The Simple Solution

Great Book on Using Radio PR

Bill Stoller of Publicity Insider one of my favorite PR guys shared this great resource in his ezine today; and I thought I would share, especially since it's free until May 24th:

Radio Publicity maven Alex Carroll knows a thing or two about getting radio coverage -- he’s sold over a quarter of a million books by guest booking himself on nearly 1,400 radio shows. 

He’s compiled his 15 years of radio publicity experience into a new 177-page PDF manual, and best of all, he’s offering it to all Publicity Insiders at no-cost!

You must order before May 24th to get this free offer, after that it will go on sale at the site for $49.

Click here to order.

Ordering Tip: when you get to the order form, Don't enter your credit card info - this is a no-cost offer.

Free Teleseminar

Most of you know that I am a huge supporter of the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce, and volunteer my time there because of all of the great work going on by the founder Danielle Keister and the other members to help elevate the profession of Virtual Assistance and promote our industry.  Each month we host a Free TeleSeminar geared towards helping Virtual Assistants and Professional Service Providers develop and grow a successful practice.  Here are the details for this months call, I hope you can join us, and feel free to pass along this information!

How to Insulate Yourself from Your Competition, Protect the Price of Your Services and Avoid Becoming a Commodity

Presented by Jim Logan, Marketing Consultant

DATE: Thursday, May 17, 2007
TIME: 5pm PST / 6pm MST / 7pm CST / 8pm EST
LENGTH: 60 minutes (please call in 10 min. early)
COST: FREE!

For Virtual Assistants and other professional service providers, there's little more frustration than offering a high-value service that's measured as a commodity--a service offered by many and compared by price.

Newcomers and offshore companies add to the frustration with discounted offers and low-cost operations. The temptation to lower your prices is great. Some days it feels like discounting your service is the only thing you can do to protect your business.
In reality, you have lots of options to discounting your service. You don't have to be a low cost provider to attract new clients or protect your customer-base. That's a fool's game you can't win.

Join Jim to discover how you can protect your position in your market, insulate yourself from common competitive pressures, avoid the pressure to compete on price and discounted services, and how to attract your ideal client. On this call, you'll learn how to avoid being viewed as a commodity and stand out from the crowd, resulting in higher margins, better clients and greater satisfaction in your work.
Several things we'll discuss:

• The three things your prospective clients consciously or subconsciously think about when deciding whether or not to purchase your services;
• The most important thing to highlight when describing your service;
• Why the least valuable thing you have to offer your customer is your time;
• How to increase your hourly rate without billing by the hour;
• How to differentiate your service from your competition and attract your ideal client;

And much more!

Click here to register today!

Savvy Tax Saving Strategies

The IRS has launched a new publication for Small Business Owners that is a great resource.  Publication 4591 not only links to some great tax saving benefits for small business owners and the self employed; but also provides handy links to other federal and state agencies. 

I recommend bookmarking the site for easy reference.  Spend a little time reading up on how the laws may apply to you and your business.  You just might see where you can save yourself some money!

Teleconference Tribulations

As part of our business development, most of us are participants or presenters of teleconferences (or both)!  The service I recommend to my clients to use for bridgeline service is Free Conference Call.  For a free service they have the best customer service I have encountered and offer the ability to record the call, and after hosting many conferences with their services I have never had any major technical difficulties.  They also offer several other services including Free Voice Center which allows you to set up a Virtual Call In Message Center with multiple mailboxes for free!

Several weeks ago however, some of the major cellular phone services began blocking calls to many of the free conference line services, despite the fact that this goes against FCC regulations.  Here is an excerpt from the most recent update I have received from Free Conference Call.

"As we know many of you have seen, the news media and bloggers have been covering the fact that Cingular/AT&T, Sprint and Qwest have been blocking some of our FreeConferenceCall numbers. Our goal with this month's newsletter is to separate fact from fiction, and, more importantly, set the record straight with the answers that you so richly deserve. We have spoken extensively with customers, competitors and lawyers to fully assess the situation and the implications for FreeConferenceCall users.

Last week, some of our Cingular and Sprint customers began calling into customer service with issues surrounding their connections to our service. After speaking with Cingular's customer service group, our customers were given numerous, and unfounded, reasons for the call blockage. Reasons cited included fraud, international forwarding, fee disputes and, to our astonishment, that we were blocking our own FreeConferenceCall numbers. We cannot corroborate or justify any of these reasons. FreeConferenceCall would never knowingly impede our customers from using our services. For now, we can tell you that a Cingular spokesperson has gone on record and stated that their terms of service gives them the right to block any number they wish and also said that AT&T's wireless service is "between one person and another person, not between one person and many." Cingular and Sprint have chosen to block service to our shared customers regardless of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules and regulations. Neither carrier has ever directly complained, filed suit or even contacted FreeConferenceCall. The upshot is that carriers are basically telling you that a cell phone is not intended for use on conference calls of any type."

To solve some of the immediate issues surrounding this problem, Free Conference Call is offering new numbers to use for your future teleconference needs.  It is easy to obtain a new number, simply go and "re-register" for a new account.  The new number you will receive should be free from the blockage issues, at least for the time being.

It is important that all of us ban together and send complaints to the FCC and our State Attorney General letting them know about this unfair trade practice and that we as consumers will not stand for it. 

Free Conference Call has created a blog to serve as an information portal where you can find more information and stay up to date on the developments of this sticky situation that is all to reminiscent of net neutrality.

 

Shortcuts for Typing

I have put the autocorrecting abbreviation shortcuts I have learned in Computer Speed Typing, by Stephen R. Crilly; into practice over the last couple of months, WOW what a timesaver!

I admit I was a little hesitant to get started because the book is 94 pages, but once I dug in, I found that it is an easy read, and is formatted to allow you to quickly begin putting what you are learning into practice.  The appendixes are very extensive and really give you everything you need to jumpstart using this method of typing.

Although I started with just a few abbreviations, I quickly saw how easy this was and how many keystrokes it saved.  I am hooked!

I strongly recommend anyone who does a fair amount of typing in Word or WordPerfect (instructions for both are included!) to get this book.  It will pay for itself in saved time.