I am in the process of finding some simple, eco-friendly holiday cards to send out to clients and a few business contacts. I was so impressed when a google search turned up a post over at MamaDivas about a wonderful line of stationary from My Good Greetings. Their products are, as they state:

printed on 100% recycled, carbon neutral paper which is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certified. We use 100% digital short-run presses which significantly reduce paperwaste and emit 90% less Volatile Organic Compounds

If I was buying personal Christmas cards I think I’d definitely go with this style – it’s so pretty isn’t it?

Peace Love Joy holiday card

I don’t have a current family picture that is appropriate though – agh! Plus really I want something for my business to send out, so picture cards aren’t really what I was thinking of, although I may try them next year. Instead I’m going to use one of the invitation templates to create a holiday business card! I’ll post a pic of it when I get them!

Oh and Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow to my American readers! Canadian Thanksgiving was in early October so we are definitely moving into full Christmas planning mode! Remember I have a special holiday offer for those of you who could use some virtual assistant help over the holidays (or anytime, lol!)

Take care!

I’m starting off this week, with my first ever guest post. Attorney Sergei Lemberg, who specializes in lemon law, kindly shared a post on using technology to boost your law practice. Here’s the post in Sergei’s words:

After I graduated from law school, I went the typical route and spent five years working for a series of major law firms. Eventually, though, I realized that I wanted to run my own shop, be my own boss, and handle my own cases. After deciding that lemon law would be my niche, I went about the process of building my practice, a process that was helped tremendously by technology and online tools.

Although I started by subleasing an office from another lawyer, my practice is largely “virtual.” I have clients from all over the country and rarely see them in person. I use VOIP for my office phone system for onsite and off-site staff, which gives the impression of everyone being under the same roof. I also take advantage of the Web-based Google Docs application for online collaboration, and share practice management software using Citrix.

But one of the most useful tools for building my practice is the Internet itself. I’m a Google AdWords advertiser, and run my AdWords ads in multiple jurisdictions to obtain a highly targeted but diverse clientele. I’ve also used that cornerstone of Web 2.0, blogging (and guest blogging!), to extend the reach of my practice. I’ve extensively optimized my website to make it more search engine friendly, and have expanded it to include genuinely useful content. As a result, I’ve seen my search engine rankings climb.

In today’s increasingly connected world, it’s easier than ever to succeed in a solo practice. By using online marketing methods and technology, office walls become much less relevant and the practice of law becomes virtually boundless.

Thanks for the guest post Sergei, much appreciated! And stay tuned to Sergei’s blog, where I’ll be sharing a guest post on virtual assistance for lawyers!

Just a quick note to share that Halo Secretarial’s feed can now be found at Alltop in the virtual assistant category!

I think that’s pretty exciting news on a Wednesday afternoon! Oh and as you can see, we are still undergoing “renovations” of the blog and site, it should be complete sometime next week!

I received an email this morning from the ABA (as my blog has a link on their site) asking me to share a link to this survey on my blog. I’m happy to do so and definitely recommend that you lawyers out there help the ABA out with the survey!

The current financial situation is very challenging for us all, but I feel certain that times will eventually improve.  Patience is the key I guess, and making smart choices in the meantime!

I actually feel that some businesses will really prosper despite, or maybe because of, the current financial climate. Smaller, leaner, more cost-efficient businesses can much more easily work to provide services that are valuable to consumers in these times. For example, lawyers are still very much needed in times of economic slowdown, but solo and small law practices are in a much better position to offer services to clients at a price that they will be willing to pay.

Virtual assistants are likely to do well during these times as well. We offer good value for the money and can be a great alternative to traditional in-house staff. You only pay for the time or service you need, if your business slows down you don’t have to keeping paying a full-time salary just to have an employee sitting bored part of the time! Most of us virtual assistants are also happy to work on a capped fee basis for specific projects, so you can be in control of the costs right from the start.

While we all wait for the economy to improve, we need to take steps to minimize our spending and improve our own bottom lines! Take care!

I received another contact via Twitter today that could have turned into an opportunity. I love Twitter – it’s really helped me get clients and raise my profile!

Tweet Tweet

This client won’t be signing with me though (at least not for now!), because the lawyer who contacted me needs a virtual assistant who can help with QuickBooks. I am not yet very experienced in QB. I use it for my business, but definitely need some training in it to offer it as a service to  clients. Thankfully I knew that @candieb on twitter is a VA who specializes in bookkeeping and so I happily referred the lawyer to Candy.

To me this is proof that in any business we need to have resources and we need to work with our so-called “competitors” to offer an industry that is truly valuable to potential clients.  It wouldn’t have done me or the client any good if I attempted to help her despite not having the proper skills. It would in fact make a mockery of professional virtual assistance.

Fortunately, I had met Candy on the VAnetworking forum. I have to say that VAnetworking has helped me in so many ways. It’s given me contacts for work that is not my specialty, I’ve been given business start-up advice and made friends. What a great thing!

So a tip for virtual assistants, join forces with other VA’s, network with them and please don’t do work you can’t do properly!

Just an fyi, as you check in on this blog or my virtual assistant site if you see anything wonky, especially in the color scheme, it’s cause I’m having it adjusted a bit and a new logo designed. Nothing wildly different, just hopefully a little more professional and elegant. I loved the pink personally, but thought a green shade would be more suitable to my target market.

And I have to say, I think it’s great to do a site/blog review every few months to make sure that it is working for you. Nothing has to be forever and a little updating can be just the thing to attract a new client or simply inspire you to post more! I change things up fairly regularly over at my mom blog, but have hesitated to play too much with this one because I do think it’s important not to go all crazy on a business blog! Then I tried to play with the color scheme just a little and realized that while I could figure out the css a bit, I couldn’t redo my own logo too well, so thankfully I’ve hired Brianna of Mad Hatter Web Design to come to my rescue! She originally helped me with the site using an already existing logo, and I knew she was just the person for this job! And the draft of the new logo is so pretty that I feel even better about my choice.

Hope everyone had a great Friday and a wonderful weekend. I’m off to be soccer mom tomorrow for the morning and then cookie baking in the afternoon. Of course I’ll be checking my Twitter regularly throughout – take care!

It’s not even surprising anymore for me to find interesting articles about lawyers and their use of Twitter.  After the great (and still growing!) list over at JDScoop I personally gained several followers from the legal field and found several new people I wanted to follow as well.

Ever since there has been an increasing number of fabulous articles about how Twitter can benefit legal practices.  Thanks to a couple of tweets (hat tips to @StephKimbro’s retweet of a comment by @kevinokeefe!) I just read a very interesting article over at Lawyers USA about the growing number of lawyers using Twitter to network and market.

I know I only recently I was contracted by a new client who tweeted about needing a virtual assistant. I responded and the rest is history! So for anyone who is still just thinking about using Twitter, or who maybe doesn’t feel they are realizing Twitter’s potential, come on over to Twitter, sign up if you need to and follow me!

Oh and if you need a guide to using Twitter I’ve got a couple places you should check out. Darren Rowse (of Problogger fame) has a great site called TwiTip full of fabulous tips for using Twitter. Also, Grant Griffiths has a really great series called Twitter for Lawyers on his Blog for Profit site.

Hope to tweet with you soon!

I’m a little late in learning this but I thought I’d share anyway – I doubt I’m the only one who doesn’t catch things instantly!

So, I use Gmail for my catchall email account.  The email for my virtual assistant business is through my host (laurie AT halosecretarialservices DOT com) but is all forwarded to my Gmail account.  I simply find Gmail to be easy to access and easy to work with. It also then gives me the option of chat and use in my iGoogle homepage.

Today I realized that I can fully integrate my google calendar and docs into my Gmail left sidebar – wow! So much easier than having to open a separate tab. I simply went into my gmail settings, clicked on labs and then enabled both google calendar and docs to show up! I also moved my chat and labels to the right side bar to make everything more visible.

Now I can see my schedule and plan my daily tasks much more efficiently. I always schedule time for client tasks and my own marketing plans in my google calendar, with popup reminders, which definitely increases my productivity. And the more organized I am, the more time I have to devote to my clients’s needs!

Hope this helps you other virtual assistants and other business owners!

I just read that it has been decided that BlogHer 2009 will be held in late July in Chicago – now just to figure out if I can go or not! They are combining the BlogHer Business Conference with the BlogHer Annual Conference, which is a great idea! I think attending the conference will be a great way to network for my virtual assistant business, as well as to meet some fellow mom bloggers.  Oooh, gonna have to do some searching now to see who else is going to try and attend!

My husband would love to go to Chicago, and we could make a family trip out of it, although at the same time I’d love to go just by myself so I’m not torn between family and work as I often seem to be. Do you prefer to combine work and pleasure when traveling for conferences or do you keep everything very separate? I’d love to hear from you!

November is already flying by for me, how about you? I usually put off some of my holiday planning until December and then realize it’s getting late to get certain tasks done on time, like sending out holiday cards or gifts to people who are far away.

This year I’m getting started on it right away and this post over at VAnetworking helped me realize that help with holiday tasks is something my clients might appreciate too! And because I’m getting into the holiday spirit I’m offering 20% off my usual rate to anyone who reads this blog post and decides that they would like my help in the months of November and December, whether with their holiday planning or any of my other virtual assistant services! Just let me know that you heard about it from my blog by referring to holiday code ho-ho-ho!!