I participated in a blog carnival over at VagabondetteVA this week.  I think a va carnival is a great idea and hope more va’s participate next time!  And I better get a good post or two going so I have something to submit!

Often, it seems many of us small business owners try to do everything for our business ourselves.  I know I’m guilty of it – I’ve been trying to design my own business cards and brochure instead of paying someone to do it right and quickly.  We think we can’t afford to pay for the services we need, but the truth is that we usually can’t afford not to pay for them.  Wasting our valuable time costs us more in the...

This post from Self Made Minds was a great one about networking. I find it interesting that on my va boards a lot of people think of networking as connecting with other va’s. I enjoy that form of networking but don’t expect much return out of it. I hang out on those boards for interest and a little bit of education. I plan to network for my secretary/paralegal business in several ways: local Chamber of Commerce Women’s...

As I started making plans for my business I of course thought long and hard about my business name. I chose to use “Secretarial Services” as the descriptive portion. I frequent a couple of virtual assistant message boards and this topic comes up a lot. Most on those boards seem to prefer the term “virtual assistant” but at the same time there are many threads discussing how they always seem to be explaining what a...

All the things suggested by Telecommuting Diva as needed to start a home based business that is. I just need a better printer (preferably one with a scanner) to use in my home-based secretary/paralegal business. Personally though I’d add a few things to her list: Business cards marketing plan website accounting software (open source is fine) chocolate for the stressful days! I’m working on these things – business cards are...