Conversations About Delegation on Blog Talk Radio

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Yes, I’ve been absent from the blogging world lately. I’ve been crazy busy setting up my new company: the Home Page Construction Company!

I want to thank everyone who participated in my Name My Company Contest. Some wonderful names were entered, but for one reason or another (mainly because the domain names weren’t available) I didn’t choose any of them. Instead, I put everyone’s name into a hat (a baseball cap, actually) and …drumroll, please… the winner of 25% off a custom-designed website is Becky Nelson of Becky Nelson Ink! Congratulations, Becky!

Now – to the real reason for this post. A special VA friend of mine, Jessica Maes, has taken her experience in teaching her clients how to delegate and launched Delegate or BUST! The System to Find You the Assistant You Need. If you know of a business owner who’s trying to do it all themselves, send them to Jessica’s site today. She has a fantastic 22-page Special Report that will get them delegating in no time :-)

Jessica has also started a radio show on Blog Talk Radio, discussing delegation with a special guest. On Thursday, November 19th, that special guest will be me! Jessica and I will be talking about using WordPress websites, the special theme that’s changing the future of website-building (Headway), and why busy business owners should delegate this task to a company that can take care of all the details. (Of course, I’m talking about the Home Page Construction Company. *blatant plug*)

Hope you can listen in:

Conversations About Delegation
11/19/2009
12pm CST

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Name My Company Contest!

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Affordable, easy-to-maintain blogsites are here!

Gone are the days of paying webmasters thousands of dollars for a custom-designed, search engine optimized website with a matching blog. With state-of-the-art WordPress themes, it’s never been easier or more affordable to create a website/blog combination (or blogsite).

I’m not talking about your run-of-the-mill WordPress theme, but a special foundation-type theme on which to build your blogsite. With easy-to-use design options, your blogsite can be built quickly and with much less need for HTML coding and custom css files.

The best part? If you can maintain a blog, you can maintain your own blogsite. Yourself. No more calls to your “web person” to change a few words. No waiting to fix the typo your client found on your home page. Fix it yourself in minutes!

Maybe you don’t have time to design your own blogsite,
learn the ins-and-outs of WordPress, and study search engine optimization.
No problem! I can help you with that!

I’m putting together a blogsite creation team that will provide it all – 5 custom-designed pages; SEO that search engines will love; plug-ins to automatically back-up your site, control spam, and supply RSS feeds; plus WordPress training so you can take over the maintenance of your own site.

All for an extremely affordable $849.

Sounds great, right? Just one problem – I don’t have a name for this wonderful blogsite creation company and I’m too busy setting up my team to think about it right now.

Would you like to help? Email me your catchy company name idea and if I choose it, you’ll win 25% OFF your own custom-designed blogsite! (If you don’t need a blogsite, give your discount to a friend or client – they’ll love you for it!)

Enter your winning company name by midnight, October 31, 2009.

Fine print: If more than one person emails the same name, the first email will be entered. If I end up not using any suggested names, I’ll choose the winner the old-fashioned way – pulling a contestant’s name out of a hat. You can suggest up to 5 names, but each needs to be in a separate email. I reserve the right to change any and all of these rules at any time.

Interested in learning more about blogsite creation even if you don’t want to enter my Name My Company Contest? Just email me to get more information!

This information can also be seen at www.short-termsolutions.com/NewCompanyNameContest.htm so feel free to email that link to a friend :-)

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Free Report from Discover Your Dharma!

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Gwen Orwiler of Discover Your Dharma, is a life coach for Boomer Women seeking their ENCORE career path. As many of you know, I’ve had a few ENCORE career paths, but I think my career changes would have gone smoother if Gwen had been steering me along the way. She’s very passionate and enthusiastic about everything she does. And I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who laughs as much as she does :-)

Gwen got in touch with me a couple of months ago because she was looking for success stories to include in her free report: TOP 10 SENSATIONAL REASONS Why NOW is the Perfect Time for Boomer Women To Discover their Life Purpose & plan for an ENCORE career that they Love! (Isn’t that a great title!?) Somehow, I convinced her I actually am a successful Boomer woman, and she put my bio into her report.

I’m not telling you about this free report (that you can download here) just because I’m in it! Well…OK…that’s part of the reason, but the other part is that it’s funny and inspiring. Read and enjoy!

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Oatmeal Topping Ideas You Won’t Believe!

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I love oatmeal. I love Quaker Old Fashioned Rolled Oats…with brown sugar and cinnamon and vanilla extract. I put the oats into the cold water so it cooks up nice and creamy. I’ll usually throw in some golden raisins, or Craisins right away, too, so they’ll be nice and plump when the oatmeal is done.

I know others put different ingredients into their oatmeal. A waitress in Arizona talked me into trying peanut butter in it, but I can’t say that I was impressed.

And I’ve heard that some people add sliced bananas or blueberries and I’ve considered trying those, but I had a real epiphany yesterday when I happened across Quaker’s website. They have a page dedicated to toppings for oatmeal that anyone can add to! By the time I worked my way down the page through over 200 topping ideas, I was famished. I couldn’t wait to get up this morning to try out what I think is the best oatmeal topping ever conceived in the whole history of mankind.

Here’s a sample of the ideas you’ll find on the website. See if you can pick out the one I tried this morning :-)

You guessed it! Who would have thought that chocolate and oatmeal would compliment each other so well? Some other great ingredients were cocoa and chocolate milk. Yum!

Of course, there’s always some weirdos in the crowd:

Don’t those sound yummy?

Come on! What’s your favorite oatmeal topping?

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My New BFF: A Vertical Mouse

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I got an extra bonus at my dentist’s last month. And I mean even more than the wonderful cookies that they have waiting as you walk out. (Yes – I said cookies!)

I noticed a couple of the women at the front desk were using a weird-looking mouse. It looked more like a joy stick than a mouse. They said their wrists were feeling much better since they started using it. It kept their mousing arm and wrist in a neutral position, instead of twisting them.

I’ve been having some pain in my mousing wrist lately that would go away if I stayed off of the computer for at least a day. (Next to impossible for me, of course.) I’d tried wrist pads and even started learning keyboard shortcuts to keep my mousing to a minimum, but that wasn’t helping as much as I’d hoped.

I love trying out new gadgets, so as soon as I got home I popped online and looked for the mouse on ebay (my first stop to shop for anything) and there it was – the Evoluent Vertical Mouse 3 – Buy It Now – Free shipping – Click!

It arrived in about a week. Then it took another week for me to become comfortable with it. (No remarks concerning old dogs…new tricks, please.) I shut off the programming to the bottom button which was set to go “forward” – handy for Internet work, but I kept pushing it accidentally so I had to turn it off.

Within a week, my wrist pain was gone. And I mean gone! I can even do push ups without holding onto hand weights to keep my wrists straight. And when I get my massage (ahhhhh – heaven) I don’t have a big knot in my forearm anymore. It’s a miracle!!

Bottom line – if you’re having pain in your mousing arm or wrist – give this mouse a try. And let me know if it helps you as much as it did me.

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The Butt Wiggle Diet is a Success!

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Since starting the Butt Wiggle Weight Loss Program, I have lost a total of 10 pounds!

OK – it wasn’t completely because of the Butt Wiggle Diet, but that did help :-)

Mainly, it was due to a site called FitDay (not an affiliate). It has the most awesome software for inspiring nerdy individuals such as myself to

You can use the software for free on the Internet, or you can do what I did and pay a measly $30 to download it on your computer. It has a ton of foods and activities already part of the program, or you can easily add your own.

What I love the most, though, are all of the reports and charts and graphs they provide! Being a very visual person, it helps to see a line on a graph depicting my weight loss goal and another line showing where I actually am at the moment. That’s a real incentive to me!

Then, for accountability, I’ve asked Tara, my massage therapist, to monitor my progress since I see her once a month. I print off the overview from the past month so she can see what progress I have (or have not) made. She gives me great exercise and stretching tips which I’m incorporating into the plan also.

If you’re a victim of VAST and want a cleverly nerdy way to get back in shape, try FitDay.

And don’t forget to wiggle your butt! :-)

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Online Marketing Tools for Today’s Small Businesses

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Rita Cartwright stopped by to talk about her informative new e-book “Online Marketing Tools for Today’s Small Businesses”.

MP: Why did you write this book?

RC: My goal was to create a handbook, which entrepreneurs and small business owners can refer to when they are searching for online marketing tools and/or new marketing ideas. I wrote it for new entrepreneurs and small business owners, as well as for those who have been in business a while.

MP: Tell me about yourself.

RC: I’m originally from Arizona and now reside in California. I earned my bachelor’s degree (with Magna Cum Laude honors) from Arizona State University when I was 44 years old. After graduation, I couldn’t find a job; therefore, I decided to start my own business offering online word processing services, which was 6 years ago. At that time, I was not aware of the virtual assistant industry, which I am now a member of. So, I guess you can say I was ahead of the curve.

MP: What qualifies you to write this book?

RC: Approximately 2 years ago, I started maintaining a blog and writing articles in order to implement the article marketing strategy. (I talk about using this strategy as a marketing tool in my e-book.) Also, while attending college, I learned how to write. I had to write. I remember my English professor saying I should be a writer, because he thought I had the skills. I didn’t take him serious. I was just trying to get through college.

In regards to the subject matter, my background and education in marketing and my experience from operating an online business provide me with the necessary qualifications to write this e-book on the topic of online marketing tools.

MP: How long have you been an entrepreneur?

RC: I have been an entrepreneur since October 2002. Although I started out as a small business owner, I have become an entrepreneur. There are differences between entrepreneurs and small business owners. In fact, I wrote an article on the differences. It is titled, “Are There Any Differences Between an Entrepreneur and a Small Business Owner?” Ezine Articles is one of the article banks where you can find it.

MP: What is the e-book about?

RC: This e-book contains information on various online marketing tools, along with some examples and in-depth descriptions of the tools. There is also a resource section that lists websites where you can find the online marketing tools, including “live” links to the websites. The resource section will save your readers a lot of time in Internet research when they are searching for information on online marketing tools.

MP: What do you want the readers to get out of this e-book?

RC: I wanted to provide those readers, who have a shoestring marketing budget, with information they can use in their online marketing plan or, at least, generate new marketing ideas. Most entrepreneurs and small business owners do not have a large marketing budget. The marketing tools I discuss costs little to no money.

MP: Can we look for more books from you in the future?

RC: Yes. One of my clients, who is a coach of Christian leaders, and I are currently working together on an e-book. It will be geared towards Christian leaders and Christian virtual assistants. So be on the lookout for that in the near future.

MP: How can the readers contact you if they have any questions?

RC: Your readers can reach me at 760-631-1335 or toll free at 866-651-3073 or send me an e-mail at rjcartw@rjswordprocessing.com.

MP: Where can the readers purchase your e-book?

RC: They can click here to purchase it.

MP: Rita, thank you for stopping by my blog on your tour.

RC: You are very welcome. Thank you, Melodee, for having me.

Don’t forget – Rita will be giving away one of her books to one lucky commenter of this blog so leave a comment or question for Rita. You’ll be glad you did :-)

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Wisconsin Virtual Assistant Network

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Are you an established Virtual Assistant living in Wisconsin? Or are you looking for a VA that can provide a specific skill set for your business? If so, read on…

A few of the Madison area VAs (Rachel Rasmussen of Rescue Desk, Jessica Maes of Maes Consulting, and myself) decided to turn our unofficial get-togethers into an official networking group. We wanted to promote local VA talent and provide information about the VA industry. We also wanted to give businesses a site to help them find a Virtual Assistant who fit their support needs.

And so the Wisconsin Virtual Assistant Network was born!

The WVAN Website

The WVAN website gives information about our members with links to their websites, provides information on the VA industry, and links to resources on how to become, as well as how to hire, a Virtual Assistant.

Other Benefits to Joining the WVAN

There will be networking events and workshops geared toward virtual assistance that members will be able to attend.

How to Join the WVAN

If you are currently working as a VA in Wisconsin, please visit the WVAN website and fill out the membership form to become a part of this exciting endeavor. It’s completely free!

Are you looking for a Virtual Assistant?

The concept of “buying local” is not confined to Wisconsin, but we do take it seriously. If you are a Wisconsin entrepreneur or company that is looking for a professional VA to provide you with top-notch assistance without the overhead of an employee, check out the WVAN VA Directory. It will provide you with information about the Virtual Assistants that are local to your area.

Of course, you don’t need to live in Wisconsin to take advantage of the experience and knowledge of the Wisconsin VA Network members. We’ll be happy to help, no matter where you’re located!

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My name is Melodee and I am an Infomaniac

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One of my favorite bloggers, Janet Barclay, was brave enough to announce on her blog that she is an Infomaniac and is seeking treatment. She has inspired me so much, I have decided to fight this awful addiction myself.

No more:

Are you an Infomaniac? Join Janet and myself in our recovery from this devastating affliction. We will be describing our struggles and our successes in beating this knowledge-seeking compulsion, so subscribe now to our blogs, before it’s too late.

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VA Weight Loss Solution

Filed Under Miscellaneous, Weight Loss

As a VA you know what it’s like to be at home, perhaps by yourself, sitting at your desk and working hard day after day…

It can get kind of quiet sometimes. Now, I enjoy quiet as much as the next person, but sometimes it’s just TOO quiet. When that happens, I listen to some great music. I usually turn on my (low-tech) radio and listen to Charlie (105.1 FM). They say they “play everything” and they get pretty close, but I called in asking for Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood”, and so far I haven’t heard them play it :-) I’m going to try “Little Diesel Drivin’ Devil”, but I doubt if they’ll play that, either.

Anyway, besides getting you ‘in the mood’ to work, listening to music can help you burn calories. Well, just listening won’t burn many calories, but with the right music you can lose weight doing the shoulder and butt wiggle. Really! You know – when a great song starts playing (the one you give a 95 cause it has a great beat and it’s good to dance to – for those American Bandstand boomers) and your shoulders and butt start wiggling? You are burning extra calories, my friend. It’s even been scientifically proven.

Add in a little line dancing when they play “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” and you’re on your way to losing a dress size!

Just don’t try this with classical music, cause that stuff will put you to sleep right on your keyboard…

What kind of music do you listen to while working? (And how many calories does it burn an hour?)

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