You people need some help!

No, no, I don't mean that way, although… Well anyway, most of the time when I see you folks you all look exhausted. It's no wonder really, you're all out there doing all the things it takes to run a business, and doing it without any help!!! I've been wandering around the Internet as usual and came across some resources which may enable you to get a little more sleep, and probably even do a better job of some of the things you're now trying to do all by yourself. The talent pool is great out there in Cyber-Space, and there are people who would love to work for you as a Virtual Assistant.

Essentially a Virtual Assistant is anyone who has the time, talent, skill sets, and desire to help you with some aspect of your business in an ongoing way. The cool part about a Virtual Assistant is that instead of accomplishing their work on-site they can be located anywhere in the world and get just about any job done that doesn't require geographical proximity to your place of work.

There are basically 4 levels on which you can interact with a Virtual Assistant. These levels essentially involve trust and familiarity with your business. The first level is handling your Communications. You could have an Assistant pickup, prioritize and send your Email. Also they could answer phones, send Faxes, and anything else a traditional secretary would do for you. The phone companies are just dying to help you run your business from anywhere in the world, just give them a call and check out the options. In no time at all you could sound like a corporate giant from your one-person office. Or, if you'd rather not deal directly with the phone company there's a company called GotVMail Communications. http://www.gotvmail.com/. GotVMail can provide your business with a unique toll free number, voicemail, multiple mailboxes, custom greetings, music-on-hold, live call forwarding, and other professional virtual office features at very reasonable rates.

The second level of trust is Data Transfer. This involves exchanging computer files between you and your Virtual Assistant or with any one else for that matter. For example, have you ever had a huge file that you would like to send someone instantly, but you couldn't quite get it onto your ISP's Mail Server? There's a site called Whale Mail http://www.whalemail.com/ that allows you to upload monstrous files and leave them there for 14 days. Just setup a Whale Mail account and start sending. Or better yet, tell your Virtual Assistant and they'll do it for you.

The third level of trust is Collaboration where you and your Virtual Assistant share the same virtual workspace. One great resource for this is something called Community Zero http://www.communityzero.com/ This site allows you to create your own private area on the Internet in which you can connect a group of people. The area is password protected and allows you to share and store files critical to your business. Also, you can have chat and instant messenger sessions with any number of assistants or clients, set up schedules and much more. To setup an account with Community Zero takes only a few minutes and doesn't require any technical expertise.

The fourth level of trust involves Remote Access where your Virtual Assistant can view or take complete control of your computer as if they were sitting right at your keyboard. GoToMyPC https://www.gotomypc.com/ is a Web based application that provides this capability and is much more powerful than any of the remote access software that I've seen. With GoToMyPC the possibilities are really endless! For example, let's say you're in meeting and desperately need a file that you left at home. Drop your Virtual Assistant a quick email and tell them to upload the file to your Whale Mail account. Then at the break access the account and download the file to the meeting. Even if you don't use an assistant this could be a very powerful tool. With GoToMyPC you can log in from any Internet connection and send yourself a FAX, transfer a file, or do your banking.

Another solution for accessing your files is provided by a company called Mangomind http://www.mangosoft.com/products/mangomind/. They describe themselves as an "easy-to-use, shared Internet workspace for mobile professionals, teleworkers, and geographically dispersed work teams." Basically what they do is setup a hard drive that you can access via the Internet so you can have all your files anytime, and share them with anyone to whom you give the password.
One of the cool things you could have your assistant do is start promoting your website with the Search Engines. Or as I like to think of it, actually get some "Return on Investment" for all that money you shelled out. A really economical way of starting to get some recognition with the Search Engines is to buy it. There is a site called "Overture" http://www.overture.com/ that allows you to bid on keyword phrases. The cool thing about Overture is that if you're in the Top 3 spots on that engine you also get listed in the Top 3 spots on Yahoo, AOL, MSN, HotBot, Lycos, AltaVista and several other major engines. There are many keywords that no one is currently bidding on, and that means you can be listed in the top spot on the biggest search engines in the world.

Okay, you've got your top spot on Yahoo, AOL and MSN, wouldn't it be cool to send out Emails to all your friends, relatives and most importantly prospective employers about what a great web presence you have? And, wouldn't it be even cooler if it looked like a very classy advertising house did it for you? There's a web site called HTML Email Marketing, http://www.html-email-marketing.com/ that can do just that. Among their services is creating attractive HTML Email with Ready-To-Use Templates. They also automatically deliver the email, and track the results to see who picked up their email and how long the recipients looked at your transmissions.

If you're interested in looking into the possibility of getting a Virtual Assistant here are three sources I came up with to start your search. Virtual Assistants.com http://www.virtualassistants.com/ Staff Centrix http://www.staffcentrix.com/ and the Virtual Assistants Association http://www.ivaa.org/ Or, if you're just interested in some short-term help a very good resource is a site called "elance" http://www.elance.com/. They will allow you to post your project on their site and have professionals bid on the project or present proposals to you as to how to meet the goal.

Well that's about it for me. If you have anything suggestions or questions I can be reached at FAX Email gandlwoods or drop me a note to 5098 Cathedral Oaks Rd. Santa Barbara CA 93111.