Chris Ducker

Expert Business Growth, Virtual Staffing & Personal Branding

Quick Video Post: My Company’s Latest Expansion Revealed!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bbP3FYYa8k

Location: Company HQ – Reading / Viewing Time: 4mins

Hi everyone! First up, I’d like to thank you all in advance, for continuing to tune into the Virtual Business Lifestyle blog here in it’s infancy (we’re about 6 weeks old!) and helping to spread the word slowly, but surely. The ReTweet’s, Comments, Emails and such are a continued inspiration and I promise to continue to do my best to create as solid content as possible going forward.

Today I got into the office and inspected the latest expansion wing at the Live2Sell offices, which was just finished. It adds an additional 50 seats for our outsourced staff to work from, with clients around the world, and I am particularly proud of this expansion as it comes just 3 months after our last one. We’ve all worked very hard, and it seems to be paying off.

The reason why I shot this very quick video was because I wanted to point out how important it is to look into other options to be able to automate and streamline, as well as grow and expand, your own businesses this year. 2009 was a tough year for a lot of people. However, the true entrepreneur is a fighter – someone who might get knocked down, but always jumps back up again. unveiled …

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How to Utilize Online Technology to Make Yourself Look Bigger, More Professional and More Experienced!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UeR_NQZic0

Location: Company Offices, Reading / Viewing Time: 10mins

Got a real treat for you guys today – this is one of three videos that I shot with good friend and fellow entrepreneur, Sanjay Maholtra, on my recent visit to San Francisco. For those of you who don’t know Sanjay, he is a angel investor and tech start-up MADMAN from the Bay Area, who amongst other things loves $5.00 pizzas (wait to the end of the video for an explanation on this!).

Although this video is a little longer than most here at Virtual Business Lifestyle, its a goodie. We go into how small companies, and even solopreneurs, can make themselves seem bigger, better, more professional and generally more capable when approaching new prospective clients (of all sizes), by using online apps and technology partners… plus much more!

The resources that Sanjay mentions in this post should definitely be checked out by every one and all of you who are wanting to ‘paint the picture’ of a slightly larger, older, more experienced company or entity to be able to bag clients either domestically or across the globe….

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Can Offshore Virtual Assistants Create Good Quality, Original Web Content? The Virtual Business Lifestyle Case Study – Day Three

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Location: New York, USA – Reading Time: 7mins

So, if you’re a regular visitor to my blog, you’ll know that over the last two days I have been engaging in a case study to show you all that offshore virtual assistants are indeed very capable when it comes to creating good quality web content. If you’re not a regular visitor, you’ll know of this now, obviously (because I just told you!), and I suggest you check out Day One and Day Two before reading on.

Today we finish off a monster article that one of the virtual assistants that works for my company wrote on cool online app’s for entrepreneurs – specifically for this blog, and specifically for this case study. I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed the series, and you’ll be coming across my ’round-up’ on everything at the end of this post! Take it away, Miss VA…

Applications for Security:

Eliminate the risk of viruses, phishing and spyware for your online transactions.

Escrow (https://www.escrow.com/index.asp). For secure online transactions, use Escrow. This online service works by acting as a third party that collects, holds and disburses payments according to agreed instructions, thereby protecting both you and your client from fraud. Payment can be done in many forms such as check and money order….

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Can Offshore Virtual Assistants Create Good Quality, Original Web Content? The Virtual Business Lifestyle Case Study – Day Two

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outsourcing life, wen content

Location: New York, USA – Reading Time: 7mins

So, following on from yesterday’s post where my company’s chosen virtual assistant v wrote on cool online app’s for sharing and storing files online, organization and calendar sharing, today we continue with my case study, looking into the world of the Philippine Virtual Assistant, but more specifically answering the question as to whether or not they can help you in creating original, quality web content for projects such as blogs, site content, eBook’s, etc.

Please note: This is REAL, completely UNEDITED text (sure, we’ve formatted for the blog, but that’s it!), written by one of the virtual assistants that works directly for my company, serving a client that is based in the USA. Let’s continue with the test!

 

Applications for Writing:

Unleash your creativity and earn money in the process.

Google Docs (https://docs.google.com/). Don’t worry if you don’t have MS Word or spreadsheet because Google Docs and Spreadsheet has these. You can create a new document, spreadsheet or presentation and upload your files from and save to your desktop. You can access your files anytime anywhere and choose who can access your documents. Those who have access to files can share changes in real time. And it’s all free!…

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Can Offshore Virtual Assistants Create Good Quality, Original Web Content? The Virtual Business Lifestyle Case Study – Day One

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creating original content, virtual assistant writing

Location: New York, USA – Reading Time: 7mins

Outsourcing. It’s a funny old game! Over the last year I’ve gotten tons, and I mean TONS of emails from business owners and aspiring internet marketers asking if Philippine virtual assistants can handle tasks such as blogging and content creation for websites. Simple answer to the question: Yes, they can. You will always have to ‘clean it up’ a little, if you want it to be 100% perfect, but they do a darn fine job, I can tell you. So, not that I feel as if I have to back-up this statement, I thought I would try something out.

Starting today, and lasting exactly THREE DAYS, I will not be writing the content on my blog. I have instead asked one of my employees, that works at my company as a virtual assistant, to “write an in-depth article on cool online web applications that entrepreneurs can use to make their life easier and be a little more productive on the move”. That was literally what I asked for! The following is the article that she came up with (spread over the next three posts, including this one). I am really looking forward to the comments on this one!!! Here we go……

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January 2010 “Virtual CEO Goal” Monthly Report

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philippines call center live2sell

Location: Company Offices, Reading Time: 5mins

Number of Days in the Office: 22, Total Number of Employees: 171

So here we are with my first ever blog post (complete with candid shot from company party last month!), and my first ever monthly report, encapsulating my mission to become a Full-Time Virtual CEO by the end of the year. And, just to clarify, when I mean ‘virtual’, I mean REALLY virtual, like no desk, no chair, no ‘office’ on my company premises.

These ‘report’ posts are going to be as straight forward as possible, but with enough ‘meat’ on them so that you can see what I have been up to, without giving too much away (as I’m sure as I grow the site, knowing the industry I’m in the way I do… several of the principals of companies I would class as ‘competitors’ are bound to subscribe and start reading this blog – hope you’ll be learning lots!).

The two main points of business that really stick out this month are obviously the launch of VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com (with this very post!), and the hiring of a brand new Head of Operations for my company (we’ll be shooting a video post together sometime in the near future). This one move is a very important one in my overall plan for 2010, and one that will obviously continue to develop throughout the course of the year.

Couple this together with real in-depth planning for my upcoming ‘pleasure trip’ to the USA, that will last just over 2 weeks, and take me to San Francisco, Miami, New York and LA – I’ll be a really busy bee.

Important Things that Happened in January

  • Hired a new Head of Operations to start freeing-up more time and planning for the future.
  • Launched this blog.
  • Brought on board 3 new clients.
  • Had 2 client visits.
  • Worked closely with my PA on travel plans for upcoming US Trip (February).

So, all in all, a very productive month.

Wish us a safe trip for the US, please! We (myself and my wife, Ercille) leave tomorrow. If you’d like to stay up-to-date with my ‘happenings’ whilst on the trip, feel free to follow me on Twitter – I’ll be tweeting regularly.