Small business

Virtual assistance

Virtual Strategic Partner: The Secret behind the success of Start-ups and Small Businesses

Highly productive people do not have any secret sauce behind their success but rather they are very good at doing something which other people forget often. It’s delegating. In principle, delegating might sound like a fairly easy step but if you look closer, there is a fair amount of planning that goes into getting it done. This is especially true for heads of start-ups and small businesses. Why to Hire Virtual Assistants? In the beginning, it is understood that it is very difficult to let go control of the business at this early stage. Too much of multi-tasking is one of the reasons for burnout among first-time entrepreneurs. It must be understood that anything that does not help your growth directly can be delegated to someone else. You need to place your focus where it matters the most, and let others take care of tasks which are not critical to the business. Another challenge that start-ups and small businesses face is the problem of cash flow. As an entrepreneur even if you are financially getting help, you sometimes do not have the time, space and resources available to hire that additional employee that is really needed. This is the reason why many businesses turn to virtual assistants. A virtual assistant not only saves time and money but is a financially viable time tested investment for the growth of the company.   There are good reasons why the trend of virtual work is catching up. The first and the foremost is the penetration of technology which has enabled work force to function from almost any remote location. This helps businesses hire a wide range of talent pool readily available from across the globe. You could be hiring virtual assistants for one of the following reasons: You don’t need or cannot afford a full-time employee You find it troublesome to complete important tasks You need work to be done, but don’t have the luxury of office space Your frequent travel requires you to have someone work virtually Most of your time is spent in organizing than executing You know what tasks to be done, but don’t have anybody to do it As far as hiring an employee is concerned, it is about having a fit between the business goals and culture. However, if you only need help in doing administrative tasks and have the flexibility of hiring someone virtually, then you should definitely consider hiring a virtual assistant. Benefits that virtual assistants bring to start-ups and small businesses Earlier, it was believed that virtual assistants are only for executives. It is no longer the case, with start-ups and small businesses finding obvious benefits. VAs is a big time saver during the growth phase of the company where it doesn’t make fiscal sense to have full time employees. Today, small businesses and start-ups swear by the fact that virtual assistant has helped them in improving productivity, happiness and work-life balance. The scope of VAs are not limited to personal tasks – start-ups and small businesses use VA’s for tasks like order processing, customer support, bookkeeping, social media, web design and development, email management, marketing and administrative tasks. Guidance for the Virtual Employee You have to treat the virtual assistant just like a telecommuting employee. You need to still provide supervision on what kind of tasks need to be done and you need to understand the right fit for the job at hand. There is a need for some level of training, whether you start from small tasks and then give more responsibility or give more direction in the beginning and step back later. In any relationship, it is better to focus on the long term and build trust over time. Conclusion As the interaction with the virtual assistant increases you can provide honest feedback to the work being done. After all, the trust factor with the virtual employee is important as well. You can start by providing your password for social media accounts and ask them to manage the social media accounts. When the trust gets established you can follow it by making him/her book vacations using your credit card. The important thing is that your Virtual Assistant is just like any other employee in your office, who needs to be taken care of just like a normal employee and given the due courtesy. The virtual employee helps reduce your workload so that you can focus on the much important things.

Virtual Strategic Partner: The Secret behind the success of Start-ups and Small Businesses Read More »

Highly productive people do not have any secret sauce behind their success but rather they are very good at doing something which other people forget often. It’s delegating. In principle, delegating might sound like a fairly easy step but if you look closer, there is a fair amount of planning that goes into getting it done. This is especially true for heads of start-ups and small businesses. Why to Hire Virtual Assistants? In the beginning, it is understood that it is very difficult to let go control of the business at this early stage. Too much of multi-tasking is one of the reasons for burnout among first-time entrepreneurs. It must be understood that anything that does not help your growth directly can be delegated to someone else. You need to place your focus where it matters the most, and let others take care of tasks which are not critical to the business. Another challenge that start-ups and small businesses face is the problem of cash flow. As an entrepreneur even if you are financially getting help, you sometimes do not have the time, space and resources available to hire that additional employee that is really needed. This is the reason why many businesses turn to virtual assistants. A virtual assistant not only saves time and money but is a financially viable time tested investment for the growth of the company.   There are good reasons why the trend of virtual work is catching up. The first and the foremost is the penetration of technology which has enabled work force to function from almost any remote location. This helps businesses hire a wide range of talent pool readily available from across the globe. You could be hiring virtual assistants for one of the following reasons: You don’t need or cannot afford a full-time employee You find it troublesome to complete important tasks You need work to be done, but don’t have the luxury of office space Your frequent travel requires you to have someone work virtually Most of your time is spent in organizing than executing You know what tasks to be done, but don’t have anybody to do it As far as hiring an employee is concerned, it is about having a fit between the business goals and culture. However, if you only need help in doing administrative tasks and have the flexibility of hiring someone virtually, then you should definitely consider hiring a virtual assistant. Benefits that virtual assistants bring to start-ups and small businesses Earlier, it was believed that virtual assistants are only for executives. It is no longer the case, with start-ups and small businesses finding obvious benefits. VAs is a big time saver during the growth phase of the company where it doesn’t make fiscal sense to have full time employees. Today, small businesses and start-ups swear by the fact that virtual assistant has helped them in improving productivity, happiness and work-life balance. The scope of VAs are not limited to personal tasks – start-ups and small businesses use VA’s for tasks like order processing, customer support, bookkeeping, social media, web design and development, email management, marketing and administrative tasks. Guidance for the Virtual Employee You have to treat the virtual assistant just like a telecommuting employee. You need to still provide supervision on what kind of tasks need to be done and you need to understand the right fit for the job at hand. There is a need for some level of training, whether you start from small tasks and then give more responsibility or give more direction in the beginning and step back later. In any relationship, it is better to focus on the long term and build trust over time. Conclusion As the interaction with the virtual assistant increases you can provide honest feedback to the work being done. After all, the trust factor with the virtual employee is important as well. You can start by providing your password for social media accounts and ask them to manage the social media accounts. When the trust gets established you can follow it by making him/her book vacations using your credit card. The important thing is that your Virtual Assistant is just like any other employee in your office, who needs to be taken care of just like a normal employee and given the due courtesy. The virtual employee helps reduce your workload so that you can focus on the much important things.

Social Media: A nifty way for your business

Social media is a significant facet of this digital era. Its influence is reflected by the striking metrics like over a billion audiences in popular social media sites, the annual user increment of around 11%, the remarkable engagement rate and the like. With its evolution over the last decade, social media has eventually become a reliable medium of commercial information. 65% of social media users consider information which is shared on social media while making their purchase decision. No wonder, social media has come to be an effective weapon for business professionals, especially savvy marketers. Some specifics about social media which will encourage you to use social media for your business are sorted out as follows:   Social media offers you low – cost platform for advertising: Developing a social media strategy is the best way to decrease the marketing expenses in a business. While a 30 seconds TV ad pricing $350000 reaches a national audience a Facebook ad at a lesser cost reaches the global audience. So, social media gives you a better harvest for your marketing investments. Social media offers you a wide audience reach: If your aim is a wide reach then social media is your best bet. Facebook has over 1 billion active users across different demographics, geography and cultural parameters. Twitter which is logged in by over 100 million users daily is mostly used by the age ran. The twitter users aging above 60 are also increasing. Social media enables your faster reach to audience: There is hardly anyone who does not have a social media account. More than 60% of the social media account holders use their social media accounts daily. This justifies the fact and assures you that social media has a faster and ascertained reach to your target audience. Social media offers you an intense user engagement: User generated content in social media earns sincere attention of users. Apart from this, most of the content comes off in appealing forms like engaging games, queries, video ads and the like. Social media hikes brand loyalty of your fans: Most of the content in social media is user generated and it flows in from reliable sources. Moreover social media exposes your brand to a wide audience and it enables you to interact with the audience. It’s a three tier effect: it introduces your brand to your young prospective fans, invokes curiosity about your brand and emboldens the faith of your already existing fans. All these help you to earn brand loyalty from your fans. Social media offers you the scope of better customer service: Social media helps you in understanding the sentiment of your audience for your brand. By following the social buzz and analysing social sentiment of your target audience you understand the exact needs of your customers and follow them up with the required service. While the above stated advantages of social media gives you good returns, using social media for your brand is not free from risks. One of the risks arises from the fast reach of social media. So, if it’s a positive buzz your brand may become the king of the market while if it’s a negative buzz, you brand may get affected. So, using social media requires your vigilance all the time. You have to keep an eye on the reactions of your audiences to your marketing activities and keep the buzz about your brand under control. Giving prompt responses to your audience queries, regulating negative posts with an appeasing reply and pivoting audience attention to positive posts help you to regulate the reactions of your audience. If you are infusing social media in your business strategies you must not miss out on these tips:   Learn about the behaviour of your audience: Learning audience behaviour is a mixture of quantitative and qualitative process. It requires your intent observation, social sentiment analysis, search analysis etc. Learning about audience behaviour will help you to tune in your brand with your target audience. Do not beat the drum about your brand: Over promoting your brand will hamper your brand reputation. So, social media strategies must be objectified to win the heart of your audience rather than promoting your business. It should be customer oriented. Respond to messages and queries on time: Apt response to messages and queries from your audience helps you to earn new fans and maintain the relationship with already existing fans. Do not abuse the use of hash tags: The hash tags you use must be relevant to your business and must be popular at the time you make your post. Post at optimal frequencies: Posting at optimal frequencies increases the visibility of your brand in a social site. So, learn about the optimal frequency of posting in a particular site with real time posting as well as secondary research and post accordingly. Use the right parameters to measure the success of your brand: The ROI parameters tell you how effective have been your social media strategies and how you should proceed in the future. Choose the right parameters to evaluate your social media activities and earn rich returns. GetFriday (earlier YMII or YourManInIndia) is a service that was featured and used in the NYTimes best-selling productivity and lifestyle design book ‘The 4-Hour-Workweek’ by Timothy Ferris. Sign up now!

Social Media: A nifty way for your business Read More »

Social media is a significant facet of this digital era. Its influence is reflected by the striking metrics like over a billion audiences in popular social media sites, the annual user increment of around 11%, the remarkable engagement rate and the like. With its evolution over the last decade, social media has eventually become a reliable medium of commercial information. 65% of social media users consider information which is shared on social media while making their purchase decision. No wonder, social media has come to be an effective weapon for business professionals, especially savvy marketers. Some specifics about social media which will encourage you to use social media for your business are sorted out as follows:   Social media offers you low – cost platform for advertising: Developing a social media strategy is the best way to decrease the marketing expenses in a business. While a 30 seconds TV ad pricing $350000 reaches a national audience a Facebook ad at a lesser cost reaches the global audience. So, social media gives you a better harvest for your marketing investments. Social media offers you a wide audience reach: If your aim is a wide reach then social media is your best bet. Facebook has over 1 billion active users across different demographics, geography and cultural parameters. Twitter which is logged in by over 100 million users daily is mostly used by the age ran. The twitter users aging above 60 are also increasing. Social media enables your faster reach to audience: There is hardly anyone who does not have a social media account. More than 60% of the social media account holders use their social media accounts daily. This justifies the fact and assures you that social media has a faster and ascertained reach to your target audience. Social media offers you an intense user engagement: User generated content in social media earns sincere attention of users. Apart from this, most of the content comes off in appealing forms like engaging games, queries, video ads and the like. Social media hikes brand loyalty of your fans: Most of the content in social media is user generated and it flows in from reliable sources. Moreover social media exposes your brand to a wide audience and it enables you to interact with the audience. It’s a three tier effect: it introduces your brand to your young prospective fans, invokes curiosity about your brand and emboldens the faith of your already existing fans. All these help you to earn brand loyalty from your fans. Social media offers you the scope of better customer service: Social media helps you in understanding the sentiment of your audience for your brand. By following the social buzz and analysing social sentiment of your target audience you understand the exact needs of your customers and follow them up with the required service. While the above stated advantages of social media gives you good returns, using social media for your brand is not free from risks. One of the risks arises from the fast reach of social media. So, if it’s a positive buzz your brand may become the king of the market while if it’s a negative buzz, you brand may get affected. So, using social media requires your vigilance all the time. You have to keep an eye on the reactions of your audiences to your marketing activities and keep the buzz about your brand under control. Giving prompt responses to your audience queries, regulating negative posts with an appeasing reply and pivoting audience attention to positive posts help you to regulate the reactions of your audience. If you are infusing social media in your business strategies you must not miss out on these tips:   Learn about the behaviour of your audience: Learning audience behaviour is a mixture of quantitative and qualitative process. It requires your intent observation, social sentiment analysis, search analysis etc. Learning about audience behaviour will help you to tune in your brand with your target audience. Do not beat the drum about your brand: Over promoting your brand will hamper your brand reputation. So, social media strategies must be objectified to win the heart of your audience rather than promoting your business. It should be customer oriented. Respond to messages and queries on time: Apt response to messages and queries from your audience helps you to earn new fans and maintain the relationship with already existing fans. Do not abuse the use of hash tags: The hash tags you use must be relevant to your business and must be popular at the time you make your post. Post at optimal frequencies: Posting at optimal frequencies increases the visibility of your brand in a social site. So, learn about the optimal frequency of posting in a particular site with real time posting as well as secondary research and post accordingly. Use the right parameters to measure the success of your brand: The ROI parameters tell you how effective have been your social media strategies and how you should proceed in the future. Choose the right parameters to evaluate your social media activities and earn rich returns. GetFriday (earlier YMII or YourManInIndia) is a service that was featured and used in the NYTimes best-selling productivity and lifestyle design book ‘The 4-Hour-Workweek’ by Timothy Ferris. Sign up now!

Tips to steer your small business with an e-book

An intelligent marketer strives to create awareness, educate and aid in the decision making of his customers. These days, marketers lure their target segment using an array of nifty digital tools. An important one amongst them is the E-book. An e-book augments a small business’s entry into the market and reinforces its identity from the very beginning. Every small-business marketer will benefit if he/she uses E-books prudently to further the business. An e-book has benefits for both, the customers as well as the marketers. It is the source of maximum information for customers at minimum cost for marketers. So, e-books are value marketing in the true sense. So, your E-book must be designed strategically to appeal to a large number of visitors and close your business with a majority of them. Before embarking on the design of your E-book, you should reflect upon the objectives of your marketing and relate them to your e-book. This will further decide the content of the e-book, the tone and style of the content and the like. Such prudence in the making of an e-book will reinforce your marketing strategies and align them with the same. So, if you are a small business marketer and you are going to launch an e-book, take a look at the following tips on e-book marketing. They will enhance the benefits you harvest from your e-book. Tailor your e-book for your right audience: Your e-book should meet the expectation of your target audience. They should get the exact information they are seeking and further it should entice them to choose your products or services over your competitor’s. Get good book-reviews for your e-book: Good book reviews increase the merit of your book. They corroborate the faith of your readers in your book and entice them to read it. Get reviews from reputed personalities and industry experts. It will establish and affirm your expertise in your business. Delight your readers by gifting: Delight your readers by gifting your e-book as a prize. You may decide the winner by holding an engaging contest or any other pull strategy like e-mail sweepstake. It’s a good bait. Send e-mail scripts of your e-book to relevant customers: Send best liners and e-mails to the relevant customers and prospects. By doing this, you will make your e-book an attractive portal which invites qualified prospects. Get links from reputed link sharing social websites: Getting your link shared by a reputed social network is useful to trigger the word of mouse. But be mindful to respect the rules of such reputed social sites. Take care to state a few key insights from your book briefly without being over promotional. Address the buyers from the perspective of their journey: Your e-book should help close sales with your buyers. So, it should be linked to your landing pages. You e-book’s content should address the whole journey of your buyers. It should be informative, differentiating your business from your competitors by stating facts and figures, helping your buyer to make the decision by giving details of the buying procedure. The above tips of e-book marketing will add value to your marketing efforts and help you reap good results. So if you are a passionate digital marketer, you must steer your business to success by the right usage of an e-book. In fact, there are no hurdles for e-book marketing. If you are losing out on time for e-book marketing, you have a smart option to outsource the same. Or if you want an expert’s advice on e-book marketing, the same might be availed through outsourcing. Right from sending e-mail scripts to content writing, there are virtual experts to handle everything about e-book marketing. One stop Virtual Assistance service providers like GetFriday are one of your best bets in this regard. So, get started with your e-book marketing from today!

Tips to steer your small business with an e-book Read More »

An intelligent marketer strives to create awareness, educate and aid in the decision making of his customers. These days, marketers lure their target segment using an array of nifty digital tools. An important one amongst them is the E-book. An e-book augments a small business’s entry into the market and reinforces its identity from the very beginning. Every small-business marketer will benefit if he/she uses E-books prudently to further the business. An e-book has benefits for both, the customers as well as the marketers. It is the source of maximum information for customers at minimum cost for marketers. So, e-books are value marketing in the true sense. So, your E-book must be designed strategically to appeal to a large number of visitors and close your business with a majority of them. Before embarking on the design of your E-book, you should reflect upon the objectives of your marketing and relate them to your e-book. This will further decide the content of the e-book, the tone and style of the content and the like. Such prudence in the making of an e-book will reinforce your marketing strategies and align them with the same. So, if you are a small business marketer and you are going to launch an e-book, take a look at the following tips on e-book marketing. They will enhance the benefits you harvest from your e-book. Tailor your e-book for your right audience: Your e-book should meet the expectation of your target audience. They should get the exact information they are seeking and further it should entice them to choose your products or services over your competitor’s. Get good book-reviews for your e-book: Good book reviews increase the merit of your book. They corroborate the faith of your readers in your book and entice them to read it. Get reviews from reputed personalities and industry experts. It will establish and affirm your expertise in your business. Delight your readers by gifting: Delight your readers by gifting your e-book as a prize. You may decide the winner by holding an engaging contest or any other pull strategy like e-mail sweepstake. It’s a good bait. Send e-mail scripts of your e-book to relevant customers: Send best liners and e-mails to the relevant customers and prospects. By doing this, you will make your e-book an attractive portal which invites qualified prospects. Get links from reputed link sharing social websites: Getting your link shared by a reputed social network is useful to trigger the word of mouse. But be mindful to respect the rules of such reputed social sites. Take care to state a few key insights from your book briefly without being over promotional. Address the buyers from the perspective of their journey: Your e-book should help close sales with your buyers. So, it should be linked to your landing pages. You e-book’s content should address the whole journey of your buyers. It should be informative, differentiating your business from your competitors by stating facts and figures, helping your buyer to make the decision by giving details of the buying procedure. The above tips of e-book marketing will add value to your marketing efforts and help you reap good results. So if you are a passionate digital marketer, you must steer your business to success by the right usage of an e-book. In fact, there are no hurdles for e-book marketing. If you are losing out on time for e-book marketing, you have a smart option to outsource the same. Or if you want an expert’s advice on e-book marketing, the same might be availed through outsourcing. Right from sending e-mail scripts to content writing, there are virtual experts to handle everything about e-book marketing. One stop Virtual Assistance service providers like GetFriday are one of your best bets in this regard. So, get started with your e-book marketing from today!

Top tips to build your online business brand with your Virtual Assistant

When you build your online brand, you create your business signature in terms of your company name, the product or service you offer, your brand logo, the jingle, the tagline etc. Your online brand bolsters your business identity and thus your business becomes more worthwhile in the market. The otherwise naive crowd then starts to visit your website, clicks through your pages, likes and reacts to your social media promotions, and start engaging with your content present online. Gradually your brand buzz turns on. This is how doing right the online branding earns you wonder. However, online branding in itself is a challenging process. Before going to build your business brand, you need to realize the essence of your brand and the risks associated with it. Your online brand speaks for your business. So, before building it, get into the crux of your business, understand it, and determine what impression you want to create for your business. Since your online brand is going to create your business impression in the market, you must ascertain that your brand is strongly likable. The brand elements like logo, name, jingle and tagline should be relevant to your business and attractive enough to make your customers and prospects feel happy whenever they approach your brand. Your brand is going to build the trust amongst your clients; your brand is a promise of the value offered to your clients. In long run it determines whether your clients will like to avail services from you. So, the strength of your online brand determines your revenues and profits. Your brand helps you to stand out of the competition. It convinces your prospects that your service/product is the best out of all the options they can choose from. Though building a strong brand fetches you brownies, it’s not an easy process. You, as a small business owner or an entrepreneur are tied in the limit of resources, whether it is money, people or time. In addition, you are overwhelmed with too many responsibilities to handle. You need to manage somehow everything on your own. Hiring full time experts to help you with branding is too expensive. Despite of all these limitations you need expert inputs to fetch expected returns on your marketing investments. So the best solution is to hire an expert virtual assistant and involve him or her in the brand building process. There are Virtual Assistant service providers that have the knack of marketing and drive your marketing efforts with rich inputs. They will help you to reap the expected returns on your marketing investments. Before hiring a Virtual Assistant to help you in your marketing efforts, you should have some nifty tips to avail the best results of hiring a Virtual assistant. Here are some tips to avail the best out of Virtual Assistance for your brand building. Let your Virtual Assistant be a part of your business: Your Virtual Assistant is your remote assistant, who will serve you without his/ her physical presence in your organization. Your brand is the reflection of your business, its culture and objectives. So your Virtual Assistant should be familiar to these very important elements. Make him a part your business, instead of treating him like a third party agency or part-time worker. Let your Virtual assistant have the full knowledge about your business. Let him have a deep insight about your objective, the purpose of your brand, the culture of the organization. Content Creation: Your brand is closely related to the value offered by you with your products and services. It creates an identity of your business to increase the reputation in the market. Content chosen by you for your brand communication is going to create that identity for your brand. People like to invest in less risky products and services. Your brand identity is going to offset the risks for your prospects. Avail your Virtual Assistant’s help in creating communication message and content for your brand. Content helps you in growing fans for your business and shapes the identity of your brand. Hiring a content expert team in the form of Virtual Assistants is very critical step towards your brand building exercise. Educate the customers through your blogs and other online content: You have to prove the differentiated value your business offers to your customers. Your prospect have lots of other known brands to choose from; to win amongst all, you need to prove that your brand is better and stronger than the rest. Get your Virtual Assistant to create blogs and other informational content for your target audience, where you highlight your unique value proposition. Make your brand relatable: Build social value for your customers. Get the help of your Virtual Assistant to do a proper study of your target segment and understand their self image and social identity that they seek. You may hire a Virtual Assistant with market research skills and build your brand persona to diligently match the social need of your customers. Make an active presence in social media: An active presence in social media requires a lot of time and persistence. A Virtual Assistant offers you the best help in this field. Giving prompt responses to consumer queries, creating engaging content, posts and activities to increase the involvement of your consumers, and increasing the frequency of posts in social media will strengthen the identity of your brand and improve your Social Media Engagement. It’s time to come out of your worries of ‘Brand Building’. Build your online business brand through Internet marketing experts of GetFriday and Relax!

Top tips to build your online business brand with your Virtual Assistant Read More »

When you build your online brand, you create your business signature in terms of your company name, the product or service you offer, your brand logo, the jingle, the tagline etc. Your online brand bolsters your business identity and thus your business becomes more worthwhile in the market. The otherwise naive crowd then starts to visit your website, clicks through your pages, likes and reacts to your social media promotions, and start engaging with your content present online. Gradually your brand buzz turns on. This is how doing right the online branding earns you wonder. However, online branding in itself is a challenging process. Before going to build your business brand, you need to realize the essence of your brand and the risks associated with it. Your online brand speaks for your business. So, before building it, get into the crux of your business, understand it, and determine what impression you want to create for your business. Since your online brand is going to create your business impression in the market, you must ascertain that your brand is strongly likable. The brand elements like logo, name, jingle and tagline should be relevant to your business and attractive enough to make your customers and prospects feel happy whenever they approach your brand. Your brand is going to build the trust amongst your clients; your brand is a promise of the value offered to your clients. In long run it determines whether your clients will like to avail services from you. So, the strength of your online brand determines your revenues and profits. Your brand helps you to stand out of the competition. It convinces your prospects that your service/product is the best out of all the options they can choose from. Though building a strong brand fetches you brownies, it’s not an easy process. You, as a small business owner or an entrepreneur are tied in the limit of resources, whether it is money, people or time. In addition, you are overwhelmed with too many responsibilities to handle. You need to manage somehow everything on your own. Hiring full time experts to help you with branding is too expensive. Despite of all these limitations you need expert inputs to fetch expected returns on your marketing investments. So the best solution is to hire an expert virtual assistant and involve him or her in the brand building process. There are Virtual Assistant service providers that have the knack of marketing and drive your marketing efforts with rich inputs. They will help you to reap the expected returns on your marketing investments. Before hiring a Virtual Assistant to help you in your marketing efforts, you should have some nifty tips to avail the best results of hiring a Virtual assistant. Here are some tips to avail the best out of Virtual Assistance for your brand building. Let your Virtual Assistant be a part of your business: Your Virtual Assistant is your remote assistant, who will serve you without his/ her physical presence in your organization. Your brand is the reflection of your business, its culture and objectives. So your Virtual Assistant should be familiar to these very important elements. Make him a part your business, instead of treating him like a third party agency or part-time worker. Let your Virtual assistant have the full knowledge about your business. Let him have a deep insight about your objective, the purpose of your brand, the culture of the organization. Content Creation: Your brand is closely related to the value offered by you with your products and services. It creates an identity of your business to increase the reputation in the market. Content chosen by you for your brand communication is going to create that identity for your brand. People like to invest in less risky products and services. Your brand identity is going to offset the risks for your prospects. Avail your Virtual Assistant’s help in creating communication message and content for your brand. Content helps you in growing fans for your business and shapes the identity of your brand. Hiring a content expert team in the form of Virtual Assistants is very critical step towards your brand building exercise. Educate the customers through your blogs and other online content: You have to prove the differentiated value your business offers to your customers. Your prospect have lots of other known brands to choose from; to win amongst all, you need to prove that your brand is better and stronger than the rest. Get your Virtual Assistant to create blogs and other informational content for your target audience, where you highlight your unique value proposition. Make your brand relatable: Build social value for your customers. Get the help of your Virtual Assistant to do a proper study of your target segment and understand their self image and social identity that they seek. You may hire a Virtual Assistant with market research skills and build your brand persona to diligently match the social need of your customers. Make an active presence in social media: An active presence in social media requires a lot of time and persistence. A Virtual Assistant offers you the best help in this field. Giving prompt responses to consumer queries, creating engaging content, posts and activities to increase the involvement of your consumers, and increasing the frequency of posts in social media will strengthen the identity of your brand and improve your Social Media Engagement. It’s time to come out of your worries of ‘Brand Building’. Build your online business brand through Internet marketing experts of GetFriday and Relax!

Six Things You MUST outsource to a Virtual Assistant

Focus is one of the biggest secrets to success. So, start focusing on the core tasks of your business. But, what if you have a long, boring list of trivial tasks to handle before you can even begin to focus on the core tasks? What if you are too confused and can’t figure out what you should be focusing on? Aren’t these questions becoming barriers to your business growth? Today, many start-ups and small business owners suffer from the ‘superhero syndrome’ -a condition where business owners believe they can take on anything and everything on their own! While taking responsibility for your business is good, juggling too many hats at the same time, could eventually lead to your downfall, as you slowly begin to lose focus on the core tasks and what you should ideally be concentrating on as a business owner. You start dissipating your valuable resources across trivial tasks which can be better taken care of by someone else. This is where the need for a convenient solution arises. If you are seriously looking at business growth or a balanced, personal life, you must think of hiring a Virtual Assistant. Now, before you get all excited and make a hasty decision of hiring a Virtual Assistant, ask yourself if there are aspects of your life that you need a break from and if there is a long list of other activities that you need to focus on. Once you have filtered out the activities that are best handled by a third party provider like an outsourcing company, you can then finally get down to hiring a Virtual Assistant.If you are new to outsourcing and don’t know where to tread yet, let us take a look at some of the tasks that you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant. Managing e-mails Managing e-mails can be a whale of a job. Sifting through junk and responding to countless e-mails can eat into a good chunk of your productive time. Consider outsourcing e-mail management to a reliable virtual assistant. It will free up a lot more of your time than you would have imagined. Trust us! Bookkeeping We all know how monotonous bookkeeping can get. It involves the time-consuming process of recording bills, invoices, payments etc. Imagine how much you can achieve in your business or personal life with the free time you get after outsourcing bookkeeping tasks to your virtual assistant! Numbers can get harrowing and with a Virtual Assistant in the picture, you won’t have to worry about one more complicated entry or computation. Online Research     Online research is another important task that many individuals and businesses carry out in their day to day lives. It also consumes a good fraction of your precious time. Online research, if outsourced, can earn you that much-needed time to focus on the activities that matter the most to you and that are crucial to your business. Travel and trip arrangement We all know how much effort goes into planning a journey. One may face a lot of hurdles along the way when it comes to booking a hotel to suit the budget, hiring a taxi, booking cheap flight tickets and the like. With the help of a virtual assistant, focus on the destination and let your Virtual Assistant take care of all the nitty-gritties of making your journey a comfortable one. Setting Reminders/Calendar management A well-managed calendar can help you sail smoothly through the month. Setting reminders is also an integral part of a well-maintained schedule. Outsource your calendar management activities to a Virtual Assistant and rest assured you will never miss another important deadline or family event! Data Entry Data entry is a simple task but can be monotonous and tiresome. Consider outsourcing data entry to a Virtual Assistant. It will give you a lot more time to do the things you love.

Six Things You MUST outsource to a Virtual Assistant Read More »

Focus is one of the biggest secrets to success. So, start focusing on the core tasks of your business. But, what if you have a long, boring list of trivial tasks to handle before you can even begin to focus on the core tasks? What if you are too confused and can’t figure out what you should be focusing on? Aren’t these questions becoming barriers to your business growth? Today, many start-ups and small business owners suffer from the ‘superhero syndrome’ -a condition where business owners believe they can take on anything and everything on their own! While taking responsibility for your business is good, juggling too many hats at the same time, could eventually lead to your downfall, as you slowly begin to lose focus on the core tasks and what you should ideally be concentrating on as a business owner. You start dissipating your valuable resources across trivial tasks which can be better taken care of by someone else. This is where the need for a convenient solution arises. If you are seriously looking at business growth or a balanced, personal life, you must think of hiring a Virtual Assistant. Now, before you get all excited and make a hasty decision of hiring a Virtual Assistant, ask yourself if there are aspects of your life that you need a break from and if there is a long list of other activities that you need to focus on. Once you have filtered out the activities that are best handled by a third party provider like an outsourcing company, you can then finally get down to hiring a Virtual Assistant.If you are new to outsourcing and don’t know where to tread yet, let us take a look at some of the tasks that you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant. Managing e-mails Managing e-mails can be a whale of a job. Sifting through junk and responding to countless e-mails can eat into a good chunk of your productive time. Consider outsourcing e-mail management to a reliable virtual assistant. It will free up a lot more of your time than you would have imagined. Trust us! Bookkeeping We all know how monotonous bookkeeping can get. It involves the time-consuming process of recording bills, invoices, payments etc. Imagine how much you can achieve in your business or personal life with the free time you get after outsourcing bookkeeping tasks to your virtual assistant! Numbers can get harrowing and with a Virtual Assistant in the picture, you won’t have to worry about one more complicated entry or computation. Online Research     Online research is another important task that many individuals and businesses carry out in their day to day lives. It also consumes a good fraction of your precious time. Online research, if outsourced, can earn you that much-needed time to focus on the activities that matter the most to you and that are crucial to your business. Travel and trip arrangement We all know how much effort goes into planning a journey. One may face a lot of hurdles along the way when it comes to booking a hotel to suit the budget, hiring a taxi, booking cheap flight tickets and the like. With the help of a virtual assistant, focus on the destination and let your Virtual Assistant take care of all the nitty-gritties of making your journey a comfortable one. Setting Reminders/Calendar management A well-managed calendar can help you sail smoothly through the month. Setting reminders is also an integral part of a well-maintained schedule. Outsource your calendar management activities to a Virtual Assistant and rest assured you will never miss another important deadline or family event! Data Entry Data entry is a simple task but can be monotonous and tiresome. Consider outsourcing data entry to a Virtual Assistant. It will give you a lot more time to do the things you love.

Things You Should NEVER Outsource As a Small Business

As a small business owner, it can be a real struggle to stay at the “top of things”. What you should ideally be focusing on is how to run your business and attract new prospects. Like any business however, the things you may want to do may slam into the things that have to be done on a daily basis. A great way to free up some time so that you can focus on growing the business is by engaging an experienced Virtual Assistant from an experienced outsourcing provider like GetFriday. A Virtual Assistant could be the answer to your growing business demands and help offload run-of-the-mill tasks like handling social media accounts as well as mundane jobs like contacting clients, email management, setting up reminders or devising a travel itinerary for you. The possibilities are endless! If you have decided to take the leap, be wary, because a bad outsourcing decision can be costlier than not outsourcing in the first place. Keeping that in mind, this post highlights three of the major things that you should NOT outsource as a small business and that are best handled internally. Take a look! 1. NEVER Outsource Your Core Competencies Never make the mistake of farming out your core competencies to virtual assistants. If you are a tech start-up, do not subcontract your technology or if you are a recruiting firm, don’t outsource your recruiters. Figure out what your company is really good at doing and outsource the auxiliary services that are related to these core competencies, if you must. Let us take the following example. You could hire virtual assistant specialists to write and edit the content that you want to include in your inbound marketing efforts. But make sure that your in-house team makes the business or the editorial decisions as to how the content has to be written, what topics should be covered or the channels that should be used to propagate the content. Part of developing an effective outsourcing plan is to understand what your company is really good at doing and keep it in-house. Outsource the rest to a dependable, virtual assistance service provider. 2. NEVER Outsource What You Don’t Understand There are probably a hundred things that you might want to outsource at the moment, such as getting an assistant to manage your CRM, designing a shopping cart, developing a WordPress website and so much more! While most of these can be outsourced, if you don’t really comprehend how they work precisely in accordance to what you need – be it now or later, you could end up investing a lot of money on something that you’ll end up substituting very soon. For example: You are unsure of how to create an online shopping cart, but you know that you require one that connects to your catalogue, can be easily modified, agrees for coupons etc. Even if you don’t know how to manually design a shopping cart, you will at least know how it works from an operational point of view. This is a situation that is considered safe for outsourcing. However, if you don’t understand the basics of how online shopping carts work at all, it is not advisable to blindly outsource it to a third party like a Virtual Assistant company. Chances are, you will never find out if the solutions they have recommended are effective enough. This is especially true when it comes to outsourcing software issues or technology and if you are a start-up. By relying on Virtual Assistants from the onset, you may miss out on the chance to understand the full picture on how the technology works. Outsource only what you need to. Ensure that the teams in charge have at least a basic understanding of what needs to be accomplished and the yardsticks that will be used to evaluate the final suggestions. 3. NEVER Fully Outsource Your Brand Identity If you are starting out, you need to focus on brand-building. Understand that you will attract more opportunities if you have built an effective brand strategy. Think of whether you have created an effective logo or brand message that will go on to resonate with your future clients. While there are Virtual Assistant professionals who can help build your brand message, tag lines or designs; your message and your brand identity need to strictly come from YOU. This is because, only you and your in-house teams know what it stands for and how the brand needs to be communicated to target audiences. Even if you insist on outsourcing this aspect to the experts because you don’t have the time for it yourself, you need to at least be involved in the logo/brand creation process every step of the way so, that your brand still retains your identity. For example, would you mind walking into a tattoo studio and letting the tattoo artist instinctively create what he/she wants to, onto your skin? Tattoos are permanent and the first impressions that people get of your brand, are equally indelible. Though the tattoo artist will be creating the final art work, your inputs on how you want it done, the styles, colours or the design will solely come from you and will echo your thoughts/experiences. Now, think of your brand in the same way Would you want to fully outsource your brand identity to a third party? You might think that you can subcontract every small task to your Virtual Assistant. Though there are a lot of tasks that you CAN outsource to your virtual assistants, certain aspects such as the ones mentioned above, could risk colossal business damage. You need to do some prior homework on what your company does best, understand when the right time is to outsource and the credibility of your outsourcing provider. What do you think? What are some of the functions or tasks that you will never outsource?

Things You Should NEVER Outsource As a Small Business Read More »

As a small business owner, it can be a real struggle to stay at the “top of things”. What you should ideally be focusing on is how to run your business and attract new prospects. Like any business however, the things you may want to do may slam into the things that have to be done on a daily basis. A great way to free up some time so that you can focus on growing the business is by engaging an experienced Virtual Assistant from an experienced outsourcing provider like GetFriday. A Virtual Assistant could be the answer to your growing business demands and help offload run-of-the-mill tasks like handling social media accounts as well as mundane jobs like contacting clients, email management, setting up reminders or devising a travel itinerary for you. The possibilities are endless! If you have decided to take the leap, be wary, because a bad outsourcing decision can be costlier than not outsourcing in the first place. Keeping that in mind, this post highlights three of the major things that you should NOT outsource as a small business and that are best handled internally. Take a look! 1. NEVER Outsource Your Core Competencies Never make the mistake of farming out your core competencies to virtual assistants. If you are a tech start-up, do not subcontract your technology or if you are a recruiting firm, don’t outsource your recruiters. Figure out what your company is really good at doing and outsource the auxiliary services that are related to these core competencies, if you must. Let us take the following example. You could hire virtual assistant specialists to write and edit the content that you want to include in your inbound marketing efforts. But make sure that your in-house team makes the business or the editorial decisions as to how the content has to be written, what topics should be covered or the channels that should be used to propagate the content. Part of developing an effective outsourcing plan is to understand what your company is really good at doing and keep it in-house. Outsource the rest to a dependable, virtual assistance service provider. 2. NEVER Outsource What You Don’t Understand There are probably a hundred things that you might want to outsource at the moment, such as getting an assistant to manage your CRM, designing a shopping cart, developing a WordPress website and so much more! While most of these can be outsourced, if you don’t really comprehend how they work precisely in accordance to what you need – be it now or later, you could end up investing a lot of money on something that you’ll end up substituting very soon. For example: You are unsure of how to create an online shopping cart, but you know that you require one that connects to your catalogue, can be easily modified, agrees for coupons etc. Even if you don’t know how to manually design a shopping cart, you will at least know how it works from an operational point of view. This is a situation that is considered safe for outsourcing. However, if you don’t understand the basics of how online shopping carts work at all, it is not advisable to blindly outsource it to a third party like a Virtual Assistant company. Chances are, you will never find out if the solutions they have recommended are effective enough. This is especially true when it comes to outsourcing software issues or technology and if you are a start-up. By relying on Virtual Assistants from the onset, you may miss out on the chance to understand the full picture on how the technology works. Outsource only what you need to. Ensure that the teams in charge have at least a basic understanding of what needs to be accomplished and the yardsticks that will be used to evaluate the final suggestions. 3. NEVER Fully Outsource Your Brand Identity If you are starting out, you need to focus on brand-building. Understand that you will attract more opportunities if you have built an effective brand strategy. Think of whether you have created an effective logo or brand message that will go on to resonate with your future clients. While there are Virtual Assistant professionals who can help build your brand message, tag lines or designs; your message and your brand identity need to strictly come from YOU. This is because, only you and your in-house teams know what it stands for and how the brand needs to be communicated to target audiences. Even if you insist on outsourcing this aspect to the experts because you don’t have the time for it yourself, you need to at least be involved in the logo/brand creation process every step of the way so, that your brand still retains your identity. For example, would you mind walking into a tattoo studio and letting the tattoo artist instinctively create what he/she wants to, onto your skin? Tattoos are permanent and the first impressions that people get of your brand, are equally indelible. Though the tattoo artist will be creating the final art work, your inputs on how you want it done, the styles, colours or the design will solely come from you and will echo your thoughts/experiences. Now, think of your brand in the same way Would you want to fully outsource your brand identity to a third party? You might think that you can subcontract every small task to your Virtual Assistant. Though there are a lot of tasks that you CAN outsource to your virtual assistants, certain aspects such as the ones mentioned above, could risk colossal business damage. You need to do some prior homework on what your company does best, understand when the right time is to outsource and the credibility of your outsourcing provider. What do you think? What are some of the functions or tasks that you will never outsource?

Debunking Common Outsourcing Myths

When you consider outsourcing, it means that you ideally want to avoid undertaking peripheral company functions on your own. Outsourcing has long been a strategic business practice and is a way of reorganizing or relocating a part of a company’s functions to a 3rd party, to boost productivity and improve business functions. Despite the numerous benefits that outsourcing can bring to the table, many first-timers or companies remain oblivious to the obvious and prefer handling all functions in-house due to the many myths and misconceptions associated with outsourcing. Through this post, we aim to debunk the 6 most prevalent outsourcing myths and unveil the realities.   Myth #1 – The Main Incentive For Companies To Outsource Are Reduced Costs Fact #1 – Companies Outsource For Other Reasons Than reducing Costs   For a very long time, companies outsourced because they believed that it would help reduce costs. Due to the mismatch in expectations and reality, the motives behind outsourcing has also evolved over time. Reduced costs may be ‘one’ of the incentives to outsource a function but definitely not the main reason anymore. Rather, the quality of the services provided and the quick access to specialist service providers who can complete a job in a much more efficient manner than an in-house employee, have become some of the major impetuses to outsource. Let’s face it. If your company is not very proficient with SEO, chances are that an outsourcing partner that has a specialist team for SEO, can generate quicker results for your company and work more efficiently.   Myth #2 – There Will Be Cultural & Language Disparities Fact #2 – Outsourcing Companies Are Trained To Handle Cross-Cultural Exchange   Apart from being just a myth, cultural and language disparities are also some of the greatest fears for first-time outsourcers. The fear being, that cultural and language barriers can pose obstacles during the process of exchanging vital information. However, it is safe to say that this is just a misconception. Most outsourcing companies hire qualified professionals that are experienced in cross-cultural exchange and are proficient with multiple languages, including English. India, Russia and Philippines are at the top of the league when it comes to deploying professional customer support teams who are both, fluent and familiar with multiple cultures and the English language.   Myth #3 – Clients Have No Control Once The Job Is Outsourced Fact #3 – You Have As Much Control As You Would With An In-House Team! This is one of the most prevalent outsourcing myths and is not as difficult to manage as most companies or people would like to believe. With check-points and methodologies established with the outsourcer, you can offer your suggestions, tested practices, sample frameworks and carry out regular checks on the progress of the job being done once you have outsourced a task. Frequent information-exchange and communication is a necessity and the more you exert control over an outsourcing company, the better your results and your personal virtual assistants‘ efficiency. By providing feedback, you will not only be encouraging your virtual assistant to do better, but you will also be establishing a great working relationship.   Myth #4 – Outsourcing Is For The Big Companies Fact #4 – Small Business Enterprises Have Benefited More With Outsourcing In The Recent Past   No one can take away the fact that large enterprises have made the best use of outsourcing in the past, but let’s not forget the scale on which these big companies outsourced. The decision to outsource nowadays is supported by different reasons for different companies and in the case of start-ups, they are driven to outsource because of the countless benefits. More small businesses are taking to outsourcing today to add value, know-how and experience to their business functions. It is all the more important for small businesses to focus on their core functions and grow their business rather than spend all their valuable time on laborious jobs that can be handled by professionals. An advantage in today’s time and age is that many outsourcers offer customized packages or prefer working for small business enterprises. Look out for these specific outsourcing companies or virtual assistance companies if you run a small business enterprise. 6 ACTIVITIES TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS   Myth #5 – Outsourcing Is Risky Fact #5 – Your Thinking Is Risky   Sometimes it’s your thinking that can be risky and can stop you from taking the right step for your business. You may believe that handling all the functions in-house will save your company from a number of risks. Though this may be true to a marginal degree, there are a number of companies who were responsible for their own downfall due to colossal data exposure and inadequate, in-house security measures in the past. Outsourcing companies on the other hand, have only grown and made their security policies more stringent. Experienced outsourcing providers and virtual assistant companies have always understood the importance of data security and these practices have always been treated with the highest priority. Routine measures such as encrypted data, superior firewalls, stringent work policies and NDA’s are some of the many measures that are given precedence when dealing with clients, sensitive data and their tasks. Outsourcing is an extremely safe practice provided you do your homework and choose the right company to work with.   Myth #6 – Outsourcing And Offshoring Are The Same Fact #6 – No, They Are NOT! You may have noticed that ‘outsourcing’ and ‘offshoring’ are interchangeably used, but they are definitely not the same. Outsourcing involves paying a 3rd party or a virtual assistance company to complete your work for you. Offshoring on the other hand, means relocating or moving your business efforts wholly to another country, instead of just hiring a company to handle key components of your business. Though the differences may seem negligible, there is in fact, a huge difference between the two terminologies.

Debunking Common Outsourcing Myths Read More »

When you consider outsourcing, it means that you ideally want to avoid undertaking peripheral company functions on your own. Outsourcing has long been a strategic business practice and is a way of reorganizing or relocating a part of a company’s functions to a 3rd party, to boost productivity and improve business functions. Despite the numerous benefits that outsourcing can bring to the table, many first-timers or companies remain oblivious to the obvious and prefer handling all functions in-house due to the many myths and misconceptions associated with outsourcing. Through this post, we aim to debunk the 6 most prevalent outsourcing myths and unveil the realities.   Myth #1 – The Main Incentive For Companies To Outsource Are Reduced Costs Fact #1 – Companies Outsource For Other Reasons Than reducing Costs   For a very long time, companies outsourced because they believed that it would help reduce costs. Due to the mismatch in expectations and reality, the motives behind outsourcing has also evolved over time. Reduced costs may be ‘one’ of the incentives to outsource a function but definitely not the main reason anymore. Rather, the quality of the services provided and the quick access to specialist service providers who can complete a job in a much more efficient manner than an in-house employee, have become some of the major impetuses to outsource. Let’s face it. If your company is not very proficient with SEO, chances are that an outsourcing partner that has a specialist team for SEO, can generate quicker results for your company and work more efficiently.   Myth #2 – There Will Be Cultural & Language Disparities Fact #2 – Outsourcing Companies Are Trained To Handle Cross-Cultural Exchange   Apart from being just a myth, cultural and language disparities are also some of the greatest fears for first-time outsourcers. The fear being, that cultural and language barriers can pose obstacles during the process of exchanging vital information. However, it is safe to say that this is just a misconception. Most outsourcing companies hire qualified professionals that are experienced in cross-cultural exchange and are proficient with multiple languages, including English. India, Russia and Philippines are at the top of the league when it comes to deploying professional customer support teams who are both, fluent and familiar with multiple cultures and the English language.   Myth #3 – Clients Have No Control Once The Job Is Outsourced Fact #3 – You Have As Much Control As You Would With An In-House Team! This is one of the most prevalent outsourcing myths and is not as difficult to manage as most companies or people would like to believe. With check-points and methodologies established with the outsourcer, you can offer your suggestions, tested practices, sample frameworks and carry out regular checks on the progress of the job being done once you have outsourced a task. Frequent information-exchange and communication is a necessity and the more you exert control over an outsourcing company, the better your results and your personal virtual assistants‘ efficiency. By providing feedback, you will not only be encouraging your virtual assistant to do better, but you will also be establishing a great working relationship.   Myth #4 – Outsourcing Is For The Big Companies Fact #4 – Small Business Enterprises Have Benefited More With Outsourcing In The Recent Past   No one can take away the fact that large enterprises have made the best use of outsourcing in the past, but let’s not forget the scale on which these big companies outsourced. The decision to outsource nowadays is supported by different reasons for different companies and in the case of start-ups, they are driven to outsource because of the countless benefits. More small businesses are taking to outsourcing today to add value, know-how and experience to their business functions. It is all the more important for small businesses to focus on their core functions and grow their business rather than spend all their valuable time on laborious jobs that can be handled by professionals. An advantage in today’s time and age is that many outsourcers offer customized packages or prefer working for small business enterprises. Look out for these specific outsourcing companies or virtual assistance companies if you run a small business enterprise. 6 ACTIVITIES TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS   Myth #5 – Outsourcing Is Risky Fact #5 – Your Thinking Is Risky   Sometimes it’s your thinking that can be risky and can stop you from taking the right step for your business. You may believe that handling all the functions in-house will save your company from a number of risks. Though this may be true to a marginal degree, there are a number of companies who were responsible for their own downfall due to colossal data exposure and inadequate, in-house security measures in the past. Outsourcing companies on the other hand, have only grown and made their security policies more stringent. Experienced outsourcing providers and virtual assistant companies have always understood the importance of data security and these practices have always been treated with the highest priority. Routine measures such as encrypted data, superior firewalls, stringent work policies and NDA’s are some of the many measures that are given precedence when dealing with clients, sensitive data and their tasks. Outsourcing is an extremely safe practice provided you do your homework and choose the right company to work with.   Myth #6 – Outsourcing And Offshoring Are The Same Fact #6 – No, They Are NOT! You may have noticed that ‘outsourcing’ and ‘offshoring’ are interchangeably used, but they are definitely not the same. Outsourcing involves paying a 3rd party or a virtual assistance company to complete your work for you. Offshoring on the other hand, means relocating or moving your business efforts wholly to another country, instead of just hiring a company to handle key components of your business. Though the differences may seem negligible, there is in fact, a huge difference between the two terminologies.

Vacation Rentals: Increase occupancy through Customer Reviews - GetFriday

Vacation Rentals – Increasing Occupancy Through Customer Reviews

Customer reviews influence the purchase decisions of a potential consumer to a very large extent. Validation and confirmation of a decision is a human need, which psychologists describe as social proof. When a customer is at the 3rd level of the purchase decision process i.e. evaluation of alternatives; customer reviews about a company’s offering can sway a consumers’ decision to either side. A “Think with Google” consumer report, analyzing a traveler’s road to decision making, states that 36% of leisure travelers and 42% of business travelers are influenced by travel reviews. GetFriday’s study was conducted on the basis of over 3000 customer interactions for vacation rentals and has thrown some light on some prevalent and interesting facts. It has been known for a while that positive customer reviews can tilt a potential guests’ decision in your favor. But the extent to which it influences the swing is largely unknown to individual vacation property owners. Please click on the below image to see the SlideShare presentation as well.   So here are our insights based on this survey Guests Consciously Seek Out Reviews: Our study shows that more than 20% of guests consciously cite past customers or their reviews while taking a decision about a property and even during their initial communication with the Rental Owners. The actual numbers of guests getting influenced by reviews and taking a final call on a booking based on that is much higher than we initially thought. We have also observed guests picking on the experiences of previous visitors while they seek confirmation about specific amenities like swimming pools, Wi-Fi, barbecues, shower facilities etc. Customer reviews clearly generate interest and engage potential guests. And if certain vacation rentals are more successful and more sought after than the others; customers reviews would definitely be pointed out as one of the major reasons behind it. Guests Are Wary About The Authenticity Of The Reviews: While working with vacation properties around the world virtually, our experiences have taught us that many potential customers are also wary about the authenticity of customer reviews. Hence, it is of prime importance that Vacation Rental Owners display genuine and authentic comments and provide proactive feedback to reviews keeping their target audience in mind. Hence, managing customer reviews has become even more important now, as positive/negative reviews are directly linked to the overall rating of a property. It acts as a prime decisive factor for the customers while deciding to go on a vacation. Negative comments are a part of regular reviews from customers and one should not worry about hiding negative reviews. Rental owners generally panic at the sight of negative reviews and instinctively seek methods to either confront the guest on the review forum or sometimes, seek to purge the negative comments. Instead, Rental owners should address these negative reviews as soon as possible and try to resolve the issue at hand. The smart, professional manner in which a negative comment is handled on a public forum, can convert a dissatisfied customer into an advocate for your business. Based on long-standing experiences with Vacation Rental Owners, we would suggest the following approaches to tackle negative reviews: Address The Root Cause: Most travelers are genuine and do not wish to make unwarranted comments. Address the concerns they might have had during their stay and convince the reviewer that it will not happen again. This will assure prospective guests of your trustworthiness and your willingness to solve problems. Responding to a complaint or negative review in a genuine manner is the first sign of a good business. Gather More Positive Reviews: If there is Yin, there is Yang as well. There is generally a good balance of positive reviews to offset the negative ones. A “HomeAway.com” survey states, 93% of guest reviews are positive (meaning a rating of 4 stars and above). This should assure you that a one-off negative review will not cause you harm; that is, if it is promptly addressed. Addressing the root cause in the first place and making sure that the same problem does not occur again will ensure that the quality of the service remains on the higher side and will also allow an owner to gather more positive reviews for the vacation rental house on an ongoing basis. There Is Always A Bright Side: A few negative comments peppered among positive reviews gives a more authentic look and feel to the review page. Though we do not have scientific data to prove this phenomenon, simple social logic seems to confirm it. If you had all but positive reviews, then the data looks suspect for the first time viewer, even if your service were impeccable. How Do You Get More Guests To Write Review For Your Property? 1. E-mail each guest after they leave, thanking them for their stay and inviting them to leave a review. 2. While refunding the deposit, send your guests a note, asking them for reviews. 3. Most guests are kind enough to write reviews. If they enjoyed their stay, they most probably will write one anyway. To be on the safer side, just send them gentle reminders, do not hound or spam them. 4. If possible, be there for a personal good-bye when your guests check out. This adds a more personal touch to the experience and makes it a memorable one for your guest. Vacation property owners need to treat customer reviews as another opportunity to market their property. When customer reviews are handled deftly with a clear strategy and objective, they could cause a positive impact on your business and its profits. To sum up, vacation rental businesses can significantly benefit from the power of customer reviews in increasing their online presence and driving more bookings. As a leading virtual assistant and remote support provider, GetFriday offers vacation rental owners and managers a range of services to help them collect and showcase customer reviews effectively. By leveraging GetFriday’s expertise in managing customer reviews, vacation rental businesses can not only

Vacation Rentals – Increasing Occupancy Through Customer Reviews Read More »

Customer reviews influence the purchase decisions of a potential consumer to a very large extent. Validation and confirmation of a decision is a human need, which psychologists describe as social proof. When a customer is at the 3rd level of the purchase decision process i.e. evaluation of alternatives; customer reviews about a company’s offering can sway a consumers’ decision to either side. A “Think with Google” consumer report, analyzing a traveler’s road to decision making, states that 36% of leisure travelers and 42% of business travelers are influenced by travel reviews. GetFriday’s study was conducted on the basis of over 3000 customer interactions for vacation rentals and has thrown some light on some prevalent and interesting facts. It has been known for a while that positive customer reviews can tilt a potential guests’ decision in your favor. But the extent to which it influences the swing is largely unknown to individual vacation property owners. Please click on the below image to see the SlideShare presentation as well.   So here are our insights based on this survey Guests Consciously Seek Out Reviews: Our study shows that more than 20% of guests consciously cite past customers or their reviews while taking a decision about a property and even during their initial communication with the Rental Owners. The actual numbers of guests getting influenced by reviews and taking a final call on a booking based on that is much higher than we initially thought. We have also observed guests picking on the experiences of previous visitors while they seek confirmation about specific amenities like swimming pools, Wi-Fi, barbecues, shower facilities etc. Customer reviews clearly generate interest and engage potential guests. And if certain vacation rentals are more successful and more sought after than the others; customers reviews would definitely be pointed out as one of the major reasons behind it. Guests Are Wary About The Authenticity Of The Reviews: While working with vacation properties around the world virtually, our experiences have taught us that many potential customers are also wary about the authenticity of customer reviews. Hence, it is of prime importance that Vacation Rental Owners display genuine and authentic comments and provide proactive feedback to reviews keeping their target audience in mind. Hence, managing customer reviews has become even more important now, as positive/negative reviews are directly linked to the overall rating of a property. It acts as a prime decisive factor for the customers while deciding to go on a vacation. Negative comments are a part of regular reviews from customers and one should not worry about hiding negative reviews. Rental owners generally panic at the sight of negative reviews and instinctively seek methods to either confront the guest on the review forum or sometimes, seek to purge the negative comments. Instead, Rental owners should address these negative reviews as soon as possible and try to resolve the issue at hand. The smart, professional manner in which a negative comment is handled on a public forum, can convert a dissatisfied customer into an advocate for your business. Based on long-standing experiences with Vacation Rental Owners, we would suggest the following approaches to tackle negative reviews: Address The Root Cause: Most travelers are genuine and do not wish to make unwarranted comments. Address the concerns they might have had during their stay and convince the reviewer that it will not happen again. This will assure prospective guests of your trustworthiness and your willingness to solve problems. Responding to a complaint or negative review in a genuine manner is the first sign of a good business. Gather More Positive Reviews: If there is Yin, there is Yang as well. There is generally a good balance of positive reviews to offset the negative ones. A “HomeAway.com” survey states, 93% of guest reviews are positive (meaning a rating of 4 stars and above). This should assure you that a one-off negative review will not cause you harm; that is, if it is promptly addressed. Addressing the root cause in the first place and making sure that the same problem does not occur again will ensure that the quality of the service remains on the higher side and will also allow an owner to gather more positive reviews for the vacation rental house on an ongoing basis. There Is Always A Bright Side: A few negative comments peppered among positive reviews gives a more authentic look and feel to the review page. Though we do not have scientific data to prove this phenomenon, simple social logic seems to confirm it. If you had all but positive reviews, then the data looks suspect for the first time viewer, even if your service were impeccable. How Do You Get More Guests To Write Review For Your Property? 1. E-mail each guest after they leave, thanking them for their stay and inviting them to leave a review. 2. While refunding the deposit, send your guests a note, asking them for reviews. 3. Most guests are kind enough to write reviews. If they enjoyed their stay, they most probably will write one anyway. To be on the safer side, just send them gentle reminders, do not hound or spam them. 4. If possible, be there for a personal good-bye when your guests check out. This adds a more personal touch to the experience and makes it a memorable one for your guest. Vacation property owners need to treat customer reviews as another opportunity to market their property. When customer reviews are handled deftly with a clear strategy and objective, they could cause a positive impact on your business and its profits. To sum up, vacation rental businesses can significantly benefit from the power of customer reviews in increasing their online presence and driving more bookings. As a leading virtual assistant and remote support provider, GetFriday offers vacation rental owners and managers a range of services to help them collect and showcase customer reviews effectively. By leveraging GetFriday’s expertise in managing customer reviews, vacation rental businesses can not only

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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

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