3 Reasons you should promote your business on Public Holidays

Thank you so much to Damaria Senne, a Johannesburg based writer, for this guest post.

3 Reasons You Should Promote Your Business On Public Holidays

Valentine’s Day is almost here and as you know, many vendors are offering specials and discounts to entice their customers to buy something. As a transcriptionist /and VA, what are you offering your clients/potential clients to encourage them to do business with you? What message are you communicating to your clients about your ability and willingness to meet their needs??

As those of you who are members of the Yahoo discussion forum are aware, I have been writing articles about love, romance and Valentine’s Day for the past couple of days and will continue to do so until Sunday 14th February. And you may have assumed that it makes sense for me to make a big deal about the holiday because I write about love and sex and relationships for the OneLove Regional Campaign (www.onelovesouthernafrica.org). On the other hand, what does a VA and/transcriptionist have to do with Valentine’s Day, or Easter Weekend or Diwali?
Quite a bit, actually.

1. Each holiday has significance to a certain group of people and those people are your potential clients.

Which means that vendors who serve them for that holiday may become exceptionally busy. For example, during the Easter weekend, many church groups have intensive conferences, workshops, excursions and programmes. Are you targeting churches in your area right now to find out what they may need come Easter? if they’re going to have a conference, who’s developing their weekend programme brochure?

Many families with children also going on school holidays. Some of these parents may be business owners. Are you talking to them about providing tailor-made VA services so work in their business can continue to get done in their absence?

How are you going to clients that sell Easter-related products and services to be more efficient?

2. Holidays are a good excuse to promote your products and services anew.
Sure, you can have your own angle to promote your services, but why not pick up the low-hanging fruit too and use the opportunities public holidays provide?

3. You are indirectly reminding your clients to get on with their own promotions.
As I previously mentioned, Valentine’s Day is almost here, so most people have already planned and implemented whatever promotion plans they had. But there are many other holidays coming up, and if you plan early, you’ll remind your clients to also get the first worm. Which may very well make you a rock star VA/ transcriptionist in their eyes.

So what are you waiting for? Start planning for the next holiday!

Author bio

Damaria Senne is a writer based in Johannesburg. For the past year, she has been helping her clients create web site and build online communities, which include Kwanda (http://kwanda.ning.com ) and the OneLove Regional Campaign (www.onelovesouthernafrica.org ). Learn more about her and her projects at http://damariasenne.blogspot.com

Haiti disaster

Hello everyone, TAVASA wishes to express its condolences to the people of Haiti after the terrible earthquakes and subsequent loss of life.

South Africans can help by donating to Gift of the Givers

Please show the giving spirit of South Africans in general and TAVASAites in particular.

Outsource your tweeting and blog posts

Hi everyone,

"Social media" was one of the watch phrases of 2009. It has become one of the most important marketing tools of our time and making use of it correctly is a necessity for the survival of businesses today.

Yet, like everything else, it is time consuming. How many times have you been in your car or another environment where it's not possible to get to the internet, and have thought to yourself "oh I must tweet or blog about such and such a thing", only for the thought to drop from your mind, never to return?

Imagine how easy it would be to note your ideas down or to make a digital recording of that thought or dictate your blog post as you are on your long commute, send it to your transcriptionist to type up, and have it placed on the relevant social network without having to do this work yourself - and freeing yourself up to handle your core business, or to simply relax.

Make the most of this opportunity by outsourcing this work to me. - Gaynor gpaynter@telkomsa.net

Originally published by Gaynor Paynter on www.typewritetranscription.co.za

Prepare now for a busy time

Hello everybody and happy new year! Hoping that 2010 is going to bring the best of everything!

This week is probably a good time to get everything in order that you haven't already attended to - open new files for 2010, do final marketing, finish off small adhoc jobs that you may have, etc.

In the transcription field things already are very busy, with queries streaming in and I'm advising everyone to ensure that they have all their procedures in place for full steam ahead next week! January 2010 is upon us and it's going to be a good year!

Tavasa Logo Competition

Design a new logo to reflect Tavasa in 2010 Competition.
Competition closes 25th December, new logo to be presented on 1st January 2010, there will be an article about the designer and on why you choose the design which will be featured on Tavasa, website/blog and we will send out as a press release and submit as an article on many sites online giving good exposure to designer.
Anyone can do this in ms word/powerpoint, paint or desk top publishing software. You can send as many entries as you like. Entries to be submitted to info@tavasa.co.za or can be sent to myself/Gaynor. We welcome all entries.

Wanted Translators - Transcriptionists with african lanaguage skills

Tavasa requires transcriptionists and translators in the following african languages: Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho and Tswana. If you have these skills please email your CV to alison@tavasa.co.za.

Local Virtual Assistant and TAVASA comoderator Alision Fourie receives International Recognition from Industry Leaders Worldwide

Contact: Alison Fourie
Tel: +27011768 5028
Fax: +27 086 514 8475
E-mail: amftyping@mweb.co.za


South Africa – Alison Fourie, owner of AMF Typing Services cc announced today that she has qualified for the new worldwide Virtual Assistant Certification from VAcertified.com.

VAcertified.com is the new standard for Virtual Assistant Certification which clients worldwide can use to benchmark the services they are looking for in a Virtual Assistant (VA). The first internationally recognized VA certification, VAcertified.com offers a carefully calibrated and unbiased assessment of a VA's skills, education, professional experience and industry contributions to gain business owners' confidence in the skills of certified VAs.

To qualify for the certification, Alison was evaluated by 13 industry leaders and specialists from the four corners of the world on a broad spectrum of personal and professional traits pertaining to her expertise and professional ethic.

Alison is one of thousands of Virtual Assistants (VAs), business owners who work from their own offices providing professional support , services and skills to their clients via phone, fax and Internet-based technology. Partnering with a VA reduces stress, protects cash flow, eliminates administrative hassles and enables business people to find the success they originally set out to achieve.

As more and more businesses look toward affordable, online solutions to sustain and grow their bottom line in a tough economy, Virtual Assistants are enjoying increased demand for their services. For business owners and managers who may have considered outsourcing support tasks to a VA in the past but could not justify the understandable risk of hiring an unknown, VA certification provides an assurance that the VA in question has the skills and experience needed.
Alison specializes in typing and assisting new VA entering the industry and is a home-based administrative professional providing various online services to her clients. She started her Virtual Assistance career in 2001 to be able to assist clients with office administration and typing and to assist newbie Virtual Assistants entering the industry and to spread the word about the industry around South Africa.

Alison commented: “My certification is important to me as I feel I have the experience, skill to be able to assist clients worldwide. I feel I can make a difference to new VAs coming into the industry by showing them how to get to the position that I am in now, I believe in sharing my experience with others to assist them so they won’t make the mistakes I made coming into the industry.”

For more information about AMF Typing Service cc visit http://www.amftyping.co.za.. Alison is also comoderator of TAVASA, whose blog you are reading and whose website can be found at www.tavasa.co.za.

The VAcertified.com seal of approval tells prospective clients that a global panel of experts has thoroughly reviewed a Virtual Assistant's skills, experience and professional ethic. To learn more about becoming a certified Virtual Assistant or to discover the benefits of hiring a certified Virtual Assistant, visit http://www.VAcertified.com

About AMF Typing Services cc.
Launched in 2001, AMF Typing Services cc specializes in typing and office administration. Visit the website at http://www.amftyping.co.za.

About VAcertified
VAcertified.com is the go-to resource for Virtual Assistants who want credible, unbiased and international recognition for their skills, education, professional experience and industry contributions. Devoted to creating and growing a certification program that embraces diversity, VAcertified.com strives to enhance and evolve professional relationships between VA and client. Follow ( @ ) VAcertified on Twitter for up to date information about this worldwide certification for Virtual Assistants.
For more information contact:
Tawnya Sutherland
Founder, VAcertified.com
Toll Free: 866-943-6665
info ( @ ) vacertified dot com
Follow ( @ ) VAcertified on Twitter

A Day in the Life of A Writer - Damaria Senne

Today we are honoured to have a guest post from the acclaimed author Damaria Senne.
She works as a freelance writer, producing copy for a number of corporate and goverenment clients including case studies, news articles, profiles, press releases and in-depth reports.

Previously, she worked as a senior journalist writing for the daily online news publication of an IT website as well as weekly and monthly magazines respectively.

Her long-term goal is to write non-fiction books on how ICTs impact on how people work, play, communicate, learn and form relationships.

She is also a published children's author and creative writer, with a number of books and contributions to anthologies. She plans to continue writing children's books and other works of fiction.

Without further ado: A Day in the Life of a Writer, by Damaria Senne.

A Day In The Life Of A Writer: The Balance Between Building A Following & Delivering A Good Product/Service

It’s a warm late Spring afternoon – the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Edward and Hayley, my chow-mix dogs, are taking a nap on the floor in front of my office door.

I still have a lot of writing to do today, but I feel like it’s been a good day and I’ve been productive because, it’s a little after two, and I’ve already updated my personal blog, wrote and published five posts on the OneLove campaign web site and initiated some discussions on the Kwanda and Read SA fan pages on Facebook. I’ve also posted two author profiles on the Read SA web site[these profiles will go live later in the week] and visited and commented on most of the blogs I follow. And my day is only half-way through.

This is not the routine that I envisioned when I first wanted to be a writer. Back in those days, when I was a little girl, I dreamt of spending the whole day writing novels, uninterrupted. I could create my characters and settings and situations, tell my stories, edit then and send them to my agent, who would then take up the responsibility of selling to publishers. I had the romantic view that once the books were published, the publisher would have the sole responsibility of promoting them. I didn’t look forward to having to go on an author’s tour – that would take me away from my office, and my writing and my books. And maybe there are authors who are so wildly successful that they don’t have to promote their works, because they have a horde of fans waiting for their next book. Nora Roberts, anyone?

But, you can bet your life that in the beginning, the famous authors also had to lay the foundation. They had to balance writing their guts out, with promotion. They had to build a following one fan at a time. And that’s where I also need to start. And where you also need to start, whether you are starting a writing/blogging/small business.

You need to find the time to do many of marketing activities which build the foundation of your business with delivering a very good product, and do so consistently. You need to connect with people, tell them about your business and make sure that your name is top of mind when they need services you can provide.
And where possible, you need build a captive audience, so that people who like you have a mechanism to come back to see what you’ve been up to and buy your services and products. Once you have won over their confidence, you will be able to tell them about what you’re selling daily/weekly/monthly, and it’s not a cold call/hard sell, because you already have a relationship.

And if they like you/your products and services, they will tell their friends about it, growing your fan base with little effort on your part. I was very shocked by how fast writers, editors and publishing professionals signed on for the Read SA campaign [568 fans in about six weeks]. But a large part of that was because there was an existing need, we were clear about how people who want to be involved could sign on, and current supporters were happy to tell people about the campaign.
Alison and Gaynor have also done really well building a captive audience through their discussion list. The list attracts transcription and VA professionals, and also builds their credibility in the eyes of the client. Because surely someone who can help newbies learn the business would also be able to apply those teachings in their own business?

So my challenge to you is this: what are you doing to build a following for your services and products?

Read more from Damaria Senne on her blog http://www.damariasenne.blogspot.com

Working from Home in the Czech Republic by Pearl Harris

Today we have the pleasure of a guest post from the accomplished author, second language English teacher, proofreader and editor, Pearl Harris who has recently written a book "From Africa to Bukova"

Born within sight of the red sand dunes of the Kalahari, PEARL HARRIS lived most of her life in South Africa, until taking the drastic step of emigrating with her husband, Ian, to the Czech Republic (with their Labrador and cat).

Teaching English as a Foreign Language to the Czechs—a new career for the author—has its joys and trials, which Pearl shares with the reader in "From Africa to Bukova".
You will also learn about her early childhood on an isolated South African farm and about her British Settler ancestor who chose to emigrate from England to Africa as a 19-year-old, spending the rest of his life in South Africa.

Pearl’s travel articles have been published in South African magazines, "Diversions" and "Your Family", and in Czech magazines, "Lifestyles" and "Bridge", as well as on the websites, http://www.timetravel-britain.com/ and http://www.transitionsabroad.com/

Pearl taught English at the České Budĕjovice branch of POLYGLOT from 2002 to 2007. At present, she works from home as an English teacher, proofreader and travel writer. The Czech Republic has become her permanent home.

Working from Home in the Czech Republic
by
Pearl Harris

Nearly eight years ago, my husband and I emigrated from East London to Buková, a tiny village in South Bohemia, near the Czech border with Austria.

I started off teaching English (EFL) at a private language school which was situated 30km. from Buková in the city of České Budějovice. Teaching was the last career I ever wanted to follow, but this was the only employment available to someone without the slightest Czech language ability.

English is in great demand in this country, especially since its inclusion in the EU. In former days (the communist era lasted for 40 years) only Czech and Russian were taught at school. Czechs were not allowed to travel and were totally isolated, so now there is great hunger to learn English as an international language.

In South Africa, I worked as a Radiographer and later as a Medical Transcriptionist for Radiologists. The latter work was particularly stressful as I worked under extreme pressure in a very busy X-ray dept. of a private hospital.

I had to type at such a rapid rate, for so many hours on end, that I developed osteo-arthritis in my fingers!

Before leaving S.A., Ian and I did a crash course in TEFL at the Cape Town TEFL Institute, so that, when thrown in at the deep end of teaching here, we had a slight inkling of what it involved. I taught for five years at the private language school, travelling to and from České Budějovice at unearthly hours—in snow, blizzards and pitch darkness in Winter. My students were mainly adults who attended classes either before or after work, hence the awkward teaching hours.

By 2007, deciding that I had had enough of teaching, I resigned from the school, but kept teaching a few private students who came to our home for lessons. This was so much easier! I then wanted to develop my proofreading business, which had been a mere sideline, due to the fact that I was spending most of my time teaching and travelling!

I found a great demand for English proofreading. This is because Czech to English is translated mainly by Czech speakers, there not being anything like enough English native speakers sufficiently fluent in the impossibly difficult Czech language! Therefore, the English translations are anything but perfect –as is to be expected when one is translating into your 2nd or 3rd language!

Today, one still sees hilarious translations on some restaurant Menus and online. Many translators still mistakenly consider themselves good enough not to warrant any proofreading. However, fortunately for me, there are many today who realise they do need proofreading in order to produce quality translations. This has been especially noticeable since the Czech Republic became a member of the EU and recently held the Presidency.

I began by advertising on an Expats website, which chiefly serves the expatriate community in Prague. Many employers advertise on this site for English native speakers. In this way, I slowly built up a regular clientele. The average fee for proofreading is 100Kc per norm page (1800 keystrokes) – which is about R50. For more specialised texts, the fee may be up to 180 Kc (R90) per page.

I often proofread texts for university students and lecturers. Many theses and academic papers today have to be published in English. Further, I do regular proofreading for “Statuss”, which is an upmarket mag. catering to the elite, published in Russian, Czech & English. I also proofread for an agency which publishes monthly business magazines in English.

Now that my time is my own, I have been fortunate in being able to develop my travel writing too. My articles are published on the websites: www.TransitionsAbroad.com and www.TimeTravel-Britain.com as well as in “Bridge” a Prague magazine for High School English students, and in the South African, “Diversions”. So I am fortunate in being able to combine my love of travel with earning something back after our travels.


Ian and I are both keen photographers and usually illustrate my articles with our own photos. Living in Central Europe is such a huge bonus—however, we never have enough time or money to travel as much as we would really like to!

In December, 2008, I finally went the self-publishing route and published my travel memoir, “From Africa to Buková”, through createspace.com (See details below.) The book deals with individual funny, not-so-funny & frustrating incidents during our early years as immigrants in the Czech Republic. I would ideally like to rewrite and polish it, but that will have to wait until (if ever) I get a regular publisher interested!

I send my chilled greetings to all the VAs in sunny South Africa!

Pearl Harris.


Book From Africa to Buková

may be ordered online from:
https://www.createspace.com/3359697
OR
http://www.amazon.com/ Books
OR
by contacting Pearl Harris at
ian.harris@quick.cz

ZULU TRANSCRIPTIONISTS/TRANSLATORS REQUIRED URGENT

URGENT: WE ARE LOOKING FOR A ZULU TRANSCRIPTIONIST, IF YOU CAN TRANSCRIBE/TRANSLATE IN ZULU, PLEASE CONTACT US URGENTLY.

Urdu typist.

Hi everyone, just a quickie.

Lesley is looking for someone who can type in Urdu - please contact her directly at etranscript@mweb.co.za.

Time

Ali and I were discussing time, or rather time constraints today and I've just come up with the following little verse:

Johnny and Baby had the time of their lives
Troy and Gabriela asked what time is it
Brad and Janet warped time ... again ...

But at Typewrite Transcription, time is measured in audio hours and minutes,
Time is of the essence: essential.

Virtual Services for the 2010 soccer world cup.

Hi everyone,

This is just a very quick call to anybody who may need virtual services during the 2010 soccer world cup in South Africa. Journalists, publications, business people, from South Africa and around the world, TAVASA is a group of VAs and transcriptionists and other professionals in South Africa and we can assist you with your virtual requirements. Everybody is welcome to contact us.

Grammar

Hello everybody,

There’s something happening in our industry that has been boiling under for the past decade or so, and every so often it raises its ugly head. In the past week, it's raised its head and shoulders too.

In many places on the internet I’m seeing posts from a certain rival virtual association organization. I have two problems with that:

1) They are telling blatant lies, particularly that they are the first VA membership organization – of course, they are not.
2) The grammar being used in these internet posts is terrible, and to me that flies in the face of what they say they are trying to achieve, and of what I know TAVASA is trying to achieve – proper standards in our industry.

I’m going to quote a forum post of theirs, which I have just come across, with every error highlighted and below I shall put comments:

They wrote: “Aaron, you are quite right. Virtual Assistants are not bound by geographical boundaries and can do work from any location for their clients based anywhere in the world. Although Virtual Assistance is one of the fastest growing industries worldwide, it is a fairly new concept in South Africa. Very few people here knows about (1) the term much less about what VA's (2) actually do.

Our organisation focus on "education/spreading the word" (3) in South Africa about virtual assistance and the benefits that it can have to clients as well as prospecting (4) VA's (2). We basically (5)
- assist people in SA who wants (6) to enter the VA industry with the necessary information on how to start their own VA business and also support existing VA's (2).

- have a database of professional SA VA's (2). Thus if someone wants to make use of a SA VA we provide a RFP service and assist them to find a suitable VA. Since VA'(2)s in SA pricing/rates (3) are not yet as expensive as VA's (2) from overseas , we receive quite a number of international requests for VA's(2).

Virtual Assistance in SA(although in its infancy) (7)is an open, growing field as more and more people with administrative experienced(8) are looking for alternative opportunities and businesses realise that outsourcing is actually a good business strategy .

Well, to make this long story short , our main focus are really (9)to build the VA industry in South Africa.”

Notes:

(1) Incorrect usage of plural – should read: “Very few people here know about …”
(2) Incorrect usage of apostrophe – an apostrophe denotes either possession or contraction. Neither is the case here. Should read: “VAs”
(3) Incorrect usage of the backslash – should read: “education / spreading the word”
(4) Incorrect usage of verb – “prospecting” refers to something one does on the mines. I assume what should have been used here is “prospective”
(5) Omission of colon – should read “We basically:”
(6) Incorrect conjugation – should read “who want”
(7) Omission of space – should read “SA (although”
(8) Incorrect tense – should be present tense and read “experience are”
(9) Incorrect conjugation – should read “our main focus is really” …

9 basic errors repeated over and over again in a short forum post – my mind boggles when I think of the fact that this organization charges VAs in South Africa to be members, when they can’t write a simple forum post grammatically. You are going to tell me that they are not native English speakers. Shame. Errors like this may be acceptable in letters or emails to friends. When they are put on a public forum, and the people posting state that they are representing the virtual industry, it’s not on. We’re professionals and we have to write accordingly.

VA Organisation Fees

Hi I want to talk very briefly about VA membership fees for organisations. Please be careful with this one, check out exactly what you will get for your membership fees, make sure it worth it for you, check out with other members of that organisation how they feel about their fees and if its worth it for them and that way you will get a good idea whether its worth it for you.
Tavasa is free for membership and will remain so, we are not here to collect and make money from you, our aim is to help and assist you as you need it, you need your money for other things within your business. Our aim is to pass what we have learnt to you to help you, weve been there, done that, so if we can stop you doing the wrong thing we will, we are very knowledgeable in this industry and share that knowledge with you.
Check organisations thoroughly before just handing them your membership fees. If you feel you cannot check out an organisation please ask us as we know most of the organisations in South Africa and overseas and know which are the best to join and those who are not.
Check out the information that these sites are offering you being a member as most information is available for free via the internet its a case of looking and finding the information and approaching more established VAs who could help you with this information for free. Tavasa is a great place to look online in our Yahoo Group we have folders of information available for free. Templates can be found via the internet and as I say above and also from established VAs who might be open to sharing her info with you. All these methods are worth trying before taking up paying membership fees.
It is worth taking up membership fees for some overseas sights which do offer Job Leads and various things, but be careful here as well and check with your more established VAs which are the better sights to join.

Regards Ali