The Super Long Day Badge of Honor – No More!

Earlier this year I wrote a post “So when did 12 hour days become the norm?”, it has been on my mind a lot lately and need to write about it again.

My question then and now is, when did the “I worked a 20 hour day and I’m working on barely 4 hours of sleep!” become a badge of honor? A requirement to be a good virtual assistant business owner? Early morning, nights, weekends – you are at the beck and call of your inbox and the requests of your clients. It seems that the bragging rights from this type of schedule are not about how much you enjoy your business but how many hours you worked.

Why is that? Is this a carry over from our corporate jobs? I think that may be where I learned it. No only from my own experience but from watching others – even on TV. With all the cut backs, each employee has needed to work faster, harder, longer and become an expert multi-tasker.

To be honest, it was one fo the reasons I thought the VA industry would be a good fit for me. Lots of variety, enjoying the juggling of multiple projects/tasks. Yes I knew there would be long days, that is to be expected as a business owner. But when the days and weekends kept getting longer I realized I had only created another j-o-b.

There has to be a better way!
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Recommended Training: VA Classrooms Internet Marketing 2010

VAClassroom.com is offering great courses right now that I encourage anyone interested in Social Media and/or Internet Marketing to take a close look at. Newly updated for 2010 the information offered and the training available will give you a solid foundation for specializing in your virtual assistant business.

I personally took the Internet Marketing Course when it first was released and was greatly impressed the breadth of information covered. There are tutorials showing you how to set up and install Google Analytics, examples and tools on conducting keyword research and finding affiliates for affiliate programs… all of these give you the training you need to offer strategy and suggestions to your clients and to use in your own business.

A well rounded understanding of internet marketing will help you as you develop your skills in social media marketing, blog marketing, web analytics and affiliate programs. I found it opened up quite a few doors and showed me different options that I could focus on as a virtual assistant… as well as showing me areas I do NOT want to focus on as a VA. Affiliate Marketing manager is not at the top of my list after going through this training LOL!

Internet Marketing is such a huge topic that in many ways this program can only scratch the surface and there were times I found that frustrating, I wanted more information and more in-depth training. But as I said, in many ways this really only scratches the surface and is a great starting point, a sound foundation for taking your training to the next level.

The training comes in a variety of styles including a review and resources for each lesson in PDF form and a wide variety of videos. Each lesson has a video plus special segments focusing on a particular tool or concept. Each lesson is in an easily digestible chunks that allow you to move forward at your own pace. The assignments are not complicated but are thorough enough to make sure that you do understand the training and can take what you are taught and apply it in a real world situation.

To be honest I’m a bit addicted to their training courses, finished Traffic Geyser training earlier this year… in the middle of Podcast Marketing and participated in the Ning training and I’m sure that will not be the last class I take with them. So If you have any questions on this program or any other programs through VA Classroom please feel free to ask  I would be happy to share my experience and feedback with VA Classroom.

**Note: These links are affiliate links.

Recommended Resource: Newsletters in Focus

There are not many newsletters that I take the time to read each and every time they hit my inbox.  This is one of them!

Newsletters in Focus by Jessica Albon (aka @thriveyourtribe).

Here Jessica offers great advice on your marketing efforts from newsletters to social media to networking and all with an easy to read format that makes you think. Last year she introduced a new quiz:

“What’s Your Client Attraction Style”

An insightful quiz that gives you information on your style with suggestions on how to create a marketing strategy to fit. It has been so much fun – you can take the quiz here:  http://www.thriveyourtribe.com/web-style-quiz/

I have also worked with her on redesigning my VA website and have taken the tools and advice she gave to apply it here. The newsletter that just landed in my inbox was a case study in the “Judy Client Attraction Style” (Yep I’m a Judy and proud of it!) and found myself saying, yes, that is so me, oh good point, ah yes I need to go check and see how I am doing in that area…. then at the end I see my name mentioned and just had to laugh, well that would explain it she was talking about me no wonder I was getting it!

This is a resource I highly recommend you check out and see what a difference it will make in your marketing efforts. (Nope,I’m not an affiliate on this one!).

Oh and by the way… my website review? Not only was it great advice it was a piece of art! I take it out not only to use it but just to look at, it is that much fun