Every day you hear about people having trouble finding jobs. But, there is hope on the horizon. Individuals are finding work in a direction that might not be expected – that is in the freelancing arena.

Places like Elance are seeing a drastic increase in outsourcing as recently disclosed in the Quarter 1 results for the Elance Online Employment Report. Just take a look at some of the amazing results that Elance has pulled together.

• Jobs posted by businesses seeking talent jumped forward in leaps and bounds and grew 52% year-over-year and 32% over Q4. Freelance workers overall logged in from over from over 130 different countries yielding an increase of over 51% more year-over-year.
• IT and Creative skills have always maintained a strong push up in momentum, but Operations skills are coming up from the rear with a quite surprising surge of 24% over last quarter.
• More and more businesses are looking to satisfy employment needs from outsourcing with New York being the number one city to take advantage of the freelance marketplaces; Los Angeles, San Francisco and Brooklyn are closing in fast.
• Amarillo, Texas, takes a bow as they are recognized as being America’s most creative city. This was after a huge jump of over 10 spots.

It goes without saying that it’s an employer’s market right now. Businesses can afford to be choosy right now. Whether companies have a long-term project that they need help on or a short-term project, project managers are quickly coming to the realization that outsourcing is the wave of the future, and it’s in their best interests to jump on the bandwagon now and save on the high costs of hiring full-time employees.
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants — the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Read here on the benefits of using a freelance marketplace for hiring virtual assistants.

An article writer has many tricks of the trade that they use to entice their readers into reading their good quality content. But do you know where they get their research from?

While we wish it were so, we’re not all able to have the gift of gab and be able to write an article or blog post on a whisper of a prayer and have it sound right. Most writers need to do some degree of research before sitting down and putting good quality content to a word processor or text editor. So here are 4 sources for research I use as an article writer.

Wikipedia

I consider Wikipedia to be my best friend. You see, I usually start with this resource first. Why? Wikipedia is my stepping stone to gain an understanding on a particular subject. It’s never my plan to rely wholly on this online encyclopedia. I can still remember my English teacher telling me never, ever use just one resource when writing. You need to make sure that your facts are accurate.

From within a particular Wiki page, I can usually gain valuable insight into locations, meaning, history and trends, all wrapped into one neat little package. After I pick and choose the information that I want to use for my notes, then I’m ready to proceed to another source to either back up or argue the points I might wish to emphasize in my article. But hmmm, what’s a good direction to go from here? Oh, I know. I can go to the web search engines.

Web Search Engines

You’re probably all familiar with the most familiar web search engine of Google, but did you know that there can be lots? For example, just from doing research for this article, I found a brand new site How Many Are There. To my amazement, just written and posted today was an article that seemed to be very apropos for what I’m writing to you about now. The name of the article is How Many Search Engines Are There? According to this article, there are over 30! Listed among them were some of my old familiar friends amongst a wide array of new ones that I had never heard of.

Since it’s never wise to rely just on one source of information, I will be checking out other sources on the Internet as well to make sure that I’m not printing information that will misguide my readers. Remember, I alluded to the fact that I want to write good quality content.

YouTube

YouTube is a resource that I have just started using. While I’ve noticed that not all videos are good quality, I have found some that can be used to substantiate a ‘how to’ process to make it easier for me to explain the different steps to my readers. A word of caution I might add here is Do Not Plagiarize. Give credit where credit is due.

Social Media Sites

Now some of you might be saying, “I can’t believe you are going to recommend using social media as resources for information. Let me explain. Especially with the social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can gain some valuable insight into corporate profiles, websites, missions and goals and new quality content that they are posting to their pages. In addition, you can get a sense of upcoming events that might be useful for what you are writing on.

Now I’m not suggesting that everyone use the same 4 sources of information for research in order to write good quality content. What I am saying is that these resources work for me and give me a sense of organization that I can use for gaining good quality information that I can write about. After all, I really don’t know everything there is to know about every subject. Everyone can use a little help somewhere.
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants, the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

A new SmartDistribution Model is here! It’s now possible to increase your brand visibility, increase SEO and increase the potential for higher sales and sign ups through your website. Check it out now!

Virtual Assistants can find themselves in a bind and not be able to find the time for writing articles due to their clients’ demand on the VA’s time. Do you know any other ways to post quality content to the Web? I do. Let’s check it out.

I’m sure you have all heard me lament that I just don’t have the time to write articles anymore. You see, as a virtual assistant, my clients are my priority. With working from dawn to late in the evenings, there just aren’t extra minutes in the day for personal writing. I had to find 3 things I can do to post quality content to the Web and do it fast!

Share

Did you just read an article on the Web and really, really like it and you think your clients or colleagues might enjoy it? Share it through one of the popular bookmarking and sharing services that you can find on the Internet. There are some that you can get a share button to add to your popular Web browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Safari. Reading an article pertaining to your niche? Share it!

Talk it up in social media

Okay, so maybe you don’t have a lot of time to write an article. But, if you can take five minutes out of your day, you can post to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or some of your other favorite social networking sites. Here are a couple of benefits for doing that:

1. Increase your brand image:

It stands to reason that the more you post, the more chances you will have of having your logo, photo, business, etc. visible in the eyes of the public. Seeing can lead to their talking YOU up (watch out; it can work in reverse also) and spreading their feedback.

2. Become more widely known as an expert in your field

If you continuously offer valuable input on Facebook Pages or to your social media in response to questions pertaining to your niche, the chances are very strong that they will look to you to solve their needs in the future. You will gradually be recognized as a go to person for help in solving issues.

Offer input in forums

In my opinion virtual assistants or anyone that has a niche that they write about should have at least one forum that they are a member of. Why? Here are just three benefits of becoming part of a niche forum:

• Sharing opportunities

After all, if you like horseback riding (yup, that’s me), then you want to be able to talk with other people that have the same interests and get new content for writing blog posts or articles when you get more time.

• Brainstorming opportunities

If you have an idea, you can bounce that idea of another member or even all members of the forum and ask for advice on what the members think. It’s a great way to receive, give, exchange, recommend (I’m sure there are more words I could think of to describe this if I thought about it, but let’s go on.)

• Networking opportunities – The more people you know and like you and hear of your virtual assistant services, the more they will spread the word to their business associates. Who knows? You could gain some new clients yourself in the process as their business associates come to you for services you offer.

A virtual assistant has to be alert to new opportunities to take advantage of managing their time. There are several ways you can post quality content to the Web, even though you may not be actively writing articles or blog posting. Some of those methods can take as little as five minutes. Good luck!
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants, the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

A new SmartDistribution Model is here! It’s now possible to increase your brand visibility, increase SEO and increase the potential for higher sales and sign ups through your website. Check it out now!

Summary: For whatever reason, virtual assistants (and small businesses in general) come to the realization that their customer list is dropping. Are you doing all you can to get those customers to come back to you?

What we have found is that customers can and will come back to you if you follow three steps to get back those customers that seem to be lost. Let’s take a look at each of them individually.

Own the mistake

What this means is that you can’t blame the customer for a falling out. You need to take ownership (at least part of it) for what caused them to go to another provider. Were you rude? Maybe you irritated them by always pushing ‘I’ instead of ‘you.’ Maybe the customer left because of personal reasons. Trying showing a little empathy.

Do a reality check

Have you checked back with the customer to see how they’re doing? Do a reality check — ask them for their input as to what could have been done differently if they felt the falling out was due to something that you did. Clients generally are very good about giving you feedback about what ‘coulda, shoulda’ been done.

Our virtual assistant small business has come to realize that customer feedback is great because the client appreciates being included in decisions (makes them less cranky when something’s not going their way). Not only that, what a wealth of information you could receive to help you improve how you operate your business. Who knows; maybe their answers won’t hurt as bad as any solution you would have implemented.

Go above and beyond to fix what YOU did

Personally, if the customer shows you that you or your small business was the culprit in helping them to make the decision to leave, apologize. That’s right; I said apologize. Then discuss with the customer a possible action plan that you can implement that will ensure a healthy business relationship with you should they agree to return. Make sure that you are integrating a good comprehensive customer service action plan. Finally — Follow through on that action plan.

Clients (and/or customers) are the core of any virtual assistant’s or small business. Take care to provide A-1 customer service and satisfaction to those clients you have. However, if a client should tend to stray and go to another small business provider, be proactive and contact them. First, own up to any mistakes you might have made if they should suggest that you were the problem. Do a reality check and get their advice on how they think things could have gone better. As a last step, go above and beyond to fix what you did. By following these three steps, virtual assistants can get back those customers that seem to be lost. Being lost doesn’t mean they have to stay lost.
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants, the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Reward your customers with comprehensive customer service tactics in order to improve customer satisfaction.

Everyone has been talking about it. Since Google changed their algorithm, there’s been a lot of concern whether or not article writers and virtual assistants should stay away from writing good wholesome articles altogether.

So what is Google’s purpose?

Google is intent on improving ranking for article writers. What will happen is that quality should take a big step up. I’m sure you’ve noticed trying to search in your favorite search engine for a term and getting very low-quality articles. Some of them don’t even pertain to the search keyword(s) you typed in. Google believes that this is just the start and readily admit that new updates will be coming down the pipeline that should improve quality even more.

What Is a Content Farm?

According to Wikipedia, a content farm as it relates to the World Wide Web “is used to describe a company that employs large numbers of often freelance writers to generate large amounts of textual content which is specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by automated search engines. Their main goal is to generate advertising revenue through attracting reader page views.” Unfortunately, many of these content farms can promote articles of low quality due to excessive spinning or poor writing abilities.

How will this affect article content distribution sites?

Places like Distribute Your Articles (DYA) believe that content farms are in trouble. DYA has always encouraged their members to always submit original content. Their coaches are put through an extensive training program so they are comfortable recognizing errors that can cause an article to be rejected by publishers and site owners. Included in the training is how to correctly apply Article Alchemy™ technology. The end result is that the article writer can rest assured that their articles have been intensively reviewed to make sure that high quality is maintained.

Other content distribution places are raising the bars in their review process to ensure that they are not penalized by Google with a low rating. This will include places like EzineArticles who has recently announced several changes they have implemented to improve their ranking. One of the biggest changes was to increase the minimum length of articles from 300 to 400.

So what is my strategy going to be for me, as well as my clients? I will follow the course of DYA and recommend to my clients that we only submit original content to multiple sites, depending on the client’s memberships. However, my advice to them will also be to blog, and post their articles on social media like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Do I believe that Virtual Assistants (VAs) should be concerned with Google’s new algorithm? I would more say that VAs should become aware but not necessarily concerned. So, for me, that means business as usual. What do you think?
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. Borlok Virtual Assistants is the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Market far and wide and use the Internet to promote your products and services.

A small business might think that freelancing is a thing of the past due to large corporations outsourcing most of their help overseas. But, that’s simply not the case. There is plenty of work nationally, plus you can outsource overseas yourself by outsourcing in Canada, UK, Australia, and lots of other countries.

So is there a way a small business can benefit from outsourcing? Yes, there are three specific ways to go about it:

1. Identify the tasks you can outsource

What do you have on your plate right now that you can have someone else take care of, thereby freeing up time for you — things like transcription, article submission, copywriting or copy editing and much more. Make a list and then prioritize them.

2. Systematize tasks

Before you give work to a freelancer, you want to make sure that you write up your instructions so they are clear. One problem I see with clients all the time when they are outsourcing to me is that they skip steps. Not every freelancer will try to fill in the missing step. They will sit there and say “I can’t do that; it doesn’t work.” Be complete and concise in writing out what you want your freelancer to do and avoid any misunderstandings up front.

3. Don’t wait until your workload demands that you get extra help immediately.

The time to go through the process of finding freelancers is now before you end up with a short deadline. Check out the major freelance marketplaces. Need some more encouragement as to how a small business can benefit from outsourcing? Check out this article: What Are the Benefits of Using a Freelance Marketplace For Hiring Virtual Assistants?.

Are there other avenues you can pursue to find good, honest freelancers? Sure there are. If you travel a lot and attend a lot of conventions or seminars, keep your eye out for virtual assistants that may be there, as well. Another option would be to search the internet under keywords like outsourcing, freelancing, virtual assistants, and a wide variety of others such as benefits, freelance marketplace or independent contractors.

Being proactive and taking a look at what you can outsource now, organizing your possibilities, and then looking for good outsource possibilities now will save you time and money in the long-term. Do you need a jump start at making that list? According to this article, Outsourcing: Three Keys to Outsourcing Success by Janet Attard, “When you are a one-person or micro-sized business you not only have to create the product or do the income-producing service, you also need to answer calls from customers, make sales calls, get a website set up, get active in social media, send out invoices, do the bookkeeping, keep marketing your business, and do a whole lot of other things, too. To keep up with it all you could easily work 12 to 14 hours a day , 6 or 7 days a week.” Does that help to kick start you?
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants — the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Get the answer Now! Do More with Less on oDesk You can .

Now, I’m going to discuss further with you about what a virtual assistant should look for in a phone system. While there are a few different options that you can look at such as a landline, a cell phone or VoIP, I’m going to suggest that you look at an online phone service.

An online phone service should be inexpensive.

It goes without saying that you need to watch your expenses, especially in a down economy. Look for a service that will have a wide variety of options at an economical price.

An online phone service should have a wide variety of features.

It’s interesting what peoples’ thoughts are as to what they should have as features. At the least, you will want options like voice mail, caller ID, call forwarding, and perhaps the ability to have conferencing or fax capabilities. You will want to have the ability to customize your phone service to fit your needs.

An online phone service should have a customer-service oriented support desk.

There’s nothing worse than trying to set up an extension or have something go wrong with your phone system only to have no one to help you out when you get into trouble. Who are you going to call — or email — or phone? Does your online phone service have 24/7 service. You might even want to check and see if they have answers to common questions in an easily-accessible place that you can look at. Or, better yet, do they have live chat?

An online phone service should be user-friendly.

I’ve used online phone services that are extremely difficult to figure out, and you couldn’t get any support; so you want a phone service that is user-friendly. It should be easy to use and to operate. I have found Phone.com to be very affordable, easy to use, and versatile.

As a virtual assistant, it is critical that your clients be able to reach you sometimes by phone. If you can’t always be available by phone, they should be able to leave you a message and have a return call within 24 hours. You should shop around for the best phone system that will handle the things you need it to handle; however, you should always look for a phone system that is inexpensive, flexible with multiple features, have a support system where you can get help, and be user friendly. After all, your phone system is going to be the first impression that a client gets of your virtual assistant business. You want to start out on the right foot with them.
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. Borlok Virtual Assistants is the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Provide a comprehensive customer service experience for your clients. Make yourself accessible.