How a Virtual Assistant Can Keep You in the Game While You Enjoy the Holidays

By Jennie Lyon / October 25, 2016

The holidays are fast approaching, Halloween is a little over a week away! Like many other entrepreneurs and small business owners, I’m sure you’re looking forward to them. After all, who doesn’t love spending time with family, enjoying the change of season, and attending celebrations and holiday dinners? Unfortunately, this is often also a busy time for small businesses, and all the extra workload can keep you from enjoying your holidays. Entrepreneurs, especially those working solo and/or from a home office, need to carefully protect their work-life balance. Do you need a vacation or some time working fewer hours in order…

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The Importance of Visual Branding and How a Virtual Assistant Can Help

By Jennie Lyon / October 18, 2016

Branding encompasses all the ways a client or customer views and understands your business, including the visual presentation of your company’s website and print materials. Humans are visual creatures by nature, and one of the first judgments a potential client makes when interacting with your business for the first time is whether it looks trustworthy, current, and consistent. Visual branding goes beyond just logo design. Especially for a small business, using the same visual identity standards/style guides (fonts, colors, graphics) across your website and social media channels is key. Setting out these standards and making sure your company can be…

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Why You Need an Editorial and Social Media Marketing Calendar

By Jennie Lyon / October 4, 2016

As the leaves begin to fall and we enter the last quarter of the calendar year, planning for the following one should be on your mind. Before the holidays eat up all your extra time and your client work doubles as the year comes to a close, you should spend some time thinking about how to improve your business’ online presence in the upcoming year. Early autumn is the perfect time to put together both an editorial and social media marketing calendar for 2017. Here are some reasons why these simple organizational tools can help grow your business next year. Editorial…

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4 Simple Steps to Successfully Work With Challenging Clients

By Jennie Lyon / September 29, 2016

It doesn’t matter what industry you work in; challenging clients are something every entrepreneur will need to deal with at one point or another. (I am lucky, all of my clients are pretty darn wonderful!) It can be frustrating when a client assumes you can read their mind, or changes their expectations on a daily basis. This can especially become a challenge when you only interact with clients online, with no chance to meet face-to-face. Having run a virtual business for years now, I’m very well versed in working well with clients via online means. Even before I owned a virtual…

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A Virtual Assistant Can Punch Up Your Business with Great Graphic Design + 15 Free Graphics

By Jennie Lyon / September 20, 2016

When it comes to online content, the old saying really is true: “A picture is worth a thousand words”. In the era of Instagram, Pinterest, and other visually-based social media platforms, visual design is more important than ever. Potential customers and clients want to see beautiful graphic design when browsing the website and social channels of any business, no matter what their focus. Just because you aren’t a photographer or design firm doesn’t mean you can ignore the need to make your online presence visually appealing. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs simply don’t have enough time to devote to learning a whole…

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How You Can Double Your Income by Partnering with a Virtual Assistant

By Jennie Lyon / September 13, 2016

One of the best reasons to partner with a virtual assistant is the growth potential it gives your small business; that growth in turn drives your income up substantially. Think of how much time you will be able to spend on bringing in new paying clients instead of doing the “busy work” of running a business. It’s a pretty simple calculation: when a virtual assistant is doing half of your work each day, you can double your efforts on the parts of your business that matter most. I know this first hand! As a virtual assistant who was always busy helping…

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5 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Do Before Starting Their Day

By Jennie Lyon / September 6, 2016
5 things every entrepreneur should do before starting their day

Getting a good start to the day can set the tone for the rest of it, make you feel happier, and improve your productivity when working. For entrepreneurs, and especially those of us who work from home, this is even more important—if you don’t have a time you’re expected to be “at the office” it can be far too easy for the morning to slip away without getting anything accomplished. Plus, the morning is such a great time for adding more “life” to your work-life balance equation, because there are rarely any demands or interruptions until the standard business day…

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Using a Project Management System to Organize Your Business

By Jennie Lyon / August 31, 2016
Using a project management system to organize your business

One of the biggest challenges facing small business owners is staying organized and finding a system that works for them to keep all those projects under control. Without some kind of organizational system in place, deadlines get forgotten, clients feel neglected, and it’s easy to waste time on less important tasks. The solution to all of these problems is to use a project management software—it helps you by dividing up tasks by client and project, setting deadlines, and providing reminders about work that needs to be finished. Modern project management systems are usually web-based, with mobile or desktop applications available.…

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Communicate with Your Team and Build Your Business Using Slack

By Jennie Lyon / August 26, 2016
COmmunicate with your team and build your business using slack

For an entrepreneur working with a virtual team to run a small business, communication is the single most important factor determining whether things run smoothly. It is absolutely critical to be able to communicate with your team members in an instant as things come up during the course of a work day. When there is seamless communication between your team members, you can set a more productive pace and get more accomplished. Email and phone calls have their uses, but for instantaneous communication, there is a popular new tool, called Slack. Slack is a platform for team communication that can be…

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Achieve Work/Life Balance this School Year by Partnering with a Virtual Assistant

By Jennie Lyon / August 16, 2016
Achieve work life balance this school year by partnering with a virtual assistant

Being an entrepreneur and a parent is always a balancing act! I know this well. my business and my son both turned fifteen this summer. Yesterday was the first day of his sophomore year, so finding my work/life balance just got real!  Since most businesses start booming again in the fall (mine included), the best way to handle this change of season and workload is to alter the way you work. If you want to be around for dinner, to help with homework, and be there to listen to your kids talk about their day at school, getting up early might…

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