One of the biggest problems small business owners have is with their books. If you’re in this situation, then you know it doesn’t matter if it’s the beginning of the year and you’re preparing your taxes or if it’s the middle of the year and you’re struggling to know how much money you have to spend on advertising, you know it’s a problem.

Paypal works for payments, but how do you keep track of payments you make outside of that? Not every payment you make will be made through Paypal and not every payment you take in will be through Paypal, so it’s not the best way to keep track of your finances. Strictly using your bank account won’t work either because you won’t have the ability to create financial reports to help you have an idea of what you’re spending your money on and what you can change to make things better.
continue reading "Bookkeeping Solutions for your Business"

As a business owner you don’t have a boss that stands over your shoulder telling you what to do and when you need to have them done because you’re the boss. You’re the one that makes all decisions and puts everything together and you’re the one organizing everything. This means you must have the best time management skills possible.

Time management is a very important skill for business owners to have because time can get away from you very easily and it doesn’t take much to lose your day. When you’re working really hard and you’re very busy time can fly by so it’s important to manage your day.

The first thing you need to do to create a time management plan that will work for your business is to create a plan. You need your goals in place and have them be visible so you can create a plan based on them. Your plan needs to include your goals and all of the tasks needed to accomplish them.

Once you have your plan in place you need to create a to-do list that includes the things you need to do in order for you to complete your plan. These need to be the tasks you need to do each day. You need to put your to-do list in the order you need to accomplish things. This will help you to know what you have to do and when they need to be completed.

Now that your to-do list is created it’s time to put it into action. Setting a timer is the best way to go since time can fly by before you know it. Depending on what you’re working on, you may want to set the timer for less time, but usually an hour is a good time. This will give you a good chance to get things done and then you’ll be able to take a break and stretch your legs a bit.
continue reading "Tips for Growing your Business with Time Management"

During the holiday season advertising is a must if you want to grow. People won’t know what you offer or how you can help them if you don’t show them. There are a number of different ways to advertise your business during the holiday season or for any time of year for that matter. Here are a few.

1. Banner or button ads
2. Text ads
3. Link ads
4. Facebook or Twitter ads
5. Facebook or Twitter parties
6. Article marketing
7. Blog posts
8. Online parties

Each of these will work if you do them correctly. Banner or button ads, text ads, and link ads will only work if you place them on sites that are geared to your market. For example, if your business deals with baby items, you wouldn’t want to place an ad on a site specifically for men. You want your market to see your ad and if it’s placed on a site that’s not geared to your market, it’s not going to happen.

Facebook or Twitter ads are ones you write and post on your profile page. Make sure you write your ads so they’re geared to your market and that you make them want to click through. This may be a challenge with the limited number of characters, so you might consider using a blog post to do it.
continue reading "8 Suggestions for Advertising during the Holiday Season"

Using traditional marketing techniques like blog posts and social networking will only go so far when you’re trying to grow your business. More than likely, you’re going to continue to place yourself in front of the same people week after week and that’s only going to take you so far.

While those techniques are important and they’re something you should continue to use regularly, it’s also a good idea to include other techniques that will make you money over and over again.

One technique that most people don’t take into consideration is the teleseminars. These are done over the phone and could include the computer if you choose. Teleseminars give you the ability to share information with a lot of people at one time and you’ll have the ability to include people from other countries. These also give you another way to increase the money you’re earning for your business. You can charge a small fee for the information they’ll receive while on the call.

Once you’ve created the content for your teleseminar, you’re ready to find the phone number and set the date. These are tasks you can assign to your Virtual Assistant. She can do research online to find the sites that offer phone numbers for people to use. You’ll need to be careful when it comes to the option you choose because some have limits to the number of people allowed while others don’t offer you the ability to record your call.
continue reading "Tips for Growing your Business through Teleseminars"

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and now is the time to start preparing your business. You’ve worked hard all year long and now is the time to take off and be with your family. You don’t want stress and you need to make money, so it’s a good idea to prepare ahead and complete the work you’d be doing during the time you’ll take off.

There are a number of ways to make it happen, but if you don’t plan ahead they won’t happen and you’ll find yourself working on the days you’d planned to take off. Don’t let that happen when planning ahead is easy to do.

Preparing your family for your plan will make things a lot easier on you. One way to prepare for this is to plan your meals. Crockpot meals are wonderful. You can put them together first thing in the morning, start it when it’s time and continue to work all day knowing your dinner is already cooking and will be ready when dinner time rolls around.

Giving your house a once over will prevent you from spending hours each week cleaning it. If your children are old enough, write out daily chores for them to do that will help keep the house clean while you’re preparing your business for your time off.

When it comes time to doing the tasks needed for your business, you have a couple of options. Click here to read an article I wrote that will give you two choices that will help you to successfully take time off during the holiday season.

Small business owners don’t have the large marketing budgets like the big businesses do, so they have to make what they have work for them in every way possible. One of the best ways to do just that is to create a website.

You’ll want your website to have detailed information about your business. You should list your products or services, detailed information about your business, and how they can contact you. It’s important to have your website look as professional as possible and one way to make that happen is to hire a Virtual Assistant to help you.

A great way to build a website is to have your Virtual Assistant create it using WordPress. She can make it the most user friendly site possible using the features WordPress has to offer and those would include a theme, plugins, and widgets just to name a few. These tools help your site to be attractive and inviting to your visitors and that’s what you want with your website.

WordPress has so many options to choose from that you’re sure to build the exact website you’re looking for. It doesn’t matter if you want to build a site that gives your visitors the ability to purchase from you online or if you want to build a membership site, using WordPress is the way to go.
continue reading "2 Tips for Building your Business Online"

When you have a manager for your business you’ll know things will get done and you can focus on those tasks that require your attention and you can put your attention to the things that really grow your business and help you to make money. Your manager could be the only person you have working for you or you may have a number of people and your manager can guide them and make sure they know what to do and how to do it correctly.

There are two types of managers that will help you with your business. One of them is a business manager. A business manager usually is the one that will manage everyone that works for you. This would include a Virtual Assistant, marketing assistant, and a ghostwriter just to name a few. You’ll need to make sure your business manager knows what you expect of each person and how to give them the information needed so they can do the job you’ve assigned to them.

It’s important to have weekly calls with your business manager so she can inform you of any problems that may have come up or how projects are coming along. This also gives you the ability to share new projects with her and if you hire someone else to help you can come up with a plan for how your business manager will work with this person.

The other type of manager that works good for business owners is an email manager. Emails can take over in a very short amount of time. Once they take over it’s hard to take it back. You may have signed up to receive something for free only to find out they put you on their list or you may have signed up for a newsletter thinking it would be valuable to your business, but then found out it’s not what you thought.

When you think about it, SPAM is not the only thing that clutters your inbox. You’ll see newsletters, promotional items, group and fan page emails from Facebook, information from Twitter, and so much more. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had folders set up for these types of emails? Your email manager can delete emails that aren’t necessary, she can file things you need to review later, and advise you of emails you need to review right away. You’d work your email more efficiently if you didn’t have all of those things to do each day.

When you use a business manager and an email manager for your business you’ll find you work more efficiently and you’ll have more time to do things you’ve only dreamed of doing. You’ll be able to add more to your business, work special projects, and have more time with your family when you don’t have so many things to do for your business.

Corrie Petersen runs a successful Virtual Assistant business. She enjoys helping her clients reach their goals through the services she provides. If you’re ready to get your business on track, go to www.virtualfreedom4you.com to see how she can help you make that happen.

How many times in a day have you said, “I wish there were more hours to get things done”? More times than not, we’ve all said this at least one. We’re all very busy and at times it feels nearly impossible to get everything done.

If you run a business and you feel this way, then you need to consider another option. Hiring a Virtual Assistant is one way to make this happen. This person will give you the ability to feel like you have more hours than you really do.

When this happens you’ll find you have time to finish your daily tasks, time to relax, and time to do what you want. What better way to accomplish everything you set out to do and have a lot less stress in your life.

When you have less stress in your life you’ll feel better about everything and that includes your business. You’ll be able to accomplish more in your life and you’ll find you have more energy to do the things you need and want to do.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Hire a Virtual Assistant today so you can have control and get everything done that you set out to do. Enjoy more time in your day and accomplish more than you ever thought was possible.

While taking the summer off is what you may want to do, you certainly don’t want your business to do the same thing. If you do that you’ll find your income is zero and it’s hard to get it back up there again. So don’t let that happen. Instead, hire a Virtual Assistant to step in and run your business while you’re off playing and having a good time.

Your VA can send out your ezine, schedule your blog posts, submit articles you’ve written, and do social networking posts. All of which will help you keep your business in front of your customers and keep your business on the top end of the spectrum.

You’ll continue to make money all the while you’re sitting pool side having a great time with the family. Wouldn’t it be sweet to tell your family you were making money while you watched your kids play in the pool or while you were in the middle of nowhere camping? Well of course you would and your Virtual Assistant can make that happen for you.

No matter what type of business you run I’m sure there is something you struggle with daily or monthly. Maybe you’re in direct sales and you struggle to do invitations to your home parties or maybe you’re a coach and you struggle to use social media to increase your client base. No matter what it is a Virtual Assistant can help you make it happen.

Is it possible the reason you struggle is because you don’t have the time to do it all? Or maybe the reason is because you lack self confidence or faith in yourself to make it happen. Don’t let either of these be the case. No matter what it is you can do it if you put your heart into it and you know how to handle the stress when it comes a long. And when I say handle the stress I mean outsource it so it goes away.

Don’t struggle with your business just because you’re afraid to do something or you don’t have time to make it happen. If you’re afraid of something find out why and overcome it. If you don’t have time, outsource tasks so you have time. There are no excuses when it comes to your business; no matter what it is overcome it and get with the show. It’s time to step it up and grow your business.