For many small business owners and solopreneurs, working with a Virtual Assistant (VA) is becoming more common. Do you have a VA yet? If you do, congratulations on making a great business move! If not, what are you waiting for?
When you run your own business, it can be easy to fall into the trap of ‘doing it all’ yourself. But remember that by outsourcing those tasks that you don’t do well, or that you don’t want to do, you will be freeing up your time to do the things that you are an expert at doing.
Actually there are only 2 things you should be doing in your business : you should be working with clients (the thing you are an expert at!), or you should be doing specific marketing tasks to grow or manage your business (meeting and getting to know prospective clients!). All the rest should be outsourced to appropriate people.
In my networking circles, I am always talking about the merits of finding a VA who is a good fit for you … but up until last month I didn’t follow my own advice! I just hired my own VA last month and am already realizing how much more organized I am … how much more time I actually have to ‘be’ in my business.
It is amazing when you get those little things off your plate that you really shouldn’t be doing anyway, how much more organized you can be and how you can actually save money by spending money – by freeing up your time to do client work, networking or marketing.
So if you haven’t started working with a VA yet, what are you waiting for? I can honestly say I wish I did this a long time ago (and you will too!)
It seems that more and more websites I visit lately have an audio component. Some of them auto-load and some of them you have to click to start. When you work virtually, that can be a scary concept when all of sudden someone is talking to you and there is no one in the room! It might scare the wits out of me some days, but I have to admit that it’s very effective.
I often open more than one tab or website at a time, and when I all of a sudden hear someone start talking to me, it definitely attracts my attention! I will always go and check out the talking page!
Many of my clients are coaches and so they use an audio service like Audio Acrobat all the time in their businesses. Whether they are recording coaching calls or conference calls, it’s a big part of the service they provide to their clients.
Of course, not all of my clients are coaches, so I thought it would be a good idea to check out what a service like Audio Acrobat could offer to other solopreneurs and small business owners. If I come across an interesting product or service, I try to introduce it to my clients if I think it might help them with their Internet marketing needs.
I was surprised to see what other things you can do with Audio Acrobat:
- record an audio by telephone, by computer microphone or by uploading a previously recorded file
- combine audio files so they play in sequence
- customize a webpage with audio notes for those you are sending audio to
- use guest lines to have guests record testimonials, comments or even events
- create podcasts
- record or upload video up to 256 MB in size
It’s such a simple system to use, and it’s very cost effective. For less than $20 a month, it’s a service that anyone can use to incorporate audio into their business. They have a terrific affiliate incentive too … you can put your affiliate commissions towards your monthly bill if you want to.
Go and check it out! It’s an opportunity for you to bring some fresh ideas to your clients about how to repurpose their content and how to enhance their online presence with audio or video. I know I’m going to!
