Hire a Virtual Assistant

E-Commerce Advantage with GetFriday

If you are over-whelmed by your e-commerce business by the number of activities, GetFriday is here to help you with your business. We have skilled and experienced executives to help you with your e-commerce business needs. The key tasks which GetFriday undertakes on behalf of e-commerce business are inventory management, order processing, order tracking and customer support. Inventory Management The GetFriday executive logs into the client’s CRM and downloads the daily inventory files. The executive then checks and updates the client on the daily status of the products such as in stock, out of stock and approaching safety stock, to track for the availability of each product. Order Processing When an order is placed on the website by a customer, the GetFriday executive then co-ordinates with the vendor and places the order with them to be delivered to the customer. The executive also cross verifies the shipping address and the quantity officially placed with the supplier to fulfill orders. Order tracking Once the product has been shipped, the GetFriday executive co-ordinates with the logistical partner to get the tracking code. The executive will then proceed to verify the tracking code and updates the customer to help them track the order. Customer Support GetFriday executives are well trained to attend to all sorts of customer queries through calls and emails with multiple back ups so that regular work is not interrupted. If you are overcome by increased orders, GetFriday will be able to handle all tasks with multiple back-up assistance meeting all quality standards and deadlines. We provide 24/7 assistance with cost effective solutions high domain expertise and timeliness are other qualities of our executives. What are you waiting for? To get started, visit our website @ www.getfriday.com or write to us at support@getfriday.com or get an understanding of all the e-commerce process which GetFriday supports with the video Managing Major Tasks for eCommerce Businesses 0:00 Hello There! Do you run an E-commerce business? Are you overwhelmed by the number of tasks? 0:06 Do not worry!! GetFriday is here to help you with your business tasks. 0:11 First let me introduce myself. I am Kumar,Project manager for e-commerce businesses in GetFriday. 0:18 I will walk you through the processes we support for e-commerce businesses. 0:22 We have experienced and skilled executives to take care of your e-commerce business needs. 0:27 The key tasks we undertake on behalf of e-commerce businesses are Inventory management, Order processing, Order tracking, and Customer support. I am really excited to walk you through each task. 0:39 Let us start with Inventory management. 0:42 Your GetFriday executive will log into your CRM and download the inventory files daily at the start of the day. 0:47 Your executive will then check and update you about the daily status of the products i.e. In-stock, Out-stock, and approaching safety stock to keep track of each product’s availability in the stock. 1:01 Second key task is ‘Order processing’. 1:04 When an order is placed on your website by a customer, your GetFriday executive coordinates with the vendors and places the order with them to be delivered to the customer. 1:14 Your assistant will also cross verify the details such as shipping address and the quantity ordered for efficiently placing the order with the suppliers. 1:20 Now we come to the Third major task which is ‘Order Tracking’. 1:22 Once the product is shipped, your executive will coordinate with your logistics partner to get the tracking code. Your executive will then proceed to verify the tracking code and update the customers to help them track the order. 1:36 The other task undertaken for e-commerce businesses is ‘Customer support service”. Your GetFriday executive is well trained in handling all sorts of customer queries through calls and emails. 1:48 Your assistant will take care of your daily customer care support activities such as emails, calls, etc. with multiple back-ups so that the regular work continues uninterrupted. 2:00 And if you find yourself with increased orders, do not worry!! GetFriday will be able to handle all the tasks with multiple back-up assistants meeting all the quality standards and deadlines. 2:11 We provide 24/7 assistance with cost effective solutions. High domain expertise and timeliness are other major qualities of GetFriday’s executives. 2:22 Then what are you waiting for? Let’s get started. 2:32 Visit our website www.getfriday.com to know more about the services. Or write an email to support@getfriday.com with your requirements.

E-Commerce Advantage with GetFriday Read More »

If you are over-whelmed by your e-commerce business by the number of activities, GetFriday is here to help you with your business. We have skilled and experienced executives to help you with your e-commerce business needs. The key tasks which GetFriday undertakes on behalf of e-commerce business are inventory management, order processing, order tracking and customer support. Inventory Management The GetFriday executive logs into the client’s CRM and downloads the daily inventory files. The executive then checks and updates the client on the daily status of the products such as in stock, out of stock and approaching safety stock, to track for the availability of each product. Order Processing When an order is placed on the website by a customer, the GetFriday executive then co-ordinates with the vendor and places the order with them to be delivered to the customer. The executive also cross verifies the shipping address and the quantity officially placed with the supplier to fulfill orders. Order tracking Once the product has been shipped, the GetFriday executive co-ordinates with the logistical partner to get the tracking code. The executive will then proceed to verify the tracking code and updates the customer to help them track the order. Customer Support GetFriday executives are well trained to attend to all sorts of customer queries through calls and emails with multiple back ups so that regular work is not interrupted. If you are overcome by increased orders, GetFriday will be able to handle all tasks with multiple back-up assistance meeting all quality standards and deadlines. We provide 24/7 assistance with cost effective solutions high domain expertise and timeliness are other qualities of our executives. What are you waiting for? To get started, visit our website @ www.getfriday.com or write to us at support@getfriday.com or get an understanding of all the e-commerce process which GetFriday supports with the video Managing Major Tasks for eCommerce Businesses 0:00 Hello There! Do you run an E-commerce business? Are you overwhelmed by the number of tasks? 0:06 Do not worry!! GetFriday is here to help you with your business tasks. 0:11 First let me introduce myself. I am Kumar,Project manager for e-commerce businesses in GetFriday. 0:18 I will walk you through the processes we support for e-commerce businesses. 0:22 We have experienced and skilled executives to take care of your e-commerce business needs. 0:27 The key tasks we undertake on behalf of e-commerce businesses are Inventory management, Order processing, Order tracking, and Customer support. I am really excited to walk you through each task. 0:39 Let us start with Inventory management. 0:42 Your GetFriday executive will log into your CRM and download the inventory files daily at the start of the day. 0:47 Your executive will then check and update you about the daily status of the products i.e. In-stock, Out-stock, and approaching safety stock to keep track of each product’s availability in the stock. 1:01 Second key task is ‘Order processing’. 1:04 When an order is placed on your website by a customer, your GetFriday executive coordinates with the vendors and places the order with them to be delivered to the customer. 1:14 Your assistant will also cross verify the details such as shipping address and the quantity ordered for efficiently placing the order with the suppliers. 1:20 Now we come to the Third major task which is ‘Order Tracking’. 1:22 Once the product is shipped, your executive will coordinate with your logistics partner to get the tracking code. Your executive will then proceed to verify the tracking code and update the customers to help them track the order. 1:36 The other task undertaken for e-commerce businesses is ‘Customer support service”. Your GetFriday executive is well trained in handling all sorts of customer queries through calls and emails. 1:48 Your assistant will take care of your daily customer care support activities such as emails, calls, etc. with multiple back-ups so that the regular work continues uninterrupted. 2:00 And if you find yourself with increased orders, do not worry!! GetFriday will be able to handle all the tasks with multiple back-up assistants meeting all the quality standards and deadlines. 2:11 We provide 24/7 assistance with cost effective solutions. High domain expertise and timeliness are other major qualities of GetFriday’s executives. 2:22 Then what are you waiting for? Let’s get started. 2:32 Visit our website www.getfriday.com to know more about the services. Or write an email to support@getfriday.com with your requirements.

Ebooks to increase value of your business

E-books are a digital version of a normal book and are meant to be an easy-to-carry alternative to a book. If you happen to have a website, there is a good chance that visitors who come to the site happen to search for an E-book. Depending on the type of website you own, it is always a good idea to have an e-book on the site, which can be downloaded freely by the site visitors. Apart from creating a good landing page, it is always a good idea that a free e-book will make the visitor come back for more the next time around. Staring off, e-books are books in electronic format which can be downloaded on PC, Mac, laptop, tablet or on any reading device and can be read on the screen. An Ebook can also be purchased online, just like any other item – the only difference being that you would be directed to a download page or a link where you would be able to read the book. After downloading the book, you need not stay online, the book remains available for reading. Now there is huge debate around normal books and e-books. This article seeks to provide certain insights into the type of arguments that generally surround e-books: Ebooks are delivered almost immediately to the readable device. There is no need to wait for it in the mail. Many Ebooks today come along with bonuses, which is not available with normal books. Ebooks take up less space, they can be easily stored in a readable device. It is not necessary to build a library to keep the books. They can be taken and read anywhere, without really worrying about the weight. Ebooks are searchable. You can easily search for information on an Ebook. They can be interactive and can incorporate audio, video and animation, which can enhance the message, the author is trying to convey. Fonts in the Ebooks can be resized, helpful for people with disabilities. With additional software e-books can be converted into audio books.   With these advantages in mind, a website owner should be eager to put-up free Ebooks on his website. However, it is equally important for owner to understand the arguments in favor of giving away Ebooks for free on the website. These are some of the points of view that will help a website owner to make up his mind regarding free Ebooks. Publicity It is a known fact that an average person will not spend his hard earned cash on a new author. But there is a good chance that people who visit the site will download a free Ebook when given a chance. This will ensure the author of the book will get enough publicity and limits the risk to the reader of buying an EBook from an unknown author. Feedback There is a good enough chance that a new author might not be easily accepted by the readers. There can be several rejections for a new author from the publishing houses. Meanwhile, it is equally possible that a new author would find it easy to publish a free Ebook and gather review and feedback from interested readers. These can be used by the author to tweak his writing and subject to garner enough loyal audience to help publish his/ her full fledged book. This equally applies to writers, who lack confidence in their writing to take the same path. Networking After having written a successful Ebook, it is certain that people will know you through the success of your book. You could be known in industrial circles as a go-to person regarding a specific domain. This, in the long run, will help you gather a network of like-minded persons and to be known as an expert in the domain is an added advantage. This will go a long way in creating robust personal network, which would definitely help your business in the long term. Leads A successful free Ebook will help you reap links from other website to yours. Even reviews and embedded social media buttons will help spread the word on the internet about your free Ebook. These are the means to generate positive leads for your business. Who said generosity is not good for business? After having made the case for giving away free Ebooks, most authors/ business owners are not professional writers, they own a business & workloads and writing remains a hobby on the sidelines. This calls for making life easy as a business owner and outsource the work of writing the Ebook to professionals. At GetFriday, you could hire a virtual assistant to write an Ebook for your website or do the basic research to get started on the Ebook. This will not only help you with all the advantages mentioned above, you could also free up time for other things that you enjoy.

Ebooks to increase value of your business Read More »

E-books are a digital version of a normal book and are meant to be an easy-to-carry alternative to a book. If you happen to have a website, there is a good chance that visitors who come to the site happen to search for an E-book. Depending on the type of website you own, it is always a good idea to have an e-book on the site, which can be downloaded freely by the site visitors. Apart from creating a good landing page, it is always a good idea that a free e-book will make the visitor come back for more the next time around. Staring off, e-books are books in electronic format which can be downloaded on PC, Mac, laptop, tablet or on any reading device and can be read on the screen. An Ebook can also be purchased online, just like any other item – the only difference being that you would be directed to a download page or a link where you would be able to read the book. After downloading the book, you need not stay online, the book remains available for reading. Now there is huge debate around normal books and e-books. This article seeks to provide certain insights into the type of arguments that generally surround e-books: Ebooks are delivered almost immediately to the readable device. There is no need to wait for it in the mail. Many Ebooks today come along with bonuses, which is not available with normal books. Ebooks take up less space, they can be easily stored in a readable device. It is not necessary to build a library to keep the books. They can be taken and read anywhere, without really worrying about the weight. Ebooks are searchable. You can easily search for information on an Ebook. They can be interactive and can incorporate audio, video and animation, which can enhance the message, the author is trying to convey. Fonts in the Ebooks can be resized, helpful for people with disabilities. With additional software e-books can be converted into audio books.   With these advantages in mind, a website owner should be eager to put-up free Ebooks on his website. However, it is equally important for owner to understand the arguments in favor of giving away Ebooks for free on the website. These are some of the points of view that will help a website owner to make up his mind regarding free Ebooks. Publicity It is a known fact that an average person will not spend his hard earned cash on a new author. But there is a good chance that people who visit the site will download a free Ebook when given a chance. This will ensure the author of the book will get enough publicity and limits the risk to the reader of buying an EBook from an unknown author. Feedback There is a good enough chance that a new author might not be easily accepted by the readers. There can be several rejections for a new author from the publishing houses. Meanwhile, it is equally possible that a new author would find it easy to publish a free Ebook and gather review and feedback from interested readers. These can be used by the author to tweak his writing and subject to garner enough loyal audience to help publish his/ her full fledged book. This equally applies to writers, who lack confidence in their writing to take the same path. Networking After having written a successful Ebook, it is certain that people will know you through the success of your book. You could be known in industrial circles as a go-to person regarding a specific domain. This, in the long run, will help you gather a network of like-minded persons and to be known as an expert in the domain is an added advantage. This will go a long way in creating robust personal network, which would definitely help your business in the long term. Leads A successful free Ebook will help you reap links from other website to yours. Even reviews and embedded social media buttons will help spread the word on the internet about your free Ebook. These are the means to generate positive leads for your business. Who said generosity is not good for business? After having made the case for giving away free Ebooks, most authors/ business owners are not professional writers, they own a business & workloads and writing remains a hobby on the sidelines. This calls for making life easy as a business owner and outsource the work of writing the Ebook to professionals. At GetFriday, you could hire a virtual assistant to write an Ebook for your website or do the basic research to get started on the Ebook. This will not only help you with all the advantages mentioned above, you could also free up time for other things that you enjoy.

Six Virtual Assistant services you must opt for a merrier Christmas

It’s time to make merry, decorate trees with mistletoes and stars, because Christmas is just around the corner. We all know that it is a busy season for Santa Clause and so it is for small business owners like you. It’s a shorter working month for you, above that you have to launch seasonal campaigns, host parties, dinners and manage all sorts of festivities. Santa manages his load of work with the assistance of his elves but what about you? Don’t worry, just like elves are there for Santa, there are Virtual assistants for you. Doing everything on your own in this festive season could be overwhelming. Now is a good time to outsource some of those piled up tasks to Virtual Assistants. It will decrease your stress; ensure quality deliverance along with timely accomplishment. In order to reap the best benefits of outsourcing you must outsource the right things. Here, we list out six such tasks you must outsource this holiday season to make the most of Virtual Assistance: Sending your clients Seasonal Greetings: Let your business clients know how much you value them -wish them a merry Christmas and a happy new year. You can easily outsource such seasonal greetings campaign to a virtual assistant. If outsourced to an expert e-mail marketer, it will run smoothly and efficiently without adding to your stress. Calendar maintenance and reminder setting: As already stated, Christmas season is loaded with festivities as well as business errands and it is likely to miss out on something important. Maintaining a calendar and setting reminders to accomplish everything on time will help you sail smoothly through the season. Outsourcing calendar maintenance will save time and make your schedule easier to manage. Settle all accounts: This season awaits a fresh New Year and it is good to start the New Year with a fresh financial account. Which means it is an ideal time to settle your payable and receivable accounts. It requires a lot of time and patience, so outsourcing this to your virtual book-keeping team will save you time and money. Gifting your clients: Just like sending seasonal e-mails to delight your clients, you may send them gifts as well. Sending gifts is again a time consuming procedure. All the tasks, right from segmenting your list of clients for personalizing the gifts till purchasing the gifts and sending them to their respective addresses can easily be offloaded to a Virtual Assistant. Social media marketing: An interesting new social media campaign is a magnet of client attraction for this season. Creating Christmas themed videos for Facebook and YouTube, initiating a contest in twitter or Facebook, making an Instagram film and other similar initiatives will help further your brand goals. Outsourcing seasonal social media marketing to expert virtual assistants will improve the engagement your audience. Making travel itinerary: After working for a long year you need a break away from the routine and to spend quality time with your loved ones. But you can enjoy the vacation only after going through a host of boring errands like booking flight tickets, finding the right hotel, hunting a suitable travel agent and the like. These errands can also be very efficiently accomplished by virtual assistants. Outsourcing the above mentioned errands will free up your time to focus on your core business and wrap up the important things on time before you leave for your much awaited vacation. You will be able to strike a balance between your work and festivities, which in turn will help you enjoy longer and happier hours with your family.

Six Virtual Assistant services you must opt for a merrier Christmas Read More »

It’s time to make merry, decorate trees with mistletoes and stars, because Christmas is just around the corner. We all know that it is a busy season for Santa Clause and so it is for small business owners like you. It’s a shorter working month for you, above that you have to launch seasonal campaigns, host parties, dinners and manage all sorts of festivities. Santa manages his load of work with the assistance of his elves but what about you? Don’t worry, just like elves are there for Santa, there are Virtual assistants for you. Doing everything on your own in this festive season could be overwhelming. Now is a good time to outsource some of those piled up tasks to Virtual Assistants. It will decrease your stress; ensure quality deliverance along with timely accomplishment. In order to reap the best benefits of outsourcing you must outsource the right things. Here, we list out six such tasks you must outsource this holiday season to make the most of Virtual Assistance: Sending your clients Seasonal Greetings: Let your business clients know how much you value them -wish them a merry Christmas and a happy new year. You can easily outsource such seasonal greetings campaign to a virtual assistant. If outsourced to an expert e-mail marketer, it will run smoothly and efficiently without adding to your stress. Calendar maintenance and reminder setting: As already stated, Christmas season is loaded with festivities as well as business errands and it is likely to miss out on something important. Maintaining a calendar and setting reminders to accomplish everything on time will help you sail smoothly through the season. Outsourcing calendar maintenance will save time and make your schedule easier to manage. Settle all accounts: This season awaits a fresh New Year and it is good to start the New Year with a fresh financial account. Which means it is an ideal time to settle your payable and receivable accounts. It requires a lot of time and patience, so outsourcing this to your virtual book-keeping team will save you time and money. Gifting your clients: Just like sending seasonal e-mails to delight your clients, you may send them gifts as well. Sending gifts is again a time consuming procedure. All the tasks, right from segmenting your list of clients for personalizing the gifts till purchasing the gifts and sending them to their respective addresses can easily be offloaded to a Virtual Assistant. Social media marketing: An interesting new social media campaign is a magnet of client attraction for this season. Creating Christmas themed videos for Facebook and YouTube, initiating a contest in twitter or Facebook, making an Instagram film and other similar initiatives will help further your brand goals. Outsourcing seasonal social media marketing to expert virtual assistants will improve the engagement your audience. Making travel itinerary: After working for a long year you need a break away from the routine and to spend quality time with your loved ones. But you can enjoy the vacation only after going through a host of boring errands like booking flight tickets, finding the right hotel, hunting a suitable travel agent and the like. These errands can also be very efficiently accomplished by virtual assistants. Outsourcing the above mentioned errands will free up your time to focus on your core business and wrap up the important things on time before you leave for your much awaited vacation. You will be able to strike a balance between your work and festivities, which in turn will help you enjoy longer and happier hours with your family.

Quickbooks and Virtual Assistance – a golden duo for book-keeping

The journey of thousand miles begins with one step – Lao Tzu.   Ben the owner of a startup in Australia, was overwhelmed by his business errands. Owning a startup in a competitive business environment and growing his business was in itself a challenge. On top of that, handling and tracking expenses added to his worries. He knew, the solution was in efficient book-keeping but he lacked resources for the same. So he decided to outsource one of his book-keeping tasks to GetFriday. He started with outsourcing monthly invoice maintenance which included updating bills from vendors and invoice for the clients. This was his first step towards success and it worked out wonderfully. GetFriday’s team of QuickBooks experts created Ben’s QuickBooks account which was linked to contact details of all his clients and vendors. They customized invoices with ‘create invoice’ feature of QuickBooks. Apart from customizing invoices, Ben’s Virtual Assistance team scheduled, tracked and sent invoices to his clients. All these activities of invoicing were accomplished through QuickBooks’s built-in features. Just like they managed invoicing, GetFriday team also updated Ben’s bills from vendors in an accurate and timely manner. Thus with QuickBooks and virtual assistance, Ben’s accounting became simpler and efficient. After he got comfortable with GetFriday’s assistance, Ben started outsourcing the task of budget tracking. For this, Ben’s Virtual Assistants matched and verified his income and expense accounts. This freed his accounts from errors and kept his finances safe. Thus, Ben got a better control over his expenses. By now, GetFriday Assistants had won Ben’s trust and he outsourced the task of reconciling his expenses with his bank statements. As a direct result of outsourcing, finances turned out to be the most efficiently managed function of his business. He did not have to invest extra resources for making financial reports as it was auto generated by his QuickBooks account. QuickBooks‘s report generation feature yielded financial details of various aspects whether it be transaction details or a customer report. Ben could now understand his financial loopholes and opportunities. With all these insights, he was able to focus on realizing his objectives. Just like Ben, many other small-business owners crave for more efficient solutions for managing their finances. QuickBooks is a leading software for managing the accounts of small business. It comes with many features to simplify the accounting processes but its benefits are best seen with expert handling. Ben’s decision of outsourcing to GetFriday paid him in the long run, because GetFriday boasts of a team of QuickBooks experts. GetFriday’s QuickBooks team’s expertize includes: Account maintenance: Creating and sending invoices to customers based on requirement. Updating customer payments Sending weekly pending invoices to clients based on follow up Matching bank transactions with invoices Reconciliation of customer, vendor and stock accounts: It involves matching of all balances of band and books of accounts. Reporting and Analyzing financial statements: Analyzing monthly, quarterly and annual comparison report. Preparing customized reports For small business owners, it is often an expensive affair to hire and employ an expert bookkeeping team in-house. Even if he/she is enough rich to employ an in-house team, it is definitely a leaner choice to outsource bookkeeping to Virtual Assistants. There are two types of Quickbooks accounts viz, ‘the online account’ and ‘the desktop account’. The online account is a real time account and it can be availed by paying a monthly fee. The desktop account is accessible only when the account manager shares the details with an authorized person and one can use a desktop account with installed payments. So, one may avail any of these QuickBooks accounts as per one’s convenience. One advantage of using Quickbooks is that is customizable. It has customized industry specific packages for contractors, retailers, health care and non-profit organizations. Above that, when virtual assistants manages your Quickbooks accounts, your accounting overheads are reduced. Thus, a Quickbooks’ account managed by a Virtual Assistant makes book-keeping easier and efficient for small businesses.

Quickbooks and Virtual Assistance – a golden duo for book-keeping Read More »

The journey of thousand miles begins with one step – Lao Tzu.   Ben the owner of a startup in Australia, was overwhelmed by his business errands. Owning a startup in a competitive business environment and growing his business was in itself a challenge. On top of that, handling and tracking expenses added to his worries. He knew, the solution was in efficient book-keeping but he lacked resources for the same. So he decided to outsource one of his book-keeping tasks to GetFriday. He started with outsourcing monthly invoice maintenance which included updating bills from vendors and invoice for the clients. This was his first step towards success and it worked out wonderfully. GetFriday’s team of QuickBooks experts created Ben’s QuickBooks account which was linked to contact details of all his clients and vendors. They customized invoices with ‘create invoice’ feature of QuickBooks. Apart from customizing invoices, Ben’s Virtual Assistance team scheduled, tracked and sent invoices to his clients. All these activities of invoicing were accomplished through QuickBooks’s built-in features. Just like they managed invoicing, GetFriday team also updated Ben’s bills from vendors in an accurate and timely manner. Thus with QuickBooks and virtual assistance, Ben’s accounting became simpler and efficient. After he got comfortable with GetFriday’s assistance, Ben started outsourcing the task of budget tracking. For this, Ben’s Virtual Assistants matched and verified his income and expense accounts. This freed his accounts from errors and kept his finances safe. Thus, Ben got a better control over his expenses. By now, GetFriday Assistants had won Ben’s trust and he outsourced the task of reconciling his expenses with his bank statements. As a direct result of outsourcing, finances turned out to be the most efficiently managed function of his business. He did not have to invest extra resources for making financial reports as it was auto generated by his QuickBooks account. QuickBooks‘s report generation feature yielded financial details of various aspects whether it be transaction details or a customer report. Ben could now understand his financial loopholes and opportunities. With all these insights, he was able to focus on realizing his objectives. Just like Ben, many other small-business owners crave for more efficient solutions for managing their finances. QuickBooks is a leading software for managing the accounts of small business. It comes with many features to simplify the accounting processes but its benefits are best seen with expert handling. Ben’s decision of outsourcing to GetFriday paid him in the long run, because GetFriday boasts of a team of QuickBooks experts. GetFriday’s QuickBooks team’s expertize includes: Account maintenance: Creating and sending invoices to customers based on requirement. Updating customer payments Sending weekly pending invoices to clients based on follow up Matching bank transactions with invoices Reconciliation of customer, vendor and stock accounts: It involves matching of all balances of band and books of accounts. Reporting and Analyzing financial statements: Analyzing monthly, quarterly and annual comparison report. Preparing customized reports For small business owners, it is often an expensive affair to hire and employ an expert bookkeeping team in-house. Even if he/she is enough rich to employ an in-house team, it is definitely a leaner choice to outsource bookkeeping to Virtual Assistants. There are two types of Quickbooks accounts viz, ‘the online account’ and ‘the desktop account’. The online account is a real time account and it can be availed by paying a monthly fee. The desktop account is accessible only when the account manager shares the details with an authorized person and one can use a desktop account with installed payments. So, one may avail any of these QuickBooks accounts as per one’s convenience. One advantage of using Quickbooks is that is customizable. It has customized industry specific packages for contractors, retailers, health care and non-profit organizations. Above that, when virtual assistants manages your Quickbooks accounts, your accounting overheads are reduced. Thus, a Quickbooks’ account managed by a Virtual Assistant makes book-keeping easier and efficient for small businesses.

Join hands with Virtual Assistants for designing a perfect landing page

The effectiveness of a landing page cannot be over emphasized for conversions in digital marketing. A landing page is usually the first web page where you land when you visit a website or when you search for a service or product. Some landing pages are specifically designed for a particular audience segment or used for capturing lead information with a fill-up form for the visitors. Investing your resources in a good landing page will aid you in meeting your revenue targets. Statistics show that firms which have used 30 or more landing pages generate up to 7 times more leads than the ones which have used 10 or less landing pages. Some of the well known benefits of using landing pages are as follows: Using good landing pages will enable you to focus your efforts towards conversions Landing pages also make it easier to target audiences Landing pages are sources of information about converted audience. So, they are useful for earning insights into the factors which convince browsers to convert into leads. So, they are useful records for analysis and improvement of your marketing efforts.   The appropriate design for a landing page depends on the goals of your marketing campaign. The tasks which are involved in making a landing page are content writing, designing and coding. It requires creative, logical and analytical thinking for systematically aligning your landing page with your marketing goals. So, hiring people of all the required skills for making a good landing page and employing them full time within an organization could be a costly affair for a small business. Virtual Assistance, if used judiciously for designing landing pages, might prove to be effective in terms of time and money. What should you outsource to a virtual assistant for your landing page design? Here we list out a few tasks which goes into designing a landing page, which are best, outsourced to Virtual Assistants. For making the layout and flow of the page: Layout and flow of a landing page are two aspects which make the page presentable. Hiring a Virtual Assistant for implementing the code for a good layout and flow is very worthy as it is time consuming and as well as it requires knowledge of coding. For customization of a landing page according to target segment: Landing pages convert visitors into leads, but they yield the best results when audiences are segmented and the page is designed to meet their expectations. So if you use a virtual assistant for making a landing page with an extended logic of segmentation which reaches audience with customized content, you will reap the best results. Earn relevant backlinks: Earning relevant backlinks for your landing page will optimize it for search engines. It is good if your landing page earns backlinks from popular review sites, directories and other referral pages relevant to your business. Content writing for your landing page: You landing page must include succinct and lucid content which raises the interest of visitors and encourages them to click through the page. The content must suit all the icons and call to action graphics used in the page. A Virtual Assistant meets all these requirements at cost-effective rates. Keyword optimization: Keyword optimization is another important practice apart from backlinking for search engine optimization. Though a landing page usually contains less content, it must include the right keywords. This is another aspect where virtual assistance is very useful. Hiring Virtual Assistants for creating landing page is beneficial when it is an occasional requirement for marketing.

Join hands with Virtual Assistants for designing a perfect landing page Read More »

The effectiveness of a landing page cannot be over emphasized for conversions in digital marketing. A landing page is usually the first web page where you land when you visit a website or when you search for a service or product. Some landing pages are specifically designed for a particular audience segment or used for capturing lead information with a fill-up form for the visitors. Investing your resources in a good landing page will aid you in meeting your revenue targets. Statistics show that firms which have used 30 or more landing pages generate up to 7 times more leads than the ones which have used 10 or less landing pages. Some of the well known benefits of using landing pages are as follows: Using good landing pages will enable you to focus your efforts towards conversions Landing pages also make it easier to target audiences Landing pages are sources of information about converted audience. So, they are useful for earning insights into the factors which convince browsers to convert into leads. So, they are useful records for analysis and improvement of your marketing efforts.   The appropriate design for a landing page depends on the goals of your marketing campaign. The tasks which are involved in making a landing page are content writing, designing and coding. It requires creative, logical and analytical thinking for systematically aligning your landing page with your marketing goals. So, hiring people of all the required skills for making a good landing page and employing them full time within an organization could be a costly affair for a small business. Virtual Assistance, if used judiciously for designing landing pages, might prove to be effective in terms of time and money. What should you outsource to a virtual assistant for your landing page design? Here we list out a few tasks which goes into designing a landing page, which are best, outsourced to Virtual Assistants. For making the layout and flow of the page: Layout and flow of a landing page are two aspects which make the page presentable. Hiring a Virtual Assistant for implementing the code for a good layout and flow is very worthy as it is time consuming and as well as it requires knowledge of coding. For customization of a landing page according to target segment: Landing pages convert visitors into leads, but they yield the best results when audiences are segmented and the page is designed to meet their expectations. So if you use a virtual assistant for making a landing page with an extended logic of segmentation which reaches audience with customized content, you will reap the best results. Earn relevant backlinks: Earning relevant backlinks for your landing page will optimize it for search engines. It is good if your landing page earns backlinks from popular review sites, directories and other referral pages relevant to your business. Content writing for your landing page: You landing page must include succinct and lucid content which raises the interest of visitors and encourages them to click through the page. The content must suit all the icons and call to action graphics used in the page. A Virtual Assistant meets all these requirements at cost-effective rates. Keyword optimization: Keyword optimization is another important practice apart from backlinking for search engine optimization. Though a landing page usually contains less content, it must include the right keywords. This is another aspect where virtual assistance is very useful. Hiring Virtual Assistants for creating landing page is beneficial when it is an occasional requirement for marketing.

Taking a Vacation? Try these tips to make a tiptop trip!

Don’t you beam with happiness while narrating the tales of your exotic trips to your friends? You may be a globetrotter who doesn’t want to leave any corner of the world unseen or you may be a busy sales person who drives business outside from office or out of the city you live in. Be it for leisure or work, trips, no matter how small or big, are an inevitable part our lives. By now you would have gotten accustomed to the pros and cons of travelling and your trip diaries are a rich reservoir of your memories. It’s a fact that vacationing, though glamorous on the outside, can be quite tricky. Before reaping the sweet pleasures of a trip, you need to run a long list of dull errands like doing online research for flights, booking cheap flight tickets, reserving rooms in a hotel of your choice and within your budget, arranging commutation in the destination and the like. If you are a busy professional, these odd jobs can be stressful. For instance, you need to meet your clients in Tokyo tomorrow and you have simply not found the time to make the necessary travel arrangements. Making travel arrangements can take a huge chunk of your precious time if you want to get the best of your travel itinerary By focusing on these errands, you may forget to focus on other activities that are important i.e. working on that important presentation, making the necessary arrangements to have your inboxes filtered and checked, getting all the pre-travel shopping done for your spouse and kids or making sure that all your work has been duly handed over to a back-up employee. In simple words, making the arrangements for a trip should not soil the excitement of actually going on the trip and getting to the destination. Here’s what you can do to get all your pre-trip planning sorted. 1. Define and understand the purpose of your trip: Every trip has a strong purpose behind it. If you are a business-owner and you are travelling for business, make sure you are prepped and focused on nailing that important business pitch with your clients and business partners. Focus on the core tasks i.e. making a convincing presentation, charting out new business ideas, etc. If you are planning a family trip, focus on selecting the perfect family-friendly destinations and channel your energies towards doing some research for sightseeing, leisure, shopping, travel etc. 2. Make A List Of What You Want To Do During Your Trip: Once you have understood the purpose of your trip, take the next step and list out the activities you would like to do to make the trip a memorable one. For example if you seek adventure list out the activities that you will love to partake in. Start preparing for the trip accordingly. Get your suitcases packed with the clothes or gear that you will require for a leisure or business trip. Gather as much information as you can about the local adventure sports, the best guides, places to eat, shop and much more! The same applies for a business trip too. You need to jot down what you want to get done during the trip and plan accordingly. 3. Make The Arrangements: Now that you have decided what you want to do on the trip, where you want to go and the purpose behind it, get down to actually booking your travel and sorting out the itinerary. Out of all the steps, arranging for flight/train tickets, accommodation and booking tours will take the longest time. 4. Or.. HIRE A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT TO DO IT FOR YOU! If you don’t have the time and expertise to do this, you have a choice to take help from an expert who can get all of it done for you in half the time. A Virtual Assistant, perhaps? There are Virtual Assistant service providers like GetFriday who can help you offload mundane travel arrangement tasks such as these and give you more time to focus on all the other aspects that actually matter. Why break your head planning for the trip, when you should be enjoying it? Remember, going on a trip doesn’t necessarily mean you have to make all the arrangements on your own. As mentioned above, stick to focusing on the purpose of your trip and what you need to do when you get there. . Don’t take the stress of planning or preparing arrangements for a trip.There are Virtual Assistant experts to serve you at every step of your trip, be it booking tickets or picking a romantic restaurant for a candle light dinner during your honeymoon. With reliable Virtual Assistants, you should outsource all trip planning and arrangement tasks. Free up your time, focus just on business in the meanwhile, or just get into the holiday mode before boarding that flight. What use is it if you are going to burden yourself with all the pre-trip hassle? Outsource, sit back and enjoy a fruitful trip!

Taking a Vacation? Try these tips to make a tiptop trip! Read More »

Don’t you beam with happiness while narrating the tales of your exotic trips to your friends? You may be a globetrotter who doesn’t want to leave any corner of the world unseen or you may be a busy sales person who drives business outside from office or out of the city you live in. Be it for leisure or work, trips, no matter how small or big, are an inevitable part our lives. By now you would have gotten accustomed to the pros and cons of travelling and your trip diaries are a rich reservoir of your memories. It’s a fact that vacationing, though glamorous on the outside, can be quite tricky. Before reaping the sweet pleasures of a trip, you need to run a long list of dull errands like doing online research for flights, booking cheap flight tickets, reserving rooms in a hotel of your choice and within your budget, arranging commutation in the destination and the like. If you are a busy professional, these odd jobs can be stressful. For instance, you need to meet your clients in Tokyo tomorrow and you have simply not found the time to make the necessary travel arrangements. Making travel arrangements can take a huge chunk of your precious time if you want to get the best of your travel itinerary By focusing on these errands, you may forget to focus on other activities that are important i.e. working on that important presentation, making the necessary arrangements to have your inboxes filtered and checked, getting all the pre-travel shopping done for your spouse and kids or making sure that all your work has been duly handed over to a back-up employee. In simple words, making the arrangements for a trip should not soil the excitement of actually going on the trip and getting to the destination. Here’s what you can do to get all your pre-trip planning sorted. 1. Define and understand the purpose of your trip: Every trip has a strong purpose behind it. If you are a business-owner and you are travelling for business, make sure you are prepped and focused on nailing that important business pitch with your clients and business partners. Focus on the core tasks i.e. making a convincing presentation, charting out new business ideas, etc. If you are planning a family trip, focus on selecting the perfect family-friendly destinations and channel your energies towards doing some research for sightseeing, leisure, shopping, travel etc. 2. Make A List Of What You Want To Do During Your Trip: Once you have understood the purpose of your trip, take the next step and list out the activities you would like to do to make the trip a memorable one. For example if you seek adventure list out the activities that you will love to partake in. Start preparing for the trip accordingly. Get your suitcases packed with the clothes or gear that you will require for a leisure or business trip. Gather as much information as you can about the local adventure sports, the best guides, places to eat, shop and much more! The same applies for a business trip too. You need to jot down what you want to get done during the trip and plan accordingly. 3. Make The Arrangements: Now that you have decided what you want to do on the trip, where you want to go and the purpose behind it, get down to actually booking your travel and sorting out the itinerary. Out of all the steps, arranging for flight/train tickets, accommodation and booking tours will take the longest time. 4. Or.. HIRE A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT TO DO IT FOR YOU! If you don’t have the time and expertise to do this, you have a choice to take help from an expert who can get all of it done for you in half the time. A Virtual Assistant, perhaps? There are Virtual Assistant service providers like GetFriday who can help you offload mundane travel arrangement tasks such as these and give you more time to focus on all the other aspects that actually matter. Why break your head planning for the trip, when you should be enjoying it? Remember, going on a trip doesn’t necessarily mean you have to make all the arrangements on your own. As mentioned above, stick to focusing on the purpose of your trip and what you need to do when you get there. . Don’t take the stress of planning or preparing arrangements for a trip.There are Virtual Assistant experts to serve you at every step of your trip, be it booking tickets or picking a romantic restaurant for a candle light dinner during your honeymoon. With reliable Virtual Assistants, you should outsource all trip planning and arrangement tasks. Free up your time, focus just on business in the meanwhile, or just get into the holiday mode before boarding that flight. What use is it if you are going to burden yourself with all the pre-trip hassle? Outsource, sit back and enjoy a fruitful trip!

smartboydesigns

Digital Marketing Entrepreneur goes virtual

Back after a longish break due to getting too busy with incubating a new startup idea within our business. Getting from the germination of a new idea to a proof of concept or roll out out stage is certainly the most challenging phase. Especially because the torque required to start something from a state of inertia is obviously the biggest. But that is just the beginning of tighter days ahead. As with every new idea, there is a huge adrenaline rush and the thrill of waking up to something new while running an obstacle race against time, to get things started. All part of the game. So when I had a client of ours send us a guest post for the blog, I was more than thrilled. Our guest Christian Hollingsworth, a smart boy entrepreneur and now an ambitious young digital marketing consultant commands a twitter following in excess of 170k and that’s no mean feat. He is a guy who knows his stuff when it comes to digital marketing. So here we go.   My GetFriday Experiences Working with GetFriday has been nothing but pleasure. For months, if not years, I’ve read about many online professionals who have had great success in outsourcing a portion of their work to virtual assistants. It seemed to be the very last post I read about virtual assistants, which finally tipped the scales. Preparing For the “Virtual Assistant” Jump For most people, there are areas of concern before making the jump into hiring a virtual assistant. Many people wonder, “Should I trust a virtual assistant? Will they be able to handle everything I give to them? Is it worth it?” As with all new ventures, there’s a certain degree of trial, error, and testing. It’s important to keep the communication lines clear when working with your virtual assistant, otherwise, the channels could become quickly cloudy. Let them know what you expect from them, be clear in dictating tasks, and track their growth and progress. I’ve found that it takes time getting used to working with a virtual assistant. One area, in particular, is continually finding those tasks that you’re able to outsource. I always enjoy asking myself the question, “Would my assistant be able to handle this task, and allow me to free up more time?” What tasks do I outsource? After doing some research, I found GetFriday to be the virtual assisting company that would best fit my needs. I noticed they offered completion of web design, blogging, and administrative tasks. Now, as I sit here writing about my few months with GetFriday, I smile. Here are just some of the tasks I’ve already been able to assign to Muzamil, who is my wonderful administrative assistant. Daily the spam emails that come to my inbox are combed through, non-spam emails are saved, and the rest deleted. On a daily basis Muzamil prepares an email with the top five blog posts from the day within the business, social media, and technology industries. I’m able to click through, use the ones I want to share, and stay updated on the latest happenings I need to be aware of. Calls are made to people whom I need information from. Appointments are scheduled. Emails sent with my media kit to potential clients. Muzamil is my main administrative assistant. I’m able to forward him any blogging or web design related tasks that need completion, and he is sure to organize a team of individuals who are prepared and skilled enough to complete the task. Blog post research. A healthy dose of motivation. I know that if I’m not feeling particularly motivated one day, Muzamil will be on my case, asking what’s needed next. This is a great benefit to me as a self-employed individual, as I know Muzamil is sure to check on me daily. As you can see, after only a few months I’ve been able to outsource quite a few tasks to GetFriday. I know that as this year develops, the tasks I outsource will be even more, and the accomplishments greater. The services provided by GetFriday cost little, are of supreme quality, and free my time for the tasks that only I’m able to complete for clients. It’s a win all around. That’s one smart young man helping another one, across the globe. Thanks, Christian and Muzamil for this one. Sunder P ——– About Christian Hollingsworth: Christian is a digital marketing consultant, blogger, entrepreneur, and recording artist. He makes money online and teaches others how to do the same. Image copyright: SmartBoyDesigns and Muzamil

Digital Marketing Entrepreneur goes virtual Read More »

Back after a longish break due to getting too busy with incubating a new startup idea within our business. Getting from the germination of a new idea to a proof of concept or roll out out stage is certainly the most challenging phase. Especially because the torque required to start something from a state of inertia is obviously the biggest. But that is just the beginning of tighter days ahead. As with every new idea, there is a huge adrenaline rush and the thrill of waking up to something new while running an obstacle race against time, to get things started. All part of the game. So when I had a client of ours send us a guest post for the blog, I was more than thrilled. Our guest Christian Hollingsworth, a smart boy entrepreneur and now an ambitious young digital marketing consultant commands a twitter following in excess of 170k and that’s no mean feat. He is a guy who knows his stuff when it comes to digital marketing. So here we go.   My GetFriday Experiences Working with GetFriday has been nothing but pleasure. For months, if not years, I’ve read about many online professionals who have had great success in outsourcing a portion of their work to virtual assistants. It seemed to be the very last post I read about virtual assistants, which finally tipped the scales. Preparing For the “Virtual Assistant” Jump For most people, there are areas of concern before making the jump into hiring a virtual assistant. Many people wonder, “Should I trust a virtual assistant? Will they be able to handle everything I give to them? Is it worth it?” As with all new ventures, there’s a certain degree of trial, error, and testing. It’s important to keep the communication lines clear when working with your virtual assistant, otherwise, the channels could become quickly cloudy. Let them know what you expect from them, be clear in dictating tasks, and track their growth and progress. I’ve found that it takes time getting used to working with a virtual assistant. One area, in particular, is continually finding those tasks that you’re able to outsource. I always enjoy asking myself the question, “Would my assistant be able to handle this task, and allow me to free up more time?” What tasks do I outsource? After doing some research, I found GetFriday to be the virtual assisting company that would best fit my needs. I noticed they offered completion of web design, blogging, and administrative tasks. Now, as I sit here writing about my few months with GetFriday, I smile. Here are just some of the tasks I’ve already been able to assign to Muzamil, who is my wonderful administrative assistant. Daily the spam emails that come to my inbox are combed through, non-spam emails are saved, and the rest deleted. On a daily basis Muzamil prepares an email with the top five blog posts from the day within the business, social media, and technology industries. I’m able to click through, use the ones I want to share, and stay updated on the latest happenings I need to be aware of. Calls are made to people whom I need information from. Appointments are scheduled. Emails sent with my media kit to potential clients. Muzamil is my main administrative assistant. I’m able to forward him any blogging or web design related tasks that need completion, and he is sure to organize a team of individuals who are prepared and skilled enough to complete the task. Blog post research. A healthy dose of motivation. I know that if I’m not feeling particularly motivated one day, Muzamil will be on my case, asking what’s needed next. This is a great benefit to me as a self-employed individual, as I know Muzamil is sure to check on me daily. As you can see, after only a few months I’ve been able to outsource quite a few tasks to GetFriday. I know that as this year develops, the tasks I outsource will be even more, and the accomplishments greater. The services provided by GetFriday cost little, are of supreme quality, and free my time for the tasks that only I’m able to complete for clients. It’s a win all around. That’s one smart young man helping another one, across the globe. Thanks, Christian and Muzamil for this one. Sunder P ——– About Christian Hollingsworth: Christian is a digital marketing consultant, blogger, entrepreneur, and recording artist. He makes money online and teaches others how to do the same. Image copyright: SmartBoyDesigns and Muzamil

AJ Jacobs

Serendipity; Chance favors the prepared mind

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” That was a quote from the French microbiologist, chemist and inventor, Louis Pasteur. Incidentally, he was a master of experimental research. Being not so interested in theory, he made many fundamental discoveries just by careful observation. Serendipity; A word coined by Sir Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford in the 1700s to denote ‘accidental discoveries‘. Walpole was a prolific letter writer. In one of his letters to a friend, Walpole wrote about a silly fairy tale called ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’; “… as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of” (Serendip, old name for Ceylon, Sri Lanka) that had made a profound impression on his life. The tale described the fate of three princes who left their home to travel through the world. Rarely they found the treasures they were looking for but ran into other ones equally great or even greater which they were not seeking. Interesting, ‘yes’ but you may wonder what is the context here? The point am trying to make is that Get Friday(Sister Concern of YMII) was also a stroke of serendipity, something that happened by chance. But did happen because we had cultivated a mind that was prepared. A mind that was open to ideas that had never been tried before. Let me tell you the story so that you can understand what I mean: Before 2005, this company was only in the business of providing concierge services in India to Indian expats living overseas. Basically running errands for them and helping them manage their responsibilities and matters back home. That service went by the name ‘Your Man In India(YMII)’. Was a one of a kind pioneering service in those times and hence received a lot of media attention. (free publicity!!! chance was definitely helping us big time) On 17 May, 2005 quite fortuitously I must add, we (Prabhu, my colleague and me) received a mail from a gentleman in NY. His name was AJ Jacobs. Luckily I was able to retrieve the exact mail we received. Here it goes: Dear Mr. Prabhu and Mr. Sunder I heard about your company from a friend of mine who is an Indian businessman living in California. I’m a writer for an American magazine called ESQUIRE. It’s an upscale magazine targeted at businessmen, and reaches 2 million readers. It’s been around for 70 years. (If you want to know more, it’s at esquire.com). I’m writing an article for Esquire for which I’d love to hire Your Man in India(YMII). The idea is this: To hire a talented person or talented people in India to take care of as many of my life tasks as possible. Almost like a remote executive assistant. For instance, I’d love someone to help make airline reservations over the Internet. Or make restaurant reservations. Or pay my bills online. I’d even be interested in having someone answer my emails for me. Of course, I would give your company credit in the article. The publicity would, I imagine, be excellent for your business. And naturally, Esquire would pay the going rate for your services. I understand that the core of your business is doing such tasks for residents of India (e.g. buying movie tickets for Indian movie theaters). But since so much can be accomplished via the Internet, I thought that you might be able to help me with US-based tasks as well. I hope you like the idea. I think it will make an educational and entertaining article. Please let me know your thoughts. I can be reached via email here, or by cell phone. Thanks in advance, A.J. Jacobs ———— We were kind of zapped by the request and were trying to figure out if this was some kind of a practical joke. More so because we realized later that Jacobs wanted to outsource a lot more than the quite innocuous sounding things, he mentioned in his first mail. He wanted to outsource his personal life to a company in India. That was a whole lot tricky. Back in 2005, it could have been an idea that naturally gets shot down because no one had attempted it before. So why should we even try! Thankfully, we decided to pursue it. It all started with just one employee to boot and this person helped Jacobs over the next couple of months. Despite the odd slip ups here and there, largely due to cultural differences the experiment was a huge success. AJ’s Esquire article came out in September 2005. It went to capture the imagination of the American press and we were on Good Morning America, the next day. You can access this article here. http://www.esquire.com/ESQ0905OUTSOURCING_214. That is when we decided that we just couldn’t let this opportunity go. There was a potential and we were in the right place, at the right time. So we created a separate division and went out with a new brand called ‘Get Friday‘. (inspired by Man Friday from the Robinson Crusoe novel). There, of course would be a question in everyone’s mind. If the character, Man Friday inspired this name then why was it not called by the same name. Why Get Friday?. We weighed the pros and cons of gender bias in a brand name that was to go international. Especially, since we envisioned many girl fridays helping clients across the world. These things weighed in to settle the matter in favor of a gender-neutral ‘Get Friday‘. That led me to believe that a lot of things do happen by chance, but provided it encounters a prepared mind. And that pretty much has been the cornerstone of our innovation philosophy, to this day. I hope you like this little story of how it all began. Sunder P CEO

Serendipity; Chance favors the prepared mind Read More »

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” That was a quote from the French microbiologist, chemist and inventor, Louis Pasteur. Incidentally, he was a master of experimental research. Being not so interested in theory, he made many fundamental discoveries just by careful observation. Serendipity; A word coined by Sir Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford in the 1700s to denote ‘accidental discoveries‘. Walpole was a prolific letter writer. In one of his letters to a friend, Walpole wrote about a silly fairy tale called ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’; “… as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of” (Serendip, old name for Ceylon, Sri Lanka) that had made a profound impression on his life. The tale described the fate of three princes who left their home to travel through the world. Rarely they found the treasures they were looking for but ran into other ones equally great or even greater which they were not seeking. Interesting, ‘yes’ but you may wonder what is the context here? The point am trying to make is that Get Friday(Sister Concern of YMII) was also a stroke of serendipity, something that happened by chance. But did happen because we had cultivated a mind that was prepared. A mind that was open to ideas that had never been tried before. Let me tell you the story so that you can understand what I mean: Before 2005, this company was only in the business of providing concierge services in India to Indian expats living overseas. Basically running errands for them and helping them manage their responsibilities and matters back home. That service went by the name ‘Your Man In India(YMII)’. Was a one of a kind pioneering service in those times and hence received a lot of media attention. (free publicity!!! chance was definitely helping us big time) On 17 May, 2005 quite fortuitously I must add, we (Prabhu, my colleague and me) received a mail from a gentleman in NY. His name was AJ Jacobs. Luckily I was able to retrieve the exact mail we received. Here it goes: Dear Mr. Prabhu and Mr. Sunder I heard about your company from a friend of mine who is an Indian businessman living in California. I’m a writer for an American magazine called ESQUIRE. It’s an upscale magazine targeted at businessmen, and reaches 2 million readers. It’s been around for 70 years. (If you want to know more, it’s at esquire.com). I’m writing an article for Esquire for which I’d love to hire Your Man in India(YMII). The idea is this: To hire a talented person or talented people in India to take care of as many of my life tasks as possible. Almost like a remote executive assistant. For instance, I’d love someone to help make airline reservations over the Internet. Or make restaurant reservations. Or pay my bills online. I’d even be interested in having someone answer my emails for me. Of course, I would give your company credit in the article. The publicity would, I imagine, be excellent for your business. And naturally, Esquire would pay the going rate for your services. I understand that the core of your business is doing such tasks for residents of India (e.g. buying movie tickets for Indian movie theaters). But since so much can be accomplished via the Internet, I thought that you might be able to help me with US-based tasks as well. I hope you like the idea. I think it will make an educational and entertaining article. Please let me know your thoughts. I can be reached via email here, or by cell phone. Thanks in advance, A.J. Jacobs ———— We were kind of zapped by the request and were trying to figure out if this was some kind of a practical joke. More so because we realized later that Jacobs wanted to outsource a lot more than the quite innocuous sounding things, he mentioned in his first mail. He wanted to outsource his personal life to a company in India. That was a whole lot tricky. Back in 2005, it could have been an idea that naturally gets shot down because no one had attempted it before. So why should we even try! Thankfully, we decided to pursue it. It all started with just one employee to boot and this person helped Jacobs over the next couple of months. Despite the odd slip ups here and there, largely due to cultural differences the experiment was a huge success. AJ’s Esquire article came out in September 2005. It went to capture the imagination of the American press and we were on Good Morning America, the next day. You can access this article here. http://www.esquire.com/ESQ0905OUTSOURCING_214. That is when we decided that we just couldn’t let this opportunity go. There was a potential and we were in the right place, at the right time. So we created a separate division and went out with a new brand called ‘Get Friday‘. (inspired by Man Friday from the Robinson Crusoe novel). There, of course would be a question in everyone’s mind. If the character, Man Friday inspired this name then why was it not called by the same name. Why Get Friday?. We weighed the pros and cons of gender bias in a brand name that was to go international. Especially, since we envisioned many girl fridays helping clients across the world. These things weighed in to settle the matter in favor of a gender-neutral ‘Get Friday‘. That led me to believe that a lot of things do happen by chance, but provided it encounters a prepared mind. And that pretty much has been the cornerstone of our innovation philosophy, to this day. I hope you like this little story of how it all began. Sunder P CEO

Midhya, our VA with Jerry Hobby

Where Good Ideas come from?

Borrowing from the title of the popular book by Steven Johnson, here is an example of how ideas connect and how people benefit from it. We had posted Andrew Wilson’s virtual assistance social experiment in our previous blog posts. This is a reply from another client, Ryan Leon after reading his post. Re: The Virtual Assistance project New post by Ryan Leon » Sat Apr 16, 2011 1:23 pm I would like to begin by commending Andrew Norman Wilson on the Virtual Assistance Project. I was, for lack of a better term, mind-blown after reading his posts and watching the videos on his blog. I have to admit, that I started an account at Get Friday to make my life a little easier. After seeing Andrew’s approach, I’m a bit embarrassed by my lack of effort in getting to know my assistant, Midhya. Up to this point, my tasks have been purely business related, with some “easy” personal tasks such as ordering books on Amazon.com. Ever the positive spirit, Midhya is always eager to help and delivers great results. My eyes are now open to the fact that I have been missing out on a key value that Get Friday offers: Midhya’s input. My entire outlook has changed, and I owe it all to a creative student in Chicago. I would like to close my comment with a message to Mr. Wilson: Andrew, Thank you for sharing the Virtual Assistance Project with the world. As a 25-year old, I am constantly finding out that I have MUCH more to learn about life and my place in the global environment. You really have something here. I know that you will do great things, because you already have shifted the paradigm in my own mind. I am amazed at how the internet continues to evolve and connect people with ideas that would be lost on them otherwise. Keep up the good work. Your fan, Ryan Leon Thank you, Ryan for your unreserved appreciation of Andrew’s work. And my apologies for not asking you before making this post. Am presuming you would be happy to have it go public. And I thought his assistant should know about it as well. Midhya, keep the good work going! Pic of Midhya with Jerry Hobby, the CEO of Anything Internet and a regular guest on the CNN 650 Morning Show. We constantly learn from others ideas and experiments and that is how innovation happens. And it is more likely to happen much faster in a better-connected world. Watch this engrossing talk by Steven Johnson, spiced by some exquisite illustrative video animation. Happy viewing! Sunder P CEO

Where Good Ideas come from? Read More »

Borrowing from the title of the popular book by Steven Johnson, here is an example of how ideas connect and how people benefit from it. We had posted Andrew Wilson’s virtual assistance social experiment in our previous blog posts. This is a reply from another client, Ryan Leon after reading his post. Re: The Virtual Assistance project New post by Ryan Leon » Sat Apr 16, 2011 1:23 pm I would like to begin by commending Andrew Norman Wilson on the Virtual Assistance Project. I was, for lack of a better term, mind-blown after reading his posts and watching the videos on his blog. I have to admit, that I started an account at Get Friday to make my life a little easier. After seeing Andrew’s approach, I’m a bit embarrassed by my lack of effort in getting to know my assistant, Midhya. Up to this point, my tasks have been purely business related, with some “easy” personal tasks such as ordering books on Amazon.com. Ever the positive spirit, Midhya is always eager to help and delivers great results. My eyes are now open to the fact that I have been missing out on a key value that Get Friday offers: Midhya’s input. My entire outlook has changed, and I owe it all to a creative student in Chicago. I would like to close my comment with a message to Mr. Wilson: Andrew, Thank you for sharing the Virtual Assistance Project with the world. As a 25-year old, I am constantly finding out that I have MUCH more to learn about life and my place in the global environment. You really have something here. I know that you will do great things, because you already have shifted the paradigm in my own mind. I am amazed at how the internet continues to evolve and connect people with ideas that would be lost on them otherwise. Keep up the good work. Your fan, Ryan Leon Thank you, Ryan for your unreserved appreciation of Andrew’s work. And my apologies for not asking you before making this post. Am presuming you would be happy to have it go public. And I thought his assistant should know about it as well. Midhya, keep the good work going! Pic of Midhya with Jerry Hobby, the CEO of Anything Internet and a regular guest on the CNN 650 Morning Show. We constantly learn from others ideas and experiments and that is how innovation happens. And it is more likely to happen much faster in a better-connected world. Watch this engrossing talk by Steven Johnson, spiced by some exquisite illustrative video animation. Happy viewing! Sunder P CEO

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