Why you need a Virtual Assistant

If you are a freelancer or a small company, you often work 12-15 hour days to ensure that everything gets done.  Phone calls have to be made, bills have to be paid and the customers have be located to keep things going.

Bob is working 12 hours a day to make a living for his wife, his children, and to afford shelter and food for his family.  He’s working hard because he loves his family and wants to make them happy.  Yet, his relationship with them is suffering because he’s working so hard he rarely gets to share a conversation or he’s missing the snuggle in bed for last story before bedtime.

Enter a virtual assistant. An effective VA can organize a calendar, clear out an email inbox, handle web site maintenance, communicate with clients and prospective clients, among many other things.

What could Bob do with two extra hours a day?  Share a hug, laugh with his children, go to dinner with his wife, teach his kids to swim, or grab that missing snuggle during the bedtime story.

What will you do with an extra two hours every work day? Contact me and let’s find out.

Review: PageOnce

PageOnce is an online personal assistant that let’s you input your contact information and then manage your financial, shopping, social media (yes, even Twitter) and email from one screen.  I signed up to give it a try yesterday after reading Mashable’s positive review.   Here’s a few points that are sticking with me thus far.

First off, PageOnce doesn’t want to play nice with Firefox 3.  While I realize that FF 3 is beta, it is my choice of browser. It’s slowing down performance a great deal and beach balling when I attempt to open the tab that hosts PageOnce.  I’ve reported this as a bug.

After I log in and get the tab working properly, I’ve experienced random log outs, after logging in and with no activity for 2 minutes.  Reading the Help section, I didn’t see this mentioned as a feature so I reported it as a bug as well.

I’m one of those people who aren’t so hot about the idea of putting my banking information on a website with passwords, etc. even if they have the best protection and security possible.  Even banks get hacked so security doesn’t mean infallible.  9 times out of 10 this security works, but I hate taking the chance.   Some of you readers will be okay with this, some won’t.  Please let me know your thoughts.  PageOnce has clearly addressed these concerns on their Help page.

I’m having issues with a couple of accounts (yes, I know my username and passwords).  AT&T isn’t logging in at all and Starbucks won’t update for some reason even though I know my balance has changed.  The time on that clock is 4 hours since the last update, even though I’ve hit the refresh button a couple times.

I can see where with many profiles this would be a great management tool for social media sites.  It would be helpful for me to manage multiple social media sites for clients (with permissions, natch).   That will be my next experiment and hopefully in the meantime “whatever is making it beachball” bug will be sorted out.

Also promising is the management of all those pesky mileage and reward accounts if you are a frequent traveler and have numerous.  It would be extra cool if this account could connect you with sites like Farecast, Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire and other websites that are travel/flight/hotel discounted.  In the meantime, at least all of your numbers are in an easily accessible place.

It’s in beta, it’s got time to fix things and grow.  PageOnce is a free service and it does well at managing account flow and organization. They are looking to add an iPhone application and that always intrigues me.  I could see managing all of my social media accounts from one app on the iPhone and that would be killer for me.

Update: Pageonce responded to my bug reports with stating that they were forwarding the issues to a specialist.  Here is an excerpt: “We are sorry to hear that you are experiencing these problems and w e have forwarded your issues to a specialist. You should expect a response within 7-14 business days.”

Interview for Small Biz Survival

Becky McCray, known to me as a small town gal, interviewed me on how to find a virtual assistant that fits and what makes it work from a distance.  I had a lot of fun doing the interview and giving her readers some insight on how it all works. Be sure to read the followup post in Becky’s Small Biz 100 by Liz Strauss.

Becky is an awesome person who likes to help others feel appreciated, thus she has Brag Basket on Fridays on her website.  It’s a great way to let someone know that they’ve helped you, give them a special shoutout or thank you.

Thank you Becky for taking the time to talk with me!