One of the perks of being a Positively Awesome Virtual Assistant
Thanks: fitforlifebootcamp.com
Join Me In My New Home
Positively Awesome VA is levelling up! I’m adding more tutorials, articles, insights in the life of a virtual assistant who is truly living a Positively Awesome Life in Manila 🙂
Let’s talk and visit my new home: http://positivelyawesomeva.com/
Shine and Be A Blessing in 2014
Here’s the e-card that I sent to my clients and I share the same to my fellow virtual assistants:
Who Is Your BFF?
Meet My BFF
July 18 is the 1st birthday of my BFF.
As VAs, we have been taught: “Google is my best friend” and I’d like to add to that.
Google is my best friend and my MacBook pro is my BFF! Meet Mackie, my very first investment after deciding to be my own Boss as an Online Team Strategist!
Looking forward to another year of blessings with my BFF. Ikaw, sino ang BFF mo?
How To Celebrate Your 100th Day As A Positively Awesome VA
positively awesome VA
Last April 1, 2013, to be exact, your Positively Awesome Virtual Assitant celebrated her 100th day as a VA!
November 1, 2012 – I was accepted as a volunteer virtual assistant.
January 1, 2013 – I was officially hired to be an Online Team Strategist to a client which will become a great mentor to me.
So, how do you celebrate your 100th day as a virtual assistant?
- Celebrate it with important people in your life
- Have fun
- Be thankful
- Feel blessed!
- Look forward to the next 100 days as a VA
Here’s a video I created to give you an idea how your Positively Awesome VA celebrated. Enjoy!
Thanks to Jomar Hilario for teaching me this!
How To Get 1,000 Views on Slideshare
I received an email from Slideshare containing this great news!
Positively Awesome VA reached another milestone in her career as a virtual assistant. The first milestone was when the blog reached 500 followers and now, this is another milestone!
What is Slideshare?
Slideshare is a website where you upload your presentations and generate a code which you can embed in your blog.
If you have You Tube to upload your videos, Slideshare is the right place to upload your presentations. These are lead generating platforms for your services or product. According to reports, Slideshare is a vibrant social community with reported 60million viewers! Slideshare is owned by LinkedIn.
How do you exactly gain 1,000 views on your Slideshare? – My Experience
Having 1,000 views on Slideshare was not part of my goal.
I came to know about Slideshare through Jomar Hilario, after completing the VA Seminar in June 2012. My goal then was to finish and submit my VA blog portfolio and concentrate on finding gigs online!
This milestone was totally unexpected!
I’m no expert on this and what I’ll share will be purely based on my experience. I think I was able to achieve this milestone by posting relevant and entertaining content.
When I was starting my online career, I already know my weakness: I am not your tech savvy VA. My strength: I know how to tell stories!
To compensate my weakness, I tried to inject stories in my presentations. This is my strategy to ensure that my tutorials will reach the required 100 slides or more. I just added stories to STRETCH my tutorials, hence my blog has an added BONUS: My tutorials are fun to read!
Once people are entertained while they learn, they share the blog with their friends. It also helped that my mentor, Jomar Hilario, uses Positively Awesome VA as one of his examples during VA Seminars. Thanks Jomar!
How do you gain 1,000 views on your Slideshare? – Based on Research
If you want a more scientific and logical strategy, head over to the Social Media Examiner where they discussed this topic in detail. Here are their 10 tips on how to maximize the generation of leads via Slideshare:
#1: Base Your Presentation on a Topic on Which You are an Expert
#2: Your Title Slide is Your Headline
#3: Optimize Each Presentation for Search Engine Optimization
#4: Integrate Your Presentations Across Multiple Channels
#5: Create Your Promotion Strategy before Publishing Your Presentation
#6: Continue to Drive Viewers to Your SlideShare Presentation
#7: Repurpose, and then Repurpose Some More
#8: Check the Analytics
#9: Turn on the Forms Option
#10: Add Your Presentations to Your Personal LinkedIn Profile
Read the details here: How to Use SlideShare to Generate Leads
There you have it! Have fun doing your VA assignment and if you are a non techie like me, try adding stories in your presentations. Remember to always have FUN!
Come join me, let’s celebrate and live a Positively Awesome Life!
How To Overcome Withdrawal Symptoms (from 8-5 Dayjob!)
I’ve been working as full-time virtual assistant for almost 3 weeks.
How was the experience?
IT WAS PURE EXCITEMENT AND HEAVEN for the first 2 weeks and a half… then it started to slide down.
I am missing something… then suddenly this occurred to me: I am missing the morning hustle going to work!
You know the drill, don’t ya?
The Symptoms
Hugging your pillows and begging for another last 5 minutes with the snooze button on your alarm, hurriedly doing your morning rituals, enduring the traffic, just making it barely on time, office politics, morning break and stuff.
I miss dressing up for work, putting on light blusher and lipstick, choosing the pair of shoes that goes well with my uniform, I miss Fridays when we go casual at work… I miss the girly stuff!
I miss my officemates and office buzz!
SUPER GASP! I’m having withdrawal symptoms from my corporate job!
Whewww good that it came with early realization and awareness.
The Cure
Here are some tips that I am using to overcome the withdrawal symptoms:
1. Be aware!
Be conscious of your feelings and embrace it. Hey, it’s 21 days as a VA compared to 2 decades as a government employee. There will definitely be MAJOR adjustments in the lifestyle.
2. Focus on the BIG Why
I have reasons for making this big jump from the corporate world to the online world. I have to constantly remind myself of my BIG why. Find your Big Why, read motivational guru Tony Robbins, he has a guide on how you can do this.
3. Make a List of Things that You are Thankful for
I had a big AHA when I was doing this! When I feel restless, I make a list of things that I am currently enjoying. A part of my list looks like this:
– I am thankful that I am eating more healthy food and drinking lots of water (no more cafeteria food!)
– I am thankful that life is more relaxed
– I am thankful that I’m starting to look younger, skin is glowing (no stress and no need for glutathione!)
– I am thankful that I have time to appreciate the sunrise, feel the cool air, those simple things I did not notice before
– I am thankful that I have time to do my Morning Pages
– I am thankful that I am gaining confidence in using my MAC (I command it to read my emails!)
– I am thankful that I have time to read my books
– I am thankful that I enjoy my afternoon nap
– I am thankful to have more play time with my 4-year old nephew Sam
– I am thankful that my sons are now the ones bringing me pasalubong!
See, I can go on and on and on. There are lots of things to be grateful for!
Now the question: Do I still want to GO BACK to the corporate world?
NAH, I probably just miss my office friends but we can have mini-reunions right?
I do not miss it to the point that I wanted to go back. Period
The Ultimate Solution
Now, if after doing the 3 tips and you still feel uneasy, I have an ultimate solution for you: GO OUT!
I went out straight to the Mall of Asia! I dressed in my girly Friday stuff, walked around, enjoyed MOA for myself (hey, it’s a weekday!). Bought some colored pens and a journal, visited my favorite stores, after 2 rounds of walking and smiling, I headed home.
Now I’m okay.
Live a Positively Awesome Life,
How I Spent My First Christmas as a Virtual Assistant
November 1, 2012, I got hired as part-time Virtual Assistant.
December 1 – 28 2012, I found myself in the middle of a month-long Christmas sale launched by my client!
You can just imagine my excitement!
Days before the actual launch, me and my teammates were brushing up on marketing and copywriting. It was indeed a crash course… there were hits and misses! Good that we have a client who tells us to FAIL FORWARD and focus on the lessons.
Of course, we want the Christmas launch to be perfect and reach our target! The project ended on the third week of December and we got great news: We Reached Our GOAL!
It was indeed a MERRY AND EXCITING CHRISTMAS FOR ME! I feel so blessed to be working with a great team!
Being busy with the project left me no time to feel sad on my last days as a government employee! I’ll be forever thankful for the great moments and lasting friendships with my officemates!
Here’s your Positively Awesome Virtual Assistant after the end of the Christmas Project….
May you enjoy a meaningful and exciting holiday season!
Founder
http://www.PositivelyAwesomeVirtualAssistant.wordpress.com
Like our Official Fan Page Positively Awesome Virtual Assistant
6 Valuable Tips From My Mastermind Group That Led Me To My Dream Gig
You’re hired!
This was the first line written by my employer. I was so super excited to learn that finally, I got the job!
But that was getting ahead of my story…
I’ve been applying for gigs left and right since I had a goal: To resign from my day job in 2013.
I spent the whole month of October applying for a job at Odesk, Elance, craigslist, onlinejobs. pH etc. I immediately consumed the credits given to be able to apply for a job.
I applied for many gigs… and I got rejection slips.
I was rejected because my bid was too high or the gig was awarded to another applicant or I got no response. This has been going on for 30 days, so you can just imagine the feeling. After 2 weeks of rejection, I began to entertain doubts and started to ask myself if I am on the right track.
I pushed away self doubts and implemented the following new strategies:
- Changed my positioning (from a Powerpoint expert to online team strategist),
- Improved my cover letters (I made it more human and personal),
- Improved my profile
- Became selective of the gigs that I am applying for
Rejection notices continued. Is it because of my age that I’m finding it hard to get a gig? I took a break from the application process. I was crushed!
Call it great timing that I had my one-on-one session with Jomar Hilario. I am a member of his Inner Circle Mastermind.
I was at Rosewood at 9:00 AM and I was joined by Arnel Bolda, the winner of my FB contest. (As part of the assignment, I ran a contest in Rafflecopter and the prize winner will join me on my one on one session)
From Jomar Hilario, I learned the following:
- I have to be more specific in marketing my skills, I created different resumes highlighting specific and related skills (example: website creation + content management)
- I needed to stand out and go beyond just a PowerPoint expert. I have many (and better) competitors in that area.
- I have to reflect on my strengths and skills and market these.
- I had to draw from my previous experiences.
- More importantly, he advised me to apply directly to the book authors and internet marketers whom I admire.
thanks Rina for this nice picture!
From my mastermind friends, they reminded me that applying for a gig is just a numbers game.
Wise words from an expert VA in our group. At that time, I have just sent 50++ applications. One hundred is just an arbitrary number but it reminded me to practice patience. In my desire to immediately land a gig and to be in control, I was putting too much pressure that I forgot to enjoy and trust the process.
It’s just like sales and real estate. Rejection is a part of the game. When one says “No”, I say “Next!” Applying this in real estate, I needed to look at 100 properties, visit 20, to be able to buy 1 property. This was an AHA moment for me. Patience, Jones, patience.
Upon reaching home, I opened my laptop, went straight to Elance and started applying for gigs again. I also sent an application letter to an internet marketer offering my services.
On the following day, I got the email: You’re hired!
I started working with my new client on a part-time basis on November 1, 2012.
My statistics: I applied for 85 gigs before I finally landed on my DREAM GIG! I can tell you, it’s worth the wait!
Have a Positively Awesome Day,
JONES
Positively Awesome Virtual Assistant 