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Loading ...Hey, I’m sharing the spotlight with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing on PayPal’s Online Merchant Network through January 2007.
Here’s the link:
http://www.OnlineMerchantNetwork.com/inform/
You do have to create an account, but it’s free, and a really neat new avenue to connect with other business owners and vendors. Check it out!
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...You can’t buy good taste or class. Some people will always be cheap and tacky. Don’t sweat it.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Have you noticed this Send-Out-Cards craze lately?
It’s this MLM affiliate type company that will send their printed cards that you purchase and personalize online. You can send them to whoever you wish, and they will print, stuff and label them for you. What you do is purchase one of several "levels" of membership. Of course, they want you to also try to sell memberships to lots and lots of other business people, too.
Their motto is "changing lives one card at a time." And you can "create residual income" while you’re at it. Ick!
I an so not feeling this! And my disdain increased upon receiving several of these cards this holiday season.
They are cheap looking and poorly crafted. I certainly don’t feel especially thought of by a generic card printed by a machine right down to the signature. Gee, don’t put yourself out on my account.
On top of that, the intention doesn’t feel very genuine when you know that profit is its root.
On one of the listservs I belong to, there was a hearty discussion about sending notes and cards. It was pretty much unanimously agreed that a handwritten card with a personal note is the best way to make a friend, colleague or client feel special. Something as simple as sending a personal greeting card can really make a huge impression in this day and age of impersonal electronica.
Says Mark Merenda of SmartMarketing, "The little things count. Clients will value any communications from you (note, newsletter, email, whatever) commensurate with the amount of time and effort they estimate you put into it."
Here’s a round-up of card/note sending etiquette the group decided what imperative:
So, there are some card-giving tips for you. Just please don’t use those Send-Out-Cards. Ack. They’re awful!
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...I really don’t need for much, but for those of you who have asked, the two best presents for me are gift certificates from Amazon.com and Office Depot.
Yes, I covet me some Amazon and Office Depot.
You know you’re a business nerd when you get excited about office products. And I’m always buying books (my list is never-ending), and the absolute easiest way to do it, and save money at the same time, is through Amazon.
So what’s on your wishlist?
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...I’ve got a challenge for you!
You have written about Virtual Assistance and Virtual Assistants for almost 10 years now. The trend has been to constantly take the angle that we’re a bunch of mommies vacuously changing diapers while dabbling on the side pathetically grubbing for any scrap change we can.
I know why you take this road—because women and moms are a huge demographic with the most buying power, the biggest force to be reckoned with in the marketplace.
But I’ve got news for you–I’m a mom, and I and the vast majority of my colleagues are insulted by this constant portrayal. Us moms (and dads) in the Virtual Assistance profession want to give you something else to chew on!
Being a mom (or dad) is the hardest, most important job there is. But being a mom or dad doesn’t sum up the whole of our being, and reducing us to only that one particular circumstance of our lives is not only demeaning, it’s inaccurate.
Yes, there are those who do dabble in our work for side money—but those are telecommuters, NOT Virtual Assistants.
Virtual Assistance is a skilled profession that requires many years of real world experience and skills development. Virtual Assistants are bold, empowered, entrepreneurial women and men who offer the world and our families much more than some chump change on the side!
We are tenacious, fiercely determined business women and men, taking charge of our own futures and fortunes. We make our own way in the world. We are masters of ingenuity and innovation. We are scrappy independents who embody the spirit this country was forged upon, and if trends are any indication, where the future of this country lies.
Why not start reporting on that for a change?
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...… and anyone else who offers subscription-based products and services.
I want to give a couple clients magazine subscriptions for Christmas, and an idea occured to me.
I think it would be really neat if my subscription gift to a client could be personalized in some basic, simple way so that when the client gets each month’s issue, they would be reminded that it was my gift to them.
Nothing fancy–maybe just some additional imprinting that says something like "Your gift from Danielle at The Relief." Or maybe even "From Danielle at The Relief–thanks for being a terrific client!"
What do you think?
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Well, I’ve had to deal with two vendors today with crappy service. Grrrr.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Here’s an example:
My forum software vendor came out with a new version with bug fixes and improved security. However, they tell you that if you upgrade, you lose all your customizations and modifications. They even want you to sign a statement indicating you are aware of this.
My first complaint is that I never even got an email notifying me that there was an upgrade. I only found out by accident.
My second complaint is why on earth would you faciliate an upgrade that caused your customers a huge amount of pain and inconvenience. I paid good money to have my forum customized, and now you tell me that if I upgrade, I will lose all that and have to go through it all and pay for it again (and waste my valuable time) ?!
And then they basically say, “we can’t be bothered with taking care of this inconvenience we created for you. You will have to visit our helpful online community at such-and-such.”
Well, I’ve been there before and it’s neither helpful nor convenient. It takes forever to get anyone to respond to your posted questions–that is if you get any response at all!
And then they get irritated if you don’t happen to have time to waste digging through the back threads hunting for information. It’s like a needle in a haystack. Well, excuse the crap out of me for being a business owner.
Are you guys morons?!
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...This isn’t going to mean anything to most anyone reading, but, hey, it’s my blog and I get to muse to myself if I feel like it.
Last year, I began working on a concept for a movement towards improved standards in my profession last year–I called it Gritty VA. As that work evolved, it led to my founding of a Virtual Assistant organization earlier this year, mainly because I was fed up with rampant dishonesty and lack of ethics among those who affixed themselves with the title of "industry leader."
I want to belong to a real profession, one I can be proud of, that insists on both ethical and professional standards, and expects those who populate its ranks to live up to those standards. I believe that when you expect excellence, you get excellence.
Well, it’s turned into a beautiful thing. Together with my steering committee, we’ve created this wonderful community of smart, savvy businesswomen and men, mentoring and empowering each other to think bigger, both personally and business-wise, and earn more–all without fabricating credentials, embellishing professional histories and abilities, and simply telling the truth about who we are and what we have to offer. We don’t spend our time marketing to each other or trying to sell someone else’s overpriced box of poor quality snake oil to the neglect of our own businesses.
So I have to chuckle when the woman who has been hell-bent on a campaign of defamation and slander, trying to discredit me, is at the same time desperately trying to emulate us (read copy) at every turn. ROFL.
Here’s a hiliarious example. When we developed an award of excellence, she announced two. And while we only give ours out once a year very judiciously, by gawd, she’s going to give hers out every month. Because quantity is better than quality, don’t you know. Pretty soon, every single one of the people in her group will have gotten them. And what kind of excellence does that signify exactly?
Her unoriginality has gotten so predictable that we actually take bets on how long it will take her to copy something once we’ve announced it, LOL. It’s so pathetic that I’d feel sorry for her if I didn’t already know what a dishonest, unethical person she is.
(By the way, synchronize your watches now because as soon as she gets wind of this post, you can bet she’ll change her award program according to what I’ve just pointed out.)
What she doesn’t realize is she will never be me. You can’t fake being innovator. She can badmouth me and copy all she wants, but she’ll never have the juice, baby. She’ll always just be a lying, conniving, manipulative hack and cheap imitation. And quality, truth and excellence always prevail in the end.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Well, I had my Christmas cards all done and ready to be mailed by December 1 this year. I was really excited about it, too.
Usually I don’t like sending cards. Nine times out of 10, they just go in the garbage anyway once the holidays are over. It seems so wasteful to me.
This year for some reason, I was inspired to do the card thing again. But instead of just sending a card, I wanted to include something kind of fun that might stick around longer so I found some cute little sparkly ornaments that matched my cards and fit perfectly inside.
And I was oh so pleased with my cleverness and originality–until I began hearing from just about every single person they reached that the ornament arrived in broken bits. And what’s irritating is that I went to the post office and asked them specifically if they would be okay to mail the way I had, and was given the thumbs-up. Grrrr.
What a bummer.
Well, it’s the thought that counts, right?
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...You may have heard about this–it made national coverage. A San Francisco family (dad, mom, 4 y/o and 6 m/o daughters) went missing after visiting family for Thanksgiving up here in Washington near where I live. They left the day after to drive back to Frisco.
Well, they never made it, and it was 10 days before searchers found the car lost on a hunting road normally closed this time of year in the Oregon mountains, with mom and daughters inside and alive. She had keep them in remarkably good shape by breastfeeding both of them.
Dad, after valiantly keeping his family alive the whole week by huddling together in the car during the day, melting snow for water, and burning the tires of the car one by one for heat at night, left on Saturday to get help since they hadn’t been rescued.
Well, I just found out that searchers finally found him–dead.
I don’t know what it was about this story that I felt so connected to this family of strangers, but I just burst into tears when I got the news. I prayed so hard last night to the universe that he would be found–alive. I don’t know them for nothing, but this has grabbed hold of me, and I’m just heartbroken to find this out. I’m welling up just typing this.
It’s so sad. They seemed like such a nice, happy young family, full of love and life. It just breaks my heart…
I know this might sound all new-agey and weirdo-ish, which I’m definitely not, but I wonder if it was his spirit in death that guided rescuers to his family. Like, as a mortal human, he couldn’t help them, but in spirit he did.
I’m praying Mrs. Kim and her daughters find some consolation in knowing that their husband and father was a brave hero.
God bless you, Mr. Kim and family.
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Posts to this blog are the intellectual property of Danielle Keister. However, you are authorized to make certain use of them pursuant to a Creative Commons License. Under the terms of that license, you can copy or republish any post, for any non-commercial purpose, so long as you attribute the post to this blog.
NOTE: The terms "Gritty VA," "Gritty Virtual Assistant," and "Saucy business savvy for clients and colleagues from a Virtual Assistant industry veteran" did not exist in the public domain when this blog was launched August 2005. The author claims exclusive right to use those terms as identifying marks for this weblog and other written, digitized or electronic use, pursuant to U.S. and International copyright and trademark laws.
This weblog is published by Danielle Keister, The Relief Virtual Assistance and Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce. If you would like permission to reprint any of my published columns, please contact me at word@grittyva.com. At all times you may provide the link to these copyrighted columns when referencing them in any form.
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