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Write GREAT Articles that Make YOU a CLIENT MAGNET

…..even if you’re terrified of writing

By Alexandra Amor The Write Virtual Assistant

Use this key (and FREE!) marketing strategy to help you create your ideal VA business

Version 1.0 ISBN 0-9734456-2-9

2006 Alexandra Isabel Amor, The Write Virtual Assistant www.virtual-success.com

All rights reserved for entire book. Reproduction or translation of any part of this work by any means without

permission of the publisher is unlawful. You do not have resell rights to this book.

Write Great VA Articles www.virtual-success.com

2006 Alexandra Isabel Amor 3

My personal request to you.

Please don’t copy or give away this manual.

Hundreds of hours of time were put into making it. If you have friends or associates who are interested in the material provided in this book, please refer them to my web site, Virtual-Success.com, to purchase their own copies. Honouring this request will enable me to continue to create materials and books such as this one to support the Virtual Assistant industry.

Thank you!

Warmly,

Alexandra Isabel Amor The Write Virtual Assistant [email protected]

http://www.virtual-success.com



About the Author

Alexandra Amor has been an entrepreneur since 1999. She left corporate life to pursue a long-held dream to work from home in order to support her passion for writing. Two years after building a successful Personal Assistant business, which provided entrepreneurs with administrative support on-site in their home-offices, she discovered Virtual Assistance and realized it would suit perfectly her talents, skills and passions. Alexandra was supremely fortunate to benefit from the expert guidance and

mentorship of Mary Lou Ashton, Canada’s Master VA and to begin work almost immediately with Coaches, her chosen niche. She filled her VA practice in less than 14 months and became hooked on the idea of working at home, doing what she loves every day. Her client roster spans North America. Alexandra teaches VA Marketing teleclasses for the Canadian VA Network and is a regular contributor to their monthly e-zine, with her VA Marketing column. Her monthly e-zine, The Full Practice VA, shares tips and success strategies for filling a VA business quickly. She is the author of Virtual Success: How to be the Virtual Assistant everyone wants to hire as well as Working for Coaches: A Guide for Virtual Assistants. In her spare time, Alexandra loves to walk in nature, meditate and to read mystery novels, self-improvement literature and children’s fiction. Her two imaginary dogs are named Eleanor (Lennie for short) and Wilbur. Alexandra has blue eyes, red hair out of a bottle and a weakness for bagels and chocolate reugela from her local Jewish deli.



Table of Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 6

Why Marketing Articles Work .......................................................................................... 8

How to Use this Book.................................................................................................... 11

Part One: Secrets No One Shares About Writing.......................................................... 14

Secret #1: Writer’s Block is Like the Flu .................................................................... 15

Secret #2: Set a Deadline.......................................................................................... 17

Secret #3: WYSIWYG, Pah! ...................................................................................... 19

Secret #4: Writing is Revising.................................................................................... 20

Secret #5: Left Brain, Right Brain, Never Both .......................................................... 21

Secret #6: Writing is Like Golf.................................................................................... 26

Secret #7: Elements Your Marketing Article MUST Contain...................................... 28

Part Two: The Practice Range ...................................................................................... 31

Practice #1: Daily Journaling ..................................................................................... 32

Practice #2: Tandem Writing ..................................................................................... 34

Practice #3: The World Famous Egg Timer............................................................... 34

Practice #4: The Writing Gym.................................................................................... 35

Part Three: The Big Picture.......................................................................................... 38

Part Four: Your Article Framework................................................................................ 44

Part Five: All About You ................................................................................................ 46

Part Six: Article Submission Checklist........................................................................... 53

Part Seven: Now What? ............................................................................................... 54

Appendix A: Sample Marketing Article .......................................................................... 59

Appendix B: Resources................................................................................................ 64

The ONE Marketing Strategy That NEVER Fails .......................................................... 65



Introduction

Welcome to the information age. As a Virtual Assistant your first priority is to fill your

business with as many clients as you wish. How you present information to your prospective

clients is a key element in enabling you to fill that practice. This book will enable you to learn

more about the skills, techniques and practices required to write articles that drive prospective

clients toward your business.

The home-based business sector is the fastest growing of the new economy. In order to be

successful, all these self-employed professionals are going to need one thing sooner or later; a

Virtual Assistant.

Your job as the Director of Marketing in your business is to educate your potential clients about

how you can help them. Because Virtual Assistance is such a new and inexplicable idea for most

people your objective is to help potential clients understand why working with a VA is such a

brilliant and supportive relationship for their business. You can do this by writing great articles

that introduce the concept of Virtual Assistance, while providing potential clients with useful

information that will support their businesses.

Everyone Googles

To ‘google’ has become a verb, as in, “I googled my ex-boyfriend’s name and found out that

he’s married/the CEO of a Time-Warner company/working with an acrobatic circus troupe in

Nepal.” This is good news for Virtual Assistants because home-based business owners are

googling to find ideas about the ways and means to make their businesses run more smoothly,

more efficiently and make them more money. Positioning your informative, helpful articles on

the internet is a FREE way to drive traffic toward your business.



Even better news is that you don’t need a web site to use this free marketing strategy. If you have

a web site, that’s great, but it is not imperative. In fact, I think sometimes it can be a disadvantage

when a VA has a web site. It’s possible (and very common) to put a lot of time, effort and energy

(not to mention money) into building the site. Then after all that hard work we sit back and expect

the world to beat a path to our virtual door. Experience has shown me that this hardly ever happens.

The reality is that marketing a Virtual Assistant business is much like marketing any other kind of

business and is done using many varied techniques, not just one.

The more tools you use to market your business, the more quickly you will be able to fill it with

ideal clients. Writing articles is one great tool that you can add to your toolbox that will support

you to do this. Here’s why.



Why Marketing Articles Work

Your ideal marketing strategy always involves building relationships of trust with potential

clients. The good news about this is that there isn’t one way to do this, there are many. Writing

great articles is one of the best and here are the four powerful reasons why:

1. An article sets you up as being an expert in your field. It’s human nature that when we

see something in print we believe the person who wrote that article (or book) to be

knowledgeable about the subject of the article. Becoming known as someone who is

informative and helpful about Virtual Assistance will help spread your marketing net to a

wider audience.

2. The very best way to market any business is to build relationships of trust with potential

clients. Prospective buyers of your service need 7 to 10 points of contact with you and the

idea of Virtual Assistance before they will be ready to climb on board. Articles provide a

means for you to add to your list of ways that prospects can come into contact with you.

3. Your articles will be in your voice. In this book am going to share with you exercises,

theory, tools and a framework that will enable you to feel confident writing a great

marketing article. What I’m not going to do is write the article for you. There’s a very

good reason for that. Your articles need to sound uniquely like you! When they do, this

adds a powerful element to the strategy of relationship building as your best marketing

plan. Your audience will be able to hear your voice in your articles and they will connect

with you more closely by hearing that unique voice. This will provide them with

information about what it will be like to work with you, whether they consciously

recognize that while they’re reading or not.



4. The ‘Resource Box’ at the end of every one of your articles is the powerful way to bring

potential clients one step closer to your business. These seemingly harmless 10 or 15

words that close your articles may not seem like much on the surface but they are one of

the most powerful tools you can have in your marketing tool kit. We’ll spend a section of

this book learning how to create a skillful and effective Resource Box so that your

articles are put to their best use; building your business.



Maybe You’d Rather Have a Root Canal

Let’s face it, writing can be intimidating. Even established, successful, prolific writers

sometimes don’t enjoy it.

“I hate writing; I love having written.” Dorothy Parker

I’ve used writing consistently now for several years to market both my Virtual Assistant business

and the e-books I have written. It gives me great pleasure to be able to share with you all the

strategies and tactics (and some tricks) that I’ve used that will enable you to create great

marketing articles over and over again, and ensure that they have your unique voice and promote

the unique services that you provide.

What I plan to do is to provide you with a framework for creating informative, useful and

practical articles that will both educate your potential clients and drive them to your virtual front

door. What I hope also happens is that you become more relaxed about writing and even come

to enjoy it.



How to Use this Book

You’re welcome to read this book in any way that suits you, of course, depending on what

you know about your own learning style. Having said that, I do have a few suggestions that

you might wish to consider.

1. Try reading the book all the way through once, without doing any of the exercises. This

will give you an overview of this large topic and may prevent you from getting bogged

down too early and/or feeling intimidated by what can, at times, seem like a daunting

task.

2. Then, as the saying goes, eat the elephant one bite at a time. Once you’ve digested the

ideas and strategies from 30,000 feet, come in for a closer view and begin trying out

some of the preliminary exercises.

3. In each section you will find this icon:

When it appears, you will find a short exercise that may stretch you but that will

help to build your writing confidence. You can try the exercise at the time that

you are reading the section, or you can come back to it at a time when you want

to build some writing muscle. You can also use these exercises to ‘limber up’

before tackling a bigger writing project (like an article). Just as in physical

fitness, we usually want to stretch before we use our muscles, so that we don’t

injure ourselves.

4. Part Two of this book is called The Practice Range. Here you’ll discover some more

involved writing exercises. I suggest you complete at least three of these (not all at once)

before you begin writing your first article.



5. Writing is deeply creative, whether we are writing marketing articles, fiction, brochure

copy or a letter to a loved one. When we write anything, we are attempting to make a

deeper connection to both ourselves and other human beings. For this reason I consider

writing to be a sacred act. And so I ask that you treat yourself kindly and with great

compassion when you begin the exercises in this book, and at any time that you write.

This act of reaching both outward and inward to connect can be frightening and can bring

up our critical voices in ways few other things in our life do. Please be gentle with

yourself.

6. Because you will be tapping into the creative forces in yourself and in the world to create

your articles, you have tremendous support available to help you. You are not doing this

alone! Ask for inspiration if you feel stymied about what to write about. Ask for a little

creative guidance if and when you get stuck part way through an article. Ideas for article

titles and subjects will pop into your head when you get used to relying on the support of

‘creation’.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein



A Few More Suggestions

As we begin, I’d like you to keep these few things in mind:

1. Try not to tense up, even if you’ve loathed or feared writing in the past. Keep breathing.

Writing is like yoga (and sex); it’s more fun and less dangerous if you relax into the flow

of it.

2. Remember that you can print the workbook pages of this ebook as many times as you

like, so feel free to mark up those pages as much as you’d like. Every time you write a

new article you can reprint the workbook pages and start fresh to generate great new

ideas.

3. Throughout the book I’m going to refer specifically to writing ‘articles’ – because that’s

what this particular book is about. However, keep in mind that every strategy, every tool,

every idea, and every exercise that I’m going to share about writing articles also apply to

EVERY kind of writing you have to do in your business. Brochures, web copy, keynote

speeches, even business cards. I hope that you’ll feel free to use these tools and strategies

any time you have to write anything to promote your business.

4. Keep an open mind. At one time or another, I’ve used all of the strategies and tools I’m

about to share with you. My suggestion is that you don’t discard any idea without first

trying it. After you’ve tried them all, you may find that some of them work better for you

than others. You may find that the most powerful and useful exercises for you are the

ones that you initially resist.

5. Have fun! (See point #1.)

Be like a duck, my mother used to tell me. Remain calm

on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.

Michael Caine



Part One: Secrets No One Shares About Writing

Until now!

Writing is a creative act – no doubt about it. Because of that, there seems to be a tremendous

amount of mystery and misconception that surrounds it. My experience is that this mystery leads

many people to feel intimidated and downright frightened of putting pen to page or fingers to

keyboard.

Before we get started building the framework for your great marketing articles, I’d like to spend

time debunking some of the myths you may believe to be true about writing. Here in Part One,

you’ll begin to breathe easier about writing and we’ll take some of the terror out of it for you.

We’re going to talk about ‘writer’s block’, creative mind vs. editing mind (and why that distinction

is so important), unusual techniques for writing an article that really do work and all the elements

that create a successful marketing article.

Parts Two through Seven of this e-book are the workshops where we will create a

framework together for your marketing articles.



Secret #1: Writer’s Block is Like the Flu

Let’s address this powerful myth right off the bat. No one is immune from sickness throughout

their lives. And no one who writes is immune from feeling blocked or stuck on occasion about a

writing project. The good news is, that just like the flu, feeling blocked is not a terminal diagnosis.

You will recover.

Writer’s block is essentially a fear of saying the wrong thing or feeling unable to write clearly

what you want to say. You may not experience this impediment in exactly the same way a

novelist does, but you might experience its closely related cousin, procrastination.

Have you ever considered writing an article (or content/copy for your web site, or a brochure – it’s

all writing) and found yourself putting off the task over and over again? Or finding other, more

urgent things that needed your attention first? (Like bathing your guinea pig or buff-waxing your

mountain bike.)

Well, fear not. I’m going to equip you with tools that will guide you through, around and over it so

that you can complete that writing project. Building any successful business requires that you

communicate what it is you do skillfully and in a variety of formats (web copy, brochures, articles,

ezine content etc.). The more comfortable you are with writing, the more successful you will be

creating these promotional materials and this means your business will grow more quickly and with

more ease.

First of all; get over yourself! (I mean that in the nicest way possible.) Everyone, and I mean

everyone, experiences some form of fear or block around their next writing project. If you listen to

the writers’ commentaries on a DVD (Sex and the City comes to mind, or Entourage) you’ll hear

writers and other creative people talk about their fear and procrastination around writing. And

they’ll talk about the tricks they use to get themselves to produce the next episode.



There was one year when Aaron Sorkin was writing two TV shows at the same time (The West

Wing and his lesser known but equally brilliant Sports Night). I read a hilarious interview with him

where he discussed how he had managed to do this and the answer included lots of procrastination

and lots of goofing around in his office playing garbage can basketball instead of writing. After a

few days of this, and when the day that he had to hand in the next episode was staring him in the

face, he would get serious and put in concentrated time and effort and get his writing done.

The important strategy for battling writer’s block and procrastination is Secret #2.



Secret #2: Set a Deadline

Nothing keeps a person motivated and focused like a deadline. I speak from very intimate

experience. I am teaching the content of this ebook as a teleclass a week from the time of this

writing. I notice I get much more productive and prolific the closer that I get to that date. And, in

fact, my motivation for setting the date of the teleclass and advertising it was that I knew it would

force me to get this project done.

Two weeks ago, when my deadline was still a month away, I basically diddled away the time I had

set aside for writing. I talked on the phone to a couple of friends, I had my web master make some

changes to my site and I went and got a hot chocolate at the Starbucks near me and read the paper.

Today, I feel much more pressure and I have written seven pages so far in a very short period of

time. I’ve only got a few more days until this book needs to be ready for the class participants so

I’m getting serious about getting it done.

Now, unfortunately writing a marketing article doesn’t come with the same requirement for

completion as presenting something to the public. So we’ll have to find ways for you to create the

illusion of pressure. Setting yourself a self-imposed deadline for an article you want to write won’t

work unless you have someone you’re accountable to. If you simply say to yourself, “I’ll write

that article by the 15th

” what’s the consequence if you don’t do it? Right; there isn’t one.



I suggest you find a way to set a deadline that is real and that you are

accountable for. Here are some suggestions:

Commit to a friend or VA colleague that you’ll hand the article over for proofing

by a certain date and make sure that this person holds you accountable.

Or, even better, make a commitment at a networking event or speaking

opportunity to provide the article to your audience. That will get you moving!

Another idea is to find a potential client and commit to sending them an article.

Or find an ezine that your target market reads (we’ll talk about this in more detail

later when we discuss ways to use your article) and volunteer to submit an article

for their deadline.

Sometimes we can’t rely on ourselves alone to accomplish everything we want to. There’s

nothing wrong with putting a little accountability into place to get ourselves in gear.



Secret #3: WYSIWYG, Pah!

Have you ever seen a white board or a flip chart page after a group has been brainstorming or

making a plan of action? There are circles and squares all over the place and arrows pointing every

which way. Different coloured pens have been used and sometimes sticky notes are added on top

with new ideas. Basically, it looks like a dog’s breakfast. Incoherent to all but those who were in

the room at the time it was created, indecipherable perhaps, and certainly the opposite of clear and

concise.

Now, pick up any book in your home; how does it look? Isn’t it a thing of beauty? The font is

uniform and gorgeous, the chapter titles and headlines all make sense and they match the table of

contents. The author’s paragraphs all flow clearly from one idea to the next in a logical and easy-to-

understand order. The ideas contained in the book build on one another in a pattern that makes

sense.

Did that book come out of that writer’s pen looking like that? Of course not! It began its life

looking something like the dog’s breakfast flip chart page that I described earlier.

One reason I believe we are often intimidated by writing when we begin is because we expect it to

start out looking like the finished products we see in bookstores and libraries. Trust me, in any

writing project WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) does NOT apply.

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers:

when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip. Elmore Leonard



Secret #4: Writing is Revising

Say it with me: “Writing is revising.”

I learned this in a very expensive and prolonged business writing course I took years ago. The class

was all about semi-colons and paragraph structure and writing coherent technical user manuals and

I remember almost nothing from it except this one idea that has now become my mantra. For this

one idea alone, the class was worth every penny and every tortuous moment spent trying to pretend

my eyelids weren’t dropping shut.

Only 20% of the total time you spend writing should be spent writing the first, rough draft.

The remaining 80% of your time is spent revising, rewriting and moving ideas around and

finding ways to be clearer. And then rewriting again.

Everyone who writes well does this. No one talks about it. But now you know and can use this

idea to be less intimidated when you sit down to write a first draft of your marketing article and

your ideas don’t come out of your pen the way you imagined they would.

When you let this idea sink in, it will set you free. I guarantee it. You’ll realize that when you

first begin to write something you can be as messy and disorganized and unclear as you want to

be. Your ideas can be all over the place and your grammar and spelling are allowed to be

completely atrocious. Later, when you’re revising and polishing and moving stuff around your

article will begin to develop the clarity and structure that your grade 11 English teacher was

looking for.

What’s our mantra? Writing is revising!!



Secret #5: Left Brain, Right Brain, Never Both

Here’s the reason why the mantra from Secret #4 is so true. I’m not a biologist but I’m about to

share a little bit of information you may not know about you brain. And how you can use this

knowledge about your brain’s structure to create witty, wise, wonderful articles. (You didn’t

expect to get a biology lesson in a book about writing, did you? …I’m full of surprises )

I learned this fact in that same business-writing course (imagine what I’d have learned if I’d been

awake more often!). The combined power of these two ideas alone have enabled me to not only

find joy in writing but to promote and quickly fill my Virtual Assistant business by writing

articles and to create a successful online information product business.

As you probably know, your brain is divided into two hemispheres. (Stay with me; I swear this

is as complicated as the biology lesson gets.) One hemisphere (the left) is the more linear and

logical side. It processes information in pieces, lining them up and creating a whole out of the

sum of the parts it is presented with. The right side tends to be the more creative and artistic

side of your brain. It processes information holistically, seeing the big picture first.

The best solution for writing great articles is to try to stay on the right side of your brain during

your first draft.

“Ok, smarty pants,” you’re saying, “how do I know when I’m using one side of my brain and

not the other?”



I’m glad you asked. When you begin writing your article do your best to simply pour your

ideas out onto the page without censoring yourself. Be as messy and illogical as you wish,

like we talked about in the previous section. Don’t worry about putting your ideas in logical

paragraphs or requiring that they flow clearly from one to the other. Simply write down, in

any format, a rough draft of what you want to say.

If you begin to edit yourself while you’re doing this, (or censor or correct yourself mid-idea)

that’s when you move over to the left side of your brain. Once you do that, you’ve moved out

of creative thought and into linear thought. The trouble with this is that once you’ve gone from

the right side to the left side of your brain, it’s difficult to get back.

Have you ever been typing a sentence or paragraph on your computer (in an email message,

say) and as you type your eyes notice that you’ve spelled a word incorrectly earlier in the

sentence. So you stop typing and back up and correct the spelling mistake. When you try to

pick up your thought where you left off, you realize that you’re stuck and you can’t remember

what else you wanted to say.

That experience is one of switching from the creative (right) side of your brain to the linear

(left) side and then feeling the challenge that comes from trying to moving back to the creative

side.

I’m not endorsing left-brain amputation, by any means. Your left brain is valuable beyond

measure. It is the part of you that catches spelling mistakes and checks your article for accuracy

and coherence. Those of us who are detail oriented spend most of our time in our left brain,

making sure the Ts are crossed, our car oil change is done on time and that our napkins match

our dinner set. The importance of understanding the left brain’s role in writing is to recognize is

that it has a specific (and very necessary) place in the process and to make sure that you only get



it involved when you’ve reached that place. Bring on the left brain! But only after your right

brain has had an opportunity to say everything it wants to say.

There are many ways to combat the challenge of keeping your left-brain out of the

picture until you and your right brain are ready for it.

Some of my favorites are:

Use a pen and paper instead of typing directly into your computer. Your brain is less

likely to try to edit your own writing that it is to try and edit when it sees those angry

red underlines Word puts under words you’ve mistyped or misspelled.

If you’d rather not use a pen (some people find it slows them down) then close your

eyes when you’re typing your first draft. I’m not kidding! Open up a new document in

Word, think of what you want to say and then close your eyes and type it. Your editing

brain won’t be able to get involved in the process until you open your eyes again. Just

make sure your fingers are correctly placed on the keyboard or you’ll never decipher

what you typed!

Dictate your ideas out loud. I had a client who wrote his articles for magazines this

way. He isn’t able to write without editing himself, so we would get on the phone and

he would speak his article out loud and I would type it madly into a Word document.

You can dictate to a colleague like this, to a tape recorder (and then transcribe what

you’ve said) or to an audio recording program in your computer.

Write your ideas for your article down in point form first. Make a list of what you want

to say quickly, in bullet form. Then, from that list, create your paragraphs.



Start with a mind map. This works in a way similar to the idea above, but it’s more

visual. Place your central idea in a circle in the middle of a blank page. Then elsewhere

on the page write your ideas for subtopics of the central idea. (There may also be

subtopics to these that extend outward.) There’s a sample mind map on the next page.

Mind maps are VERY right-brained activities.

Set an egg timer for five minutes and begin writing. Make a deal with yourself that you

won’t edit or stop writing until the timer goes off.

Limit your distractions. Turn off the phone, turn off the radio, clear some mental and

physical space for creative thought.

If you think that something small cannot make a difference,

try going to sleep with a mosquito in the room.

Anonymous



Sample Mind Map

Sample Mind Map courtesy of: http://www.jcu.edu.au/studying/services/studyskills/mindmap/index.html



Secret #6: Writing is Like Golf

A few years ago, when I was still working in captivity in a large corporation, my department

organized a summer golf tournament. I signed up based solely on the fact that I could invite the

golf-loving man I was romantically interested in to be on my team; I personally had never so

much as held a golf club in my life.

Next step; golf lessons, so that I wouldn’t make a total fool out of myself. Fortunately, my step-

father loves golf the way I love breathing and I was able to convince him to give me a few

preliminary lessons. We started on the practice range and once he got me holding the club

correctly, one of the very first things he said to me was this: “A golf swing is not a natural

motion.” What a wise man! As soon as he said that I felt my body and my brain relax. It had felt

odd holding the club the way he had shown me and standing the way he had instructed. So when

he explained that it was not supposed to feel natural I felt so much better.

Writing is like a golf swing. It seems as though it should be natural. After all, you know how to

speak in complete sentences and paragraphs; in fact, you’ve been doing that since you were a

very tiny person, and you didn’t even get any formal training to learn how to do it. And you

write every day, especially now that email has become a very pervasive element in almost

everyone’s life. And you read; look! you’re reading right now.

However, writing is not as natural as talking and it requires much different skills than reading.

As we’ve discussed, it requires you to use both sides of your brain, but at different times in the

process, which is not natural at all. It also requires being both the writer and the reader; we

need to ensure that what we write is understandable to our audience or what’s the point?

Just as in golf, practice is what will make the difference between feeling awkward and feeling

skilled. Like anything, the more you practice the better you get and, even more importantly,

the more confident you’ll feel when you sit down to write anything. I’m going to share some



simple writing exercises with you now to help you build up that confidence, but first I’ll share

a story.

We’ll stay with our analogy about writing being like a golf swing for a moment and I’ll tell you a

story about Tiger Woods. Tiger’s coach, Butch Harmon, was being interviewed once about what

practices and habits he thought made Tiger the greatest golfer in the world. Butch shared an

example of Tiger’s work ethic. He said that he’d given Tiger an exercise once to help make some

changes and improvements to his swing. Butch said that when he’s given this exercise to other

students of his, that they’d go away and hit half a bucket of golf balls and come back to Butch

and say they’d mastered the exercise. When Butch gave the same exercise to Tiger, Tiger went

away and practiced it for six months before he went back to Butch and said he felt he had it

mastered.

Writing is like golf in this way too. We can’t write three paragraphs every two months and

then expect ourselves to feel confident writing a coherent, helpful article for our target

audience.

Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course

- the distance between your ears. Bobby Jones

(The same is true of writing!)



Secret #7: Elements Your Marketing Article MUST Contain

In order for your article to be most effective, and therefore create the greatest amount of interest in

your business possible, it must contain the following three elements.

1. It must address a challenge, pain or need that your audience experiences.

2. It must provide a solution to this challenge

3. It must always address the question ‘What’s In It For Me?’

Let’s talk about why each of these elements is so important.

1. Your audience will appreciate your writing more if the articles you present to them address a

challenge they commonly face. Knowing what challenges and worries and fears your

audience (business niche) faces is key to developing a relationship with them. When we

read information that speaks to a problem or need we have we naturally feel understood.

You want your audience to feel you understand the problems they face so that they can

begin to trust the solutions you have to offer.

2. Which brings us to the second essential element of any successful marketing article.

Providing a solution to the challenge you’ve addressed. Human beings are wired to want

freedom from pain, whether it is physical or psychological. Present your solution (or several

solutions) clearly and with confidence and you’ve just taken the second crucial step in

developing a relationship of trust with your potential clients.



3. Remember that your readers are always tuned into WII-FM radio. What’s In It For Me?

What they most want to know is what you can do for them. How can you make their lives

easier? In your solution(s), and when you address their challenge or pain, make sure that

you always keep your audience’s perspective in mind:

What questions might they have about your topic?

What objections might they have to what you’re saying?

What specific applications of your solution can you offer?

How can you make it as easy as possible for your readers to apply your

solution?

How might they normally be solving this challenge and why is your solution

more effective than that?

How will your solution affect their bottom line? Or save them time and money?



Summary of What We’ve Learned

The Seven Secrets of Writing that You Can Now Use to Your Advantage 1. Writer’s Block

Everyone experiences it There are proven strategies to get around/through/over it

2. Setting a Deadline

There’s nothing like pressure from the outside world to get us writing 3. WYSIWYG

Your finished product will NOT look like your first draft – and it shouldn’t Don’t worry about being coherent at first Create a first draft that is as messy as you wish

4. What’s our mantra? “Writing is Revising” 5. Stay on the Right Side (of the road, the law and your brain) 6. Writing and Golfing; a surprising comparison

It’s not supposed to feel natural Those who are great at it practice, practice, practice

7. There are three key and essential elements for any marketing article

a. Address a challenge, pain or need b. Provide a solution c. Your audience always wants to know WIIFM.



Part Two: The Practice Range

Well, are you still breathing? Part One was all very left-brained and it may take you some time to

digest the information I’ve shared so far. That’s ok. This is not a race or a test. The best way to

integrate the ideas and tools in part one, is to practice them in the real world (also known as your

business). To help you do that, this next section contains the three best ideas for taking what

you’ve learned and applying it to your own life and to the creation of your own, unique

marketing articles. Then we’ll enter The Writing Gym where you’ll discover some writing

exercises that you can use to pump up your writing muscle.

The key thing to remember while you’re reading and coming to grips with these practices is that

you’ll see the most results if you use at least one daily. I know, I know, I sound like Oprah’s

trainer Bob Greene, but honestly, the same principle applies to physical exercise as it does to

building your writing skills and muscle. Even if you only spend five minutes a day doing one

practice, over and over again, I guarantee that it will bring you more confidence and skill about

writing.



Practice #1: Daily Journaling

In her classic book on creativity, The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron swears by a practice of

writing three pages of free-flowing thought each and every morning. I’ve been using this tool,

on a daily basis, for almost five years and I have received more benefit from it than I would have

dreamed possible.

The best part is, it couldn’t be simpler. First thing in the morning, before you begin working (I

even do mine before breakfast) sit down in a quiet place and use a pen to write in a journal. It

doesn’t matter what you write about or how coherent the writing is. That is not the point. You

simply want to get used to having pen on page and letting ideas and thoughts run from your

head, through your arm and onto the page.

When I practice this each morning I write about anything, simply to keep my hand moving for

three pages. I’ll write about plans for the weekend, or feelings I have about my life or thoughts

about what to do next with my business or dreams I had the night before that somehow seemed

significant. I let myself bitch about things I don’t like and whine about my lot in life. At Ms.

Cameron’s instruction I let myself be as petty or petulant or childish as I need to in that moment.

No one ever sees what I’ve written, and in fact, I don’t even go back and read the previous days’

or weeks’ entries. This writing is not ‘on the record’; it’s not meant to become anything or have

any significance in our lives other than to build our writing muscles and get us used to being

quietly creative.



Daily journaling has three specific purposes:

1. It teaches us to let our ideas flow,

2. It trains us to be able to sit still and write, and

3. It teaches us to be able to ignore the critical censor in our heads.

You may wish to keep a separate workbook or notebook specifically for this writing. I write my

daily pages in a spiral notebook and do not use that notebook for anything else.

Ms. Cameron suggests that morning is the best time to put this practice into place; she calls

them Morning Pages, and that is when I do mine. However, I believe that like exercise, what

really matters is that we do them daily, and that when we do them in each 24-hour period is less

important. You know what rhythms work best for you. Simply find a time that works for you

and stick to it.

If you have never practiced writing like this in the past, it will feel awkward and clunky at first.

You may feel self-conscious and that you have nothing to say. Persevere. That awkwardness is

exactly what this practice is trying to work out of your system. The daily pages will get you used

to writing so that when you approach your first article you will feel a bit more confident. You

will know that you CAN sit and write.



Practice #2: Tandem Writing

Once again, I’ll use an exercise analogy. Like physical exercise, sometimes writing is more fun

if there’s another person involved. Find a friend or colleague who is willing to get together

with you once a week (or as often as you’d like) to write. This exercise has the added bonus of

providing built-in accountability.

I’ve put this practice into place most often in coffee shops in my local neighborhood (or the

neighborhood of my writing buddy). My buddy and I will meet and buy a fluffy coffee or other

yummy drink and chat for a while. Then we’ll sit quietly together and write.

Make an agreement with your buddy before you begin about how long you would like to write

for and after your initial chat, try to keep the talking to a minimum until your writing time is up.

When I’ve used this practice, sometimes I’ll journal, other times I’ll work on a project. The

comfort and companionship of having a writing buddy takes a little bit of the edge off of the

often-solitary act of writing.

Practice #3: The World Famous Egg Timer

A classic way to get ourselves to write something we’ve been avoiding or to work on a

challenging writing project is to set an egg timer for a short period of time. Make a deal with

yourself that you will set the timer and that you won’t stop writing until it goes off. When you

first begin to use this practice, you can set the timer for as short a period of time as you are

comfortable with. Four or five minutes is a good place to start. Doing this on a daily basis will

train you, and your mind, that you are able to site and write.



Practice #4: The Writing Gym

Here are ten specific exercises you can use to get your right-brain limbered up.

1. Think of five business goals you’d like to achieve in the next 12 months. For five consecutive

days, write one paragraph about each goal.

1.

2. 3.

4.

5.

2. Buy some fun stickers and on each day that you do five minutes or more of writing,

put a sticker on your calendar congratulating yourself. (I know this could sound

juvenile but I swear it works. It’s a system I use all the time when I’m trying to coax

myself to make a new skill habitual.)

3. If you write for at least 10 minutes on five consecutive days, reward yourself with

something you’ve been wanting. (A new purse, a facial, a scented candle…..)



4. Think of five ways you’d like to change the way you do business and write a

paragraph about each.

1.

2. 3.

4.

5.

5. Write a paragraph or two about why you fear/loathe writing. Get your thoughts and

fears down on paper – you’ll find they lose most of their power this way.

6. Write a short letter to a mentor or colleague who inspires you, telling them why

you’re grateful for what they’ve taught you. (Whether or not you send the letter is up

to you.)

7. If you have a frustrating day, write down your thoughts before you share them with

your spouse.



8. Write a one-or-two-paragraph review of the last book you read or movie you saw,

even if you hated it.

9. Each day for five days, just before lunch, write one paragraph about what your

morning was like and what your intention is for the afternoon.

10. Take yourself to a beautiful spot in your area and write. (Below is a photo of one of

my favorite places in Vancouver to sit in my car and write.)



Part Three: The Big Picture Hopefully by now you’re limbered up, you’re feeling a little bit more confident about writing

and you’re almost ready to begin writing an article that will confidently and successfully market

your services.

I’m a firm believer in solid foundations. Life has taught me that if I spend time before a project

(or a conversation or a change in life direction) establishing a solid foundation, that I have much

more ease and success achieving what I set out to accomplish. When I sail off into a new idea

without preparing a foundation, I tend to run into roadblocks more quickly and they seem to

defeat me more easily. When we have a solid foundation underneath us, the challenges that come

our way are less likely to deter us.

(Just as an aside, I want you to know that I’m writing the paragraphs on this page at my

computer on a Tuesday night. I normally write my first drafts of anything using a pad and pen,

but tonight I thought I’d break with tradition a little bit. And guess what? I’m sitting here with

my eyes closed, sending my thoughts from my brain and heart into the computer keyboard. I

don’t open my eyes, even when I know I’ve make a typing error. And the ideas flow quickly and

easily. When I do open my eyes to check what I’ve written, I feel myself pop into my left brain

and it takes me some time to get back into the creative side of my brain when I close them again.

Later I will print out these pages and edit them and they will change but I’m ok with that. I know

that what I say in my first draft doesn’t have to be the final word on this topic.) (Amazing, huh?

I can even follow my own advice!)

Ok, back to The Big Picture.



Following are questions that you may feel tempted to skip over altogether, if you think you

already know the answers. That’s up to you; however, I humbly suggest you take the time to

complete this section. You might discover some surprises about your business that you had not

considered before. This new information will help you to write the best articles possible. Even if

you don’t discover anything that is completely new to you, you will have a concise and focused

place from which your articles can grow.

Consider the following to get a clear understanding of who your articles are for and you will

discover what it is that this audience most needs. Then you can suggest ways that your business

can fill those needs.



Who is Your Reader?

1. What is your target business niche or niches?

2. What services and/or products do they provide?

3. What do they know about Virtual Assistance?



4. What do they not know about Virtual Assistance?

5.What business support might they already have?

6. How do they complete the administrative tasks of their business now?



7. How many hours a week do they spend on administration?

8. What challenges do they experience in their business now?

9. How long have they been in business?



10. What objections might they have about working with a VA?

11. What fears might they have about working with a VA?

Inside the answers to these questions is a gold mine of information about your readers.

Addressing their fears, challenges, and objections to hiring administrative support (i.e. you) is

the best way to write an article. You will be addressing a need/fear/pain and providing a solution,

as we talked about in Part One.

By answering these questions thoughtfully, or finding out the answers from someone in your

niche, you will have provided yourself with at least 10 ideas for great marketing articles. Well

done!!



Part Four: Your Article Framework

For each article you write, you can fill in the framework below, so that you are perfectly clear

about what it is you want to say. This framework is like an outline that you can draw from and

relax into to create the ‘meat’ of the article. Set up the frame first, and your ideas and solutions

for your audience will flow safely into it.

Title: ___________________________________________________________

Subtitle: _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Need/Challenge/Fear being addressed: ________________________________

________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Solutions for above: 1 ______________________________________________________________

2 ______________________________________________________________

3 ______________________________________________________________

4 ______________________________________________________________

5 ______________________________________________________________



What’s in it for your readers? (i.e. will they save time/money? Will their bottom line be increased? Will they increase their sales? Remember, they want to know WIIFM.)

1 ______________________________________________________________

2 ______________________________________________________________

3 ______________________________________________________________

4 ______________________________________________________________

5 ______________________________________________________________

Other thoughts and ideas:



Part Five: All About You

Great work! You’ve really been putting your back into this and it’s going to show great results.

From now on, your marketing articles will have a clarity and focus that they did not have before.

AND they’ll benefit from the access you’ve given yourself to the creative side of your brain.

Now, all this information isn’t worth the paper you’ve written it on, unless your article includes

the following three powerful and totally essential elements:

1. A short (25-word) summary that focuses on the benefits your article contains.

2. A kick butt Resource Box.

3. A compelling call-to-action for your readers.



Let’s begin with Essential Element #1: A 25-word summary of your article. If you submit your article to an article-submission service (such asSubmitMyArticles.com - more

about this in Part Seven) they will ask you for a short description of your article. This short

description can be used in other ways as well.

You can use it on your web site, if your article is a free give-away. Have the short

description posted on your site and then visitors can click to view or download the

complete article.

You can post the description on an on-line forum that your niche visits. Again they can

click through to either your web site or email you to receive the complete article. (You

can also post the entire article, if you wish.)

You can use the description in other marketing documents and invite readers to contact

you to receive the article.

To create the short description, go back to your article framework and look at the summary

you’ve created of the challenge you are addressing and the solutions you’re proposing for that

challenge.

Begin the description with a brief outline of who you are:

i.e. “Author and public speaker Mark Victor Hansen…”

or “Virtual Assistant and Home-Based Business Efficiency Expert Sally Jones…..”

Before we move on, try writing an outline that you might use for your description.



Then describe, very briefly, what your article is about. Focus on the solutions you provide.

i.e. “…shares ten ideas for battling writer’s block.”

Or “…answers the five most burning questions entrepreneurs have about how to use a

Virtual Assistant.”

Or “…provides six ways you can improve efficiency in your business and boost your

bottom line.”

Now, pull these pieces together in a way that will provide readers with information about you

and piques their interest in your article.



Essential Element #2: A Kick Butt Resource Box

I don’t know why this piece of information is called a ‘box’ because it isn’t in a box, and it

doesn’t box anything, but ….whatever. In the marketing article industry, that’s what it’s called.

A Resource Box is the two or three lines you see at the bottom of any article that provides you

with information about the author. In a newspaper, the Resource box might be as simple as this:

Bob Jones is the West Coast features writer for the Globe and Mail.

But for our purposes, your Resource Box needs to do two very important things:

1. It needs to tell readers what they most want to know about you, and;

2. It needs to get them to take an action that moves them one step closer to committing to

working with you.

It is essential to remember that just having your audience read the fantastic article you’ve created

is not enough to market your business. You MUST ask them to get in touch with you and/or

provide a way to add them to your database of potential clients. Otherwise, you have simply

written a great article that gets archived and never sees the light of day again.

Remember, that with your marketing articles you are driving traffic TOWARD your business,

not just providing helpful information for free. In sales talk, the Resource Box is the ‘closer’; it is

the single most powerful element that your article contains. Without it, your writing efforts have

been for nothing.

Have I stressed this point enough? I’m a little bit rabid about this because it is so very important.



So let’s go about creating a Kick Butt Resource Box.

Begin by thinking of five things that you ARE: (i.e. Virtual Assistant, Small Business Expert,

Organizational Consultant etc.).

Then, think of five things that you DO for your target audience (i.e. improve their bottom line,

allow them to focus on work they love, etc.).



Now, comes the Kick Butt part: Essential Element #3.

I want you to think of five actions your readers can take that will bring them one step closer to

hiring you. This may require a bit of thought and ingenuity on your part, but it is the ONE

ESSENTIAL THING your Resource Box MUST contain.

Here are some examples:

Sign up today to receive Barbara’s weekly tips sheet on how to reduce the

administration costs of your business. www.BarbaraJoVA.com

To receive Sally’s Top Ten list of mistakes entrepreneurs make when they are building

a business email her at [email protected]

For a free information session on how Virtual Assistance can end your administrative

woes, contact Eleanor at [email protected]

Get the idea? You’re asking your readers to take action.



Pulling it all Together

Now, in the spaces on the previous pages where you’ve listed who you are, what you do and

what action you want your readers to take, highlight your favorite in each section.

Then, gather those elements together into your Kick Butt Resource Box. (Remember, you can

edit and revise this as much as you want. Try one out for a while, and if you’re not getting the

results you want, try it another way.)

My Kick Butt Resource Box



Part Six: Article Submission Checklist

My article has been spell-checked.

My article has been proofread by a colleague or friend.

My title is concise, and addresses a need or challenge of my audience.

I have covered the three essential elements of article-writing

I have addressed a challenge my audience experiences. I have provided solutions to this challenge. I have stayed focused on What’s In It For My audience.

I have included a Resource Box at the end of the article.

That Resource Box contains a call-to-action that leads my audience to my business.

I have created a 25-word summary of my article to use on article-submission web sites.



Part Seven: Now What? I have good news; the hard part is over. What comes next is the easy and fun part of marketing

your business and converting potential clients to paying ones. You can use your article in as

many ways as you see fit. I’ll share the three that worked best for me when I was filling my

Virtual Assistant business, which include strategies I also use now to promote and build my

ebook business.

1. On-Line Article Submission Let me first explain what on-line article submission is. The

internet has added many ways to market your business, including of course, having a web site.

Submitting articles on-line means that you are making your article available to those who are

looking for articles to use in their ezines or web site content. When we do searches on the

internet about information about a subject, often we find an article that someone has submitted to

a site. In other words, web surfers are looking for information, and your article is posted on the

internet for them to discover.

As part of this ebook package (in a separate PDF file), you received a list of 52 web sites that

you can submit your articles to on-line. My good friend and VA colleague, Lorraine Carol,

provided on-line submission services to self-employed professionals for a while (it’s not just

VAs who use articles to market their businesses). She did a tonne of research over the course of

many months and became known in the industry as the go-to girl if you wanted your article

submitted on-line. This list comes to us courtesy of her expertise and hours (and hours) of

research. The web sites on this list are all entirely free and they all have a search engine ranking

of 10 or better; all it takes is some time to go to each site and submit your article. The increased

presence of your article(s) on-line will also increase the occurrence of your name when Google

does a search for it. This in turn is good for your business, as the easier it is for people to find

you, the more business you will attract.



Earlier I mentioned SubmitMyArticles.com, and as a paid service for on-line submission of your

article I think this is the best place to go. If you decide that manual submission to article web

sites is too labour-intensive, you can give SubmitMyArticles.com a try. This web site provides a

variety of ways for you to get published on-line and start driving traffic to your business. There

is a fee involved – submitting one article is $25 – however, if you gain even one client from that,

your article will have paid for itself many times over.



2. Free Give Away This is the way that I used the articles I wrote when I was building my

business. I’ll sound like a dinosaur, but when I was marketing my VA services, article

submission was yet to pop over the horizon as a marketing strategy. So I used my articles in ‘old

fashioned’ ways. These ways still work today! Don’t be afraid to use them.

Anyone who expressed any kind of interest in my business received a copy of the two

marketing articles I’d written. If a colleague or current client mentioned someone was

interested in hiring a VA but didn’t know how to proceed, I emailed them the article as

an introduction to Virtual Assistance and myself. This was my relationship-building

strategy – remember we talked about relationship building as your best marketing

strategy? It worked to provide information about Virtual Assistance to those who didn’t

know much about it and to introduce them to me – they heard my voice in the articles.

If I was at a networking event or an event where I was speaking about Virtual

Assistance, I took a stack of my articles and handed them out. My Kick Butt Resource

Box invited them to take action and contact me to find out more about how I could

support their business and leave them time to do more of what they loved.

If anyone emailed me with questions about Virtual Assistance I replied with an answer

to their questions, and then also attached the articles to my reply.

I gave the articles to a colleague who was a member of my niche and she had my

permission to send them to anyone who wanted information about Virtual Assistance.

I offered a colleague who was writing an ebook that was targeted at my niche to include

the articles as a free bonus in her book; as long as she included my Resource Box, of

course!!



I sent copies of my articles to all my friends and relatives, as a way to introduce them to

what I was doing and educate them about Virtual Assistance. Heck, you never know

who your friends and family are going to be talking to.

If I had had a web site (which I didn’t – and I built my business in record time – so

don’t feel any pressure to have a web site) I would have added every article I wrote on a

page on that site and invited people to download it.

I rented a booth at a small-business expo and had the articles in stacks on the table for

interested entrepreneurs to take (along with a brochure and business cards etc.)

You can read (and use, if you wish) the two articles I wrote that were most successful for my

business in my book Virtual Success: How to Be the Virtual Assistant Everyone Wants to Hire.

They are called “The Why of Hiring a Virtual Assistant” and “The Top 10 Ways to Use Your

Virtual Assistant”.

Are you getting the idea? There are probably a zillion (ok, maybe not quite that many) other

ways you can use your article to market your business. Think creatively about your niche and

your contacts (your ‘circle of influence’) and ways that you can share your articles with them.

http://www.virtual-success.com/info/virtual-success.html



3. Ezines/Magazines/Newspapers/On-line Forums Your target niche reads certain ezines and

magazines and web sites and newspapers and on-line forums. If you do some research and find

out what those are, you can then submit your article to them. This is a very powerful strategy,

because you are reaching out to exactly the target audience that you want to work with.

One of my favorite, and most effective, strategies with the articles that I write, is to post them to

the on-line forums that my target audience reads. I notice that I get immediate response from

these posted articles, in the form of new subscribers. You can also normally go back to the place

where you’ve posted the article on the forum a few days or weeks later and see how many people

have read it. Readers can also respond to your posting, which can get a bit of a dialogue going

and creates interest in the topic you’ve written about. And, as an added bonus, if you post

repeatedly to the same forum, you will become known throughout your niche as a resource and

support-provider for that industry. An expert in your field!

My experience has shown me that an article posted on an active on-line forum receives a

tremendous amount of interest and drives a lot of traffic toward my business. It was well worth

my while to spend time finding forums that target my specific niche and to become a member

(membership is almost always free) so that I could post my articles.

You can also use your articles, of course, in your own ezine if you have one. Having an ezine

that is informative and useful to your niche is a great way to stay in front of those who are

interested in your services but might not be ready to hire you as soon as they find out about you.

To learn more about how to effectively write and use an ezine to grow your business visit The

Ezine Queen’s website.

http://www.mcssl.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=305249



Appendix A: Sample Marketing Article

Following is an article I used recently to promote my ebooks for Virtual Assistants. This article

was submitted to The Big List of 52 on-line article submission sites. Throughout the article, I’ve

added footnote numbers that highlight the elements of a successful article that we’ve discussed in

this ebook. After the article I reference them and explain more. With this sample article, you’ll

see all the elements and principles that we’ve talked about in this book put to use. This will show

you that the successful writing principles we’ve talked about may start out as rules and a

framework, but with practice they morph into informative and (hopefully) entertaining articles

for your target niche.



Your Home-Based Virtual Assistant Business:

Five Reasons Why Being a VA Works 1

By Alexandra Amor

A couple of years ago one of my clients got her first Blackberry. She explained that she could send and receive email (among other things) wirelessly from this device while she was on the road. I like to think of myself as someone who is fairly comfortable with technology, yet it still took me a few moments of question-asking and head-scratching before I got my brain completely wrapped around the idea. If you’re thinking of starting a home-based Virtual Assistant business (2), you may experience a similar sort of befuddlement. How can it work to be an assistant for someone if you’re not right there in their home-office? How can you possibly ‘share’ the responsibility and support of a business from a remote location? 3 Today, I’ll answer these questions and more and, hopefully, provide some encouragement and lots of practical advice about how to really be ‘Virtual’. Here’s how it works: 4 1. Technology is your new best-friend. My Blackberry Befuddlement didn’t last very long and after I got over being ashamed of myself for being a leery as a Luddite of this new technology I realized that the experience brought home this very important point for Virtual Assistants. As a VA you will use email more than you ever thought possible. Sharing documents with your clients will become routine very quickly. Services such as web calendaring will make you weep with joy (your client syncs her hand-held device to her computer AND to a web calendar, which you can access from your computer. Now you can book appointments for her as if you were sitting in her lap, holding the pointer yourself.) You’ll ‘meet’ with your clients once or twice a week via telephone and wonder how you ever got along without using a telephone headset. Eventually you’ll become the person in charge of setting up and managing your clients’ web site shopping cart, or their audio recording account or a conference line account. And this brings us very neatly to the second reason Virtual Assistance works. 2. A VA-Client Relationship is one of Trust. The longer you work with a client, the more of their business you will be entrusted with. Think of a CEO’s executive assistant who can anticipate what the CEO needs before he/she needs it and who knows more about personal preferences for airline seating and lunch and favourite hockey team than anyone. That’s what a VA becomes for each client. You will work almost silently (but not invisibly) in the background, keeping the wheels of the business moving, thinking of new creative ways to support your clients and to take administration off their desks.



3. Systems and Practices. With every new client you’ll very soon begin to understand the things that occur repeatedly in their business. Once you’ve observed this you can set up a system that best supports your client. Systems are the VA’s second-best friend. For example, if your client travels a great deal, you can establish his seating preference, find out what his airline points plans are and what his preferred lodging is. Then, every time your client goes on a trip, he can let you know where he’s going and when he needs to be there and you’ll take care of all the rest. You’ll have his credit card number on file (because you’ve established a relationship of trust with him – see reason #2) so you can book everything, have the e-ticket and hotel confirmation sent to him and even book a limo to pick him up in enough time to get to the airport. 4. The Pony Express. Now just because you’re running a virtual business doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of ‘old-world’ services. Couriers, Express Post, Kinkos – all these are used regularly in a VA business. Sometimes your client will need you to make edits to a training manual or transcribe some flip chart pages that she created at a workshop. There’s nothing wrong with combining virtual and reality. 5. A Good Fit. The perfect pair of jeans is always a challenge to find. But when you do, oh boy! It was worth the search. The same applies to VA clients. Not every self-employed entrepreneur is going to be a good fit for your business. That’s ok; you don’t need them to be. Sometimes potential clients with a home-based business will be more comfortable having their assistant with them in their office (even though we now know that’s not necessary). When you are clear with potential clients about all you can do for them, many of them will be able to adjust to the idea of virtual help. I’ve seen it happen! Consider these five reasons why Virtual Assistance works to be a brief toe-dip into the rapidly expanding world of home-based businesses. A little creativity, lots of tenacity, a little technological savvy and the skills of an in-office administrative assistant go a long way to creating your ideal Virtual Assistant business. 5 Alexandra Amor filled her Virtual Assistant business in record time; her e-books explain how new VAs can do the same. She teaches effective yet un-inhibiting VA Marketing strategies via teleclasses and her monthly e-zine The Full Practice VA. Sign up to receive her free 20 Essential VA Success Habits at

www.virtual-success.com 6

http://www.virtual-success.com



1. Title: Once I’d written the article I brainstormed about what title would effectively capture

what I am sharing in the article. I tried to find a title that hinted at the solutions I was about to

provide: “Why Being a VA Works”. This title immediately shows the reader that it is going to

provide solutions or answers to questions new VAs have.

I also made sure the title was aimed straight at my target audience (new Virtual Assistants). I

say “Your Home-Based…”; I want the reader to know before they even begin the article that I

am thinking about them and their needs.

2. My Target Audience: In the second paragraph, I make it very clear to whom I am speaking

(those who are thinking of starting or who have started a Virtual Assistant business). I want the

reader to know that I am completely focused on their needs/fears and challenges so I state, right

out loud, who this article is for.

New VAs are my target niche because that who I write my ebooks for. Further along, in my

Resource Box, you’ll see how I ask them to take an action that will drive them toward my

business and one that will enable me to begin building a relationship with them.

3. Addressing the challenge: Based on my experience I know that very often those who are

thinking of becoming a VA have questions about how it can possibly work to support a business

remotely. In this case I phrased the challenge as questions that new VAs might have. This was

an attempt to, again, really relate to the reader and focus on what they need.

4. I provide a solution to that challenge: As we’ve discussed, people love to be informed in easy-

to-understand ways. Short lists of five or six action steps people can take or

pieces of information they need are a fantastic way to share your information in small bites that

your readers will be easily able to digest.



5. WIIFM: The whole point of this article was to provide information to those who are just

starting or who are thinking of starting a VA business. That point is brought home at the end of

the article, but I really tried to stay focused on that throughout. What’s in it for my readers is

information about what they need to know to take the next step for their business and, hopefully,

some peace of mind as some of their questions get answered.

6. My Kick Butt Resource Box: Well, there it is. A bit of info about me and the all-important

call to action. I establish that I am someone who knows what I’m doing when it comes to

building a VA business, and what other resources I have available to my readers. Then I make

the call to action. Notice that in exchange for the reader’s time and effort when they go to my

web site they receive something of value. I don’t just say “sign up for my ezine”. I tell them

specifically what valuable item they will get if they take the action I am requesting of them.



Appendix B: Resources Over the years I’ve read many (many!) books about writing and creativity. If you are interested in learning more these are the ones I suggest. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron The Right to Write by Julia Cameron Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block This book is mostly concerned with writing fiction, but many of the ideas about creativity also apply to business writing Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck I recommend this book at every opportunity I get. It’s not about writing; it’s about finding and fulfilling your truest purpose in life. One day, I am going to buy a box full of this book and keep them in the trunk of my car and hand them out to everyone I meet. The Ezine Queen: Alexandria Brown If you want to learn more about on-line marketing and how to use an ezine successfully, Ali Brown is your girl. I have learned more from her about being a successful entrepreneur than from any other single source. You will find her here: The Ezine Queen.





The ONE Marketing Strategy That NEVER Fails I’m going to return once again to the fairways and putting greens of golf to share a story about

the one marketing strategy that never fails. (Boy, for a person who doesn’t golf, I sure talk about

it a lot!)

Mike Weir is a Canadian golfer on the PGA tour who is consistently in the top five or six golfers

in major tournaments. He won the famed Master’s Tournament at Augusta in 2003. It wasn’t

always thus. Mike first declared himself a professional golfer in 1992 at attended qualifying

school for the first time that year. (PGA players have to pass qualifying school, or Q school as

it’s often called, in order to be eligible to play in PGA events). He failed to qualify in 1992. And

in 1993. And in 1994, 1995 and 1996. Then (after qualifying in 1997) in his first three full

seasons on the tour, he made $4.3 million (U.S.) in prize money.

I keep a file folder called “Persistence” in my filing cabinet in my home-office. I have an article

from the Globe and Mail about Mike Weir in that file (which is how I’m able to recite the info

above – I’m not a man; I don’t keep those kind of statistics in my head). And any time I run into

a story or article about persistence I clip it and add it to the file. The file has become a tangible

reminder to me that very often those who have been successful at achieving their dreams and

goals have not been handed those things on a serving tray. They’ve had to work very, very hard

to achieve them.

When you are marketing your business, there will be times when you feel like giving up. I can

guarantee you that you will feel like you are sliding backwards at times and achieving very little.

And you are not alone if you find that you have to work and work and work to get your business

off the ground. However, the value of persistence when we are building businesses from scratch

cannot be underestimated.



The good news is that once the momentum begins to build, your persistence will have paid off.

You will gather speed and confidence (and clients!) as you continue to pursue your goals.

I’ll leave you with a powerful quote I first heard at a talk given by Erin Brockovich (yes, that

Erin Brockovich). Her father had given her this quote years before and to this day she carries it

around on a scrap of paper in her wallet.

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent

will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with

talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan

"press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the

human race.”

Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States

To Your Success,

Alexandra Amor Virtual Success



Did You Find This Ebook Useful?

Then You’ll Love My Ebook: Virtual Success: How to Be the Virtual Assistant Everyone Wants to Hire

Writing great marketing articles is only ONE part of building a full and thriving Virtual Assistant business.

You’ll need to use many other strategies and skills to create a business that will support you.

Those who have read and use the skills and tactics from Virtual Success say this:

"As an experienced Virtual Assistant, I believe we grow and learn a lot from others who have traveled the same path. "Virtual Success" showed me new opportunities for growth and improvement. Thank you Alexandra for sharing your experience as a VA." Danielle Guérin www.vadg.ca





"Virtual Success" provides a practical roadmap of "what

to expect", "what to avoid" and "how to succeed" in the

world of virtual assistance. As a relatively new Virtual Assistant to the industry, I am constantly on the lookout for information solutions to guide me through the ongoing process of establishing and developing my practice. Alexandra delivers a top-notch overview of the realities of pursuing a career in virtual assistance in such a way that the reader feels that she is talking directly to them. Her encouragement, combined with her humour and candor makes this a "must read" for anyone currently in, or contemplating a VA practice of their own. Marion Tripp Virtual Option

For MORE information about how you can fill your Virtual Assistant business quickly

and with less hassle visit my Virtual Success: How to Be the Virtual Assistant Everyone

Wants to Hire information page.

Now is the time to achieve the entrepreneurial success you’ve been dreaming of, and

I’m ready to show you the way, step-by-step.

It’s never too late!

To Your Success,

Alexandra Amor, Virtual Success





LEGAL DISCLAIMER

The author and publisher of this report and the accompanying materials have used their best efforts in preparing this report. The author and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this report. The information contained in this report is strictly for educational purposes. Therefore, if you wish to apply ideas contained in this report, you are taking full responsibility for your actions.

Every effort has been made to accurately represent this product and its potential. Even though this industry is one of the few where one can write their own cheque in terms of earnings, there is no guarantee that you will earn any money using the techniques and ideas in these materials. Examples in these materials are not to be interpreted as a promise or guarantee of earnings. Earning potential is entirely dependant on the person using our product, ideas and techniques. We do not purport this as a “get rich scheme”.

Any claims made of actual earnings or examples of actual results can be verified upon request. Your level of success in

attaining the results claimed in our materials depends on the time you devote to the program, ideas and techniques mentioned, your finances, knowledge and various skills. Since these factors differ according to individuals, we cannot guarantee your success or income level. Nor are we responsible for any of your actions.

Materials in our products and our website may contain information that includes or is based on forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities litigation reform act of 1995. Forward-looking statements give our expectations or forecasts of future events. You can identify these statements by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. They use words such as “anticipate”, “estimate”, “expect”, “project”, “intend”, “plan”, “believe” and other words and terms of similar meaning in connection with a description of potential earnings or financial performance.

Any and all forward-looking statements here or on any of our sales material are intended to express our opinion of earnings

potential. Many factors will be important in determining your actual sales results and no guarantees are made that you will achieve results similar to ours or anybody else’s, in fact no guarantees are made that you will achieve any results from our ideas and techniques in our materials.

The author and publisher disclaim any warranties (express or implied), merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable to any party for any direct, indirect, punitive, special, incidental or other consequential damages arising directly or indirectly from any use of this material, which is provided “as is”, and without warranties.

As always, the advice of a competent legal, tax, accounting or other professional shall be sought.

The author and publisher do not warrant the performance, effectiveness or applicability of any sites, companies or resources listed or linked to in this report.

All links are for information purposes only and are not warranted for content, accuracy or any other implied or explicit purpose.

This report is © (copyrighted) by Alexandra Isabel Amor. No part of this may be copied, or changed in any format, sold or used in any way other than what is outlined within this report under any circumstances.

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