Plan now for a more effective 2011: Outsource non-core tasks !

by Sarah Santacroce

As a small business owner you constantly have to wear different hats: the Marketing Hat, the Social Media Hat, the Administrative Hat and many other hats. Honestly, sometimes you forget what your actual core business is. When things get really out of control, you even trespass the sacred personal time: you skip your daughter’s ballet audition, postpone date night for the third time and cancel the gym membership – because who has time for that, right ?

But this was 2010 – let’s focus on 2011. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could outsource some of your tasks to a helping hand ? Someone who could wear some of those hats for you ? Guess what, that someone exists and is called a Virtual Assistant.

There are numerous benefits of working with a Virtual Assistant (short VA). Here are 5 of them:

• Benefit Nr. 1: with a Virtual Assistant you do not waste precious time on training. If you choose the right VA, she comes highly qualified, experienced and skilled in her field of expertise.
  
• Benefit Nr. 2: if you hire a Virtual Assistant you don't have to pay fees to a temp agency. Let's say your business goes through a tough time and you need immediate help with your administrative tasks. If you go through a temp agency, you always pay a certain fee to help you find an temporary help. Just hire a Virtual Assistant and you can save yourself that fee.
  
• Benefit Nr. 3: Have you ever had an assistant that serves the net all day and makes too many personal phone calls? If you work with a Virtual Assistant you only pay for the time she spends on your project!
  
• Benefit Nr. 4: Since VAs work in a virtual world, place and time no longer matter. You could work with a Virtual Assistant who lives thousands of miles away, even in a different time zone. In fact, different time zones can actually work to your advantage. Your VA works while you sleep!
  
• Benefit Nr. 2: a Virtual Assistant is not affected by bad weather conditions, traffic jams & public transportation strikes

Now that we know some of the benefits, let’s look at how a Virtual Assistant could help you with those hats:

The Marketing Hat:

1. Add a press page to the company website
   Every website should have a press page. A Virtual Assistant can create a press page, and add links to articles in which your company appears on a regular basis.

2. A VA can post your company videos on Youtube
   Youtube and video branding becomes more and more important. Did you know that Youtube reaches 1 Billion views per day? You will have to agree that it would make sense that your company’s videos get posted and marketed on Youtube. A VA can set up an account for you, post the videos, send out links on Facebook and Twitter or embed them on your website.
   

3. Help you distribute your press release and articles on various directories
   It’s very important to write regular articles and press releases. But it’s even more important to distribute them online so people actually read them. A VA can help you distribute them to various directories online.
   
   

The Social Media Hat:

1. Create a Social Media Strategy
   You have made the decision to give Social Media a try – but you don’t know where to start. A Virtual Assistant can help you with that too. Together you will define your business objective, target audience and from there she will create a tailor made Social Media Strategy for your business and will help you implement it.
   
2. Update your Linkedin Profile
   Did you know that your Linkedin Profile is like a mini website and should be treated as such ? Many business owners get new leads through Linkedin, but only because their Linkedin Profile is complete and updated with their product brochures, links to their websites, keywords and even videos.
   
3. Create a Facebook Page for your business
   In my opinion every business who has a website should also have a Facebook Page. A VA can help you take full advantage of this marketing channel, customize it and teach you how to use it.

The Administrative Hat:

1. Organize venue arrangements: seating, meals, beverages, flowers etc
   Next time you have to organize a big event, why don’t you hire a VA instead of trying to prepare your speeches and organize everything at the same time? A VA can get in touch with the venue provider and arrange seating, meals, beverages, podcasting etc.
   

2. Setup an online backup system for your computer
   Honestly, when was the last time you backed up the data on your computer? A Virtual Assistant can arrange an online backup system so that you’ll never have a nightmare about loosing all your files again!

3. Enter the business cards you collect into your contact management software or database
   Is your desk drowning in piles of collected business cards ? Your Virtual Assistant is equipped to scan those cards and easily import them in your customer database. You really don’t have time for that !

These are just a few ideas to show you how a Virtual Assistant could help you make 2011 more effective than ever. You can find a more complete list here.
Plan for your outsourcing needs now, you will not regret it.

Sarah Santacroce helps small business owners with their administrative tasks, Internet & Social Media Marketing. You can contact her by sending her an e-mail to sarah@simplicityadmins.com

How to manage a multilingual Facebook page

by Sarah Santacroce

Even though English is usually the common language for international business people, most non native English speakers still prefer to read their daily information and communication in their mother tongue. The same goes for Facebook. And according to Facebook, 70% of their users are outside the United States. Once a user sets his/her preferred language, he/she will see most of Facebooks site in that language.

Which are the two main reasons to have a multilingual Facebook page ?

1. You live in a country where there is a big majority of people who speak an other language (in America 10.7 % speak Spanish, in Switzerland 63.7% speak French, 20.4% speak French and 6.5% speak Italian, in Canada 21.6% speak French etc. )
   
2. You do business internationally and your target audience is multilingual

If either one of those reasons applies to you, you might want to start managing your Facebook page in multiple languages. You will see that you will get much more return (comments, likes, interactions) from people, if they get to read your content in their own native language. You could even go a step further and personalize the content with country specific information. For example: in the USA a majority of people uses Linkedin, in France Viadeo is more popular and in Germany it is Xing. So if you post an update about this Social Media tool, you would post Linkedin for the Americans, Viadeo for the French and Xing for the German speaking members. For more details on localization you might find this post about website localization and multilingual SEO interesting.

So now that I have convinced you that a multilingual Facebook page is the way to go, I’ll show you quickly how easy it really is to do:

1. Go to your Facebook page, write a status update and click on the custom button

2. Define your audience by choosing the location and the languages

3. Share your update and recognize the customized posts by the little “custom” icon

That’s it, that’s all there is to it. Of course you have to be fluent in the other language, since grammatical mistakes are not very sexy :-) If you’re not, hire a bilingual Virtual Assistant to help you !

If you found this post helpful, consider joining a growing international community on my Facebook page (and let me know by posting a message in your mother tongue on my wall) or signing up for more helpful small business tips by subscribing to my RSS Feed. Thanks for reading!

How can a Bilingual Virtual Assistant help you?

by Claudia Amendola (IT), Sylvie Guiziou (FR) and Sarah Santacroce (CH)

A virtual assistant (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is an independent entrepreneur who provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients from a home office.

A virtual assistant can help you with your daily tasks that need to be accomplished in order to run your business successfully. She or he can work on both short-term and long-term projects without becoming your employee. You can save money by hiring a virtual assistant as the costs will not include the usual ones related to having a permanent employee (equipment and rental costs, payroll, taxes, benefits and non-productive hours).
A bilingual VA who speaks and writes at least two languages fluently is highly beneficial for a firm which does business in those languages.

Below you find a non exhaustive list of some tasks that you can delegate to this administrative partner.

Administrative tasks:

A bilingual virtual assistant can organize and manage your correspondence or an email campaign for your business. She can manage your database, updating and entering new information. If you need travel arrangements, calendar management, email data research, date entry, transcription or other administrative services in two languages, a bilingual virtual assistant is the person that can solve all these things, while you focus on more lucrative work. All you need is a computer, a phone and an internet connection to stay in touch with a virtual assistant and delegate the tasks to her or him.

Marketing:

Some virtual assistants are specialized in Internet and/or social media marketing. They can help you set up an article or press release marketing campaign, improve the SEO of your website and give you other helpful tips on how to increase your client base trough Internet marketing. They are also experts in how to use social media to increase your leads: create a business blog, set up an engaging Facebook page, help you how to use Twitter and other trendy social media tools.

Customer Services:

If you are looking for customers worldwide, a bilingual virtual assistant can help you communicate with your clients in countries whose language you do not speak fluently. A bilingual virtual assistant can connect with your prospects or customers in their native language and help you develop your business.

Translations:

Bilingual virtual assistants can translate your website, articles, press releases or Powerpoint presentations to their native language or to another language they are fluent in. Human translations are always better than machine translations and a bilingual or multilingual virtual assistant can offer you a level of translation that will take your business to the next level. A virtual assistant is more involved in your business so the translation can be more accurate and more focused on your needs. Certified translators usually charge more for the same translations.

Internet Marketing and SEO:

A bilingual virtual assistant can also perform SEO for the targeted language, which is more than translating the text word by word. He or she will know which keywords are relevant in the target language so that your translated site will be better ranked in Google or Bing.
The efficient, cost-effective solutions offered by bilingual virtual assistants allow you to devote more time to your core business, increase productivity and save money.

***

Italian and Spanish native speaker, Claudia Amendola of MTvirtualassistant is a multilingual virtual assistant (it-sp-en) specialized in bilingual customer services, website translation and travel concierge. htpp://www.mtvirtualassistant.com

French national, Sylvie Guiziou, of Optim Office is a bilingual (fr-en) virtual assistant dedicated to working with small business owners and individual entrepreneurs to help them focus on strategic activities that require their full attention. Sylvie delivers virtual assistance in general administrative services, bilingual En-Fr services, transcription, copywriting, data entry, Internet research and much more at http://www.optimoffice.fr

Swiss national, Sarah Santacroce runs Simplicity Admin Solutions, a virtual assistance business working with small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to help them dedicate their precious time to their core business. Simplicity Admin Solutions offers tailor made virtual administrative solutions, Internet marketing support, translation service and much more at http://www.simplicityadmins.com. All services are available in English, German and French.

Website localization and multilingual SEO: a bilingual Virtual Assistant can help you

by guest blogger Claudia Amendola of mtvirtualassistant.com

What’s the key of a successful international website?

Over the past year, many of my clients with international websites have been asking me for an easy and fast way to optimize their sites for each country or the European market. That’s the reason why I wanted to make this post and share with you my thoughts. Please feel free to share yours too by leaving your comments ,-) .

You may know already that an “international” website is a website for an international audience. In order to reach an international audience you will need to Translate and Localize your website in other languages. English is the most common language but that doesn’t mean that everyone on this planet speaks and understand perfectly English. Only 37 percent of the world’s online population speaks English as a first language.

Translate your website in other languages such as Spanish, Italian, French, German ect will assure you a niche of market you will never get if your website is only written in English.

But translating your website is not the only thing you will need to do in order to reach multilingual audiences. Your website needs to be localized. WEBSITE LOCALIZATION is the process of modifying an existing website to make it accessible, usable and culturally suitable to a new target audience. It is a multi-layered process needing both programming expertise and linguistic/cultural knowledge as well as marketing knowledge. If a website is only translated to a different language, the chances to reach a new market are lower.

The website localization process comes normally first. Followed up by the website and content translation. At least this is what I normally do as I prefer to search and focus first on the market and audience niche. It is important to study the right words, the target audience age you are communicating with, the society class as well as your competitors in that particular country. In the majority of cases it is the lack of linguistic and cultural input that lets a website localization down.

Last but not least is: INTERNATIONAL or MULTILINGUAL SEO!

Multilingual SEO is an important component to an effective global Internet marketing strategy. Some search engines are better than others and work differently, too. Google results, for instance, may differ from country to country. Just because you’ve achieved a certain rank for targeted keywords for the U.S. doesn’t mean you’ll achieve the same results for Italy or Spain, for instance.

So, these are some tips you may take in consideration for your multilingual marketing:

- Know Your Audience first

- Modify Web Page Code for your new market

- Choose the right Domain or Domain Extensions

- Always use the Native Language

Claudia Amendola, Multilingual and Travel Virtual Assistant successfully provides an outsourcing alternative for clients who typically do not have the time, space or budget for in-house staff, but have the same need for bilingual and travel assistance. Claudia speaks and writes 3 languages fluently: English, Spanish and Italian. She can be reached at info@mtvirtualassistant.com or on Twitter @italianmtva

For French or German services contact the author of the blog, Sarah Santacroce at sarah@simplicityadmins.com or on Twitter @sarahsantacroce

Getting to know your future Virtual Assistant

by Sarah Santacroce

A couple of weeks ago, Christine Bearse, a fellow VA and champion for the advancement of the Virtual Assistant industry, asked me a couple of questions about myself and my business and posted the interview on her blog, VAProfiles. When choosing an assistant in the “real” world, you get to meet her in person, see her style, hear her voice and discover her hobbies. In the virtual world we have to work a little harder at getting to know the human being behind the gravitar. So Christine decided to start this blog to profile VAs with a bigger focus on their styles and personalities rather than on their rates and services. So in case you are looking for a Virtual Assistant, VAProfiles is a good way to start. Browse away and get to know your future VA.

Here’s an extract of my interview:

When I first “met” Sarah, she was living in California. Since then she has moved back to Switzerland where she has taken her VA business with her! Another great benefit of running a virtual office. Sarah Santacroce is the sole proprietor of Simplicity Admin Solutions. One of her unique talents is her ability to work in three languages (French, German and English). Her niche is multi-lingual assistance such as translations (English to German or French and vice versa) and internet marketing for small businesses or individual entrepreneurs. I asked her some questions about herself and her business, please see what she told me. Also be sure to check out her blog, I found lots of great information there.

Why did you become a VA?

I loved the idea of more flexibility, being able to be available part time for my kids, choosing the people I get to work with and just running my own business.

How do you prefer to communicate with clients? Phone, email, chat, combo?

I like to work with Skype and e-mail.

How do you stay organized? Do you have any organization tips?

I’m all about lists: to-do lists, task lists, priority lists, grocery lists…

How would your friends describe you?

Positive, good listener, usually in a good mood, very Swiss (meaning: on time, reliable, organized, picky about her chocolate)

How would your clients describe you?

Efficient, innovative, always finding better and faster ways

How do you feel about social media?

A must for small businesses! Social media offers small businesses so many free marketing opportunities which didn’t exist before. I’m thinking of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. It would be a pity if a business with a small marketing budget didn’t take advantage of them! Of course Social Media requires quite some time, so sometimes it makes sense to outsource these tasks to a Virtual Assistant.

To read the rest of the interview, click here.

Christine, thanks again for this great opportunity !
If you are a Virtual Assistant and would like to be get a profile on Christine’s website, please contact her through the e-mail on her site.

Related items:
- Find out more about Sarah Santacroce
- Why rocks? - Explaining my logo
- Learn German on Twitter – Find out why I’m posting one German word per day on Twitter
- Subscribe to my RSS Feed

Affordable translations provided by a bilingual Virtual Assistant

by Sarah Santacroce

Here’s the situation: you need to translate your website and have requested a couple of quotes from certified translators. But when you saw the prices, you had to sit down and after some thought, decided that it just wouldn’t fit in your budget for the moment. I’ll bet you any money that you haven’t received a quote from a bilingual Virtual Assistant!

Here are 6 facts you need to know about translations provided by bilingual or multilingual Virtual Assistants:

1. Compared to other cheap oversea translators, bilingual Virtual Assistants usually translate in to their native language, or a language they are VERY familiar with.
   
   
2. You get a human translation, not one created by a machine (such as translate.google.com)
   
   
3. You get a translation from somebody who is interested in your business and will be asking you questions about specific words, terms or meanings on your site or document
   
   
4. You get to ask for references of previous clients
   
   
5. Some bilingual Virtual Assistants are also specialized in SEO and internet marketing and won’t just translate the text, but also give you advice on how to market your site to the new target language. What’s the point of translating your site, if the potential clients of the added language don’t find it on Google, right?
   
   
6. Finally translations by bilingual Virtual Assistants are usually more affordable than those done by certified translators. Some VA’s charge by the hour, others by the word, but either way, you most likely get a better deal!

So, did I convince you to give it a try and hand your next translation job to a bilingual Virtual Assistant? Just ask for a quote and the VA will contact you to discuss your needs. Here are some contacts:

- for English to German translations (or German to English)
- for French to English translations
- for English to French translations
- for English to Italian or Spanish translations (or Italian and Spanish to English)

Please remember, most bilingual Virtual Assistants are not certified translators. So if you are looking for a more technical translation or just want perfection, I recommend you contact a certified translator.

Still not convinced about bilingual Virtual Assistants ? Find out more in these related posts:

- What exactly is a Virtual Assistant?
- How can a bilingual Virtual Assistant help you ?
- 5 benefits of working with a Virtual Assistant

1st Swiss Home Office Day: a big day for Virtual Assistants in Switzerland!

by Sarah Santacroce

3A8P8WB4DADQ

Today is a big day for Virtual Assistants and every other home based business owner in Switzerland! It's the 1st National Home Office Day ! The initiative, which is sponsored by Microsoft and other big national sponsors, tries to prove that quality of life, productivity and climate protection are not opposites. On the official website, individuals and businesses can participate by answering a couple of simple questions such as "How many days do you work at home per week?". The website will then calculate how much C02 the participant will save on average for the next year. My result was 163 kg of CO2!

The campaign is also supported by Swiss politicians. Moritz Leuenberger, Federal Council, is convinced that working from home will not only increase worker’s quality of life, but it would also have a big impact on the environment.
The website already counts more then 8000 participants, over 500 days of time savings and over 300 tons of saved CO2!

From my point of view this is a big step toward a new era: Swiss will start to see the benefits of telework and will be more open to outsource their non core business to people who are working from home. So let’s raise a glass and celebrate the 1st Swiss Home Office Day!!

Got you curious about Virtual Assistants? Find out more in the posts below:

- What exactly is a Virtual Assistant?
- Virtual Assistants in Europe
- How can a bilingual Virtual Assistant help you?
- 5 benefits of working with a Virtual Assistant

How a bilingual virtual assistant can help you

By guest blogger Sylvie Guiziou

In our global economy, businesses are searching for customers not only in their own country, but worldwide. We understand how difficult it is to communicate in a country when you are not able to speak the language fluently. Partnering with a bilingual virtual assistant, who can liaise with your customers and prospects in their native language, can be highly beneficial for your business.

A virtual assistant (often called a VA) is an independent entrepreneur dedicated to providing secretarial, administrative, Internet marketing, social media, website, languages, graphic, legal and/or real estate services from a home office to help businesses, solo entrepreneurs and busy individuals focus on the core aspects of their business, generating income, taking up new challenges, increasing their bottom line.

Whether you are the owner of a company conducting business in a French-speaking country, an executive on a business trip in Paris, France, or an expatriate living in Genève, Switzerland, a bilingual French-speaking virtual assistant can offer a full range of efficient, cost-effective solutions to help your business achieve a greater impact.

Business & event management

Planning a seminar in Europe? Your VA can handle logistics by finding and booking locations, making invitations, booking suppliers for the event and preparing your handout material.

Internet research and data compilation

There is so much information being shared online about your market, customers and competition. Your bilingual VA can collate important piece of information, translate them into English or summarizing them to you.

Marketing services

Have your bilingual virtual assistant:

- compile your material in newsletter format and send it out at the appropriate time,

- set up and implement your email marketing campaign,

- set up and manage your social media accounts,

- manage your blog and post new content on a regular basis

These are just a few examples of how a bilingual virtual assistant can help you.

She can provide you the support and assistance that you need at a fraction of the cost you would expect to pay if you had to hire a permanent or temporary staff member. Rely on this dedicated partner to handle efficiently the various tasks you want to outsource while you focus on more income-generating activities.

Sylvie Guiziou, of Optim Office is a bilingual (fr-en) virtual assistant dedicated to working with small businesses, entrepreneurs and busy individuals to help them focus on strategic activities that require their full attention. She has over 15 years experience in administrative support services at board level in France, and an education in bilingual business administration. She delivers virtual assistance in general administrative services, bilingual En-Fr services, transcription, copywriting, data entry, Internet research and much more at http://optimoffice.fr

Related posts that might interest you:

- 5 Benefits of Working with a Virtual Assistant
- Virtual Assistants in Europe