You will need to be logged into Facebook in order to complete this function.

VOTE HERE: http://tinyurl.com/3tjckc3

Thanks in advance...and wish me luck!

 

 

 

 

This is the third ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ post now made. They have all been at 6 monthly intervals after monitoring and calculating where the leads have originated from.

Social media has continued to take an even larger portion of what is represented below in this graph with the majority of leads still coming from Twitter. The last ‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 2’ post revealed, Twitter had contributed 77 of the inquiries which has now increased to 105 at the time of writing this post.

It was on the 21 February the 100^th inquiry was made via a Twitter connection and they also became our newest client. You can see the leads and conversion statistics HERE with our success with relationship marketing.

Past ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ Posts:

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 2’ 

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 1’

 

During November and December 2010, Rosie Shilo the owner of the virtual assistants network I am a member of, known as ‘Virtually Yours’, ran some fun Awards to celebrate the end of the year. I was fortunate to be nominated and won the highly prestigious ‘Golden Egg Award’ for the growth my business, Interim Business Solutions has had! You can see the Award below...

 

The office was buzzing in both the 3D and virtual world last week with the launch of our beautiful new website. Sometime ago, probably about the time I created the Social Media Packages and products, the navigation of my past site began to get rather clunky and I knew it was time for an overhaul. Having been active for more than a couple of years in social media and various online communities, I wanted a website for my business which was totally Web 2.0 and embraced social media and I knew who could assist with this.

I engaged the services of Jonathan Brillantes and his team at www.webbies.com.au to get the ball rolling to design and create a WordPress website that would fully embrace what the web has to offer. The new site has far better navigation and clearly demonstrates what Interim Business Solutions has to offer in the way of business support, virtual assistance and various Packages. It also portrays a real sense of community. We’ve only received positive feedback from many regarding the new website. You can take a look by visiting www.interimbusiness.com.au and we’d love to hear what you think about our new website by leaving a comment.    

 

Six months ago I posted an entry titled ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ to outline the growing power of social media for business. Well, this was my experience! I had always monitored my KPIs and it was becoming more obvious social media was taking over the more traditional means of advertising and exposing ones business.

Six months on and this can be supported even further. Yellow Pages inquiries have decreased further, I don’t have time for any direct marketing due to the increased inquiries from social media, and website inquiries are up.

Some more specific statistics.

The 45.9% social media inquiries between Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn equates to a total of 92 inquiries, with 77 of them coming from Twitter alone. Of these Twitter inquiries 38% have converted to clients and plenty are still warm leads!

Below I have outlined my philosophy of the 3 big social media platforms, if used correctly, which refers to users ENGAGING, CONVERSING & SHARING!

Twitter = network building

Facebook = nurturing the connections

LinkedIn = building credibility

Social media has been very good to this virtual office, so much so, that I’m almost too busy for social media! Oh, the irony!

Sometime ago I created this document ’60 Ways This VA Can Assist You’. It came about from the numerous inquires I would get with business owners crying for help, knowing they needed administrative support but couldn’t get their head around how to engage a Virtual Assistant. The ‘virtual’ thing stumped them!

To make this a little easier for them, the list outlines how I can support them and their business in a number of ways. Technology is also available to allow this, such as email, Skype, Dropbox, Google Docs and even the social media platforms are useful for quick communication channels.

You can check out ‘60 Ways This VA Can Assist You’ below.

60 Ways a VA Can Support You

A topic I covered in our recent May 2010 Newsletter received some interest and a number of subscribers contacted me to learn more. One of the first things we investigate when we get a new client, is how their business website performs in a Google search. One very simple task any business owner can do, is to add their business to the 'Google Business Center' (now known as Google Places) together with other free business directories that are available. If you are a business owner who's short on time, we have a special package designed to assist you. We can submit your business to 15-20 free business directories including the Google Places. Contact us to find out more!

Our Google Places Listing