The following post will show you how cost effective it can be to hire a virtual assistant versus hiring a full time in-house employee.

What is a Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant or VA is an independent contractor who works remotely at home providing administrative, specialized, and technical support. Virtual assistants are generally computer savvy and good in time management.

Who Uses VA Support?

• CEO/President – C-level executives
• Business owners
• Coaches – business, executive, sales, and life
• Real Estate Agents
• Consultants – business, management
• Authors
• Professionals
• Lawyers
• Sales Representatives
• Motivational or Keynote Speakers
• CPA/Accountants/Bookkeeper

Advantages of Hiring a VA versus an Office Employee

Here’s the breakdown of costs:

Office employee working 2080 hours a year  @ $15 per hour
Virtual assistant working 520 hours a year (43-44 hrs/month) @ $8.20 per hour*

*Virtual Assistant Talent rate for experienced VA >> rates start at $7.20 – $13/hour (technical VA)

Hiring a VA compared to a full time office employee: Total Annual Savings of $46,280
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If you need help with hiring experienced virtual assistants, contact us at our main number 1-866-596-9041 (510-400-8006 local). We have client representatives on standby from 8am to 9pm EST to assist you with any questions.

References:

www.slideshare.net
socialsavvygeek.com

In a poll conducted by Smart Insights, they asked readers to give their views on which digital marketing technique gives them the most profits to their businesses in 2016.

This graph shows the results of the survey
(as of 8 February 2016).

We’ve gathered six broad online marketing trends you be watching out for to continue into the rest of 2016.

6 Digital Marketing Trends

1: Mobile Usage Is A Must

For those who are not aware, a “responsive” website is one that adjusts to fit the width of the browser, making the viewing experience optimal for any device it is loaded on.

It’s reported that the number of mobile users worldwide is predicted to exceed 2 billion in 2016.

So, undoubtedly, the use of mobile marketing and responsive websites will continue to increase for the rest of this year and the next year to come.

What this means to your business:

It’s definitely a time to build responsive websites and landing pages, as well as invest into mobile advertising. If mobile-specific content is a thing to mobile users in mind, then more and more websites should take action on becoming responsive.

In all your marketing efforts, you should always ask, “Will this look good on mobile?
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2: Content Marketing Continues to Dominate

Content marketing is a growing force in the online world. Research shows that 80% of decision makers in businesses will most likely get information about a company from articles rather than from advertising.

When Buzzfeed became one of the biggest Internet sites of 2013, it was known that interactive content is one of the most effective marketing strategies. Buzzfeed had a series of quizzes such as a personality quiz. They were able to turn it into a viral activity that whenever someone would take a quiz, it would stimulate them to share their results and encourage their friends to take it as well.

As Amanda Maksymiw of Content Marketing Institute puts it: “Traditional advertising shouts at prospect customers whereas content marketing talks with them.”

What this means to your business:

The demand for more content is hotter than ever. Your move is to create landing pages with keywords and phrases a reader might search for so they know they’re in the right place. Once they’re onboard, continue with a strong marketing message offering useful content like eBooks, demos, free trials, and How-To articles or videos.

3: Social Media and Real-time Engagement

Businesses are going more and more social. In 2015, marketers spent an estimated $8.3 billion on social media advertising alone. The marketing trend now is personalization across all social media channels.

People can deliver targeted messages on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, as well as Pinterest. Virtual Reality (VR) technology goes mainstream and everyone starts to connect and engage in real time.

Top 4 social media trends to utilize:

• Live Video – two of the biggest sites are Periscope and Facebook Live
• Real-time Engagement – customers and prospects expect a fast response time
• Go Mobile – people use social media on their phones 82% of the time. Make sure your website, Facebook ads, and posts are interesting on mobile.
• Data Driven Decisions – nowadays people don’t have to guess on what’s working. Let the data guide you. Analytics tools are there to help you out.

What this means to your business:

Maximize the power of real-time engagement on your social networks. Make them contextual and personalized, and always respond to customer inquiries.

Websites can also offer a virtual brand experience from creating virtual stores to guiding visitors through virtual representations of real estate offerings, etc. This will help convert landing page leads and turn them into customers or clients.

4: Live Video Streaming

It is proven that videos are able to engage users at a much higher rate.

Live video is becoming a much bigger content platform. It’s like having your own reality show.
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What this means to your business:

With over 10 million users and 2 million being active, Periscope is just one of the platforms that you can try out. Facebook Live is another. In this way, you can gain more followers and  build trust and loyalty by showing your authentic side.

5: SEO Isn’t Dead

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will continue its shift to content marketing. What was once seen as a shady practice is now evolving into what many marketers are calling “Content Marketing”.

The search engines algorithms become more advanced, and they are constantly filtering what content you have published and what is truly useful for the users.

6: Necessity of Design and Speed

How many times do you have to leave a website and look for another just because it took ‘too long’ to load on your screen?

Yes, design and speed matters. A poorly designed website with heavy graphics and videos can affect the overall user experience. The websites that get more visitors are not just those that provide the best content but also the most effective and efficient way possible.

The way your pages are designed and how quickly they load determine whether the visitor becomes a lead.
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One’s goal should be to provide useful content that is visually attractive and quick to load on the end user’s screen (whether viewed using mobile or desktop).

Online marketing evolves at a rate everyone could hardly keep up. But it happens and will continue to happen so the best time to act is NOW. Let’s do the best we can in the remaining months of 2016 and watch out for the digital marketing trends in the coming year.

Resources:
http://www.inc.com/dan-scalco/5-digital-marketing-trends-to-watch-for-in-2016.html
https://instapage.com/blog/3-online-marketing-trends-to-follow-in-2016
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-monster-social-media-trends-you-must-pay-attention-2016-gremaux
http://www.smartinsights.com/managing-digital-marketing/marketing-innovation/marketing-trends-2016/

However, as a business owner, you have a huge role in your SEO efforts especially when it comes to understanding your customers’ “behavior” and how they search for your product online. The goal is to not show the visitors the same old thing, but to present your business in a new, useful, and engaging way.

What is SEO?

In the simplest definition, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technical, analytical and creative process to fine-tune a website to increase its visibility in search engines like Google.

The whole process of SEO is to:

• Learn what relevant keywords to include
• Create useful content
• Get the attention of search engines

Its main function is to bring in more visitors to a website that will convert into sales.

Why Use SEO Marketing?

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The way you drive traffic to your website can make or break your online business. While others opt for paid advertising, a Google top organic search result is still considered the most valuable traffic to a landing page.

• SEO Helps in Crafting Your Ideal Business Description – right description and meta tags attract attention and entices consumers to stay longer on your website.

• SEO Builds Your Credibility – the primary purpose of your online presence is to provide something of value to people. SEO marketing is one of the most powerful tools for getting attention and establishing rapport.

• SEO Works Well with Other Marketing Strategies – pairing up SEO with your social networking sites can give way to extended customer reach.

• SEO Puts You Alongside Top Competition – higher placement in search results gives your product/service the chance to make a positive impression on comparison with other brands.

Best Online SEO Marketing

The art of SEO marketing lies in understanding how people search for your products and evaluating what type of results Google wants to display to its users.

You can generate highly targeted leads by optimizing your website and developing your content to be as relevant as possible for a prospect looking for your company, product or service.

Brian Dean, a top SEO specialist and a team at Backlinko analyzed 1 million Google results to see which factors are important for SEO. Below is a guide to effective white hat SEO.

Backlinks still bring far-reaching results

Backlinks are still the number one most essential ranking factor that Google uses. The study found that you need backlinks from a lot of different domains. If you get 100 backlinks from 100 different domains, you’re in good position.

Link Building Tools you can utilize:

• LinkMiner Plugin (Free)
• Moz SEO Toolbar & Majestic Backlink Analyzer Extensions (*Freemium)
• Buzzstream (Paid)

*Freemium – combination of the words ‘free’ and ‘premium’. It’s a business model in which a core product is given away for free to a large group of users and premium products is sold to a smaller fraction of this user base.

High bounce rate equals to lower rankings

The study found that sites with more bounces tended to rank lower in Google than sites with a low bounce rate.

If visitors bounce off your site more often, it sends a message to Google that people don’t like reading your content. So this makes Google downrank sites with lots of bounces.

Dean states in the report that in general, great content aids in lowering bounce rates. So, chances are, people are going to stick around longer if they find informative and interesting articles.

Long-form content ranks better in Google

According to Dean’s data, the average first page results in Google contain 1,890 words per article.  Another study by BuzzSumo found that longer content resulted in more shares on social media.

Content effectiveness tools
The tools below will help you find new ideas and optimize your current content.

• Outdated Content Finder (Free)
• Yoast WordPress Plugin (Freemium)
• BuzzSumo (Paid)

In-depth, focused content outperforms content about a variety of topics: They also discovered that an article rated as “topically relevant” ranked above an article with a low content score.

Google prefers fast-loading websites

Site speed makes a difference. Google made it clear that they use site speed as part of their algorithm.

Technical SEO tools you can utilize:
These tools can help you dig around on the ‘back-end’ of your site, getting to know how it functions and any issues with it.

• WooRank Plugin (Free)
• Screaming Frog (Freemium)
• DeepCrawl (Paid)

To sum it all up, SEO success is a long process and doesn’t just happen overnight. You should always ask, “Does my website provide a good user experience?”

If you expect to rank in Google, you’d better offer visitor satisfaction, relevance, quality content, and overall excellent user experience not based on manipulation or old school tactics.

P.S. If you need an SEO advice to help structure your online presence to reach its potential, contact us at our main number 1-866-596-9041 (510-400-8006 local). We have client representatives on standby from 8am to 9pm EST to assist you with any questions.

Resources:
www.smartinsights.com
www.hobo-web.co.uk
www.entrepreneur.com
www.business2community.com

On the other hand, we should understand that…

An increase in productivity means more prospects.
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Related: How to effectively manage your Client-Virtual Assistant time

And more prospects lead in more money. This is why smart business owners hire virtual assistants. VAs don’t just boost your productivity, but they also help your business grow in a lot of ways.

1. Re-direct your savings to other parts of the business

One of the top reasons people hire online is to reduce their business overhead cost. A VA costs less compared to a regular or full-time employee, because the business owner does not pay benefits. Not to mention office space and equipment!

 In 2015, reports show that hiring virtual executive assistants can save businesses as much as 40% in expenses. How? Well, you don’t need to allocate funds for the essentials. A VA covers his or her own expenses for Internet bandwidth, power, and rent.

These savings can then be re-channeled to other aspects of your business, such as an online marketing campaign, or an upgrade to your operating systems.

2. Bring in reliable manpower

 As your business volume begins to increase, but slows down turnaround time for outputs and deliverables, it may be time to start scaling up.

Employees are the foundation of a business. When the time comes you need to add more manpower, go for home-based staff. VAs will not only save you money but keep your business flexible as well.

• Assign the VAs to shifts that require greater attention
• You spend less time training because they already have the experience and competency level to get the job done
• Choose to go from one VA to another once a particular task is done and you need another skill set

3. No training required

Except for tasks that require specific type of training, a home-based staff is generally experienced and savvy when it comes to common tasks. They know what tools to use and how to setup a system that is workable for both of you.

Training up new employees can mean time and money down the drain. VA agencies have selected remote workers for their experience and skills. You just need to discuss the end result that you want and the VA will start right away.

Look for companies that have a VA replacement guarantee. They will provide you fully managed staff and will replace your current VA if he or she does not perform to your expectations.

4. Organize your business and delegate minor tasks

A common weakness of most entrepreneurs is their lack of organizational skill.
It’s just that…

There’s so much work to do that the need to organize is often overlooked.
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Yet, one must remember that organizing things leads to greater productivity.

Organizational skills and traits are conveniently one of the VA’s strengths. If you find yourself too stressed out and don’t even have time to organize your business, then maybe it’s time for some help.

A online employee can setup a virtual workplace where everything about project management is properly shared and tracked from start to finish. Thus, it makes it easier to delegate work, collaborate, and track performance with your virtual team.

The following are some of the minor tasks you can delegate to your remote employee:

• Inbound/outbound phone calls
• Replying/filtering email
• Customer support
• Calendar management
• Appointment setting
• CRM updates
• Ad posting
• Payroll preparation
• Bookkeeping

5. Benefit from technical or specialized skills

We all have our weaknesses. You are good at running the whole shebang but stuff like website update or social media management seems too confusing for you.

Fortunately, virtual employees keep up to date with the trends in the online marketing world. Plus, what might take you all day to work out could probably be just a two-hour task for a VA.

Personal or administrative assistant services are most requested but you can also find VAs with more specialized and technical skills. They accommodate demand across a wide scope of services such as:

• Digital marketing
• Website design and development
• Domain registration and website hosting
• SEO
• Real Estate
• Content management
• Blogging
• Audio/video transcription
• Accounting/bookkeeping
• Research

There are tons of possibilities for building a team of virtual assistants to cover different areas of your business. If properly utilized, a VA can become one of the greatest assets in growing your business, guaranteed to lower your business costs without compromising quality and productivity.

Reference:
www.entrepreneur.com
www.adpulp.com

However, as a startup you often don’t have the space or resources available to hire that extra employee you badly need. That’s why the number of small business owners using a virtual assistant (VA) to do daily tasks has increased in recent years.

VA’s or remote workers are also an affordable investment in the growth of your business—especially if you outsource to countries like the Philippines where rates are lower compared to hiring locally. See  what these entrepreneurs and startups have to say:

Why Should My Startup Use a Virtual Assistant?

Outsourcing to a virtual assistant will dramatically reduce the time you spend on administrative tasks, and increase the time you can commit to growing your business.

The value proposition of a VA deals with how you monetize your time. If you monetize it at $50/hour and you can pay a VA $6/hour to handle administrative tasks, this frees up time for you to create real value in your business by developing new features or expanding marketing efforts.

My VA’s have saved me literally hundreds of hours over the past few years.

–  Jason Cohen, asmartbear.com

Virtual Assistant is a Startup’s Secret Weapon

Virtual assistants aren’t just for executives anymore. For many startups and small business owners, VA’s offer an obvious benefit. They are a big time saver during a phase in a company’s growth where it may not be viable to have a full-time employee.

Don’t limit your scope to just personal assistant tasks — startups and small businesses use VA’s for things like bookkeeping, social media, design, web development, email management, marketing administration and so much more.

– Renée Warren, entrepreneur.com

I Was Bogged in Repetition

I knew I needed a VA when I found myself doing a lot of repetitive tasks on a daily basis. I’ve worked with a number of VA’s over the years and I found the relationship most beneficial when I could outsource time consuming, yet simple, repetitive tasks. You want to avoid spending too much time explaining or reviewing projects so that you can maximize the time savings of having a VA in the first place.

– Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net

Avoid what you dislike

There are certain things that, no matter how hard we try to accept, somehow we end up avoiding them, and then avoiding them some more, and then it becomes a huge problem that we wish we just handled in the first place. Why not let your VA handle it? She is there to assist you so you could do your job better, and that should be a good-enough reason to want to hire one.

…And there’s someone to rely on

It’s a very uncertain period of your life and nothing is constant. Things are changing, people are coming and going, new ideas are being brought to the table while others are discarded… Hiring a dependable assistant can mean the world to you right now. It could possibly be the only person you know you can rely on to help you handle everything. And right now, that’s a big thing.

– techbloke.com

Get your productivity back by letting go. Hiring virtual assistants can help you focus on the bigger picture. Grow your business by doing the core tasks and let others take care of those you shouldn’t be doing.

If you need help or not sure how to start, contact us at our main number 1-866-596-9041 (510-400-8006 local). We have client representatives on standby from 8am to 9pm EST to assist you with any questions.

This economic impact of minimum wage hikes to phase in over the next six years (2022) has also met opposition from business groups who claim that it would reduce employment opportunities for low-skilled Americans.

However, some economists argue that businesses can still adjust for higher costs through improved productivity at work, reduced turnover, and price increases.

One of the ways to cut on labor cost is to utilize and hire an online remote worker or virtual assistant (VA) for businesses and professionals.

Using a #VA is a cost-effective solution—saves you 70% on labor cost.
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Think about it. VAs don’t need your office space, power, or equipment because they are working from their homes. Plus, you get rid of the need for payroll taxes, overtime and vacation pay, health insurance, and other employee benefits.

Outsourcing your business processes not only reduces your own costs but also your workload, increase your sales, and gain more customers. Virtual assistants can handle back-office tasks for as low as eight bucks per hour depending on skills and experience.

Tasks VAs Can Help You With:

• customer service
• appointment setting, telemarketing, sales
  administrative or personal assistant
• real estate agent / investors assistants
• accounting, bookkeeping, QuickBooks
• online marketing (social media, SEO, ads posting – Craigslist, etc.)
• web design, programming, web maintenance, system administration
• transcriptionists
• create marketing materials – videos, flyers, newsletters, promos, etc.

Now that the cost of labor is so high, it would likely be very difficult to run a profitable business for the years to come. The $15-per-hour minimum wage sure provides raise to some workers, but also puts businesses at a disadvantage.

As Michael Saltsman, research director at the Employment Policies Institute, stated:  “When you talk about these really massive jumps it’s no longer an impact at the margin, it’s the sort of thing that could be the difference between a business staying open and closing.”

As the minimum wage escalates year after year, it will be harder for employers to afford to pay workers. In order to survive,

Businesses need to be smart in hiring workers w/out sacrificing quality output.
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References:
www.ibtimes.co.uk
www.ibtimes.co.uk
abcnews.go.com

Now, you can focus on your core, income-generating functions and leave all of the repetitive work to your VA.

But wait. You need some planning in advance in order to totally leverage your virtual assistant’s time and talents. Simplifying tasks through tools, templates and systems are some of the ways to smoothly transition to working with a virtual admin assistant and enable them to succeed.

Here are some pointers on how professionals like you can work best with your chosen outsourced staff.

#1. Establish your kind of workflow

Since you will be meeting with your assistant virtually, the first thing to consider is your online availability. Discuss with your virtual assistant as to when you want to be online and available so you can reach them when you need them the most.

• Do you expect him or her to be available at certain hours of the day, everyday?
• Or can they mostly work on longer tasks and just give weekly updates?

Give a potential task list. Go through the list again after you’ve hired them.

Ask them to send you a daily (or weekly or monthly, depending on the number of hours you’ve booked) task report and the time they spent doing each task.

#2. Make communication a priority

Give your contact information and tell your virtual personal assistant how you prefer to be reached. It can be by phone or IM, email, Skype, or whatever communication you prefer.

Once you have a good workflow going with your online employee, and you’re confident they understand your needs, you can have less detailed instructions and throw in faster communication methods into your workflow.

“When Dorie and I started working together, for the first week or two, we would check in by phone each day to go over assignments. Feeling comfortable on the phone with Dorie meant I could more readily suggest time-saving systems or flag potential issues. – Sue Williams

For longer project-like tasks, written instructions are better in terms of reference.

#3. Try different tasks in the beginning

Gauge your assistant’s strengths and weaknesses by trying different tasks. You may find that he or she can accomplish more than you expected. If that’s the case, you may assign higher level tasks that require some thinking, and choose to hire a lower cost one to do data entry or admin work.

Virtual personal assistants can basically do any repetitive task but there are also tasks that they specialize in like blogging, SEO, or web design. Make sure you clarify the different skill sets that you require before choosing which VA to hire.

#4. Share your expectations

Knowing your virtual office assistant’s hours each week can help keep you both focused, and it also establishes expectations in terms of contact times.

“Dorie always knew when I’d be available to have a quick phone conversation or to complete tasks that arrived out of the blue. Shared expectations are also helpful in terms of overall goals and priorities. A skilled assistant will be smart about prioritizing, but it helps if you communicate your vision explicitly.”

If you have an overall goal, sharing this to your VA can help her prioritize accordingly. – Sue Williams
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#5. Create shared records

At the start of your working relationship, it pays to create shared records. Keeping all your passwords and log in details in a shared Google Drive spreadsheet or Dropbox folder can save time and stress.

Your virtual executive assistant can also store new passwords in the same document when they open new accounts. A shared, ongoing project list is a good idea, providing a spot where updates and feedback can be gathered for reference.

As the project advances, you can indicate what tasks need to be done, and the deadline for each, and he or she can note the ones that have been completed or are in process.

#6. Give very detailed instructions or create a system

Make it a point to give instructions that contain step-by-step explanations. One of our clients here at Virtual Assistant Talent developed an “assistant’s manual” prior to his virtual employee starting the job.

He wrote down a step-by-step guide for the most common tasks he needed done and he put all the relevant information, such as social media logins and website passwords.

You can also instruct your remote worker to write up the procedure and include it in the manual, so that it could become an ongoing reference tool for both of you. Show an example of the finished task if possible. Or give them an example to follow.

Making templates is good too. The goal is to enable an easy transition and avoid having to reinvent the wheel when there’s been a long gap in between performing a particular task.

#7. Ask the VA to verify that he or she understands the task

Asking for a confirmation that your online worker understands your instructions up-front lessens the chances of wasting the time you’ve paid for doing the wrong thing.

Make sure he or she acknowledges and understands the task before they start working on it.

You can ask one of these:

• Explain the task back to you
• How long the task will take in estimate
• If there’s anything unclear at all or if he/she has any questions

#8. Roll in about 10-20% on the task

If you expect a task to take 10-20 hours, ask them to come back after 1-2 hours with their progress. This will allow you to:

• Check their work to make sure they are on the same page with you
• Update instructions if needed, or
• Cancel the task if it turns out to be a bad idea

#9. Allocate more time for the task

If you can do the task in an hour, expect your remote employee to take 2-3 hours.

At the start, when you are just getting used to each other, it might take 3-4 hours. But once you’ve gotten into a good working relationship, it may only take the 1-2 hours depending on the task.

But regardless, they will never be as fast as you. Don’t expect miracles. Even if you hired locally, the smartest college student you pay minimum wage won’t be able to complete your tasks to your specs at your speed.

The benefits of outsourcing come once you’ve found the right remote worker to do the tasks you assign. Keep the long-term benefits in mind, and don’t ever give up after the first few tasks.

If you stick it out, you’ll see significant cost savings over the next 10,000+ hours. Take our tips for working effectively with your VA and don’t forget to share!

And for those who are having second thoughts about outsourcing, take it from jennyblake.me:
“For those of you considering hiring a virtual assistant, I cannot recommend it highly enough — this is easily one of the best things I did for my life and business.” – Jenny Blake

References:
www.americanexpress.com
www.forbes.com
www.entrepreneur.com
jennyblake.me

A virtual assistant (VA) can help you seek the right speaking engagement opportunities by researching call for speakers and submitting for call for speakers.
If you are just starting out, read our article about benefits to using speaking engagements and where to find them online and offline.

The following are the sought after virtual assistance services offered online that the VA can utilize to help you make the most of this brand-building opportunity.

1. Search for speaking engagements

• First, the virtual assistant will look for speaking gigs using keywords that are often used
• Second, the VA will then check if the searched event is still OPEN
• Then, the VA will take note of the web link, name of the event, date of the event, location, other IMPORTANT details of the event, and DEADLINE of submission
  (Important details may include guidelines and protocols for speaking submissions, contact information, and a bit of background information about the event)
• Next, the VA will find information on HOW TO APPLY (in some cases, he or she would be asked to sign up to submit a proposal)
• Finally, the VA will track all the details in one master tracker or dashboard so you can choose an event/s in your convenient time

If you need to refine your search, you can ask your virtual personal assistant to do so by using filters—by industry, date, location, keyword, venue, etc.

2. Do background research

Public speaking Tip #1: Get in front of the right people.
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For example, if you are a business coach, your goal may be to identify small business owners, solopreneurs, executives, and similar professionals.

The VA can figure out where these people gather and help you pitch yourself as a guest speaker to event organizers.

3. Assemble materials and promote your speech

The virtual assistant can also collect materials that you can distribute to emphasize the top benefits of your message. These marketing materials can be a press release, email broadcasts, brochures, or anything that can help establish your credibility.

The VA can also share details of your speaking engagements on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites.

Additionally, the VA can join LinkedIn groups that target your area, take note of local events, and connect you with the people organizing them.

4. Create Powerpoint/slide presentation

If a slide-show is part of your presentation and you don’t think you are savvy enough or don’t have time to do it, your VA can put up some slides for you.

He or she can include a slide showing contact information about your business. You can display this while you answer questions during the event. It’s up to you. The VA could also include a special offer or giveaway on your last slide.

5. Add a page to your website

The VA team can assign a technical VA to add a page to your website exclusive only for promoting you as a speaker.

You can provide a demo reel like a few clips from previous speaking engagements, your YouTube videos, your credentials, a list of topics you can talk about, etc.

6. Keep track with a database

The VA can create a quality database using a spreadsheet or Google docs to keep track of monthly or annual conferences and all of their important details. He or she can then call or email the organizers of the events you want to do.

After a Speaking Engagement

7. Do some post-event promotions

Your virtual assistant can make use of online tools to promote your speech after the event. The VA can post slides on SlideShare, write about the event on your blog, or upload the video to YouTube and Vimeo.

He or she can also share your speaking engagement on social media sites to increase visibility.

8. Set up alerts

Finally, your VA can set up alerts for speaking opportunities and keep a steady stream coming your way. Setting up alerts on “call for speakers” or “call for presenters” will get you regular notices of organizations that are looking for presenters with your expertise.

Here are 3 tools to start with:

• Google Alerts
• Talkwalker
• Mention

If you’re an author, leader, consultant, coach, financial expert—the list goes—who use speaking engagements to grow your business, contact us today so we can help free up your time and reduce your workload.

References:
www.content-loop.com
quickbooks.intuit.com

Public speaking is one of the best ways to genuinely engage your audience and a perfect opportunity for you to be seen as an authority in your industry and promote your brand or company.

Whether these gigs are short talks, conferences, or large formal presentations – if you speak to the right audience and have the message they needed to hear, your listeners will walk away with more awareness and a renewed level of trust in you and your brand.

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How to get started – and what to talk about

1. Focus on your expertise and what you are passionate to speak about

Take a closer look on your expertise and passion and focus on what you’re actually knowledgeable to talk about. It would be beneficial for you and your audience if you speak about a very specific area of expertise than to present a general topic on which you have less to offer.

2. Join events that you would be interested to speak at

Get to know the organizers of the events that you usually attend and the kinds of people who speak. As people get more familiar with you, chances are, you’ll be invited to speak, or more likely be accepted if you ask to speak. If you are just starting locally, look for opportunities to speak to colleges and universities – they are always looking for experts to come share their experiences and knowledge.

3. Create thought leadership content in your blog

Start out by writing as much as you could about your company niche and share it on your blog, industry publications, etc. If you consistently write about specific subjects and establish yourself as a unique voice, you will be eventually regarded as expert in that field. When this happens, speaking, networking, and publishing opportunities will naturally arise.

4. Do things that show what you’re good at

What do you know better than anyone else? Host a workshop in person or virtual like a webinar where you can do some demo or share about a topic. People will take notice in what you do, and you can then set up a squeeze page on your site or blog where they can register for your next speaking engagement.

Always remember that if people are paying for your presentation, they are not there to listen to your sales pitch. You should mention what you do at the beginning and end of the presentation and how to reach you. But keep in mind that your audience is there to learn, so you need to deliver.

How to find speaking engagements (where to look online and offline)

1. Start local to go global

 You can approach your city’s organizations or clubs that meet regularly – everything from Lions Club, Rotary, to Chambers of Commerce. Connect with the programming chair and offer to speak on your specialty or ask your friends and colleagues who participate to connect you with these groups.

2. Business networking groups

Popular groups such as Business Networking International (BNI) and Local Business Network (LBN) are groups of people from diverse businesses who share opportunities to each other. Join in and let the members know that you’re interested in speaking opportunities.

3. Local business publications

Local business news will often list industry events. Check out the periodical’s Events page listed either in print or online, then contact the organizations listing presentations and pitch them for speaking.

4. Other professionals who speak

Look at the websites and LinkedIn profiles of your fellow professionals and competitors who target the same audience you do and see where they’ve spoken. You can then contact those same groups and pitch yourself, too. Or, you can collaborate with a like-minded speakers to share opportunities and refer each other.

5. Just Google it!
   

Search for events in your industry.

“Call for Speakers” AND “[Your topic]” “Call for Presenters” AND “[Your topic]” “Call for Speakers” AND “[Industry]”

You can hire a virtual assistant (VA) for a few hours a day to search for speaking engagements, take note of all the important details, and prepare a dashboard for you to review and choose from. You can sit back on a weekend while viewing your dashboard and preparing your speech.

6. Social media – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

You can search for events by topic and geographic location using Facebook Events. During your presentation you can take questions via Twitter and even share your slides using Slideshare.net or other material to help multiply your leads.

Online sites such as Meetup.com and Eventbrite.com also lists marketing events. Again, a VA can do all of this for you so you can focus on your most important task – delivering your message.

7. Online tools and directories

• BuzzSumo.com, Topsy.com, SocialMention.com, Twitter’s search feature
• InsideInfoMarketing.com – offers up-to-date listing of events hosted by thought leaders in Information Marketing. If you sell online programs and information products, this is your site!
• Online conference directories
  – AllConferences.com, Lanyrd, Plancast, Conferensum and Conferize are online directories, exclusive for conferences.
  – EventsinAmerica.com – find events, trade shows, meetings, conferences and conventions in America’s Top Trade Show & Conference Directory
  – Lanyrd.com – suggests events for you based on those attended by people you follow on social media and keywords in your profiles.

Choose one or two of these tips to get more speaking engagement opportunities. Always make contact, present your credentials and your proposed topic. There’s a whole lot of people who NEED and WANT to hear what you’ve got to say!

6 ways speaking engagements benefit you, your brand, and your business

How it benefits YOU

1. Present yourself as a go-to expert

Nobody will know about your pool of knowledge unless you demonstrate it. Position yourself as an authority within your industry by speaking publicly on matters within your niche.

2. Grow your network and build connections

Engage with the audience at the event in a meaningful way by encouraging participation from the crowd. If you have an opportunity for a Q&A session, take note of the questions and valuable insights that the attendees might offer.

How it benefits your BRAND

3. Boost your brand visibility

Speaking engagements help increase your or your company’s brand visibility. By giving a talk at industry conferences and other events, you will have the opportunity to market your knowledge and skills, and attract more traffic to your website, increasing your online presence.

4. Define your reputation as a thought-leader

As you reach a wider and bigger audience, your speaking gigs will help establish your brand as a go-to source in your field. Talking about what you learned from past mistakes and sharing your expertise on how to avoid them in the future is a positive way to present your company as a thought-leader and a reliable source of information for other like-minded professionals.

How it helps grow your BUSINESS

5. Connect with existing clients AND prospective ones

Speaking engagements are a good way to increase your network of clients, both existing and prospective. You will have the opportunity to reach out to new prospects by answering their questions; and reconnect with your existing clients by interacting with them during the events.

6. Make content accessible online and offline

You can use online tools such as GoToWebinar to document speaking events and post the video online using Vimeo or YouTube. Not only that, you can use SlideShare.com to share your presentation slides. All of these contribute to your portfolio of valuable marketing materials. Later on, you can repurpose them to promote your company online and as giveaway materials.

Public speaking, whether in person or virtually, is a great way to establish your credibility, generate a consistent stream of leads, and educate your audience as a thought-leader in your field of expertise. If you don’t provide increased awareness to your target market, your competition surely will.

PS. If you need any help on searching for quality speaking engagements within your target audience, please contact Virtual Assistant Talent today.

References:
famousinyourfield.com
99u.com
www.huffingtonpost.com
www.axiapr.com

This takes a lot of planning, time, effort, and resources. Many of us are faced with so much work to do, but not enough time to achieve these goals. In some cases, we really need extra help, but don’t have the budget to hire additional resources and so we are stuck working 50-60 hours a week, with no time for relaxation or family.

As an entrepreneur, I know what it is like to work long hours to achieve my dreams. I remember a time when I was satisfied with and felt fortunate when I was regularly getting just 3.5-4 hours of sleep per day.

I was thinking, well, that’s better than 2 hours of sleep I had just yesterday! I was trying to do everything on my own.

Sometimes we nearly kill ourselves to achieve aggressive goals.
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Outsourcing Repetitive Admin Tasks to Virtual Executive Assistants

When all the work falls upon us, our family life suffers, our health suffers, and our productivity and effectiveness declines.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way. As a first step, think about all the repetitive and busy work that you have to do on a daily or weekly basis. This is work that may be necessary, but keeps you from the higher end and strategic work that will really help you expand your business and generate revenue.

Commit to documenting the steps you take to complete that work by creating process maps or standardized work that outlines how to do this. In many Fortune 500 companies that I worked for, one of the main requirements my managers insisted upon was that as soon as we learned a job task, we needed to create a standardized work for that job task.

That way, later on, if we were on vacation, or were promoted to another job, or if we quit that employer, the next person can more easily fill in for us and take over our work.

This year, as soon as possible, commit to creating standardized work for your busy tasks that you don’t like doing or are just too busy to do. Once you do that, guess what? You can then outsource it to a remote assistant!

Yes, this takes some time and effort up front to create the standardized work, but in the long run, will free up so much of your time. Then, welcome to getting plenty of sleep and waking up without an alarm clock, well rested and ready to take on the day, doing what you want to do!

Related: What is a Virtual Assistant

The virtual assistant (VA) can do the busy work that you don’t want to do or don’t have time to do, and the best part about it is it can be inexpensive – up to 76%+ cheaper than hiring an office based worker.

In addition, you may have aggressive goals and project plans to grow your business this year.
However, you may not have the staff or the talent you need to achieve these goals according to your timeline.

If you expand your search for talent into the virtual workforce (home-based/remote workers), you have expanded your talent pool exponentially, and opened yourself to a wide variety of talent, experience, and skill workers from all over the world (whether locally or overseas) and at a price point according to your budget.

There are different types of virtual assistant services. VAs can do things both that you may not want to do or do not have the technical expertise to do (i.e. web design, graphics design, accounting/bookkeeping, programming, online marketing, SEO, content creation/copywriting, etc.)

Consider hiring a virtual personal assistant to achieve your goals for 2016, all while helping reduce your workload and providing the talent you need at a lower cost. Imagine assigning a multitude of tasks to your VA at night before you go to sleep and in the morning, all of those tasks are done.

Or, imagine having the flexibility to spend time during a good part of the day with your family (such as going on an afternoon excursion to the park or beach while everyone else is at work) all while the VA covers for you, handling certain aspects of your business (such as customer service, answering calls, etc).

If your interested in learning more or exploring the possibilities of how a online employee can help you, feel free to give us a no obligation call at 1-866-596-9041 or and fill out our no obligation form on our website.

We specialize in helping you find solutions to outsourcing your busy work or staffing needs for expansion. We are here to help you achieve better work life balance and help you achieve your goals/dreams as a successful entrepreneur/business owner.

Wishing you much success in 2016!

Sincerely,

John Davern, President & CEO
Virtual Assistant Talent, LLC