Virtual Insanity or Virtual Reality? http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog Daily Tips and Tidbits from Dana Wallert - Your Virtual Assistant Tue, 25 Sep 2007 03:09:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.2 en It’s All About You http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/its-all-about-you/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/its-all-about-you/#comments Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:05:53 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/its-all-about-you/ Since the birth of my latest venture DanaWallert.com, I’ve been very neglectful of my eldest child, this blog! Instead of writing an apology, making excuses, etc. I thought it I would just highlight the latest posts of some of you all who have been so kind in keeping an eye out for Virtual Insanity or Virtual Reality!

So I encourage everyone to check out:

Thanks for babysitting VIVR! I’ll be doing my best to make more time for this old gal :)

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]]> http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/its-all-about-you/feed/ Another Day, Another Blog http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/another-day-another-blog/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/another-day-another-blog/#comments Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:38:34 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/another-day-another-blog/

I am pleased to announce the birth of my newest blog DanaWallert.com  My focus on the new blog is to have a place to bring together DW Office Solutions and DW Web Solutions and also have a place to blog about blogging and social media.

I fully plan to continue my virtual assistant and small business blogging here, and I apologize for the scarcity of my posts in the last week as I’ve been working on the launch!  I assure you I have several posts in the works for Virtual Insanity or Virtual Reality!

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]]> http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/another-day-another-blog/feed/ The Blog That Is Changing My Life…hopefully! http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/the-blog-that-is-changing-my-lifehopefully/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/the-blog-that-is-changing-my-lifehopefully/#comments Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:03:22 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/the-blog-that-is-changing-my-lifehopefully/

I have recently been a little StumbleUpon-obsessed (feel free to ad me as a friend!). I have found some really great stuff. But without question, one of my most valuable finds was the Positivity Blog written by Henrik Edberg.

His stated purpose for blogging is helping you:

  • Creating new and better habits.
  • Increasing self-discipline.
  • Using mindtechnology such as guided meditation to your benefit.
  • Expanding you consciousness and realising your possibilities.
  • Reducing procrastination, becoming more productive and feeling less stressed through better time management.
  • Setting goals that you can go through with.
  • Understanding what is stopping you today from doing what you want, and removing those obstacles.
  • Improving your people skills, communication and relationships.

Henrik’s writing style, in-depth posts and no-nonsense view of life and positivity are truly amazing to me. To be completely honest, the first time I read a post of his I went to check out his about page expecting to find some aged guru living in the mountains of Tibet or something. Imagine my surprise to find that my newest blogging idol is actually a Swedish student who is a year younger than me!

Instead of attempting to describe to you the brilliance of this man and blog, I thought I would simply wrap this up by giving you a few of my favorite Positivity posts so far:

PS I am not in anyway related to or associated with Henrik or the Positivity Blog, nor is this a paid review of any sort!!  I just absolutely love this blog!

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]]> http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/the-blog-that-is-changing-my-lifehopefully/feed/ How Many Words Is A Picture Really Worth? http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/how-many-words-is-a-picture-really-worth/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/how-many-words-is-a-picture-really-worth/#comments Tue, 11 Sep 2007 03:14:35 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/how-many-words-is-a-picture-really-worth/ I’ve been asked quite a few times over the last few months by clients and fellow entrepreneurs whether or not I think they should have their picture displayed on their websites.

This is something I’ve gone back and forth on for my own websites. I think I am definitely leaning toward getting a professional shot to display on both of my sites and both blogs.

So what do you think?
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]]> http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/how-many-words-is-a-picture-really-worth/feed/ The Most Powerful Phrase in Business http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/the-most-powerful-phrase-in-business/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/the-most-powerful-phrase-in-business/#comments Thu, 06 Sep 2007 03:10:40 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/the-most-powerful-phrase-in-business/

As a small business owner and entrepreneur, I have literally 100’s of conversations with clients and potential clients a week. So many in fact, that I’ve found I can typically anticipate almost every question or inquiry that is coming next. However, there are those times when a prospect or a customer throws something at me that makes my stomach drop a little bit. You know those questions. The ones that within the first few words send your mind into warp drive figuring out an appropriate response or at least some way to buy yourself a few more seconds to come up with something to say.

You have several options. Obviously, the first one that comes to mind is make something up…anything! Although that might make your life easier for the remaining moments of the conversation, I would definitely advise against it. More often than not, you will just be causing yourself hours and hours, possibly days and days of headaches, and inevitably a very awkward follow-up conversation.

No, instead I suggest you use what I have found to be a surprisingly powerful phrase…

“I don’t know.”

Sure, you can finesse the wording a bit. I would highly recommend that you do! There are endless options:

  • “I’ll have to check on that.”
  • “Off the top of my head, I’m not positive.”
  • “I will research that now and get back to you right away.” -my personal favorite

I know how uncomfortable it can be to reveal to anyone, especially people you are trying to win over, that you are not perfect and all-knowing. But I’ll let you in on a secret, no one is!

What I’ve found particularly interesting is the amount of respect you can garner by simply admitting that you’re not sure. In fact, I’ve actually had clients and potential clients who turned into clients thank me for being honest with them and not potentially misleading or flat out lying to them. They trusted my work more knowing that I was not afraid to ask questions or put my pride aside to make sure the job is done correctly.

You might be able to bluff your way through any conversation, but I guarantee your life will be much less stressful if you are willing to put down your guard a bit!

In any relationship, and even more so those business relationships that are completely virtual like most of mine, integrity is a key to building long lasting partnerships and lifelong customers!

What are your favorite power phrases?  How do you deal with “I don’t know” moments?  I’d love to hear other people’s experiences.

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]]> http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/the-most-powerful-phrase-in-business/feed/ Sandpress Theme and the best Theme Author Ever! http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/sandpress-theme-and-the-best-theme-author-ever/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/sandpress-theme-and-the-best-theme-author-ever/#comments Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:20:23 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/sandpress-theme-and-the-best-theme-author-ever/ As some of you may have noticed, I changed up the theme in the last month…actually, twice.  I’ve now settled on the new Sandpress Theme by Arpit Jacob.  I’m still working on doing a few little customization things just to make my blog, my blog, but I am so happy with the look and feel of this theme and how easy the transition has been.

Last night, I was working on a few more tweaks and had been having an issue with the Share This plugin not displaying correctly…the functioning was there, but it didn’t quite look right.  I searched and searched around the support forums and the comments in the support for the theme and the plugin and was playing around with the CSS.  I just couldn’t quite get it.

So I went back to the theme’s latest update post and asked Arpit if he could point me in the right direction.  About 30 minutes after I had sent off my question, I had an e-mail from him giving me the answer and my problem was fixed in the next few minutes.

I am now a full-fledged Arpit Jacob fan!  I love all of the themes he has designed and knowing that he is willing to be so helpful makes me want to use his themes exclusively!  I am so pleased for him that he won the Sandbox designs competition with Sandpress…the judges definitely got that right!

So to sum up…

  1. if you’re looking for a great wordpress theme, check out Arpit’s themes.
  2. answer your comments or requests in a flash and you will have lifelong admirers, fans and free promoters!

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]]> http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/sandpress-theme-and-the-best-theme-author-ever/feed/ Are Work At Home Moms (and Dads) Human? http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/are-work-at-home-moms-and-dads-human/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/are-work-at-home-moms-and-dads-human/#comments Mon, 03 Sep 2007 04:56:51 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/are-work-at-home-moms-and-dads-human/ Being in a home based industry, I run into quite a few WAHMs and WAHDs in my everyday blogging and networking.  And I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately.  I’m serious are these people human?  I think not.

Running my businesses, marketing those businesses through blogging and other means and actually doing the work that I rake in is almost more than I can handle in any given 24 hours.

To be quite honest, there are times when my dogs have to remind me that they exist…or they just revolt as my dear Lexi did last year.

As my mind spins while stumbling from blog to blog while checking e-mails, commenting, making notes for 3 other websites I have in development, etc. this evening, it occurred to me…there are tons of people who do exactly what I do, and they have kids there beside them for a good portion of that time!

So there’s my conclusion, there is no way those work at home moms and dads are human.  They are some sort of evolutionary wonder or possibly cyborgs…not sure which one yet!

Whatever the case may be, they all must be absolute masters at the fine art of time management and have some nerves of steel or some kind of shield to deflect enough stress to keep the breakdowns away.

Are you a WAHM or a WAHD?  Or do you know one of these amazing creatures?  I would really love to hear how you all do it.  Any time saving tips or multi-tasking lessons that you can share with us mere mortals would be appreciated!   Or of course, if I’m right and you’re not really human…feel free to post comments in your native language or give us some symbol just so we know that you were here!

WAHM - WAHD phone home…

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]]> http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/are-work-at-home-moms-and-dads-human/feed/ Blogging Resources List http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/blogging-resources-list/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/blogging-resources-list/#comments Sun, 02 Sep 2007 20:23:14 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/blogging-resources-list/ One reason to NOT become an entrepreneur?  Labor Day Weekend means nothing to me anymore!

Anyway, I just finished compiling a list of over 60 different resources for new bloggers over at my web design blog.  I know the list is probably incomplete, but I wanted to start by putting those that I use on a regular basis, just to give my clients who are contemplating blogging a few things to check out.

Feel free to check it out and add your resources or thoughts!

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]]> http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/blogging-resources-list/feed/ Interesting Small Business Numbers http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/interesting-small-business-numbers/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/interesting-small-business-numbers/#comments Sat, 25 Aug 2007 15:09:10 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/interesting-small-business-numbers/ I ran across a post over at the Entrepreneurial Mind announcing the release of updated small business statistics by the SBA.

While all of the stats given are interesting, a couple that hit close to home and thus particularly caught my attention:

  • Small businesses are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
  • Of the 23 million nonfarm businesses in 2002, women owned 6.5 million businesses. These firms generated $940.8 billion in revenues, employed 7.1 million workers and had $173.7 billion in payroll.

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]]> http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/interesting-small-business-numbers/feed/ Building Small Business Street Cred http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/building-small-business-street-cred/ http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/building-small-business-street-cred/#comments Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:00:11 +0000 Dana Wallert http://dwofficesolutions.com/blog/building-small-business-street-cred/ I’ve just finished my latest article Building Street Cred for Your Small Business. I’ve been wanting to turn my Road Less Traveled approach into a series of articles and this is the first one that Ive completed!

If you’ve read many of my articles, you’ve noticed that I like to use relevant quotes as a starting point for an article. For this one, I turned to one of my favorite quotable comics…

“As a matter of principle, I never attend the first annual anything.” - George Carlin

Also, a quick Road Less Traveled update:

I have completed 12 sites for clients who I found through those means. I have around 20 websites in different stages of completion and have also taken on several new virtual assistant clients as well.

Who would have thought that small businesses “out in the middle of nowhere” would be such amazing technology service prospects and clients?! (Well, Becky over at Small Biz Survival probably would have known…but who else?!)

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