by Amber Miller | Aug 14, 2009 | 1Shopping Cart, Blog, Entrepreneur, Memberships
Yes, it sure is according to Dave Crenshaw, Author of The Myth of Multitasking! I have to admit, when I first heard that statement by Dave, I had to laugh. Why? Because I have dubbed myself for years as the “Queen of Multitasking”.
I multitask during many aspects of my life. Here are a few examples:
1) While cooking dinner I will open/review mail, load the dishwasher and make lunches. (Have always wondered why I burn the bread every single time!) Dave’s book clearly tells me why!
2) While driving I tell my kids to ask me their homework questions they have. Why not? (I Wondered why my daughter received a “D” on her homework I helped her with.) Dave’s book clearly tells me why!
3) While sending an email I was also on the phone paying my water bill. Who likes to wait during those automated messages so why not compose an email. (Couldn’t figure out why later I sent the email to the wrong “Joe”.) Dave’s book clearly tells me why!
After learning about Dave’s book The Myth of Multitasking, I decided I had to go to the bookstore last weekend and get it. Let me tell you. I couldn’t put the book down and read the entire book on Sunday afternoon. Amazing. His book is amazing. He clearly shows me how multitasking is hurting me – way more than it is helping me.
Dave says in the first chapter of his book, “Your lack of effectiveness has everything to do with your multitasking”. Wow. Is he serious?
Still skeptical I continue reading – and by the time I got to his ” multitasking test” (which I LOVED!) I realized, Holy Cow! He is really on to something here.
I recommend you check out his book The Myth of Multitasking, or if anything, his free training videos that will for sure give you something to chew on if you think Multitasking is effective!
by Amber Miller | Jul 25, 2009 | Blog, Entrepreneur, Ezines, Marketing
What to look for when choosing your hosting company? This will all depend of course upon your specific needs, but here is my revised short list of the things I look for when choosing a hosting company:
1) Customer support via telephone. Are you required to only use a help desk or email to get support? For me personally, I like to pick up the phone and talk to someone who can assist me.
2) CPanel – do they have CPanel or another user friendly control panel interface? This can be helpful especially for those who are not very technical.
3) Fantastico – or the ability to easily install wordpress and other ecommerce and blog applications.
4) Backups. Do they backup your server? If so, how often do they back it up, how long is the data retained by them and is there a fee for them to restore.
and newly added #5 – drumroll please….
5) Email distribution limitations…what are they? You may not have a large list now, but hopefully soon you will and then will your growth be at their mercy? (learned the hard way with this one :))
To Your Online Success!
Amber
by Amber Miller | Jul 24, 2009 | Blog, Entrepreneur, Marketing
While looking for a quick and easy online appointment scheduler for a client of mine, Elizabeth Marshall of AuthorTeleseminars.com, I remembered that another client, Sarah Robinson, aka The Maverick Mom, had told me about a cool online scheduler she found and wanted to try out, called Time Driver.
Elizabeth was looking for something that would allow us to actually set the time she was available – opposed to the times she was not available. Let me tell you, not too easy to do with some of the other online schedulers out there. Remembering Sarah’s suggestion a few months back, I decided to give Time Driver a try.
Wowzer! This system was a piece of cake!!! Love it. It allowed me to quickly and easily set up a specific group of times for Elizabeth that she is available for coaching – and then assigns a url for us to use in sending out to her clients for them to schedule. And, they offer a 90-day trial and does not require a credit card. Who does that anymore? Not 30 but 90 days…nice! And, get this. If you like it, after 90 days the cost is only $29.95 for an entire year!
The only thing I found a bit confusing at first was that Time Driver tries to be “smart” and uses the timezone that is set in your computer settings. So for me, as a VA, I wanted to set these times up for Elizabeth as Eastern, but I am in the pacific time zone. Once I figured out how it worked, I simply adjusted the times I entered to be pacific – and made a note to her clients that the times shown on the calendar were specific to those set up in their own computer system.
So far so good. I will continue to use it during the 90 day trial and continue to evaluate. If you use this, I would love to hear your comments and reviews!
To Your Online Success,
Amber
by Amber Miller | Jul 17, 2009 | Blog, Marketing
I’m in love…and it is with a wordpress theme! I have had a few opportunities to work with one of my terrific clients customizing a wordpress blog using the Thesis theme. All I can say is…this theme is amazing! The possibilities are endless.
The Thesis Theme has the most customizations I have seen in a wordpress theme. And what I love about it most – is that you can customize each site using the Thesis theme and not one of them will look the same…love that! I love that you can take a blog theme and make it look different than another blog that is using the Thesis theme.
Thesis also contains additional options that allow you to fine-tune each page of your blog site. The days of worrying about your SEO are over!
I have already suggested 2 of my other fabulous clients make the switch 🙂
Happy Friday!
Amber Miller
The Delegation Diva
by Amber Miller | Jul 10, 2009 | Blog, Ezines
This is the most common question I hear lately from my virtual assistant clients. Should we continue to send their weekly or bi-monthly newsletter/ezine to their subscriber list. While I am not sure if I recommend you stop communicating with your clients, I agree that slimming down on the content of the ezine is a good idea.
A newer trend is to put tidbits or “teasers” of the article in your newsletter – and then redirect them to your blog to continue reading. This way you still are emailing them – hence staying in front of them and you are increasing traffic to your blog.
Do you have any thoughts or suggestions? I’d love to hear them!
To Your Online Success!
Amber Miller
by Amber Miller | Jul 9, 2009 | Blog, Memberships
I have now had about a month to play around with a new wishlist membership site. Being someone who has supported clients who use aMember, I am finding myself asking clients to make the switch and try the wishlist wordpress plugin. I so far think it is much more user friendly and easier to use.
I have not yet had the chance to move over an existing aMember site to wishlist…I will be doing that within the next two weeks. I’ll keep you posted on how that move goes and if it is as easy as it seems to be!
To Your Online Success!
Amber Miller
by Amber Miller | Jun 26, 2009 | Blog, Marketing
Aweber announced yesterday that you have the option to have more CONTROL over the days/times your autoresponders are delivered. How cool is that? It used to be that you were at the mercy of when you lead signed up as to when they would receive your follow up autoresponders.
Now…you can select the days and times that autoresponders go out – therefore avoiding days such as Saturday or Friday night. I love that!!!
Keep it up aWeber…
Amber Miller
The Delegation Diva
by Amber Miller | Jun 24, 2009 | Blog, Marketing
In the Internet marketing world, one of the most difficult tasks to accomplish is effectively managing your time with your day to day tasks. By using a bit of creativity however, you can use an autoresponder to your advantage and drastically reduce your work load.
There are several ways that you can use an autoresponder to your advantage, resulting in big money and more time for your business so you tend to other things or simply sit back and spend more time with your family.
Here are a few other ways you can make your autoresponders work for you 🙂
- If you lack the room on your site to add your testimonials to your ad copy, you can add them to your autoresponder. If you choose to add them to your responder you should always be sure to include all of them. It will look more professional, and let others know more about your products.
- You can also choose to use your entire website in autoresponder format. Although this may sound silly to some, it’s actually an innovative idea that really works. Not all visitors will have the time to read your website; often times having to leave before they can really read what you have to offer. If you put your website in autoresponder format, you can email bits and pieces from your site to potential customers so they can continue to read when they have time.
- Another innovative way to use your autoresponder is by including your terms and conditions. Often times, potential customers and clients simply don’t have enough time to read through your terms and conditions. The terms and conditions are very important, which is why it never hurts to include them with an email. Your terms and conditions that you email could include the exact copy from your website, or detailed information about your return policies, purchases, refunds, and anything else you think a potential customer would like to know.
There are many other ways that you can use your autoresponder. All you need to do is put a little bit of creativity and thought into it, and you’ll probably find yourself amazed with all the things you can do with autoresponders. They are very popular with Internet marketing and online businesses these days, and for good reason. If you’ve grown tired of having to manage every aspect of your online business – now is the time to invest in an autoresponder. They are user friendly and very affordable – making them something that no business should ever be without.
To Your Online Success!
Amber
by Amber Miller | Jun 20, 2009 | Blog, Marketing
I have tried several project management systems within the last few years. I had heard of Wrike.com about a year ago, but it wasn’t the right time to swtich 🙂
But now is! I love this cool email feature it has. You can email wrike with your email (including attachments) and it will create a task for you. I love that! Many of my tasks come in from emails from my clients and now – I can simply forward them to wrike and it will add it. LOVE that!
Anyone else using Wrike.com?
by Amber Miller | Jun 6, 2009 | Blog, Marketing, Memberships
I had a chance yesterday and today to really play with the Wishlist Plugin for WordPress. This nifty plugin works with wordpress blogs to manage and allow you to use wordpress as your membership platform.
Now, I have been doing this for several clients using aMember with a blog, but I have to tell you – Wishlist is AMAZING! I love it. The setup proceed does take a few hours – but actually much faster than aMember.
Here are a few features I really liked:
- IP Address limit: How cool, you can limit the unique number of IP addresses that attempt to login with the same user login. This prevents those from passing around their login details.
- There is a login widgit you can use on the homepage of your blog. Very cool.
- Integrates with 1shopping Cart – wohoooo! Anyone wanna try it? Contact me…:)
- Also will allow you to integrate with aWeber.
- A feature inside the blog post that allows you to say whether it is a protected post or not.
- Much more!
Are you using Wishlist? I’d love to know your thoughts!
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