It’s that time of year again … pages of backpacks, note-books and back-to-school clothing fill every circular that hits your mailbox. And you’re off to the races … the races being the mall, plus every other store in between.

You’re in the same spot you were last year this time, getting ready to head off to work while your kids head off to school. Back to hugging them goodbye in the morning and seeing them just long enough in the evening to say I love you and tuck them in.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the easier schedule of the summer lasted all year long? No more spending all your hours away from your kids just to earn enough money to cover the essentials and pay daycare?

Take it from someone who knows both sides of the deal here and believe that there’s no time like right now to make the transition from the regular grind to working from home. As the proud Mom of a 2005 honors graduate who’s heading off to college soon, I know first hand what a major impact working from home has had on his success.

When my son was very young, I worked a full-time job away from home, plus at least one part-time job on weekends. This meant that my son was in daycare while I worked. As a single parent who didn’t receive child support (for years) though, I had no other choice.

A few years later in the 1990’s, I decided there had to be a better way so I started a part-time medical billing service from my home. This allowed me to give up the outside part-time job and gave me the practical means of earning the much-needed income. Best of all, it gave me the priceless opportunity to take care of my son while I worked. I quickly saw that I was onto something great here … what a concept!

I moved from the east coast to California with my son in 1995 where my first full-time job was with a consulting firm co-owned by a professional speaker. After some negotiations with my boss, we entered into an agreement by which I would work mornings in the office, leave to pick up my son from school in the afternoons and work from home the rest of the day. It worked out incredibly well … so well in fact, that in 2000, I decided to leave the consulting firm and start my own full-time home based virtual assistant business.

Starting from scratch, I knew that gaining exposure for my business was essential if I wanted to be successful in my new venture. I also knew that traditional forms of marketing are very expensive and quickly gobble up the profits, particularly in the early stages. However, I also remembered a technique that I used successfully for my former employer.

Besides being a consultant and professional speaker, he was also an author, so his goals included increasing his number of speaking engagements and selling more copies of his books. He hoped to accomplish these goals by establishing himself as an expert in his industry, which meant having his work published by every major magazine in his field.

Committed to accomplishing his goals, he gave me a list of those publications, so I drafted a query letter based on one of his story ideas and e-mailed it to the editor of one of the magazines. The editor responded in short notice and offered my employer an article assignment. They published my boss’s article soon afterwards and featured it on the cover of the magazine, producing an onslaught of calls to the office!

Writing and submitting that one article produced several paid speaking engagements. This new marketing intrigue fascinated me, so I fine-tuned my article submission process creating logs and checklists, and within a few months, my boss had accomplished his goal of publication in every magazine on his list!

Even online and in-print publications we hadn’t contacted began calling and e-mailing in request of articles. The results of writing and submitting articles was so successful that we put other major marketing techniques on hold so my boss could travel to his paid speaking engagements.

As my interest and experience grew in this area of marketing, I knew that if it worked for my boss that it would work for other professionals as well. Soon, I was earning over half my income handling article submissions for other professionals.

Then I realized that if this technique worked for other professionals that it would work for me too in building my own business. And it has worked for me!

This same marketing technique, which I call marketing with articles, has been the success behind my own business. I’ve used it to expand my client base and build my virtual assistance business into a solid income-generating company, which has allowed me to work full-time at home for the past five years. As my son is getting ready to leave for college, my personal goal now is to help other parents be successful in achieving their career goals while living the dream of staying home with their children.

The concept of marketing with articles does not require a professional writer. Anyone can be successful in building their business and gaining credibility as an expert in their industry or area of expertise by writing and submitting free reprint articles to online and in- print publications. The key to success is in reaching your target audience with resourceful information that is valuable to them.

Editors of both online and in-print publications are in constant demand of quality content for their readers. They have a continuing need to publish content that appeals directly to their target audience, which is where you come in. By writing and submitting free reprint articles to publications that reach readers in your market, you have the opportunity to establish yourself as an expert and gain a generous amount of exposure for your business.

True, you aren’t earning money for actually writing the articles, but you are earning a huge payoff here. Not only do you establish your credibility as an expert in your industry or area of expertise, but you earn significant exposure for yourself and your business. Most editors will include your byline with your articles, which gives you the opportunity to include your name and contact information, plus the URL of your web site. Readers come to recognize your name and relate it with certain topics. The more articles you write and submit, the more exposure you gain!

The marketing with articles technique helped turn my dream of working from home full-time into a precious reality that has made a positive impact for both my son and me. As he goes off to college, he’ll be leaving with all the benefits of having had a mom who found a way to support him financially without the high cost of being away from him all day. Me, I’ll have the benefit of knowing that the bittersweet wind I’m putting beneath his wings comes from my deepest desires for his complete success!

About The Author:

Bonnie Jo Davis is a full-time work-from-home mom who built her business on the concept of marketing with articles. An accomplished writer and marketing strategist, she offers over ten years of success in writing and submitting articles for gaining exposure and growing your business. Visit http://www.ArticleSubmissionSites.com to learn how her technique offers the means for success in starting and/or growing your own business.

About this time last year, a client asked me to investigate setting up a blog for her business. She’d read about it in a business marketing newsletter and thought it might be worth looking into.

On first look I wasn’t sure that this was the way to go, however, to fully understand what’s involved, I set one up for myself and learnt how to tweak the template, using www.blogger.com, registered it with blog search engines and explored blogging communities.

This didn’t happen overnight – it really took me months to get into it, but slowly I started to see what the benefits could be, if I put some time into it. I chose to write about things that had happened during the week in my own particular industry.

Today I own several blogs but only 3 are business related, the rest are personal interest blogs. All get traffic that is growing and I find that when someone visits one, they also visit the others too, and periodically leave comments when they find something that relates to them. I also get people emailing me saying “I didn’t know that…” – it’s given those who are interested, a window into my life, so to speak.

So, if you’ve been thinking about a blog for yourself, where should you start?

1. You need a topic of interest that you can contribute to on a regular basis – at least weekly. If it’s infrequent your audience will lose interest. There’s a whole community (actually several) out there who spend spare time surfing blogs – stats seem to indicate people also surf blogs whilst at their workplace. Of course, if your blog is business-related, that makes sense.

2. Next, have a look at the free blog services available to you – there are a choice of templates and their system is a simple to use, like a word-processor, so it’s easy to get started. I use both www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com and recently installed wordpress on my own server.

3. Choose a name for your blog – if you run a business you’ll want something that relates to your business name or industry. Mind you, if have a hobby you’re passionate about, you could set one up for that too.

4. Create your account and enter your first post. It only takes 5-10 minutes to set up and you’re on your way! Easy.

5. Take time to explore the system, make sure you switch on the search engine services so it gets listed quickly with Google and other search engines. The listings seem to show up much quicker than regular websites. Seek out other blog search engines to list with.

6. Make notes in your diary to post again on a regular basis, so it becomes a habit.

7. Place a link on your blog back to your business website and vice versa.

8. Spend time surfing other blogs (in Wordpress and Blogger you just have to click on ‘next blog’ in the navigation bar at the top right hand corner) and learn from others.

9. There was mention of an a-list being developed of the top Australian blogs and there is a very noticeable lack of women bloggers on that list – so far. See the article at http://duncanriley.com/2006/03/20/the-a-list-of-australian-bloggers.

Happy blogging!

About the Author
Kathie M. Thomas, AFAIOP, MVA, ASO is the founder of “A Clayton’s Secretary”, a Virtual Assistant Network with members in many countries. Dedicated to teaching others about operating business over the Internet, Kathie is a multiple award winner as both a Secretary and Virtual Business Operator, and has over 30 years’ experience in the secretarial/administrative field. She registered her business in March 1994 and is one of the senior VAs who launched the industry globally. http://www.vadirectory.net.

Virtual Assistants (or VAs) perform many different tasks for their clients. They do everything from proofreading to helping their clients provide great customer service to web site design and web site maintenance to setting up teleclasses and sending out newsletters to many more.

Since virtual assistants perform all these tasks from their own offices, a virtual assistant business is a perfect business to promote online. I have taught online marketing to many virtual assistants, and here are top 5 tips I have for you, whether you are just starting a new virtual assistant practice or you are a seasoned VA:

- Find A Target Market For Your Virtual Assistant Business. I have seen too many virtual assistants who are just starting their own businesses take on everyone as their target market. While it might be tempting to say that everyone is your target market, finding a smaller target market will help you create a better marketing message, get clients faster, and ultimately, succeed with your business.

- Have A Professional Web Site. Since you are offering professional virtual assistance services, it is only fitting that your web site has a professional image.

Make sure that your web site has a professional look and feel and creates a good first impression for your potential customers.

- Explain What You Do. Not everyone is familiar with the term virtual assistant. Make sure that you explain what it is, and what services you provide. Telling your prospective clients about your services will make it easier for them to understand what you do.

- Drive Traffic To Your Web Site Using Article Marketing. Article marketing is a great way to show your expertise and promote your virtual assistant business. When you publish articles, each one of your articles comes with a Resource Box. The Resource Box contains information about you and your business. However, the most important thing that the Resource Box contains is a link back to your web site. Web sites and blog owners who reprint your article include your Resource Box with a “live” link back to your web site. Thus, your articles help you generate a unidirectional (one-way) links to your web site. These unidirectional links are great for driving more traffic to your web site.

- Get a Blog and Start Blogging. A business blog is an excellent tool to toot your own horn, let the world know about your virtual assistance business, as well as your services, and tell your target customers why they should do business with you, rather than your competitor. A business blog is also a great tool for attracting potential customers to your blog and your web site.

Use these five tips to take your virtual assistance business to the next level. Internet is a great place to promote your business and find clients – make sure your use Internet marketing techniques to promote your virtual assistant business.

About the Author
Biana Babinsky is the online business consultant, expert and author who teaches virtual assistants how to get more clients online and make more money. Learn how to make more money with your virtual assistant business by getting her free report, How To Get More Clients For Your Business Online at http://www.EffectiveOnlineMarketing.com/report.