Do You Really Have to Have a Website and Blog?

lifeofvaicon.jpgToday I have the privilege of meeting with a group of Virtual Assistants who live and work in Northern Arizona. Professional support and camaraderie is one of the true benefits of working in this industry.

Since we have few true metro areas in Arizona, our AZ VA population is widely scattered. As such, distance prevents many of us from getting together as often as we might prefer. A colleague, Carolyn Freeman of “Crickets Roar,” has arranged for us to meet today using GoToMyMeeting.

Agenda:
Since this is our first-ever online gathering, we have intentionally kept our agenda short:

  1. Brief introductions, including time in business, location, specialty, contact info, etc. (five minute limit, please)
  2. Topics for discussion at future meetings
  3. Establish date/time of next in-person meeting; who would like to coordinate that?
  4. Reminder of conference call meeting open to ALL VA’s in Arizona, Feb. 13, at noon. To attend, contact Laura Jo Richens at lrichins@RichinsBSS.com.

I’d like to kick off item number two with a short list of my own:

1. Is a website a necessary component of running a VA business?
2. What about a blog? Must you have one?
3. How about building a good list of resources for VA’s
4. What associations should you join?

If you are attending today’s meeting, consider adding YOUR ideas for future meetings as a comment at the end of this post, which will benefit others who happen across this post.

Now, if you are a Virtual Assistant elsewhere who has stumbled upon this post, perhaps you can help us by adding some areas we may wish to discuss in the future by commenting.

Finally, if you ARE in Arizona and would like to join us the next time we meet, whether in Northern Arizona, Central Arizona on online, just let me know by dropping me a note in the comments area as well.

Speaking of this, here are some relevant previous posts from Loosely Speaking:



2 Comments


  1. Carolyn Freeman
    Comment // January 24th, 2008 // 10:40 am

    Potential topics for future meetings:

    1 – Project management methods
    2 – How does a virtual assistant market herself?
    3 – Establishing rates
    4 – Which is more profitable – local area or internationally?
    5 – Continuing education – what do you need and where do you go to get it?
    6 – Helpful software packages
    7 – Budgeting for hardware/software upgrades
    8 – Subcontracting to other VAs


  2. ktcosmos
    Comment // January 24th, 2008 // 11:10 am

    January 24, 2008 meeting notes:

    Carolyn Freeman gave us a tour of GoToMeeting, which was used for our gathering.

    We discussed some business ethics questions and generated a list of topics for future discussion. (see in main post and in comment above)

    It was agreed that we’d like to meet in person next time, and then explore other online meeting options further out in the future.

    Hazel Bowman    , Carolyn Freeman and Katie Baird plan to attend the conference call meeting scheduled for noon on 2/13. This meeting is open to ALL virtual assistants in Arizona.

    Our next LIVE meeting was set for Thursday, March 13, at 11:30 a.m. at The Wildflower Bread Company (at Gateway Mall in Prescott).

    Proposed Agenda for March 13, 11:30 a.m. meeting:

    1. Intros and Show & Tell: Share a recent cool project or recommended resource

    2. Open discussion on the topic of “Marketing Your VA practice: Do you need a Blog or a Website? What works?”

    3. If time permits, break out sessions for novices in one area and veteran VA’s in another

    4. Schedule date/time/location of next meeting. April 2008?

    Please R.S.V.P. to ktcosmos (Katie) if you plan attend.

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