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How to Turn ONE Piece of Content into an Online Marketing Marathon — Without Lifting a Finger!

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What if you could create one piece of content, and then turn it into four completely separate pieces of fresh, original content to use all over the internet to help market and promote your online brand?

It’s doable. And way easier than most think, and it’s the topic that I’ll be covering at my presentation in Vegas this coming January, entitled “45 Things Content Creators Can Outsource to Virtual Assistants to Help Grow Their Business.”

In the meantime, and to get you thinking about the topic and what it can mean to you, as an online content creator, here’s a rundown on how it works. You’ll see a bit of a pattern developing, which I’ll cover at the end of the post.

Step 1

Sit down in front of a video camera, with a like-minded person that you know your audience will love to hear from. If you can’t be with them in person, then get them on Skype and record a split-screen chat between the two of you. We’re talking 20-minutes of content, that’s all that’s needed.

Step 2

Send that video to an AV virtual assistant to have it converted into an audio podcast. They’ll clean it up and splice together a cool sounding intro and outro, too – to make it sound super professional.

You can also have that VA cut up the original video file into 5-minute clips, creating four original videos that can be uploaded to YouTube and used for keyword marketing, individually!

Step 3

Send the audio file to a transcriptionist virtual assistant (known universally nowadays as a “VA”) and have them convert it into a Word document. They will then draft and schedule the written content into your blogging software, which can be used as blog post content.

Step 4

Send that Word document to a graphic designer virtual assistant and have them layout it all out into a snazzy looking eBook, or PDF guide of some sort, which you can then use as a giveaway – such as an opt-in offer – or just a freebie for your community – they’ll love you for it, telling all their friends to go visit your blog!

Step 5

Have that same graphic designer VA convert certain quotes from the conversation into images that you can use on your social media channels. They’ll brand the image with your logo, a cool photo and a URL for people to remember to check out later on.

BOOM!

Five different pieces of original, branded content created out of just 20-minutes of work. Did you see the pattern? Yep – you got it. Utilize the power of virtual staff to build your content creation empire.

This is Just the Tip of the Content Marketing Iceberg!

There are so many more things you can get virtual assistants to do for you as a professional content creator. Membership sites, squeeze pages, full-blown online courses, Kindle books – you name it.

They can’t, however, do any babysitting, or pick up your dry cleaning!

The list goes on and on and I’ll be going into a LOT more detail on everything at New Media Expo in January. I’ll even touch base on the different tools you can use to work with VAs to have them become super productive, and for you to get the biggest bang for your buck as a virtual boss.

See you in Vegas, baby!

Chris Ducker Joins NMX for Facebook Chat

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It’s almost time again for our weekly Facebook Chat. This week, we’re pleased to welcome Chris Ducker as our special guest. So mark your calendars for tomorrow, Wednesday, November 7 at 10am PT/ 1pm ET.

Chris Ducker is a serial entrepreneur, blogger, WebTV host, and podcaster. He owns three successful companies, employing over 300 people. He writes a personal blog, where he produces content on the subject of starting, marketing, and growing businesses in the new economy. He is also the founder of the popular lifestyle design blog, VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com, and associated iTunes podcast.

Chris is regarded as the go-to guy for everything and anything to do with the outsourcing industry and working with virtual staff. He is also a speaker and popular business coach. He is currently working on his first book.

At NMX in January, Chris will lead a session entitled, “45 Things New Media Content Creators Can Outsource to Virtual Assistants to Help Grow Their Business” that promises to be a must-see. To get a little preview of Chris’ take on how virtual assistants can help you meet your business goals, be sure to join us for the Facebook Chat tomorrow, Wednesday, November 7 at 10am PT/ 1pm ET.

We’ll see you there!

Gorilla Networking: Building A Global Mastermind Group of All-Star Virtual Assistants

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Image your website just got hacked and you don’t know how to fix it, and don’t have the time to deal with it. Or, suppose you just found out about a new way to take your business to a whole new level, but you don’t know anyone with the knowledge and time to actually make it happen, and don’t have the bandwidth to figure it all out yourself.

How are you going to find someone to help you out if you don’t know where to start? Reach out to your contacts and friends? Scour your contacts on LinkedIn? Or maybe you’ll just hit the message boards and try and figure it out yourself.

Take a Step Back

Before we go any further, let’s take a step back, and think about why you are scrambling to begin with. You lack that go-to person with the skills, time, and knowledge to help your business, who is willing and able to give you a hand.

Your buddy might do it for free, but probably doesn’t have the knowledge you really need. The expert who has just inspired you to take action is great for the 1,000 foot level, but chances are you’re going to pay through the nose for their expertise, or spend hours digesting their material. You could try and hire someone on short notice who is a pseudo-expert, but it could be hit or miss if they really can deliver when and how you need them to.

So you’re on your own – either trying to do it all yourself, or maybe passing up on a great opportunity to grow your business because you simply don’t have the bandwidth to act. It’s rather ironic that in this age of some much interconnectivity, it’s actually harder than you might think to get many of our common problems solved. Interconnectivity is a double edged sword where the same ease of use that allows us to connect with so many people and ideas also brings so much noise and makes it difficult to find folks to really give us a hand when we need it. It doesn’t have to be this way.

A New Approach

Suppose you had a mastermind group of 10 to 15 handpicked professionals who know you, a specific facet of your business or industry, and who are willing to not only offer you advice, but have the knowledge and time to do some serious work for you right now.

The good news is the road to developing such a network is straight forward, inexpensive, and can start yielding fruit very quickly.

Welcome to Gorilla Networking With All-Star Virtual Assistants

Leveraging Virtual Assistants can be an effective and often untapped resource not just to get work done inexpensively, but more importantly, it can be used as a tool to build a long term global network of professionals you can tap into months and years ahead.

I’ve managed over 100 VA projects over the past few years, and it’s amazing the great relationships and diverse network that starts to develop on even the smallest VA project. Assembling a team of All-Star Virtual Assistants whom you have a great relationship with, who understand your business, and are available for quick questions or large projects can really transform your business.

When some folks hear about Virtual Assistants/outsourcing, they think of low paid and unskilled workers, who can yield scattershot results. This perception touches on an important fact – learning to find quality VAs and successfully utilize them in your business is indeed a skill that takes time to master. However, with so little downside and risk, and so much potential upside, it’s a skill that’s well worth developing if you want to take your business to the next level.

VAs by the Numbers

There are well over a million Virtual Assistants worldwide, with skills ranging from entry level to PhDs, and the opportunities are truly massive. Right now on oDesk alone, there are close to 100,000 VAs with a feedback rating of 4.5/5.0 or higher, and of these, over 10,000 have over 1,000+ hours of experience, at a median price of under $10/hr. These are folks that know how to reliably provide value to your business day in and day out. I call them All-Star VAs.

When you consider some of the obstacles many of them have had to overcome to successfully and consistently work with European/Western clients (power outages, learning a foreign language, working in a timezone 8-12 hours away) they exhibit some serious hustle. They have overcome barriers you and I will never face, spent countless hours building and developing their brand, and have been able to rise to the top 1% in their field. I have found this shared entrepreneurial bond between All-Star VAs and small business owners often results in amazingly strong and productive working relationship.

Taking Action

Test projects for $10 – $50 can be posted on sites such as oDesk, and can be posted in a matter of minutes. It’s very easy to try a number of different projects, and the chances are quite good that you’ll come out ahead while you learn the ropes of VA delegation, all while rapidly developing your business network. Below are five steps to start you down the path of building your business network using Virtual Assistants.

Actionable Steps (The APPLE Method)

1)      Assess the Need for a project you could hire a VA to do.

2)      Post a Job on a site like oDesk, Elance, etc. using other similar posts as templates for what to include.

3)      Prescreen the Applicants through e-mail and Skype.

4)      Leverage Your Selected VA to perform a trial project – this involves not only getting a job done, but establishing a relationship with them as well!

5)      End the Project,  taking full advantage of the work while learning to hone and refine your process for your next project.

Lastly

Where do you want your business to be a year from now? What areas could you use some help down the road? Consider investing your time in searching for All-Star Virtual Assistants who might become part of your business mastermind group, and can help bring you future success and less stress in the coming year!

Editor’s Note: To learn more about Virtual Assistants, check out Jonathan’s session at NMX entitled, “How to Use a Virtual Assistant to Produce Your Podcast.”

 

25 Brilliant Bloggers Talk About Virtual Assistants

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Brilliant Bloggers is a weekly series here at BlogWorld where we look at the best posts from around the web all surrounding a specific topic. Every week, we’ll feature three of the most brilliant bloggers out there, along with a huge link of more resources where you can learn about the topic. You can see more Brilliant Blogger posts or learn how to submit your link for an upcoming edition here.

This Week’s Topic: Working with Virtual Assistants

As your blogging or social media business grows, you might find it harder and harder to keep up with tasks such as answering emails, formatting posts, and working with advertisers. By yourself, you’ll hit a ceiling – there are only so many hours in the day. However, if you want to open that ceiling and really find your true potential as a blogger, you can consider hiring a virtual assistant. Think of virtual assistants, or VAs as they are often called, as administrative assistants or personal assistants, but they don’t live near you – they do virtual tasks from wherever they may live. Let’s take a look at what some brilliant bloggers have to say about working with VAs.

Advice from Brilliant Bloggers:

How to Work with Virtual Assistants (3 Top Questions Answered!) by Chris Ducker

I had the pleasure of meeting Chris at BlogWorld 2010, and when it comes to running a virtual business, he really knows his stuff. His site has tons of information about using virtual assistants, and this post is a great place to get started – Chris answers the three questions he gets asked most often: What is the best way to train my virtual assistant? How do I keep my virtual assistant motivated and happy to work for me? How much do I pay my virtual assistant? I also highly recommend checking out the rest of his site, downloading his free ebook, and following him on Twitter @chriscducker. (Oh, and if you’re looking to hire a VA, he can definitely help you out!)

Why an Independent Contractor Agreement is Important by Nica Mandigma

As someone who works as a freelancer, I completely agree with Nica that having a contract is super important, so this post is a must-read. Nica’s site is a great resource for those of you who might be interested in working as a virtual assistant, and if you’re hiring, it gives you a unique perspective from the VA’s point of view, which helps you learn how to better hire and work with someone who is perfect for your business. Don’t forget to follow Nica on Twitter @busybee_VA.

50 Things a Virtual Assistant Can Do For Your Business by Maren Kate

I met Maren at BlogWorld 2010 around the same time I met Chris, and it’s easy to see why they’re friends – intelligent people with great ideas are often seen together! Maren can also help you hire a VA if you’re interested, but if you’re not sure that this route is right for you, check out her site, Escaping the 9 to 5…I bet she’ll change your mind. Maren is someone who gets an incredible amount of work done throughout the day, all by using VAs, and in the post I’ve highlighted here, she shows you exactly what a VA could do for you. After checking out her website, don’t forget to follow Maren on Twitter @marenkate.

Even More Brilliant Advice:

Did I miss your post or a post by someone you know about working with virtual assistants? Unintentional! Help me out by leaving a comment below with the link!

Next Week’s Topic: Burnout

I’d love to include a link to your post next week – and if you head to the Brilliant Bloggers Schedule, you can see even more upcoming posts. We all have something to learn from one another, so please don’t be shy! Head to the schedule today to learn how to submit your post so I won’t miss it.

Be Careful When Hiring Gatekeepers

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As you become a more successful blogger, you might start to get a little overwhelmed with all of the emails, comments, and phone calls you have to answer. Many bloggers turn to hiring virtual assistants to help with this overflow of work, and often these VAs turn into virtual gatekeepers. If you want to reach the blogger, you have to get past the gatekeeper first.

It can feel a little cold, but it’s a necessary evil. If you want your favorite blogger to keep blogging, they need to filter out all the crap emails – spam, requests for favors from people you don’t even know, advertising/guest post emails from people who’ve clearly never read your site… the list goes on and on. Your email might not be crap, but if it is low priority, it might take some time to get through the gate or you might deal only with the gatekeeper, with the blogger you’re trying to reach never even knowing that you sent an email.

That’s why, today, I want to urge anyone who’s considering hiring a VA to be very careful when hiring a gatekeeper. Very careful.

Point in case: Today, I read a story about Ina Garten, who is better known as the Barefoot Contessa, a personality on the Food Network. In case you don’t want to read the entire story, here are the main points: 6-year-old cancer patient Enzo Pereda was granted a wish from the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and because he spent many days sick in bed and watching the Food Network with his mom, his wish was to cook with Garten. She declined, citing the fact that she had a very tight schedule due to her book tour. Rather than make a second wish, little Enzo decided to wait until her schedule was less hectic – but again she declined.

Then, news of the snub hit the Internet. Suddenly Garten changed her mind and decided to call Enzo and invite him to spend time with her at the Food Network studios. It’s the exact statement her camp sent to ABC news that had me raising my eyebrows:

“Ina became aware of Enzo’s story this weekend and will be calling him today. She looks forward to inviting him to spend some time with her at the Food Network studios.”

She became aware. You know what that tells me? It tells me that she didn’t have a very good gatekeeper. It tells me that someone she trusted to be her filter decided that this was not a good opportunity for her and declined to pass on the information. I wouldn’t be surprised if that person got fired or is at least on probation.

Now, any gatekeeper is going to make mistakes. They aren’t you and they can’t know exactly what you would want to do in every situation. Nor can they ask you – because if they ask you what to do with every email or phone call, then you might as well be answering them yourself. You hired them for their good judgment, so you need to trust them to make decisions.

But be careful. Check their work at random to ensure that they’re representing your brand well. Go through training with them so that they understand exactly what you want done. Make it easy for them to ask for your help. Trust them, but only after they earn that trust. VAs can be an awesome addition to your business, but when someone is serving as a gatekeeper, be careful to hire only the very best.

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