Over the last week I have been very busy and things are going very well for me. I have a lot of work, my blog has got some comments (!!! - thank you very much comment posters, I really appreciate it) and Twitter is getting me some results.
Working virtually seems to be easier than I thought it would be. I say "seems" as I don't want to sound as if I've got it all under control.
I did mention the tools that I use already in an earlier post. Skype is a great help, it easily connects me to my bosses. Exchanging views via email is also very doable. It takes some writing skills I find. In an email it is easy to just type away the way one would speak. I take more time to reread my emails to make sure it is clear.
Other tools are for example DropBox to share documents and plain old-fashioned telephone.
I have a good feeling about this, and I'm continuing to learn about tools and effective communication. I hope you will be continuing to read my blog and post comments.
Today was a very exciting day in many aspects. We are trying to get our family to live together here in Spain. Today we found a very nice apartment for my Mum, right next door to our's and we live a stone's throw (literally) away from my sister. This is really good. It was a serious case of networking. My brother-in-law once owned a bar. One of his staff lived in this apartment building well over 5 years ago. We looked her up, she found the owner of the apartment and - coincidence or not - the apartment was vacated yesterday and is available now.
Another thing that is most exciting is that I've spent time on Skype with a colleague from overseas. She's a colleague because she is in the same business as I am, not because she's in the same company. We are both business owners, virtual assistants. Our field of expertise is different, but our challenges are the same.
We got together because we were both looking for a mentor/mentee. We found each other via a forum. She is in the US, I am in Europe, but borders and oceans don't bother us, since everything is online. It was a very pleasant conversation, and I am sure we will be able to help each other with what we are looking for.
When we moved here about 6 weeks ago I thought working at home might be lonely, especially in the beginning. This time spent with a colleague showed me the possibilities of the 'virtual' world. The world has different dimensions and life is good!
Over the past few days I have been spending time again on finding out more about blogging, twitter, facebook, linkedin to grow my business.
I came across http://dannybrown.me/ and his 7 day blog challenge. It looks to be a good challenge and I wanted to comment on his blog post - which for the life of me I couldn't manage. The technicalities of posting a comment were beyond me I guess.
However, I will take him up on the challenge and find a new blog out of my normal blog routine, comment on it (if it will let me) and highlight them in some way, either on here or in a twitter or so.
I hope I will learn something through doing this. Learn more about the blogging world, learn how to use the Lifefyre, and who knows extend my network a bit.
Leaving you with a picture which incorporates my previous and my future life.
One of the things a virtual assistant completely depends on is of course the internet. It is something we just cannot live without.
Yesterday when I had to pop out for a lunch appointment I was really in the middle of a quite urgent task for one of my clients. I took my Ipad with me so that I could be updated and run back home if I had to. I never thought about the fact that the location where I was going didn't have wifi. Having my Ipad gave me such a secure feeling I never even realised I needed more than just the Ipad.
And this morning my internet was down. Oh no!! I immediately blamed the Spanish provider, the way a Nothern European does: you see they are useless, I can't work like this - you know the drill. And it was already 09.00 and how was I going to serve my clients?
I called the provider and got a message that the internet was indeed down and they were doing all they could to repare it. And within 15 minutes it was fixed.
As it turned out I hadn't received any important emails and my state of panic had been unnecessary.
It was an eye opener. How dependent have we become on the internet, and also how it just sometimes doesn't work. Even if you are in an office this happens, even in The Netherlands.
Sometimes it's just good to let things be the way they are............
I always thought I wasn't good at networking. When I look at my sister and see how easily she speaks to everyone about any subject at all, I can see how she is a really good networker. Apart from that she's very pretty which also helps in meeting new people.
I find it quite difficult to speak to people just like that. I'm not an extrovert.
But over the past few years I have had jobs in which a network was of the utmost importance. I decided to stop calling it networking. I called it building relationships with my colleagues all over the world. It meant making friends all over the world, something that I loved. And now that I work alone and rely on myself to find new clients, it becomes clear how important those friends are and how this really is a network. A vast network.
It is easy to email my network of friends or for example send them a postcard from where I live now. These emails and cards get responses, lovely responses from lovely people all over the world. And hey, I see now that I am good at networking too. Even though I gave it a different name, it is now a solid network on which I can build further and build new relationships and hopefully friendships.
I am just wondering if I'm blogging for the right reason. I am not a writer by nature and it takes quite some effort for me to write the short pieces. I am blogging to get my website and my services noticed. And that is not easy.
I like to read blogs. I visit many every day, especially fashion blogs. I like fashion and I like the brevity of trends. And that brings me to my blogging again.
I see many blogs that don't last. The writers start full of enthusiasm, but don't last. Blogs that haven't been updated for 3 months are never visited again - at least not by me. And blogs I followed and liked, that have just disappeared. And I'm even thinking about blogging in itself. Will it last? There are thousands of blogs, hundreds of thousand. Are they just a trend, or will the good ones survive?
So, I'm hoping that I will keep getting the inspiration and getting the visitors and hopefully the faithful readers.
For now I leave you with a picture of something that inspires me.
SEO. I hadn't even heard of it when I started my website. But the Virtual Assistant Forum started giving me an insight into SEO. And now, here I am trying to figure out what is what and why and how. Metatags and code and all these things that are very difficult for me to understand.
But then, I did a search on Google. Virtual Assistant Services: I'm sure I might be there somewhere, but perhaps on page 10102. However, on the Dutch pages of Google, our website comes up first!!
And when I type in our names (Hilde van den Braak and Susanne Wesselink) we both come up on Google (.com and .nl) and on Yahoo. I know MSN is important, but my MSN comes up with Dutch politicians and I'd really rather avoid them.
I also understand that a blog is rather important as an SEO tool, and I'll be blogging away as much as I can. I'll have to learn to see if my Google blog is well coded enough to do what it has to do. The other thing is of course, to see if my blog is interesting enough. I would therefore be very grateful if those reading this blog could leave a comment with some input.
Whether or not I'm ever going to get a job via my website, I really cannot tell. But, I might as well try.
To make this blog a little more interesting, I want to post another picture. A picture I found when searching the web. I love it so much. It's an ice cream tulip. What could be better than that. Tulips are my favourite flower and who doesn't love ice cream!
I changed the name of my blog to "A Beginner's Guide to Working Virtually". I think this is much more appropriate than "A blog about my life and my work". After all, I'm a beginner at working virtually and that is really what this blog is about.
Virtual Assistance is my business and I'm new to it. I do have 2 clients and a 3rd on the way, but still I'm figuring out everything, one step at a time. For example, in my previous post I wrote about the etiquette of blogging. I did some research and found that there is so much on the web to help me with that.
Another great resource for me is the Virtual Assistant Forum. The VAs on this forum are so ready to help and share experiences. I hope that with time I will be able to help new VAs in this way.
Anyway, the sun is shining (as it is nearly every day here), I've done my morning's work and I'm going out to enjoy the day.
Have a great weekend!
What a fantastic day yesterday was. Not only did I work several billable hours, put up my blog, I landed 2 clients, the weather was beautiful, we had a lovely lunch with my family and in the evening I received an email from an important figure in the oil industry I respect very much. He took the time to respond to my LinkedIn message. He is a very busy man, so to take time to respond to me is really something.
To me this indicates that the social media networking can do something for me. One of the 2 clients we landed yesterday, also came out of my LinkedIn email.
Today I have therefore done my best to update my blog a little and put links into it. Not only for my own benefit, but also to make it a little more interesting.
I will be thinking about blog etiquette - do I just link to other blogs without their permission? - and make that a subject of a further post.
What picture to add to this litte blog entry? Something happy and relevant to the area, so I attach a picture of the Alcazar.
This is my first blog entry. Why would I want to start a blog? Because I have too much time on my hands perhaps, or because I want to see how much value I can get out of a blog to connect with my family and friends and to connect with possible clients.
My blog will be a combination of personal and business. My life is a combination of personal and business. Our move to Spain was very personal, but I had to start my virtual assistance business www.hildeandsusanne.net in order to be able to make that move.
Since 4 August we have been in Spain and it has been a great experience so far. Although my Spanish is not very good yet, I have been able to buy a car, get a NIE, register myself as a Spanish citizen and more.
I have managed to contract two customers and just received an enquiry from a third. The work that I do for them consists for now mainly of booking travel and formatting documents. But I'm confident that this can be built up over time and I can take more work out of their hands.
I'm posting a picture of the square in front of our apartment - you see the little red arrow pointing to our place. It's lovely. I feel very lucky that I am able to live this life and am very thankful for the people around me who make this possible.
