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Networking
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 Enterprise Centre meetings in the nearby city Connecting with fellow bloggers (especially lawyer bloggers) I definitely think networking in person will be the best strategy for me (but hey, I could be wrong!) to start out with. I...
Read MoreCall Me What You Like
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 virtual assistant is. I didn’t want to waste valuable time explaining what I was, when I could spend that time explaining to potential clients how I could help them. That’s what it is about for me – helping the...
Read MoreI Almost Have it All
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 designed, marketing plan is ongoing, website started, planning to buy quickbooks this month and I ALWAYS have chocolate...
Read MoreVirtual Paralegals for Hire, My Thoughts
I loved this post over at The Great American Lawyer blog. In my career as a legal assistant/paralegal I mostly worked with lawyers who lacked innovation – they were great lawyers but it took years for them to adjust to changing technology in the law office. Most of them wouldn’t be fond of p/t employees let alone telecommuting ones! I am glad to see in the blogging world that there are many out there who already are using virtual paralegals or law clerks though – it certainly gives hope to those of us who aspire for a home-based paralegal practice.
Read MoreThe Convenience Business
Loved this post so much I had to share it! Right now one of things I’m focusing on is creating a tagline for my business – especially as I want to finish designing my business card and I think it’s important that my tagline be on my business card. The tagline is important to me as I think it will help businesses see why they should contact me and how I can help them. Gritty VA in the above post helped me with some ideas for this! I’m thinking maybe of using something like – We’re in the Business of Creating Time for Your Business. I’ll keep playing with it and looking around some more but my business goal of the week is to...
Read MoreWorking from Home – Away from Home?
In planning out my home-based secretarial services business, I’m trying to decide right now how much time I will put in from my actual home and how often I’ll be working on the go. I have a laptop and will be able to do my work on the go regardless, but I am also trying to decide if I need a really good smartphone or not. In researching smartphones I realize that I would spend almost as much on a great smartphone as an inexpensive laptop. And as fun as a smartphone might be, that’s an awful lot of money for something with such a small screen. I think I might just get a good cellphone and save my money for a second laptop!
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