Virtual Assistant Course - Get Started today

So do you want to become a Virtual Assistant yourself? The most efficient and effective way to be on the road to success with your new Virtual Assistant business is to have all the tools you need at your fingertips. And I have that complete VA business start-up system just waiting for you, all in one box!

Tawnya Sutherland is a longstanding virtual Assistant with many years experience under her belt. She has now released a fantastic 30 day course which is all you will need to get yourself set-up and started as a VA. Not only will it keep you well-organized and motivated, but you will also have the best VA toolbox available to build, maintain and grow your business in just 30 days.Plus you will have the expertise of Tawnya Sutherland, a Veteran Virtual Assistant, to help guide and keep you on the straight and narrow, along the way! Click here for further information & to sign up today: Virtual Assistant Course - Get Started todayThe course presently costs $495 or £250 (It is worth over $1500). When you consider how much you will be earning as a Virtual Assistant, this course will have paid for itself within a week of you working full-time. Or compare it to the cost of a year at college or university this wouldn't even cover the cost of your study books, nevermind the annual fees (min $2000/£1200).
Click here for further information & to sign up today: Virtual Assistant Course - Get Started today

Although becoming a Virtual Assistant and working from a remote location is a fantastic opportunity for many people, to be really successful it is important to be efficiently set up and this is not always cheap from the outset.

You will need to purchase enough equipment to enable you to provide a good and continuous service to your clients. This means at least two PCs, probably a PC, Laptop and PDA would be ideal initially and most importantly a good back-up system. You are not going to be a home typist but a real business, which means you need to be reliable in all circumstances. You will also need plenty of office supplies such as paper, envelopes and ink.

If you do not have any spare cash then look at borrowing and speak to your local chamber of commerce or enterprise group for information on funding sources and good low rate loans. You will need a business plan in place to go this route but that is no bad thing - in fact it could be a great benefit to helping you see the bigger picture and plan carefully. I would strongly recommend you get a business plan in place before anything else. Be realistic about what you will earn before taking on any debt.

Whatever your reasons for wanting to become a Virtual Assistant (VA): You may want to become your own boss, be more independent, continue your active and highly professional working life but without commuting or other constraints found in corporate environments. Perhaps you need to be flexible with your working hours due to commitments or just want a better life/work balance or you may just want a second income. Do not ever lose sight of this, it will be your motivation & driving factor which will help you continue when times are hard.

There is no doubt that being a VA will have many benefits and fun aspects but you would be foolish to think it does not come with it's pitfalls too. The secret to being successful is being prepared for all eventualities and difficulties. Preparation is key to success.

For many small business owners, hiring a PR consultant is an expense they cannot justify. Yet getting round to doing their own PR campaign is very often an unlikely dream. Now I have discovered the answer. Paula Gardner is a life coach who has set up a group of training programmes especially for small business owners. They are very affordable and easy to follow. Paula leads by the hand in a step-by-step plan teaching you to carry out your very own campaign in a cost-effective and gratifying manner.

For further information or to buy one of Paula's eCourses, click here; Buy eCourses online at Do Your Own PR

All Paula's eproducts come with a 100% money back guarantee. If you do the course and the activities suggested but feel that it hasn't made a difference to your business then they will refund your money.

The Do Your Own PR Ecourse

This 30 day ecourse covers everything you need to take control of your own effective media relations and do your own PR campaign.

Each daily segment contains a practical task or advice which you can put into effect to start promoting your business, now. At the end of the 30 days you will have a blueprint of a campaign that you can run again and again, plus the knowledge, skills and confidence to put it into practice.

You'll discover how to make your business attractive to the media and how to get into the press, whether it's by writing a press release and putting it out to the relevant publications, putting yourself forward for radio interviews, holding a press lunch or putting together a TV PR campaign.

Only £180, and you'll get our full support, advice and ideas for your own particular campaign.

Learn More

Build a Cult Newsletter (15 days)
Having your own newsletter is a great (and free) way to target new customers, and build up bonds with past and potential clients. It builds trust and credibility. I get between 60-70% of my business from my own newsletter and it has become a regular and lucrative piece of marketing that now slots quite easily into my business. And you don't even have to be a fabulous writer. This course is designed to get your newsletter up and running (with subscribers!) within a month, and covers both the creative and the practical side of writing newsletters.At only £99, this ecourse also provides you with our support, advice and ideas for your own newsletters and how you can use them to market your business.
strong>BUY NOW

Promote Your Business by Writing and Selling Articles (30 days)


Writing feature articles can be a great way to publicise you and your business, enhance your image as an expert in the field, earn an extra income or just enjoy getting published as a second career or creative outlet.

This ecourse covers writing and selling articles from both a creative and practical angle. By the end of the ecourse, if you do the exercises set you will:

* Have identified your target publications.
* Know who you are going to contact.
* Have identified a number of possible articles for those publications and written a synopsis for them.
* Have a long term strategy of where you want your writing career to go and how you'd like to get there.

You may have sent those ideas out, and even started to receive interest or commissions.

£145.

For further information on the Write and Sell Articles and Promote Your Business Ecourse please click here.

Write Copy that Makes People Buy (15 days)
If you've ever laboured over writing web site copy, your company brochure or a direct sales letter or email, then this ecourse is for you. This 15 day course is a great guide to learning the art of copywriting. It shows you, step by step, how to put together sales copy that attracts and holds the reader's attention. You'll learn what makes your copy stand out from all the rest, and what can help a potential client or customer to take action and buy. £75.

For more information on the ecourse Write Copy that Makes People Buy click here.Double Your Clients Through Networking (7 days)


Networking is a powerful and effective way to spread the word about your business, bringing you not only new customers and clients, but also press opportunities, practical support and possibilities you wouldn't have dreamt of. This short sharp ecourse is a perfect introduction to networking but will also help seasoned networkers hone their skills and get the best results from their networking.

For more information on this course click here.Cold Calling Crash Course (5 days plus practical session)
The Cold Calling Crash course is designed to get you over your fears and anxieties and really learn how to use cold calling to enhance your PR and marketing activities. It consists of a combination of a short sharp ecourse plus a practical 30 minute telephone session with me. £99, (including a half hour telephone session with me).
For more info click here.How To Write a Press Release (7 days)

A powerful and effective press release is the bedrock of any PR successful PR campaign. This 7 day ecourse shows you how to put together your own press release, giving you many examples to guide and inspire. Personal feedback and advice is also provided, as is guidance on the essential subject of what to do with your press release when you've written it!

click here to buy or read more about this ecourse.

Promote Your Restaurant (30 days)



If you run a restaurant, bar or even a hotel, this ecourse will show you how to promote your restaurant, attracting reviewers and customers and putting your establishment firmly on the map. If you want to get into the Where to Eat pages, local and national guidebooks, as well as increase the pure volume of people coming through the door, then this course will help you with your restaurant's PR campaign - and ensure that it is a success.

Priced at £150, this course comes with our full support and ideas for your particular establishment. BUY NOW!

The Get Noticed Workbook

By Paula Gardner of www.doyourownpr.com

PR is often thought to encompass just real life media such as newspapers, magazines and the web, but there's a whole world of online PR that needs attention as part of your business growth.

Why Online PR is so vital

Think about what happens when someone reads your name in a magazine or newspaper. Unless it's a household phenomenon such as Crown Paints or Paris Hilton then chances are they've got to not only remember your name but also the web address too. I don't know about you but I can think of countless occasions when I've come across a business' name in a magazine at the dentists waiting room or a friend's house, thought to myself "I'll have to take a look at them I get back to the office" and promptly forgot all about it. Online PR and marketing promotion means that your name and website address is already there in front of your potential customer. All they have to do is click on it. What could be simpler than that?

It's a Virtuous Circle
Write more articles; get mentioned on more websites and you'll attract more people to your site. Get more people coming to your site and you'll be more likely to appear higher in the search engines when people search under your keywords and phrases. How cool is that?

You can't get much Cheaper than This
In the world of business promotion online PR and marketing is as cheap as it gets. No investment in designing funky brochures, no paying out for high quality and expensive stationery, or exorbitant postage charges. A quick email accompanied by the relevant documents - press release, photographs, articles etc - followed up with a phone call. All it needs is your time - a small investment for such a potentially huge return.

It's Easy to Track
Whilst it's hard to know who came to your site through what article and which offer, tracking online PR and marketing is easy. If you've access to your web statistics you should be able to see the addresses of the sites where people are coming from - and watching how those figures correspond to the efforts you are putting in. And, on that note..

You Can Also See Who's Buying
If you're getting a lot of click through from one particular site but no one's buying you can take a look at why - are they clicking through on a message that doesn't really convey what you are selling? Equally, the sites where people are coming to you and buying are the ones that need your attention. Look at ways that you can strengthen your association with and appearances on these sites through news items, articles, competitions, postings in the forums, comments in the blog etc - and also look for other similar sites where you might the same level of success.

If you'd like to work with one of our PR business coaches who can guide you through online and offline PR for your business please give us a call on 0208 504 4557.

When you operate a business online one of your most important assets is your computer or Laptop - it is where all your data is stored. Everything that you have set up, your systems, client information, database of contacts, history of things that have taken place, everything, it is a vital part of your Virtual Assistant business.

So, why would you risk this and not back up their systems on a regular basis? The absolute minimum should be weekly but I would recommend daily, especially if your computer is in use daily. And this includes all of your 'My Documents' folder, any other folders where you store client/business information, your accounting program, Outlook or whichever email program you use and so on.

Backing up your software is not so important - you should have the original disks for that anyway, and perhaps separate backup disks also. But you must back up what changes regularly and do it religiously. DO NOT FORGET. Don't let it be shoved aside. A good backup system is your insurance for your Virtual Assistant business - otherwise, if you lose it, you may as well pack up and go and do something else, because you can effectively lose your business.

There are many options available: CD burning, external drive systems, tape back up, online file storage - explore what's available and select what best suits you. Even backing up to a second computer (perhaps a laptop) is better than no back up system at all.
Do not risk your VA business - back up religiously!

You will also need plenty of office supplies such as paper, envelopes and ink.

Further information that will help you become a Virtual Assistant can be found at www.virtualpr.co.uk

A Virtual Assistant (or simply VA), is an independent contractor providing administrative, technical, or sometimes creative assistance to clients--usually to other independent entrepreneurs and solo and small business practices, such as that of a lawyer or realtor. Virtual assistants work from their own office (hence "virtual"), thus making it a fairly popular (and growing) profession. It is estimated that there are about 40,000-50,000 virtual assistants worldwide. Common modes of communication and data delivery include the Internet, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and fax machine. Although the occupation gives a degree of independence, work is on a contractual basis, and a long-lasting cooperation is standard. Typically 5 years of administrative experience in an office is expected at such positions as executive assistant, secretary, legal assistant, paralegal, legal secretary, real estate assistant, office manager, etc.

How do you know if a person is willing to attain self improvement? This is a question with no definite answer. It will all depend on the individual.

Many people have goals, dreams or ambitions but do not know how to go about achieving them. They may have thought about what would make up self improvement and their ideal life, but have no idea how to even begin to make the plans and take the actions required to make them a reality.

Some people have a vague idea on how to go about self improvement. These are the ones that believe that if only they had a better job, or had been given better opportunities, or met the love of their life, or whatever else, everything would be fine and they would be happy.

They feel that their happiness or lack of happiness is decided by external factors and their thoughts and actions are of little consequence.

Some believe that if only they had more money they could have whatever they want and be on their way to self improvement.

They may have spent little time thinking about what they actually want from life, and do not really believe there is anything they can do to create their fuzzy version of utopia anyway, apart from buying more lottery tickets.

Other people do not even know what they actually want from their lives and may even have little idea what would really makes them happy. They seem to just drift from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, and do little more than just about get by.

They may have seemingly secure jobs and be earning enough to live relatively comfortable lives. They seem happy enough and have no great ambition to achieve anything more from their lives than they currently have.

Is self improvement important?

The reality is that throughout our lives we are all constantly growing and developing. Circumstances make us grow and develop, even if we do not make the conscious decision to do so.

Up to a certain age, we learn through formal education and we continue to learn through our experiences for the rest of our lives. We have to learn and grow to deal with everything that life throws at us. We all have to go through self improvement.

Modern life moves at a dramatically faster pace than at anytime in history. For anyone living in modern society there are more opportunities to do anything that you want to do with your life than ever before.

But there is also more competition than ever before, and ever changing technology means that there really are few, if any 'jobs for life' anymore. It is now normal not only to change jobs quite often throughout our working lives, but even to completely change careers and industries.

Because the workplace is so competitive, people who are ambitious and hungry for success know they need to learn new skills and knowledge to keep ahead of the pack. To attain this, self improvement is needed.

These are the people that will be most likely to keep their jobs, or progress within their chosen field, or that will be readily employable in different organizations or industries.

A commitment to self improvement and personal growth may well be the deciding factor in how anyone's future will turn out.