5 online tools you must have in your online business

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Today I am sharing 5 tools that I absolutely can’t live without as a virtual assistant. These are tools that I use in my business on a daily basis and that I think will be great to be recommended as well, these tools will help you to make your work life so much easier for you to manage.

◊This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.◊

My favorite tools that I recommend you have in your online business!

These are a breakdown of the 5 tools that I will be talking about:

LastPass
Asana
Grammarly
Evernote
Dropbox

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LastPass is the online tool you must have in your online business!

I was introduced to this tool when I attended a webinar and was so amazed by this software because as the name suggests, it’s a tool that manages and stores all your passwords.

I have to work on numerous clients’ case sensitive information and I really appreciate the invention of using this tool, because I loved it so much I started to use it in my business.

Now you can use it to store strong passwords for your emails, websites that you visit frequently as well as banking information. Use LastPass to help you create strong passwords, and it automatically lets you log in when you visit a saved site from the LastPass vault.

Asana is the online tool you must have in your online business!

Asana does it best! You can use this platform to schedule a specific task. This can cover the week or for the whole month.

Now how can you use Asana in your business? You can manage your personal projects for the day, the week or month, and it does come in handy when you need to have a reminder to do specific tasks for each hour of the day.

Asana is also useful in creating projects and also allows you to collaborate with team members and track the progress of a client’s work, it’s beneficial to use depending if you use it as a personal reminder to keep track of tasks you want to accomplish or to allow your clients to see the progress of their task, when you are completing it.

I highly recommend it, because I know you are living a busy life and you want tools in place to make your life simpler throughout the day.

I should point out that I just really love seeing the unicorn icon when I complete a task, hope you do too.

Grammarly is the online tool you must have in your online business!

Get your Grammar in check with Grammarly From the moment your computer starts, you want to make sure that Grammarly is in place to help you as a second pair of eyes for when you need to send off those email messages, even when you are creating content for your blog.

Now I am not eliminating the fact that you should outsource this task if it’s not a strong point for you, I still get a third opinion from another human being. I do recommend Grammarly because it does check and keep your grammar in place if you are a LadyPreneur on a budget!

Evernote is the online tool you must have in your online business!

You might be wondering what Evernote is and why it will be beneficial to use in your business every day or on a need basis.

Yes, Evernote is a little life savior you can say goodbye to bookmarking when you visit pages in the past and tag pages by search or even label them by notes.

You might be saying how can this come in handy, well back then when you use to bookmark a page, the only way you could search for a page is if you visit that page often or even remember the name!

When using numerous pages per day or even the week, how can you keep track of such pages? This is where Evernote comes in and the beauty is when you do tag and clip a page it stays forever.

Dropbox is the online tool you must have in your online business!

I use Dropbox to save all my clients’ work and information. It’s simple; you can create numerous folders and all Dropbox does is automatically sync and update your clients’ information once you save it in the Dropbox folder on your computer or when you sign into the site.

You will have to create an account with the site in order to save your clients’ information. You can also use Dropbox for even your personal files. This tool will be useful for you because you can, at any time store all your documents, invoices, blog content ideas in Dropbox.

This can also be used to store and back up information on your site if it needs to be saved somewhere. Thought that was hard? Now go through all those information that you have been using for yourself such as files, content, you can even suggest to your clients’ to store their information via this software, and the beauty of it is if you do not need to download such information it can be easily shared via a link.

Now that you have seen my 5 everyday tools that I cannot live without, share in the comments below your must-have tools, and let’s see how these tools can help increase productivity in your business and benefit your clients’ lives.

It was nice of you to stop by.

Until then, happy hiring, and best wishes with your business.

Don’t forget to check the sidebar and footer of this website for awesome resources!

Photo Credit: Haute Stock

20 wishes to know before starting your online business

8 / 13 / 16 6 / 15 / 18

How are you from the last time you read my blog?

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As a business owner, I know you might want to create this fabulous business plan of having your business online and how to go about doing so. You are hoping that it will be smooth sailing with no bumps on the straight road ahead. Was I wrong to think this because, during this path, it’s like I started from Z and not A!

I wanted to share with you 20 things that you should have in place to accompany your business plan.

Now I know you will not have everything in place, but I wanted to share with you some of these wishes that you do not end up having to make the same mistakes that I did when I started my business or what to expect on your business journey.

Let the wishing begin!

♥ I wish I had known that virtual assisting was an industry a year ago and you can make money online.

♥ I wish I had known that when I started out virtual assisting that I could not only offer administrative services alone. I have to keep on learning.

♥ I wish I had known that I could start networking my services in social media platform, such as joining groups and finding clients there too. (Hey, you can join my Free Facebook group, which has constant support of ladies by industries.)

♥I wish I had known that having more than one income, such as passive income, would be handy when you have off days and no clients to tend to.

♥ I wish I had known that I would need to build and create a list from day one.

♥ I wish I had known that I would need to create a freebie to capture clients and that a list is important but without the freebie, it’s like staring at a sign hoping that it will answer you.

♥ I wish I had known that I will need a website from day one.

♥ I wish I had known that I had to research who my ideal client is; the same thing as having a targeted niche to work with.

♥ I wish I had known that I would need the assistance of a coach who had gone down that road and can assist me with my business guide.

♥ I wish I had known 10 years ago that I would be a business owner so that I could prepare myself for all this work.

The wishing continues.

♥ I wish I had known that from day one, I can’t do this all alone so I would need the help of others, such as hiring out for help to run a business.

♥ I wish I had known that I would need a business and a marketing plan.

♥ I wish I had known that marketing would be hard and even if you have a website, you will need to reach other clients when those clients do not need your services on those off days.

♥ I wish I had known that in order to go from step D in the process of creating a business I can’t go pass step A, B, and C. Where is a complete guide when you need one?

♥ I wish I had known that I would have to create content, schedule newsletters, emails and use tools that will support me.

♥ I wish I had known that it’s best to schedule your days for a specific task to be completed so that I am better to organize on what to achieve.

♥ I wish I had known that creating a website and even having content, clients will not miraculously come to me unless they have encountered me before.

♥ I wish I had known that I would need to register my business in my home country as well as doing this in the country of my clients because I am not protected from copyright in my clients’ country.

♥ I wish I had known that even though it’s exciting to create a business that it would be nice to have support from other like minded individuals in my field because trust me, my family will not and can’t relate.

♥ I wish I had known what to do with each step in order to create a business, from even from high school, telling me that you need to go to this school to learn this, but then again with the trends changing every minute online, it would be best to learn more online.

What are yours ‘I wish I had known’ facts before creating a business? You do not have to list all 20 of yours here and even if you have more, but do please share your top 5 of what you wish you had known before creating a business.

It was nice of you to stop by.

Until then, happy hiring, and best wishes with your business.

Don’t forget to check the sidebar and footer of this website for awesome resources!

Photo Credit: Haute Stock

The best (and worst!) moments since starting my business

8 / 12 / 16 12 / 23 / 17

How are you from the last time you read my blog?

If you are new, welcome to my blog!

Starting a business is not easy; it’s a lot of hard work. There will be a time when you want to share your wins and the not so wins that you are so scared of at times to share these losses. If you are like me, you might beat yourself up with such a loss.

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I am taking another approach where I want to share my wins and the not so wins with you.

From the time I started my business online I was always worried about if I would be able to do so much and yet still be able to achieve my goals. Mind you, giving up is not an option because I do like what I am doing and I have decided that since I do like this, this is where I want to offer my services.

One of my best moments was?

So here goes my best moment when I started my business: this might not be too large as yours or maybe a big one compared to you, but my win is that I have the freedom to choose whom I want to work with and how much I want to earn.

I must stress this because, as you can imagine, there is no boss telling me that this needs to be done, right now and how much I will be earning. Mind you because I do set my rates, I determine how much I will earn and how many clients I would want to work with.

Now tell me which job allows you to choose the freedom of working for yourself, setting your time and also choosing who you want to work with. I know that it must be scary when you do start your business but this has been my “why” from day one.

Ok, you might be thinking, “my win so far is too broad” but to narrow down my best moment and the one that took center stage for me, was when persons are interested in my services and actually pay for what I am offering.

Drum roll for the worst moment!

My not so best moment was when (where it might not be a very bad one to you) I did not achieve a particular goal in the specified timeframe. I considered it to be a learning lesson.

So out of all the losses I have experienced, I think it was time. I had to draw back from this mind frame and take a step back to view what happened in such a situation because I must admit I tend to beat myself up when a particular win is not achieved on schedule.

What I had planned to do when I experience a not so win was try the other rest of the alphabets. I know that this might not be the best advice for you and your business, but when I got stuck in a rut and needed support for such a case in going back on track with my goals.

I called in the big guns! This support may take the form for you as a business coach or a mentor; trust me, you will not know everything even if you try, on your own. Even if you do not invest in a business coach I am sure there is a coach out there to support you whether it’s through your mind, body or soul.

Now that you have heard my wins and my not so best moments for my business, what will you do differently to achieve your wins?

Psst, before I go I wanted to share how I always gain support when I am having one of those “blah moments”. I recently created a Facebook group for us women to network and share our expertise. I know that if we all come together and unite we can make a vast difference in helping someone else who was at our stage a day, week, month or even a year ago.

I know that if we all come together and unite we can make a vast difference in helping someone else who was at our stage a day, week, month or even a year ago. This is a closed group so at no time will your information be shared publicly outside the group; everything here is shared with confidence. If you are interested you can request to JOIN

It was nice of you to stop by.

Until then, happy hiring, and best wishes with your business.

Don’t forget to check the sidebar and footer of this website for awesome resources!

Photo Credit: Haute Stock