Well unless you completely ignore everything I write, you know I absolutely love wordpress. I converted the last of my websites to WP about 2 years ago and it is all I personally work in now. The majority of my clients also use it or their first project for me is typically converting to wordpress. As with any medium it’s impossible for me to know everything. So I’m really looking forward to the Hot Seminar Series this year. It’s all about wordpress!

Just a few of the topics to be covered in this weekly series are choosing themes, security, branding, plugins and so much more.

This is a 9 week seminar filled with information.  The Hot Seminar Series has grown each year because of the incredible experts brought to the table.  This is not a pay as you go or an expensive series.  9 weeks of priceless information, with downloadable mp3′s to listen to as often as necessary and also video to watch later.  This way if you can’t make the wednesday night session’s you won’t miss out on the content!

Go get your subscription to the Hot Seminar Series and commit to learning and growing your business this summer.

I’ve talked about the fine line I have a problem negotiating between free information and info I should be charging for. Chrissy just said it’s a spot she has an issue with on her Drawing the Line on Helping vs. Giving it All Away.

It’s not easy because of the free info I was given way back when internet marketing began. We were all learning together. Unfortunately, my attention was in a different direction, but I did pay attention. lmbo I am using the information I learned all those years ago to put together my internet marketing now. I’ve used bits and pieces, but now it’s fully in residence.

Previously, if someone asked a question a longer email went out. I can’t give an exact for instance because they change so much. But I would literally give a response and most times it would be a few paragraphs long. I’m working on creating my wordpress help site that will answer many questions. It will also get some coaching set up. See, I’m using all the questions I get and answer to build my products. lol

However, nothing ticks me off more than someone that I give a very detailed answer to and they don’t do anything with it. I guess I will be thankful because they honestly could build a product with many of my answers. That right there says I’m giving away too much right?!

If I’m worried or even thinking that they could make money from my free information, then I need to re-evaluate immediately. I’m not saying I shouldn’t help, but I am saying I know I’ve hit my point I should have info set up to get a subscription from at the very least.

I need to value my information and I need to set a line. Setting that line is the hardest part. I guess building the lists would be a smart idea and then it’s easy to push those with questions to whichever autoresponder series or site would help them.

Helping is great and something I will always do, it’s in my nature. I just need to push all that help I’ve given out over the years to pay the bills. I guess this post can serve as notice that some great ecourses are on the way

Oh boy, I know there have been a few times this year the answer is YES! I’m working on it and I’m using my resources. Mastermind groups, business forums, ecourses and calls from those that have been there and are earning the income I want.

I’ve been researching and analyzing what is holding me back. Fear? Frustration? Fatigue?

Those are the “F” words in Internet Marketing, at least according to my friend, Nicole Dean.

She says those three words are responsible for most of your struggles in your online business. I totally agree as they are the thing that holds me back. Automation is key and working smarter, not harder. To enjoy my time spent on work more.

Recently, Nicole teamed up with her friend, Ronnie Nijmeh, and they’ve put together a killer course for helping ANYONE to create their first info product. Info products are the ultimate in reoccurring income. You put your expertise to work once, do it correctly and then your automated programs will get the info to your clients.

They’ve put together reports, videos, worksheets, and will even be hosting Q&A calls, too.

But, she and Ronnie both know that that’s not enough for a lot of marketers. You’ll still let those three words stop you. So, they’re going to be offering personal one-on-one private coaching, as well. You can ask ANY questions about creating your info product and they’ll personally answer them. Have you used coaching from top marketers in your industry. Just one coaching session will change you business, let alone all that is being offered in this program.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. Right now, you can’t sign up for their program. It’s not ready yet.

BUT…

You can grab a free report with some cool fables about success. It’s a quick read and it’ll make you think. (It did for me.)

Grab it here and run with this info.

When you go to get the Motivational Stories report, be sure to sign up to access their free call “Product Creation De-Mystified” where you’ll hear directly from Nicole and Ronnie and learn more about the benefits of creating your own info products.

Actually, Nicole and Ronnie challenged me to name ONE “guru” who doesn’t have an info product. Go ahead. Try it. Are you better than I am? Because I can’t name a single one. Info products make the impact on internet marketing.

Again, grab that report here:

http://www.plr.me/id/motivational-stories/busymomma

Only grab this report if you are ready to move ahead and make your sites/blogs work. Everyone is not always at the same place in business so it may not be the right time to get your info product launched and out there.

5 Services Virtual Assistants Should Offer But Don’t

The art of doing business on the Internet has come a long way. Businesses large and small are doing more online, they are demanding more useful, exciting websites. There’s simply a lot more riding on today’s business websites than a collection of text and images. With that comes the increasing need for technically savvy help to manage it all and a smart, forward thinking VA should be sharpening her skills and offering services like these:

Backup – Far too often have I saved myself (and the clients), from hours of work putting things back as they were. You cannot rely on a web host all the time. To save space, web hosts only store backups for a very short period of time. And because restoration is not always part of their service, a host will usually restore the entire site when you may only need to restore one folder. Besides, some hosts are here today gone tomorrow. Or your client may have got tired of them.

Offering a backup and restoration service to your clients makes so much sense and it is often quite profitable for you since you don’t have to restore sites everyday nor every month for that matter. Backups can be put on autopilot and you can charge a recurring fee.

Software Update – So many web sites today run on open source software like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla. These are actively developed systems that move forward regularly and sometimes at a quick pace too. Every time you turn around it seems like the software needs to be updated.

Many clients don’t bother to update because they may be afraid of the consequences or just don’t know how. In the end, they either become victims of hackers or find themselves unable to proceed with their latest program because the software is outdated.

WordPress Hardening – Talking about open source software, WordPress is one of the hottest. There’s a great chance at least one of your clients are using to manage their website. But a popular software also means it is a big fat target for hackers who test it daily. Unfortunately, during setup, many designers and even VA’s do not take the time to secure it. Much of the default settings remain which make it easy for anyone to exploit.

We’re not talking about making a security guarantee to your clients – no software is that iron clad, but there are things that one can do to make WordPress more resistant. Sell that to your clients. This is a great way to earn extra from existing clients and bring in some money when things are slow.

Operating Procedure Wiki – You might already have heard of it. Create systems. Reproducible steps that anyone in the organization can take and run with. It make sense. Systems make your work faster – even if you already know it like the back of your hand, having checklists on hand can help remind you of steps you may miss regularly. Also, training new help becomes easier.

Many clients know this but are just way too busy. What you can do is not only document the knowledge, but set up a search-able, easy to use archive like a Wiki. In the long run it will help you too since you are likely to have more than one client, you may not remember all the steps you have to complete on a task that is not often repeat.

Enhanced Help Desk – You could already be the ‘voice’ behind your clients’ help desk right now. That’s great! If you enjoy it and want to win more clients in that area, why not offer an enhanced help desk service? What is that?

Some clients have multiple points of contact that can slow the customer service process down or cause confusion for customers because it may not be clear where to get help. The best thing is to pull everything together into one help center where people can find answers to frequently asked questions and initiate contact. It takes some planning and a bit of email routing and you can be the one to pull this together for your clients.

Take it a step further. Host the help desk software yourself for ‘free’ as part of the contract with your client. Many clients do not want yet another software for them to maintain. If the software can be part of your agreement, it absolutely makes sense for them. And, they would probably stay longer because if they break the contract with you, that means they have to source and purchase the software and setup. All of which takes time and money – valuable resources that the client may prefer to save.

What do you think? Is there any service here that you can implement right away? Maybe you want to but do not know how to start. After all, these are somewhat technical and you may not consider yourself technically inclined. There’s good news. Tech stuff is a lot easier than most make it out to be. You just need the right type of help, like what you can expect over at TechBasedTraining.com.

Have you considered getting into transcription but aren’t positive how? I have read the ebook and I highly recommend it. You can be up and running your business very quickly after reading the Transcription Crash Course. (this is an affiliate link)

Loretta was kind enough to answer a few questions about her transcription business and her ebook so I could share more information with my readers. I’d like to thank Loretta for taking the time to answer the questions below.

1. Did you end up in transcription by accident or did you search out the first jobs?

I started in document coding (which is all done visually) and transcription sort of followed that. At first I didn’t pick up a lot of transcribing jobs because I was more than busy with the document coding work I had. After awhile, I realized that I really enjoyed doing transcription, so much so that it didn’t feel like work at all, so I started to applying to transcription companies that hired home workers. Before I knew it I had cut document coding out of my work life completely.

2. How many days a week do you work on transcription?

On an average week usually at least 5 days out of 7 I will be transcribing something. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less, depends on the time of year.

3. Do you find you need to take very many breaks as you are transcribing or can you work for hours at a time?

In general I like to take a 10 minute break every hour whether I’m transcribing, reading, researching, or whatever. Stretch, walk around, get a drink, go outside for a few minutes, do anything but sit on my butt staring at the monitor. Otherwise computer butt and twitchy eye start to happen!

4. What led you to create transcription crash course?

I created the course because I was being asked so frequently about how to get started, what I used, and what a person might need. I figured it was just time to write it all down and share it with the masses. I hope I did a good job explaining everything and showing what it is that I do.

5. Do you work for local companies or only online clients?

Both! Mostly online, but every now and then I pick up an offline client too. Usually they are temporary overflow work, but I’ve had a few long term offline clients as well. I think a person could easily fill their schedule with offline clients alone, it’s just not something that I’ve focused on personally.

There are just some days that going incredible from the first second of waking up. Yesterday was just such a day. One of those days I didn’t want to go to bed because I was so productive on projects, the paypal was rockin’ and emails were positive. Who could want to end a day like that?!

I don’t at all. I’m thankful that tonight hubby is loving watching movies and playing with the dogs as we get the kids off to bed late. lol They are a teen and tween now so it’s part their fault for not going to bed on time The horrible part is that at 9:30 it was getting close to my new bedtime. DOH, that is hours and hours past a normal bedtime I would have. So it was bound to hit me again. I know that part of my being up late is this addiction to a good days business.

I have new projects that are going great. I set up a newer design at Once A Week Cooking. It’s a brand new theme that I am testing for the designer. I’m in love with it and adapted my theme in a very short time. I’m excited to get a link out for everyone when it’s ready for sale. I purchased an ecourse that I had high, high, OMG high hopes would come out. I will be adding it and new coaching options in the next couple of days. We have our latest event out for sign up at Mom Chats and it’s all about pampering mom. An ebook will be launched at the event as well.

This doesn’t even touch on the coolness that is my VA clients that went down today! I’m telling you, today is just an incredible day.

Tomorrow is going to be the same. I know how it happened, I know I stayed positive and I completed projects. Yes, some of it was just the luck of it happening on an already good day, but much of it had to do with how productive my day was.

I should also stress that I knew I had limited time to get stuff done. My MIL had ankle surgery in December when she destroyed her ankle. Then hubby hurt his leg as well and was immobilized. I hadn’t realized just how long it had been since we visited. I am blessed with awesome in-laws and that is saying a lot as I have 4 of them. lol So the odds were totally against me! Spending time with my MIL and stepFIL kicked butt. Even more kick butt because I had gotten my projects done before leaving to visit so I wasn’t doing the toe-tap-let’s-go dance. I was able to visit freely and enjoy. Then get home eventually to work, work, work some more

Did I mention it was an incredible workday? Here I post before I even check my emails this morning. Drinking a little coffee and psyching myself up for another incredible day. I know that my mental outlook DOES have some pull on how my day will go.

Are you ready for some serious internet marketing coaching? Stay tuned, it’s opening for sessions very, very soon!

As a really busy Mom that works her business at home and away, I have learned to outsource in many areas. PLR ( private label rights ) is one of my absolute favorites. But alas, I will acknowledge that it becomes an addiction at times and is on my computer stacking up. What a waste!

I know from time to time you have seen my recommendations for PLR and I honestly do subscribe to all of them. But I want to make sure my readers are also using their time and money wisely since I know how easy it is to spend a ton of money each month and not even use it.

I’ve created the “Use that PLR” ecourse to help you get it off your computer. Never let it sit on your computer when it could be bringing you new traffic, earning you better SEO and just generally helping your readers. Whether you have a website or a blog, this ecourse will help you get the PLR off your computer and helping to make you money.

You can sign up in the sidebar to the right.

In What Way Can A Blog Be Good For My Business?

It isn’t long after you start your business before you hear people begin to tell you, it’s a good idea to get a blog started. Unfortunately, some times people don’t tell you why or are only able to give you a sketchy idea why. How is blogging why. How is blogging helpful to your business, particularly if the business is offline or when you are a service provider, like a belly dancer who belly dancer who performs at private functions for example.

Here are some ways having a blog could help generate more interest, leads or bookings.

It Exhibits Your Expertise

It is alright to put up videos and pictures on web pages to show others what yo to show others what you can do for them, but I’ll bet you have more and newer videos and snap shots. Also, some orders are unique. These are all good reasons to show off and what better way than to use blog because it is so easy to update. A belly dancer can display videos where a client has requested something unique which forced her to think outside the box and come up with some creative choreography.

It Can Demonstrate How You Will Solve Client Problems

You know the old saying, people buy solutions, not productons, not products or services. You can explain this on a regular web page but on a blog, it all becomes more believable, more tangible.

It Shows You Are Actively Using Your Skills

If you are currently working with clients, any post you make about your job is a good testimonial. It shows that there are people who already trust you to do what you claim you will do. Better still if your customer can contribute to your blog or allow you to quote them.

You Can Get To Know Your Prospects And They Get To Know You

This is true particularly when you offer a service because people usually want to work with others whom they can get along with. Because a blog is interactive, through the comments people can begin to experience you and get a feel of how the company handles their customers.

It Can Help Increase Website Traffic

When you write good, content that is relevant and also promote it, people will take notice. When they do, they are more likely to share it on their own blog and their social networks and even decide to email it to their newsletter subscribers. All good ways to get fresh traffic.

It Can Reduce The Need To Answer Questions Over And Over

There are questions in every business that people tend to ask again and again. Whenever you answer these questions on your blog, you help your prospects out by giving them the information they are seeking, you plant the seed of trust, you add fresh content to your website, stuff that search engines and people alike love. And finally, you reduce your work because now you don’t have to type your answer again and again.

Blogging can be a quite rewarding. The down side is, starting one can be somewhat of a big learning curve if you are pretty new to web publishing or feel you will fare better with technical stuff when you have some help. True, you can hire someone. At the same time, knowing the basics isn’t such a bad thing because it reduces your reliance on others when you need something simple done. You don’t have to go at it alone. There are resources you might want to check out, like the Blogging Starter Pack.
It is like having a tutor to guide you step by step getting your blog up and running.

Three Tips for Improving Your Copywriting Skills

By Alice Seba, Teacher at Internet Marketing Copy Makeover

If you sell any type of product, it’s no secret that copywriting skills (or a skilled copywriter on hand) goes a long way to selling more. We have just a few moments to grab a visitor’s attention, draw them into our offer and make the sale. We need to anticipate their objections and questions because most will click away to another seller instead of sending you an email to ask.

It sounds daunting, but it can be done by improving your own copywriting skills. But how do you do that?

Here are Your Three Tips:

1. Theory is Important: Getting to know the basics and then applying them to your own business is an important first step to learning to sell more through your writing. Start with a copywriting book or course that takes you from the beginning.

2. Study Others: Take a look at other sales copy that you find compelling and/or know that produces good sales results. Copy reaching a similar target market to yours is helpful, but GOOD copy in any market will give you very good clues to what works and what might not work.

3. Test Your Own: As you apply what you learn to your own copy, track the results. Copywriting isn’t an absolute science and some techniques may or may not work. Make sure you are testing your copy results to ensure you’re working toward continuous improvement.

These are the same basic steps I took when getting started. And actually, I still do these things because the cool thing about copywriting is that you can keep getting better all the time — and keep improving your response rates. That’s definitely good for business!

Recommended for Further Study:

For more help with your crafting copy that will bring you ultra-targeted prospects that will buy from you over and over again, check out Alice Seba’s Internet Marketing Copy Makeover. This one-on-one 4-week coaching program is customized to the needs of your unique business and shows you how to transform your current under-performing copy into an effective sales tool.

Download a Free Headline Tips, Sales Letter Template & Checklist at Internet Marketing Copywrite Makeover.

Don’t Have a Swipe File? Here Are 3 Reasons Why You Should Get One

By Alice Seba, Teacher at Internet Marketing Copy Makeover

When I first heard someone say “swipe file” in regard to copywriting a few years back, I was horrified. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s basically keeping a folder (printed or digital) of sales copy to refer to when crafting your own copy.

I know!

It seemed like people were suggesting that I keep a swipe file, so I could actually plagiarize the copy of others. It was totally shocking. But really, that is not the purpose of a swipe file. Keeping a swipe file is simply a learning opportunity to improve your own copywriting skills.

Here are three reasons why keeping a swipe file is a GOOD thing:

1. One of the best ways to dramatically improve your own copywriting, is to study the copywriting of others. Yes, getting a foundation in copywriting principles that can be found in copywriting books is important, but honing your skills comes from study and of course, practice. Studying shows you how people can create compelling stories, make copy flow and transition seamlessly and more.

2. Studying the copy of others increases your copywriting vocabulary. By studying copy, you start to see which words and phrases can be most powerful. Sure, you can buy lists of “power words” or “power phrases”, but seeing them in action really solidifies how it all works.

3. Just use your brain when you use your swipe file. Realize that every product and every target market is different. What works well with one, may not work well with others. Also, there is often some specific logic in using a particular angle, wording, etc. in copy – and you need to build your understandings of the WHY certain things are done in certain ways. Through basic and then in-depth study and practice, these things will become more obvious to you.

So…what’s in your swipe file? If you don’t have one yet, keep your eyes peeled for great sales copy to add to your file.

Recommended for Further Study:

For more help with your crafting copy that will bring you ultra-targeted prospects that will buy from you over and over again, check out Alice Seba’s Internet Marketing Copy Makeover. This one-on-one 4-week coaching program is customized to the needs of your unique business and shows you how to transform your current under-performing copy into an effective sales tool.

Download a Free Headline Tips, Sales Letter Template & Checklist at Internet Marketing Copywrite Makeover.