Regular readers will have seen my post a few days ago about website copy being stolen. Several comments were made including one from Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today. I emailed Jonathan and asked him some questions about his suggestion and he has very kindly given back some answers so I'm placing them here for your information. Thanks heaps Jonathan! Tell us about DMCA notices Jonathan - I must admit I’ve never heard of them. Are they country specific or global? Kathie, Your question … [Read more...]

Some of the VA forums I belong to have recently had discussions about new VAs who are copying the content of more established VAs and placing it on their website, unchanged. It is plagiarism and as far as I know, that isn't legal. It certainly isn't moral and can be very upsetting for the owner of the content. Why does this happen and what can be done about it? Well, it happens for a number of reasons. People like what they've seen and want to copy it as it will make them look more … [Read more...]

Regularly on the chat forums, I see new VAs seeking advice for getting clients. I recently posted the following on one of those forums. As with any business, marketing is an important part of what you should be doing regularly, at least weekly. This could be in the form of paid advertising, networking, calling people, going out and meeting people, doing leaflet drops, registering with directories online and so on. I've never found advertising in a local publication useful but that can differ … [Read more...]

If you've had any contact with a business coach, or if you do a lot of reading about operating a business, you will be familiar with the need to work on your business, instead of just in it. Michael Gerber mentions this in his book - The E-Myth as well - I read his book many years ago. When I first started my VA business many years ago I did anything that came along on any day it came - even weekends and evenings. As my business picked up, so did the hours I was doing and for quite some time … [Read more...]

I am constantly amazed at the number of people I come across who want to operate a business online from home - but not put in what's required to meet their target audience! You can't just put up a website and say 'here I am world, come to me!' because that just doesn't work. You have to go where the people are and that means a number of things, depending on what your business is. But here are some suggestions: Find out about local business networks and attend networking events - it's worth … [Read more...]

A recent post at SOHO-Life was about telling your (global) audience about your business in global terms. Today, my daughter and I have been trying to fax a horse stud in South Africa. She's booked to go there for a working holiday but is having no success with responses to recent emails. The owners may have been away on leave but there are no autoresponders to let people know that. We tried faxing this morning our time and the first time the phone just rang and rang. The second time the answer … [Read more...]