What’s Selling?

Google will always be my virtual BFF.  It never lets me down when I want to dig up interesting finds online.

Taken from http://www.environmentphilippines.com

Lately, there’s an ebook I promised my friend I would sell, and I was able to gather a few odds and ends to weave into something worthwhile.  There have been a few gems that turned out to be helpful, apart from the fact that they’ve been there for ages, all for the taking.

Check my top three seller options in bringing a product closer to your market, because let’s face it, your product won’t sell itself just sitting there.

Amazon.com offers a Self-Publishing option via Amazon Kindle.  Through this feature, I can make my product available for sale on Amazon.com, and so I can get paid for sales as well.  The good news is it’s free and I can sign up for an account and publish titles to the Kindle Store at no cost.

eBay is stress-free and a hands down winner for me! All I have to do is open an account, upload the item I intend to sell, get all the ad content going and all I have to worry about is my choice of shipping and payment options (eBay offers a flat rate across all shipping options, be they international or domestic).

ClickBank has a great offer for Vendors like me.  It has more than 100,000 active affiliate marketers ready to promote a product (like an ebook in my case) in exchange for a commission.  I suggest the retail price and the affiliate commission I want to pay for the product.  Upon approval, I pay ClickBank the one-time $49.95 activation fee.  Upon payment, the ebook will be included in the ClickBank Marketplace and will be available for ClickBank affiliates to promote.

Taken from http://www.cardsave.net/blog/5-tips-for-selling-online

There are a lot of other options and I intend to keep looking.  Where do you think is the best place to sell products online?

I’m a VA! (Part 2)

Here’s the second of a series of experiences I’ve had and the tools that helped make my life easier as a virtual worker/VA.  If you missed the first one, you can always go back to it here.

Right now, here are a few of the tools that are immensely helpful in terms of project collaboration and database management.

1.  DropBox for data management.  It definitely simplifies your life and keeps your files (big or small) in one place, and they can be accessible wherever you may be working from (make sure you first download the software onto the system you are using).  The good thing here is that you can download the mobile app and can manage your files from your mobile phone.  You have to install the software again if you are managing more than one account.

2.  Jing – is a free tool for creating and sharing screencasts.  If you want to create a screencast, here is a YouTube video on how to do it.  This eliminates a lot of time that’s consumed calling or emailing someone.  There is a risk that you or the other person can miss a point or misunderstand instructions, so Jing fits the bill perfectly.

3.  Google Docs – this has most recently been upgraded to Google Drive, which is most suitable for document collaboration and sharing.  You can enable the app within your Gmail account and work on team or individual projects and get real-time feedback.  Just make sure you enable the Public sharing feature so other people in your team can view the documents or files from their end.

You are very much welcome to add to this very short list.  I know that there are thousands of resources out there which can greatly benefit everyone.  In the meantime, I am trying to put together a video tutorial of some kind regarding the next topic on this series.

I’m a VA! (Part 1)

Recently, I met someone on Facebook via one of the social networking groups I belong to.  Learned about her “dilemma” and how she has always wanted to be a virtual assistant but is not quite sure on how to go about it and where to access stuff pertaining to this profession.

Here are a few items I shared with her, which have helped me immensely when I was starting out in the virtual assistance industry (I’d like to think that we never stop learning new things and relearning old stuff):

Here are a few helpful items to look into………….

1. We need to know who we are and what we do.  There are a lot of helpful links out there and here’s one.

2. Download the latest version of Microsoft Office (I have 2010 and it works fine). Let me know if you still don’t have it in your system and I’ll look for the link to my free download.

3. Make Google Search your best friend. You can search for anything, even as simple as how to learn how to type.

4. Watch YouTube tutorials (how-tos). Type anything in the search field that you want to know about such as “how to open a document in Excel”, etc. and follow the simple steps in the video.

5. Practice practice practice until you’re comfortable with a skill.

I’m planning to put up a series of how-tos on this, depending on the feedback this will generate.  Or perhaps a quick video would do the trick?

What has been the most important lesson you can impart to someone who is new in the business?