virtual assistants

Are You An Entrepreneur? Build Your Virtual Team and Watch Your Business Grow

If you are an entrepreneur, you love to pave your own path and make a huge fortune out of it. You often play the game of risk because you can turn risks into opportunities. All these risks and struggles in the journey of entrepreneurship – have to be ousted to become the cynosure of the market. The, path to the ultimate glory and success has its own challenges. You have big dreams but a thin pocket. Your business needs diverse skills and rich inputs. And, managing administrative work around the business adds to the ever growing challenges. Even when you manage the work and budget, you are not able to find that right pool of talent for your business in your geographic market. So, what should you do? How to overcome these challenges thrown in your path by the market? The best way to deal with these problems for long term is to categorize interrelated challenges and then find solutions which can be effectively applied to mitigate each challenge. For every budding entrepreneur and small business owner, almost all the challenges can be categorized into 3 categories – budget constraints, quality issues of your products and services, and fierce competition in the market. Once you sort out the primary challenges, you must realize that there are smart ways to break free from these confinements of entrepreneurship. Many smart solutions have evolved with the help of IT such that growing businesses can work within a little office space with minimum resources. Teams work in decentralised structures from geographically detached places. This is where the most frequented term ‘Virtual Teams’ comes into play. Virtual Teams are composed of talent from different parts of the world and works by co-ordinating through IT resources. Virtual teams have the advantage of using minimum resources to bring in the required flexibility to the organization in terms of budget and resource utilization. Some of the best benefits of building Virtual teams are: You make a lean organisation: Your virtual team is made up of most productive resources. You are not spending to buy office space, you are not breaking your head to recruit and pay salaries to your full time employees, yet you are availing the most professional inputs to your business. You are not incurring maintenance cost of extra resources without compromising on productivity of your limited resources. You enrich your organisation culture: You are not narrowed by your geographic and demographic cultural commonalities. Your virtually assorted team will give you wide-ranging inputs and ideas which might not have stroked you without your virtual team. Moreover with Virtual Teams you are making a flexible organisation culture, in which your team members can give you ideas freely without being suppressed by your authority. You are not confined by talent limitations of geography and demography: You can pick resources from any part of the world. So you can pick the best choice for your business if you can do a proper research to pick your resources before building a virtual team. So if you don’t find talent in your geographic area to fit into your business, it’s not a matter of worry at all! Building Virtual Teams has manifold benefits for your business but it again brings along its own challenges. There are challenges in managing the virtual teams i.e. team communication, project management, meeting scheduling, and blending of the virtual teams with the organisation culture. The following tips will help you to manage your Virtual Team gracefully. Use tools for seamless team communication: You can manage your projects and have transparent updates on them by integrating tools like Trello. A combination of different tools will give you better results. Schedule your meetings mutually: You virtual team members are geographically scattered and hence don’t share the same time zone. Find a mutually agreeable time before scheduling the meetings. Once you are conscientious enough to follow the above tips, all you need is to watch your virtual team driving your business to success!

Are You An Entrepreneur? Build Your Virtual Team and Watch Your Business Grow Read More »

If you are an entrepreneur, you love to pave your own path and make a huge fortune out of it. You often play the game of risk because you can turn risks into opportunities. All these risks and struggles in the journey of entrepreneurship – have to be ousted to become the cynosure of the market. The, path to the ultimate glory and success has its own challenges. You have big dreams but a thin pocket. Your business needs diverse skills and rich inputs. And, managing administrative work around the business adds to the ever growing challenges. Even when you manage the work and budget, you are not able to find that right pool of talent for your business in your geographic market. So, what should you do? How to overcome these challenges thrown in your path by the market? The best way to deal with these problems for long term is to categorize interrelated challenges and then find solutions which can be effectively applied to mitigate each challenge. For every budding entrepreneur and small business owner, almost all the challenges can be categorized into 3 categories – budget constraints, quality issues of your products and services, and fierce competition in the market. Once you sort out the primary challenges, you must realize that there are smart ways to break free from these confinements of entrepreneurship. Many smart solutions have evolved with the help of IT such that growing businesses can work within a little office space with minimum resources. Teams work in decentralised structures from geographically detached places. This is where the most frequented term ‘Virtual Teams’ comes into play. Virtual Teams are composed of talent from different parts of the world and works by co-ordinating through IT resources. Virtual teams have the advantage of using minimum resources to bring in the required flexibility to the organization in terms of budget and resource utilization. Some of the best benefits of building Virtual teams are: You make a lean organisation: Your virtual team is made up of most productive resources. You are not spending to buy office space, you are not breaking your head to recruit and pay salaries to your full time employees, yet you are availing the most professional inputs to your business. You are not incurring maintenance cost of extra resources without compromising on productivity of your limited resources. You enrich your organisation culture: You are not narrowed by your geographic and demographic cultural commonalities. Your virtually assorted team will give you wide-ranging inputs and ideas which might not have stroked you without your virtual team. Moreover with Virtual Teams you are making a flexible organisation culture, in which your team members can give you ideas freely without being suppressed by your authority. You are not confined by talent limitations of geography and demography: You can pick resources from any part of the world. So you can pick the best choice for your business if you can do a proper research to pick your resources before building a virtual team. So if you don’t find talent in your geographic area to fit into your business, it’s not a matter of worry at all! Building Virtual Teams has manifold benefits for your business but it again brings along its own challenges. There are challenges in managing the virtual teams i.e. team communication, project management, meeting scheduling, and blending of the virtual teams with the organisation culture. The following tips will help you to manage your Virtual Team gracefully. Use tools for seamless team communication: You can manage your projects and have transparent updates on them by integrating tools like Trello. A combination of different tools will give you better results. Schedule your meetings mutually: You virtual team members are geographically scattered and hence don’t share the same time zone. Find a mutually agreeable time before scheduling the meetings. Once you are conscientious enough to follow the above tips, all you need is to watch your virtual team driving your business to success!

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!

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?

Four Fool-Proof Ways To Overcome Writer’s Block With a Virtual Assistant

Writer’s block is something every writer struggles with at some point in their lives. Since the lifeblood of every writer’s success lies in their ability to churn out quick quality content, a writer’s block could throw you off balance, especially if you have strict deadlines to meet. The feeling of not being ‘good enough’ to write is all too familiar. But most of the time, a writer’s block is not really a ‘block’ at all. It’s just endless self-criticism and a noiseless outburst of the ‘stress’ you experience when you have to produce work that will not be viewed by your readers as flaming pieces of garbage. If people pen their thoughts down without worrying too much about perfecting the sentences, the flow of writing improves and gives the writers a rough skeleton to work with for later. Contrary to popular belief, a writer’s block usually occurs during the initial phases of writing and is common among professional writers, novelists, academicians, researchers and the like. Many a time, people put their lives on hold until they can find the inspiration to write. Some of the activities that people indulge in for inspiration include going through ‘how-to’ blog posts on overcoming writer’s blocks (shooting myself in the foot?), taking long walks outside, completing household chores, reading poetic novels or hoping to find some inspiration by watching the plants in their backyards grow. Though these may provide stimulus for some, it does not necessarily work all the time. What You Should Ideally Be Doing? Writers have to invest countless hours of research and pore over a number of resources before they actually get down to writing the first few drafts. With hours of prep work, professional writers almost always struggle for time. All this creates an even bigger problem if the writer is prone to experiencing writer’s blocks every now and then. The trick to overcoming a writer’s block is to work around the problem smartly. Though a request for help with writing at this point may be perceived as a critical weakness, it is in fact one of the smartest things a writer can do for his/her writing, without taking away the glory they deserve. Hiring a Virtual Assistant can give you enough room to work around your creativity and will give you the space to write at leisure without letting the brass tacks or prep work get in the way. Though indirectly, this could help with overcoming writer’s block because you will have fewer things to worry about and will be able to concentrate better on the composition of your thoughts. Leave the research, keyword searches, vocabulary sheets and lots more to your VA. You’ll find that no matter what you compose, be it an online blog or a book, outsourcing a few aspects of preparatory writing work to a personal virtual assistant can definitely ease the pressures of a writer’s block. Get your VA to: Do The Research Work Whether you are working on a research paper or writing a blog series, you will be required to do some amount of research if you want your final, written piece to look credible. Engaging your audience is crucial and presenting data or checking out the facts behind people, locations, characters and subjects can help you do just that. For example, in the following two sentences, you’ll notice a difference in how the information is presented. The research and detail that goes into the second sentence will make you understand why the second sentence will be considered more reliable in the eyes of a reader. Example 1 “Mike stole an orange bag from the Selfridges store and ran out as quickly as he could.” Example 2 “Mike stole an expensive, orange, suede satchel from the Selfridges store and ran out as quickly as he could.” A reader would most definitely be drawn to the second line, because it is a lot more descriptive and also gives the illusion that the bag is stolen from the store actually exists at Selfridges. The devil is in the details and carrying out proper research before any kind of writing, will only make your writing piece honest. If you are starting out as a writer, you may not know where to look for information. Even if you do, you may find that ‘research’ can get exasperating and take up a lot of your time. That’s where a Virtual Assistant steps into place. No matter what online research you require for writing your blog, book or paper, you can outsource ‘research work’ of various natures to your VA and focus more on composing your written work. Generate Blog Post Ideas & Page Optimization If you are struggling with finding suitable keyword-rich titles for your blog posts, give your Virtual Assistant a rough idea of what you are expecting in terms of the title for the post and what the blog will contain. Your VA will carry out all the keyword research required to target the right audience and also come with up ideas for your next blog posts. Apart from this, get your VA to keep your blog pages optimized and can carry out competitor research so that you can gauge where you stand. All this data, presented in a comprehensive, easy-to-understand format by your VA, should be able to ease a part of the writer’s block and give you the freedom to write your piece in a relaxed manner. Drafting Blog Posts If you continue to have a problem with writing in a lucid manner or you are not finding the time to complete your blog for the week, have your specialist Virtual Assistant work on a draft for you. All you will have to do in the end is go through it, format the content and hit the ‘publish’ button. Your Virtual Assistants, being jacks of all trades, are also talented wordsmiths. You’ll be surprised with the lucrative ideas they give you and the quality work they can come up with! They can

Four Fool-Proof Ways To Overcome Writer’s Block With a Virtual Assistant Read More »

Writer’s block is something every writer struggles with at some point in their lives. Since the lifeblood of every writer’s success lies in their ability to churn out quick quality content, a writer’s block could throw you off balance, especially if you have strict deadlines to meet. The feeling of not being ‘good enough’ to write is all too familiar. But most of the time, a writer’s block is not really a ‘block’ at all. It’s just endless self-criticism and a noiseless outburst of the ‘stress’ you experience when you have to produce work that will not be viewed by your readers as flaming pieces of garbage. If people pen their thoughts down without worrying too much about perfecting the sentences, the flow of writing improves and gives the writers a rough skeleton to work with for later. Contrary to popular belief, a writer’s block usually occurs during the initial phases of writing and is common among professional writers, novelists, academicians, researchers and the like. Many a time, people put their lives on hold until they can find the inspiration to write. Some of the activities that people indulge in for inspiration include going through ‘how-to’ blog posts on overcoming writer’s blocks (shooting myself in the foot?), taking long walks outside, completing household chores, reading poetic novels or hoping to find some inspiration by watching the plants in their backyards grow. Though these may provide stimulus for some, it does not necessarily work all the time. What You Should Ideally Be Doing? Writers have to invest countless hours of research and pore over a number of resources before they actually get down to writing the first few drafts. With hours of prep work, professional writers almost always struggle for time. All this creates an even bigger problem if the writer is prone to experiencing writer’s blocks every now and then. The trick to overcoming a writer’s block is to work around the problem smartly. Though a request for help with writing at this point may be perceived as a critical weakness, it is in fact one of the smartest things a writer can do for his/her writing, without taking away the glory they deserve. Hiring a Virtual Assistant can give you enough room to work around your creativity and will give you the space to write at leisure without letting the brass tacks or prep work get in the way. Though indirectly, this could help with overcoming writer’s block because you will have fewer things to worry about and will be able to concentrate better on the composition of your thoughts. Leave the research, keyword searches, vocabulary sheets and lots more to your VA. You’ll find that no matter what you compose, be it an online blog or a book, outsourcing a few aspects of preparatory writing work to a personal virtual assistant can definitely ease the pressures of a writer’s block. Get your VA to: Do The Research Work Whether you are working on a research paper or writing a blog series, you will be required to do some amount of research if you want your final, written piece to look credible. Engaging your audience is crucial and presenting data or checking out the facts behind people, locations, characters and subjects can help you do just that. For example, in the following two sentences, you’ll notice a difference in how the information is presented. The research and detail that goes into the second sentence will make you understand why the second sentence will be considered more reliable in the eyes of a reader. Example 1 “Mike stole an orange bag from the Selfridges store and ran out as quickly as he could.” Example 2 “Mike stole an expensive, orange, suede satchel from the Selfridges store and ran out as quickly as he could.” A reader would most definitely be drawn to the second line, because it is a lot more descriptive and also gives the illusion that the bag is stolen from the store actually exists at Selfridges. The devil is in the details and carrying out proper research before any kind of writing, will only make your writing piece honest. If you are starting out as a writer, you may not know where to look for information. Even if you do, you may find that ‘research’ can get exasperating and take up a lot of your time. That’s where a Virtual Assistant steps into place. No matter what online research you require for writing your blog, book or paper, you can outsource ‘research work’ of various natures to your VA and focus more on composing your written work. Generate Blog Post Ideas & Page Optimization If you are struggling with finding suitable keyword-rich titles for your blog posts, give your Virtual Assistant a rough idea of what you are expecting in terms of the title for the post and what the blog will contain. Your VA will carry out all the keyword research required to target the right audience and also come with up ideas for your next blog posts. Apart from this, get your VA to keep your blog pages optimized and can carry out competitor research so that you can gauge where you stand. All this data, presented in a comprehensive, easy-to-understand format by your VA, should be able to ease a part of the writer’s block and give you the freedom to write your piece in a relaxed manner. Drafting Blog Posts If you continue to have a problem with writing in a lucid manner or you are not finding the time to complete your blog for the week, have your specialist Virtual Assistant work on a draft for you. All you will have to do in the end is go through it, format the content and hit the ‘publish’ button. Your Virtual Assistants, being jacks of all trades, are also talented wordsmiths. You’ll be surprised with the lucrative ideas they give you and the quality work they can come up with! They can

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.

Save 60 Minutes A Day – ‘Hi, I’m Richard!’

Don’t you wish you had the time to fly back home to be with your wife and kids this holiday season? Don’t you yearn to give your loved ones some of your time? Let’s face it. With so many people working 9-5 jobs everyday and managing whole businesses, it becomes almost impossible to make some time for yourself and also, your loved ones. Giving someone your time is intangible and the most irreplaceable feeling in the world. At GetFriday, we understand that ‘time’ is precious and creating fond memories with loved ones is crucial – one that can even beat the joys of winning a lottery or even bringing home fat pay checks!

Save 60 Minutes A Day – ‘Hi, I’m Richard!’ Read More »

Don’t you wish you had the time to fly back home to be with your wife and kids this holiday season? Don’t you yearn to give your loved ones some of your time? Let’s face it. With so many people working 9-5 jobs everyday and managing whole businesses, it becomes almost impossible to make some time for yourself and also, your loved ones. Giving someone your time is intangible and the most irreplaceable feeling in the world. At GetFriday, we understand that ‘time’ is precious and creating fond memories with loved ones is crucial – one that can even beat the joys of winning a lottery or even bringing home fat pay checks!

Understanding When To Outsource

Knowing when to outsource your work for better productivity and control is very important, and it is fairly simple too. You need to watch out for a few tell-tale signs that will give you enough and more reason for you to outsource the work that you don’t necessarily need to do yourself. For instance, you may suddenly feel a swell in work pressures or you might realize that you are spending a lot more time at the work place than you should be. Your regular 9 hour job has now turned into a 13 hour job and to make matters worse, you are spending all your time thinking about work or doing work, including the weekends! That leaves you with no time to focus on your personal life or even, have a life! Sometimes, a recurrent, onerous task, that is handled internally and is draining a company’s resources can be handled better externally and for cheap! Or if you feel that your business is saturating at the peak with no further growth or profits, you could outsource certain functions of your business to virtual assistance providers and see how your business fares. If you have crossed the threshold, then it is probably a wise time to outsource. This blog post highlights 4 instances where you should consider outsourcing! 1. You Are Compromising With Your Work-Life Balance When you start outsourcing your lives, you will be able to strike that perfect balance with your job, children and your family. To make room for things that really matter, you can begin by outsourcing routine jobs that either take too much of time, are too mundane to carry out everyday, or tasks that can easily be handled by someone else.This way, outsourcing will give you the freedom to use your time the way you want to spend it and can finally help you leave for home earlier from work and give you your weekends back. Striking the perfect work-life balance is paramount and when you think you are giving away too much; far more than what you are receiving, that’s where you draw the line and make the decision to ‘outsource’! 2.Your Business Is Stagnating Intermittent outsourcing can work wonders for your business – if you know when to take advantage of it! With outsourcing, your business will be able to grow at a healthy pace, talent and expertise are available at your fingertips and you don’t need to provide for an office space, or a phone or a computer for the person working for you. If you find that your strategies are failing, your employees are not motivated to work because they are overburdened with too many arduous tasks or you aren’t generating the revenue you have been expecting for a while, these are sure-shot signs of your business stagnating. In such a situation, a complete turnaround needs to be made. You need time to understand what has gone wrong with the business and what areas need focus and improvement. If you think you have hit this point in the cycle, it would be a wise-time to outsource works that take up your time. By freeing yourself and your employees of tasks they don’t necessarily have to handle, or delegating onerous work to your Virtual Assistants, you will be able to make some time to re-strategize and re-structure your business before it spirals out of control. 3.You Juggle Multiple Hats At Work Years ago, outsourcing wasn’t very accessible to SME’s. This was a luxury that was once limited only to the Fortune 500s. Today however, it is advisable for small business owners to outsource as much as they can from the get-go, because time is the greatest asset for small businesses. Though cash flow for SMEs are not as sturdy or secure as large businesses, outsourcing the work to cost-effective remote assistant companies might just be feasible and can let SMEs focus on growing their businesses. According to a study conducted by Constant Contact, 56% of small business owners feel like they can never leave their businesses to do anything else and need to be constantly around to save the day. Consider the situation – if small business owners don’t delegate the work to the right persons at the right time, they would have to juggle between different responsibilities, including managerial roles, marketing, accounting, customer support and other administrative aspects of business. To handle so much at the same time, could result in the lack of quality, stress, loss of time to focus on other aspects of life, and the company and can slow down the process of scaling the business considerably. Conversely, by outsourcing specific functions of the business to reliable Virtual Assistants, it is possible to maintain the highest level of operations, in a manner that doesn’t break the bank and your back, and also promote the growth of your business by giving you more to time to cater to existing customer and new ones. At the end of the day, being a small business owner will require you don many hats, but effective outsourcing from the start could help you laser your focus to what really needs to be accomplished and can also give small business owners the benefit of taking periodical breaks to reboot and plan ahead. 4. It Is Expensive To Get Work Done Internally The battle between outsourcing vs. insourcing is incessant. However, when you find that a job can be handled externally for lesser costs, than internally, it would be better to outsource – especially because labor is a lot cheaper overseas and you also get more bang for your buck! Sometimes, in-house employees need time and training to handle specialist tasks. This requires money and can take a number of sessions before an employee is completely adept with the software or the tool. For instance, it could be cheaper for companies to outsource their payroll work to companies like Sage Payroll rather than hire in-house payroll specialists, train them, pay them salaries and

Understanding When To Outsource Read More »

Knowing when to outsource your work for better productivity and control is very important, and it is fairly simple too. You need to watch out for a few tell-tale signs that will give you enough and more reason for you to outsource the work that you don’t necessarily need to do yourself. For instance, you may suddenly feel a swell in work pressures or you might realize that you are spending a lot more time at the work place than you should be. Your regular 9 hour job has now turned into a 13 hour job and to make matters worse, you are spending all your time thinking about work or doing work, including the weekends! That leaves you with no time to focus on your personal life or even, have a life! Sometimes, a recurrent, onerous task, that is handled internally and is draining a company’s resources can be handled better externally and for cheap! Or if you feel that your business is saturating at the peak with no further growth or profits, you could outsource certain functions of your business to virtual assistance providers and see how your business fares. If you have crossed the threshold, then it is probably a wise time to outsource. This blog post highlights 4 instances where you should consider outsourcing! 1. You Are Compromising With Your Work-Life Balance When you start outsourcing your lives, you will be able to strike that perfect balance with your job, children and your family. To make room for things that really matter, you can begin by outsourcing routine jobs that either take too much of time, are too mundane to carry out everyday, or tasks that can easily be handled by someone else.This way, outsourcing will give you the freedom to use your time the way you want to spend it and can finally help you leave for home earlier from work and give you your weekends back. Striking the perfect work-life balance is paramount and when you think you are giving away too much; far more than what you are receiving, that’s where you draw the line and make the decision to ‘outsource’! 2.Your Business Is Stagnating Intermittent outsourcing can work wonders for your business – if you know when to take advantage of it! With outsourcing, your business will be able to grow at a healthy pace, talent and expertise are available at your fingertips and you don’t need to provide for an office space, or a phone or a computer for the person working for you. If you find that your strategies are failing, your employees are not motivated to work because they are overburdened with too many arduous tasks or you aren’t generating the revenue you have been expecting for a while, these are sure-shot signs of your business stagnating. In such a situation, a complete turnaround needs to be made. You need time to understand what has gone wrong with the business and what areas need focus and improvement. If you think you have hit this point in the cycle, it would be a wise-time to outsource works that take up your time. By freeing yourself and your employees of tasks they don’t necessarily have to handle, or delegating onerous work to your Virtual Assistants, you will be able to make some time to re-strategize and re-structure your business before it spirals out of control. 3.You Juggle Multiple Hats At Work Years ago, outsourcing wasn’t very accessible to SME’s. This was a luxury that was once limited only to the Fortune 500s. Today however, it is advisable for small business owners to outsource as much as they can from the get-go, because time is the greatest asset for small businesses. Though cash flow for SMEs are not as sturdy or secure as large businesses, outsourcing the work to cost-effective remote assistant companies might just be feasible and can let SMEs focus on growing their businesses. According to a study conducted by Constant Contact, 56% of small business owners feel like they can never leave their businesses to do anything else and need to be constantly around to save the day. Consider the situation – if small business owners don’t delegate the work to the right persons at the right time, they would have to juggle between different responsibilities, including managerial roles, marketing, accounting, customer support and other administrative aspects of business. To handle so much at the same time, could result in the lack of quality, stress, loss of time to focus on other aspects of life, and the company and can slow down the process of scaling the business considerably. Conversely, by outsourcing specific functions of the business to reliable Virtual Assistants, it is possible to maintain the highest level of operations, in a manner that doesn’t break the bank and your back, and also promote the growth of your business by giving you more to time to cater to existing customer and new ones. At the end of the day, being a small business owner will require you don many hats, but effective outsourcing from the start could help you laser your focus to what really needs to be accomplished and can also give small business owners the benefit of taking periodical breaks to reboot and plan ahead. 4. It Is Expensive To Get Work Done Internally The battle between outsourcing vs. insourcing is incessant. However, when you find that a job can be handled externally for lesser costs, than internally, it would be better to outsource – especially because labor is a lot cheaper overseas and you also get more bang for your buck! Sometimes, in-house employees need time and training to handle specialist tasks. This requires money and can take a number of sessions before an employee is completely adept with the software or the tool. For instance, it could be cheaper for companies to outsource their payroll work to companies like Sage Payroll rather than hire in-house payroll specialists, train them, pay them salaries and

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

Oh! The 100 things to do before I die

Here is a guest post from our client Mats Goldberg, an aspiring writer and philanthropist. He lives in Sweden and his goal is to become an accomplished author someday. While going through his blog, I found an interesting video post featuring “The Buried Life – 100 things to do before you die” a reality documentary series which aired on MTV several years ago. Inspires people to get on with doing the things they really want to do and so my pick for the title of this blogpost itself. I posted the video at the end of this blog post. And we (GetFriday) would be happy, if we can help you do that in our own small ways. Here we go with Mats, thanks for spreading the word. Sunder P CEO ———— I was surprised when they contacted me from GetFriday.com (as mentioned in Timothy Ferriss book “4 Hour Work Week”) to ask me to write a guest blogpost for their blog. I have only used virtual assistants since the beginning of 2012, so mind me; the surprise and appreciation I felt when asked to write this post. After some thinking I realized I have quite a good hang of this thing called outsourcing. Sure in the beginning I wasn’t too clear with what I wanted to accomplish or what tasks I would hand over to an assistant. I was in fact rather stupefied with bad directions and wishes. Of course that sometimes happen still today, but I have learned to better structure my ideas and wishes. Whenever I mention that I do outsourcing to India people always ask what I let my assistant do. To clarify this I usually refer our relationship as me being the owner of the company, my assistant being the CEO that delegates all the tasks I want to have done to more suitable people. In short a machinery built to work as smooth and as fast as possible with every single task, since time is my major concern. I don’t just see the one assistant I see a whole team! “So what tasks do you hand them?” is the second question and to be frank my answer is simple: “Anything!” I started out by sending a scanned document with about 3700 contacts that I needed to turn into an Excel document. After two hours I got a report saying they finished 900 of these contacts. In eight hours the job was done. had I done it myself it would have taken at least 40 hours without including all the interruptions at work. “Wow!” if that could be done, what else could I hand over? I started to make my own list of things that could be done and then assessed what I wanted to be done first. The bullet points that has come on print is the following: Send physical birthday cards to near and dear people. Buy Christmas gifts online and have them sent to me. Create logos for my business ideas. Research legal issues in operating and starting online gambling companies in Aldernay, Gibraltar, Singapore and Malta. Contact and get confirmation of the right to print the high definition material of creative resumes of almost 200 people for an upcoming book that I write. Research online lotteries and calculate odds of winning them. After the above mentioned research create a website based on the information found offering my own salary up for winnings. Together with my virtual assistant build an e-commerce store from the base of Tim Ferriss book. Create iPhone apps for a new way to barter. Structure my addresses and contacts. Proofread my blog. Help me plan and execute adventurous trips. Help in marketing and SEO campaigns. Make background research on several private issues. …and so forth! The list can be made infinitely long and the areas just as wide. In working with my virtual assistant (VA) Diyva, I have set a goal for us both to gain knowledge in new areas in life. I thirst for knowledge but don’t want the hassle it gives by making me have to spend all my free time doing things others can do better and faster. I don’t need to manage everything with hiring personnel and seeing to that they do their job. My goal is to free my time from necessary work to things that I’m more passionate about. GetFriday helps me with that! In short; if you want a full and free life, make sure to understand your capabilities and hand over the tasks that you know others can do better and focus on what makes you passionate. In that way you become interesting and an inspiration to others to do the same with their life. Become a person of influence and help change the world for the better in the way that suits your heart the most. Read more about what you could outsource to a virtual assistant at: http://www.matsgoldberg.com/42-things-you-could-outsource-to-a-virtual-assistant/. If you want to follow what I do, just click on through to www.MatsGoldberg.com or follow me on Facebook (www.facebook.com/matsgoldberg) or Twitter (@MatsGoldberg).

Oh! The 100 things to do before I die Read More »

Here is a guest post from our client Mats Goldberg, an aspiring writer and philanthropist. He lives in Sweden and his goal is to become an accomplished author someday. While going through his blog, I found an interesting video post featuring “The Buried Life – 100 things to do before you die” a reality documentary series which aired on MTV several years ago. Inspires people to get on with doing the things they really want to do and so my pick for the title of this blogpost itself. I posted the video at the end of this blog post. And we (GetFriday) would be happy, if we can help you do that in our own small ways. Here we go with Mats, thanks for spreading the word. Sunder P CEO ———— I was surprised when they contacted me from GetFriday.com (as mentioned in Timothy Ferriss book “4 Hour Work Week”) to ask me to write a guest blogpost for their blog. I have only used virtual assistants since the beginning of 2012, so mind me; the surprise and appreciation I felt when asked to write this post. After some thinking I realized I have quite a good hang of this thing called outsourcing. Sure in the beginning I wasn’t too clear with what I wanted to accomplish or what tasks I would hand over to an assistant. I was in fact rather stupefied with bad directions and wishes. Of course that sometimes happen still today, but I have learned to better structure my ideas and wishes. Whenever I mention that I do outsourcing to India people always ask what I let my assistant do. To clarify this I usually refer our relationship as me being the owner of the company, my assistant being the CEO that delegates all the tasks I want to have done to more suitable people. In short a machinery built to work as smooth and as fast as possible with every single task, since time is my major concern. I don’t just see the one assistant I see a whole team! “So what tasks do you hand them?” is the second question and to be frank my answer is simple: “Anything!” I started out by sending a scanned document with about 3700 contacts that I needed to turn into an Excel document. After two hours I got a report saying they finished 900 of these contacts. In eight hours the job was done. had I done it myself it would have taken at least 40 hours without including all the interruptions at work. “Wow!” if that could be done, what else could I hand over? I started to make my own list of things that could be done and then assessed what I wanted to be done first. The bullet points that has come on print is the following: Send physical birthday cards to near and dear people. Buy Christmas gifts online and have them sent to me. Create logos for my business ideas. Research legal issues in operating and starting online gambling companies in Aldernay, Gibraltar, Singapore and Malta. Contact and get confirmation of the right to print the high definition material of creative resumes of almost 200 people for an upcoming book that I write. Research online lotteries and calculate odds of winning them. After the above mentioned research create a website based on the information found offering my own salary up for winnings. Together with my virtual assistant build an e-commerce store from the base of Tim Ferriss book. Create iPhone apps for a new way to barter. Structure my addresses and contacts. Proofread my blog. Help me plan and execute adventurous trips. Help in marketing and SEO campaigns. Make background research on several private issues. …and so forth! The list can be made infinitely long and the areas just as wide. In working with my virtual assistant (VA) Diyva, I have set a goal for us both to gain knowledge in new areas in life. I thirst for knowledge but don’t want the hassle it gives by making me have to spend all my free time doing things others can do better and faster. I don’t need to manage everything with hiring personnel and seeing to that they do their job. My goal is to free my time from necessary work to things that I’m more passionate about. GetFriday helps me with that! In short; if you want a full and free life, make sure to understand your capabilities and hand over the tasks that you know others can do better and focus on what makes you passionate. In that way you become interesting and an inspiration to others to do the same with their life. Become a person of influence and help change the world for the better in the way that suits your heart the most. Read more about what you could outsource to a virtual assistant at: http://www.matsgoldberg.com/42-things-you-could-outsource-to-a-virtual-assistant/. If you want to follow what I do, just click on through to www.MatsGoldberg.com or follow me on Facebook (www.facebook.com/matsgoldberg) or Twitter (@MatsGoldberg).

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