The
2-Second Commute
Based
on the
highly-successful Virtual Assistant training programs Chris Durst and
Michael Haaren developed
for the US Armed Forces and the US Department of State, The 2-Second
Commute:
Join the Exploding Ranks of Freelance Virtual Assistants
brings
you the
knowledge without
the classroom!
Training
program
participants have billed
over $30
MILLION since our training programs started in 2002. Now YOU can learn from Chris
& Mike,
too, and start your own successful VA business!
2-SECOND
COMMUTE
CHAPTERS
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1
Why
Become a Virtual
Assistant?
- personal &
professional
reasons to
explore this
industry
Chapter 2
Exploring
Virtual
Assistance
- virtual assistance defined
- industry demographics
- services, fees, and trends
- why businesses work with VAs
- international outlook
Chapter 3
Reality
Checks &
Self-Assessments
- exploring important
considerations -
motives,
lifestyle,
family, children, etc.
- entrepreneurial self-assessment
- VA readiness self-assessment
- Spouse With a Mouse™
-
from our
Department of State
and US
Armed Forces training programs, a special section to help your
"significant other" understand what it will be like to have a business
in the house.
Developing
a "Service
Menu" That You Can Live and Grow With
- inventory your values,
interests,
and
skills to
determine
your most marketable skills
Chapter 5
Estimating
Costs and
Setting Fees
- projecting your costs, picking
your
"salary", setting
your hour, and our special formula for calculating a reasonable
baseline fee
- comprehensive fee survey (see
what
other
VAs are
charging)
- getting paid -contracts,
credit
cards,
invoices,
retainers, etc.
Chapter 6
Setting
Up Your
Business and Your Office
- naming and registering your
business
- forms of business ownership
- permits and licenses
- insurance
- home office setup
Chapter 7
Building
a Healthy
Foundation for Your Business
- defining your ideal client,
interviewing
clients,
partnering with clients
- the art of virtual
communications
- SWOT analysis - discovering
your
Strengths,
Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats
- the benefits of "niche
marketing" -
identifying your
target
market
Chapter 8
Let
the Marketing
Begin!
- image is everything
- talking about what you "do"
- marketing and email
- your Web site - your "global
billboard"
- press releases
- harvesting the local "business
crop"
- leveraging the media
- guest lecturing
- our 5 favorite marketing
techniques
- the Strategic Marketing Plan -
your
blueprint for
building
a successful business through effective marketing
Chapter 9
Pulling
It All
Together and
Keeping It There
- a collection of tips, tool,
techniques,
and pointers
for
making your business a success
Chapter 10
The
VA Toolbox:
Resources and Information
- VA trade groups, email lists,
certifications and
training
programs
- specialized resources for
homeschoolers,
"trailing
spouses", work at home parents, and people with disabilities
- resources and other
information for
the
"frugal VA"
--
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Work
from home as a
Blogger
 The niche in a nutshell:
Bloggers
work from
home writing niche blogs, which are specialized websites that allow
readers to participate. There are many kinds of blogs: business,
personal, political, and celebrity gossip sites. Business blogs are
authored by professionals and business owners who want to get more
exposure on the web, or by corporate executives who want to put forth a
personal voice. Bloggers can work for themselves, write for someone
else or for a company. In many cases, bloggers are promoting
their business, their products, and services and consulting. More and
more, however, companies are hiring bloggers.
Top 5 Services Provided in this
Niche
- Blog writing: Providing
expert
opinion, professional advice, and information for a targeted niche
(either your own or someone else’s)
- Blog set up, design,
training and
consulting for new bloggers
- Blogging for blog/web portals
- PR campaigns to generate
blog buzz
- Reviewing products and
services
|
Top 5 Hiring Markets
- Self employed
- Technology companies
- Media companies
- Large and small companies
who want
to expand their online presence
- Blog Networks
|
Pay Range for this Niche
- Percent
of
site's ad revenue (depends largely on web traffic and popularity)
- Paid per post
- Can vary from very little to
six
figures
|
Recommended Skillsets
- Intermediate
to advanced computer skills
- Willingness to sit at a
computer 8
to 12 hours a day
- Continual learning of latest
technology and Internet marketing trends
- Proficient English language
writing skills (or other language in your own country)
- Ability to focus,
concentrate and
communicate what matters to your targeted readers
- Journalism and copywriting
skills
a plus
- Common sense, emotional
intelligence and ability to communicate well
- Quick, forward thinking,
ability
to sort through the babble and clutter and sift through tons of
information to find the nuggets and pearls
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Niche
Overview
Working
from home as
a blogger – a dream come true? Paradise in pajamas? Or, like
so many hyped-up
Internet
schemes, is this a way to struggle with work that is
poorly compensated?
Can we be frank? We’ve been working from home for many years,
and the
last 2 ½ years have been largely directed at active
blogging.
Let me explain how it happened…
Who are we? We are The Blog Squad, and since we started blogging in
2004, we became evangelist consultants in the burgeoning field of
online communications through blogs. I’m Patsi Krakoff,
Psy.D. and my
partner is Denise Wakeman. I’m a retired psychologist who
already had
an online newsletter service for consultants and coaches, and my
partner Denise has been an Internet marketing consultant for ten years.
Yes, we make money blogging... in fact, lots of it. Yes, it is often
easy, fun, and fabulous! Yes, it definitely helps to have other
products and services that you provide for a fee. That is a must-do, in
fact.
Let’s be clear: there are now “jobs” for
blogger. But this is a new and
growing professional occupation. As more companies and corporations
realize the power of blogs for communications and staying in touch with
customers, they need help from professional bloggers. Many companies
will hire bloggers to write for them. Excellent writing skills are the
key here.
There are also ways to make money reviewing and promoting products
online as an “independent” blogger.
That’s a tricky path because to
maintain a loyal audience of readers you have to be transparent about
what you promote and offer more than mere endorsements.
Then there are professional marketer/bloggers who maintain hundreds of
niche blogs that generate Google Adsense revenues on a large scale.
There are few bloggers we know of who generate six-figure incomes from
this method; they are rare.
The majority of full-time professional bloggers are people like us who
have products, services and books to sell. We use our blog as a
marketing tool for our professional consulting business on Internet
marketing and blogging.
Can a “newbie” decide to become a professional
blogger? Certainly.
We’ve seen people start up a blog and garner 30,000 readers
in two
months. The keys? Writing well, understanding the needs of the
audience, and capturing the hearts and imaginations of readers.
Be clear
about your audience. A well-defined niche audience will
outperform the general public in terms of loyalty and conversions to
clients. Be clear about why you are writing on your blog, what you want
to accomplish, and your niche.
Be smart
before you
start: make sure the niche you’ve identified fills
a need. The best way to research your ideas is with keyword search
tools like WordTracker.
Above all, learn to set up your blog and use it properly. Do not use
free blogging software that includes ads for other sites over which you
have no control. If it’s free, you’re not going to
get much support, if
any at all. If you're not technically inclined, get help on the set up
and design of your blog, and then learn how to write effective blog
posts.
You don’t have to be a techie geek to be a blogger because
blogging
software is user-friendly. I used to be techno-clumsy, but
I’ve learned
all I need to know in most cases. Denise has some tech skills and
bravery that I don’t; it's not important to know HTML, PHP,
or those
other codes. Most tech people seem to focus on the workings and forget
about the marketing and writing skills, which are much more important
to successful blogging.
Oh, I almost forgot, you must write at least two to three times a week
on your blog to have any effect at all, and daily is even better. You
also must participate in the blogosphere, which means reading and
commenting on other blogs in your field so you get known and become a
part of a community. I can post on one my blogs in under ½
hour,
but the truth is, I’m at my computer eight to 12 hours a day.
(But it’s
fun, and I get to decide which hours! Some days I’m on the
tennis
courts three hours!)
The Blog Squad, by the way, does help people in the initial stages of
learning to blog, and we also offer extreme blog makeovers for bloggers
who aren’t getting results (www.fixmyblog.com).
We wrote the
definitive manual on how to set up and optimize a TypePad blog for
business: www.BuildaBetterBlogSystem.com.
Help is available to anyone who wants to start making money blogging.
Our point is that there is more to blogging than may initially appear.
Anyone can set up a blog in an hour and start writing on it. However,
just because anybody can, doesn’t mean everybody should.
Seeing results
from blogging is an art and a science. You can learn to do it, and we
encourage you. You can make good money working at home writing on a
blog (or, in our case, on 10 blogs!), but there is a learning curve,
some hard work, and lots of creativity involved.
Now, if you love learning, don’t mind working, and enjoy the
creative
thrill of writing, well then, Denise and I would love to welcome you to
the Blogosphere!
Recommended Reading
- Build a Better
Blog: The
Ultimate Guide to Boost Your
Business with a Professional Blog
by The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff & Denise Wakeman
- What
No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting, Ted
Demopoulos
- Naked
Conversations, Robert Scoble & Shel Israel
- Publish
& Prosper, Blogging for Your Business, Byron
& Broback
- Blogging
for Business, Holtz & Demopoulos
- The
Long Tail, Chris Anderson
- Blog
Marketing, Wright
- Blog
Wild, Wibbels
- The
Corporate Blogging Book, Debbie Weil
- The
Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing for Small Business,
Tom
Antion
- Buzz
Marketing with Blogs for Dummies, by Susannah Gardner
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Tools of the Trade
- State of the art computer,
or at
least one not more than 2 years old
- High speed DSL or cable
Internet
connection service
- Blogging system: (The Blog
Squad
recommends Typepad www.typepad.com.)
- Membership in a gym to
offset all
the hours spent sitting at a computer!
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Organizations &
Associations
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Resource Links
|
 About Patsi Krakoff,
Psy.D. &
Denise Wakeman
Known as
The Blog
Squad, Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff,
Psy.D., www.BlogSquad.biz, are
authorities in helping independent
professionals and
small businesses to
grow and
prosper through optimizing their
blogs (http://www.Buildabetterblogservice.com).
Between them, they have 10 blogs they post to on a regular basis
covering
topics from Internet marketing, business blogging, ezine marketing,
writing and
marketing books with a blog, plus several private blogs for clients and
programs
they teach.
The
Blog Squad are co-authors of "Build a Better Blog:
The Ultimate Guide to Boosting Your Business with a Professional
Blog” (www.BuildaBetterBlogSystem.com)
and "Confessions of a Reluctant Blogger: From Boring to Brilliant in 30
Days", and keepers of the blog site, www.buildabetterblog.com. They host
a weekly Internet radio show, Blogging and Beyond (www.BloggingandBeyond.com).
For
more information visit www.BlogSquad.biz
or contact
Patsi
Krakoff, patsi@blogsquad.biz
or Denise
Wakeman, denise@blogsquad.biz
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