Business - 2/7 - Write to Done

How I Doubled My Productivity as a Blogger by Becoming a Virtual CEO [CASE STUDY]

A guest post by Chris C. Ducker blogs of VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com

In January 2010 I put a goal in place for myself. That goal was to become a full- time Virtual CEO, leaving my desk and the 250 people that worked for me in the dust as I enabled myself to work from anywhere, on my own terms and focus on building businesses, instead of running them.

By the end of the year, I had achieved my goal, and successfully created a great online following for myself in the process, as well as a kick-ass community of other like-minded folks at my blog, Virtual Business Lifestyle. I have to be very, very honest, unlike a lot of bloggers out there, I did NOT set out to create a popular blog.

Although I have been very humbled by the popularity of it, and the big names I’ve been able to attract to appear on its sister-podcast, including our beloved Leo Babauta! The real reason behind the blog was to follow that one-year journey. It seemed that a lot of other people wanting to follow it, too. Which included my monthly round-up reports, along with other video reports and tips and tactics for removing yourself from ‘business’, and becoming a more new-age entrepreneur.

Productivity Ensued

Fast forward another 6 months down the road and I am achieving more than I honestly thought possible in my new role as a Virtual CEO. In the last six months I have started two new businesses, each doing fantastically well, especially considering their short age-span and added another 25-odd staff to my ‘brick n mortar’ business in the Philippines. I’ve become more focused as a business owner, because I now work a lot more at home, in my ‘own world’, as I call it, and with hardly any disruptions – despite having a toddler in the house!

What’s Different and Why?

There are, however, three main reasons why I have been able to create so much more productivity for myself since becoming a Virtual CEO.

Email Management – First up, I have taken on board two very easy-to-follow email rules. Email is probably the biggest time drainer for entrepreneurs, and I knew I was going to have to get this in check if I wanted to become more productive. So, firstly, I adopted a one-click rule. Meaning, when I open my email its replied to, deleted or archived for future reference. That’s it. And I never open the same email twice.

Secondly, I adopted a 3-sentence rule. All of my email is now no longer than three sentences. This has meant I spend way less time composing and replying to email, creating tons more time to work on other, more important tasks.

Work / Life Balance – There has been so much written on this subject, I am not going to try and become an expert, or preach about it. However, I can say that I have been spending more time with my family since becoming a Virtual CEO (one of the main instigators for my goal in the first place!). Because of this, I am actually more relaxed. Being more relaxed gets my creative juices flowing like you wouldn’t believe it. Hence the productivity, and the launching of two new businesses!

Minimizing Meetings – I run a 250+ employee outsourcing company. I work with clients from all around the world, literally. And I have a great management team in place (part of that one year goal!). However, I still have to ‘do’ meetings pretty regularly. I now go into the office just twice a week on average, and usually for around 3-4 hours at a time, and only for meetings. I rarely even bring my laptop with me… Just my iPad, for taking notes / presentations.

Plus, I put a 30min meeting rule in place, too. Before this, so many of the meetings I was involved in caused PAIN in my daily schedule. I was always running over, and always scratching around for more time to sit with people. This rule enables me to get more meetings in, make them more productive and to the point, and ultimately get more done when I am in the office. If I’m not in the office, I meet with people via Skype, but with the same 30min rule in place. It works. Its nice. I like it.

The Biggest Takeaway

Without a doubt, the biggest takeaway for me from all of this is that it is absolutely, 100% possible to make changes in the way you approach your life, your business, your health and fitness and your online world, too.

As a blogger, vlogger and podcast host, I absolutely love what I now do online. The audience continues to grow, and so do my businesses. Coincidence? I don’t think do. That doesn’t mean that my readers / fans are all becoming clients, because the very, very large majority are not. What it does mean is that because I am having so much fun doing what I am doing online (I almost see it as my personal outlet that’s expanding into something so much more now), as well as spending more time with my family, and starting new businesses and enjoying life in general…

Business is rewarding me for all my hard work.

Looking back, when I put that goal in place in January 2010, I honestly knew I would achieve the goal. I’m just that kind of goal-orientated person – always have been. However, if you had of asked me about any of the rest of the stuff that I’ve been enjoying since I hit the goal, because of the additional productivity I’m now encountering, I probably would have called you a crazy person! Make it your goal to write down your goal. Then, work hard towards realizing it. For yourself, your family, your business and your life in general.

Chris C. Ducker blogs at VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com, and is the Founder of three different businesses, including Virtual Staff Finder, a professional match-making service that helps busy entrepreneurs find experienced, high-quality virtual assistants. He lives in the Philippines, with his family, full-time.

Categories: Blogwriting, Business

The Dummies Guide to Using Virtual Assistants to Create Online Content

This is a guest post by Chris C. Ducker of Virtual Business Lifestyle.

Writing can be a joy. A real way of expressing ourselves and what we’re all about. It can also focus on helping, inspiring and motivating people to do great things.

When I was at college I used to write a lot. I mean, I was always working on some short story, or the odd essay for school. I was, and still am a big reader, too – averaging at least one book (normally business focused) a week.

As someone who owns and operates an outsourcing company in the Philippines, I see a lot of people contacting us to outsource all types of tasks. Telemarketing, customer service, back-office work, chat support – the list is, literally, endless.

However, as a notable authority on the subject of virtual business and in particular, working with virtual assistants, as well as being a blogger myself, I am often asked the question “Can you use virtual assistants to create original content to use online..?”.

The answer is yes, of course you can.

But, what you decide to do with that content is a different ballgame, obviously.

Five Tips to Get You Started!

Here are my Top Five Tips to working with a virtual assistant to create original content that you can use online, for either personal or business purposes.

Don’t get a VA to blatantly write blog posts for your personal blog. Your personal blog should be ‘your place’ (except for the odd guest post, obviously!). Having a VA write content for this outlet of yours kind of defeats the object of blogging in the first place!
If you are going to use a VA to help create content for your blog minimize it as much as possible. Activities such as online research for a particular article you are planning to write, then perhaps formatting your blog post with bold and italics, and headlines, etc., to help save time on the publishing side of things.
VA’s are perfect for creating online content for anything related to link building. These articles are generally easy to write in a short time, are rarely seen by your target audience and work excellently. As long as they are 100% original. Plus, most VA’s can even go ahead and submit them to specific article submission or marketing sites for you.
You can also use a VA to help edit your eBooks or other types of written content. Having a VA do the first round of proof reading is huge. You can then send it onto a second source (perhaps a colleague or family member – my favorite is my wife!) to give it the final once over.
Be sure to pay your content writing VA what they are worth. There are many, many good VA’s working as full-time content creators. However, the fact of the matter is that if you don’t pay them what they are worth, they will either do a bad job for you, or simply not want to work with you at all.

They’re Good, but You’re Better!

Whether you’re utilizing the services of a domestically based virtual assistant, or one from another country, the simple rule of thumb to remember is that even though their writing may be good, it probably wont be as good as if you were to write the content yourself. So, always spend some time reading over their work and making sure that its good to go – before it goes!

Using virtual assistants for creative writing and other types of written tasks, such as sales copy, website content, etc., is ultimately a great move for all us who are busy business owners, or entrepreneurs – either online or off.

Nowadays you really don’t have to do everything – the world is a much smaller place, we’re in a global economy and the skill-set’s of people from all around the world are out there for us to get our hands on.

Try it out for yourself with a simple 500-word article on whatever subject you can think of. Look at the quality, and then simply figure out if it makes sense to do it again.

The chances are, it will be.

Chris C. Ducker is a full-time Virtual CEO and a sought after virtual business consultant. He blogs at VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com and is the author of the highly popular free eBook, “Saving the Day, the Virtual Way“, which has been downloaded over 5,000 times to date.

Categories: Blogwriting, Business

How to Earn Money as a Writer

By Mary Jaksch

Do you want to earn money as a writer? If you love writing, then I’m sure the answer is ‘yes!’ Because if we can earn a crust whilst doing what we love – that’s pretty optimal. Agreed?

But how to do it?

If you’re a novelist, a poet, or a story writer – you may have to wait for the big break-through. But if you’re ‘faction’ writer – I mean, if you write non-fiction – you have a lot more options.

Freelancing

There are many different kinds of freelancing jobs. You can write for magazines or other print media, for business, or for the Internet. As Carol Tice wrote in her post How to Start Earning From Your Blog Right Away , a blog is a great platform from which to launch a career as a freelancer.

Blogging also teaches you how to write well for magazines. Because the optimal structure of blog posts, as well as the crafting of headlines, is similar to what you need to do in order to write well for magazines.

Writing and selling eBooks

Traditional print media are heading for a collapse. This is a great opportunity for web-savvy writers! A good way to create an online income is to write and self-publish books and reports. Or to create products, such as podcasts, videos, webinars, or courses. Those kinds of products may seem a far cry from an eBook, but in reality they are based upon written material. The content is just presented in a different medium.

The new wave of ‘pay for content’

There is a lot of discussion in the Blogosphere about how bloggers could offer premium content for modest subscriptions. For example, professional blogger David Risley asked in a recent post Is the Future of Blogging Paid Access? This is all very new, but I think it’s worth watching this movement closely.

In view of this, it’s a great time to build an attractive blog with a strong readership in order to make the most of this new direction when it gains traction.

Freelancing opportunities

Here at WTD, we’re keen to see you succeed. I’m mindful of the fact that many of us need to find a way to make our passion for writing pay the bills. That’s why I’ve jumped at a new opportunity that could benefit all of you. I’ve joined a network that collects and publishes freelance opportunities for writers.

For now, I’ve placed a widget with the job board in the sidebar. But I could also display a larger amount of jobs on a separate page. Leo Babauta and I would earn a small amount from the job provider when a WTD reader gets a job (but not enough to buy a pony …) More importantly – this may turn out to be a good source of potential jobs for you, our readers. Please tell us in the comments what you think of the Write to Done Job Board. Should we have a page of freelance jobs for writers on this blog?

Talking of opportunities, here’s a quick heads-up: Leo and I are closing access to the A-list Blogger Club this Thursday at midnight (Eastern). We’ll re-open the doors after our upcoming 4-week Bootcamp The Art of Blog Seduction – How to Draw Subscribers to Your Awesome Blog. If you are keen to jump aboard the A-List Blogger Club, click here. (A Club member wrote recently: ‘You couldn’t pay me to unsubscribe!’)

Oh, and if you’d like to watch a video where I talk about how to blog Like an A-lister, please complete a 2-minute survey in order to get the video link. Click here for the survey.

As to our topic of how to earn money as a writer: if you have some good tip, please share them in the comments.

Mary Jaksch is the Chief Editor of Write to Done. You can enjoy more of her posts on Goodlife ZEN . Together with Leo Babauta, Mary runs A-list Blogging Bootcamps and the A-List Blogger Club.

Joining the A-List Blogger Club is like pouring accelerant on your blogging career. I know I’ve cut YEARS off my journey to monetizing my blog by belonging here.
~ Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing

Categories: Blogwriting, Business, Freelancing

The 7 Secrets of an Indie Editor

A guest post by Victoria Mixon of A. Victoria Mixon, Editor.

Many years ago, when I was a starving writer wrestling day and night with the phenomenal angel of the fiction craft, I got thrown on my back a lot. I’d lie there wheezing until I could breathe again, then I’d gamely hop back up and go at it again.

Wrestle! Wham. Breathe. Up. Wrestle! Wham. Breathe. This went on for a really long time.

So now that I’m a professional indie editor, I know what’s going on at your house. And there are things I’ve learned about this craft that could make this wrestling match a whole lot easier on you. These are my secrets, the things you should know:

1. You need far more discipline and profound human compassion than you think.

You guys. You bring me your precious manuscripts, written in ink from the opening of your own veins, these symbolic versions of the very real and tragic heartbreaks you yourself have survived, and you tell me, “Don’t be gentle. Lay it on me. I can take it.”

Fortunately for you, I’m the wimpiest writer ever in history, so I just ignore you. I know that every mild criticism is a slam to the writer’s solar plexus and every compliment is a faint voice mumbling unintelligibly in the distance.

Only when you’ve gotten a hefty dose of compassion for you, the writer, can you hoist up your suspenders and set about the Herculean task of applying the discipline and ruthlessness your manuscript needs. There are always piles, mountains, avalanches of it. If I simply laid the discipline on you first, you’d be humiliated—silenced.

This is why I’m not just an editor. I’m a writing therapist. Half my job is being really good at handling manuscripts, and the other half is being really good at handling writers.

Writing fiction isn’t expressing yourself, it’s creating an experience for your reader.

And yet we all write because we love it. Right? I’m not sitting here at my desk thinking about you. I’m actually sitting here thinking about me, about the fact that I know something important and I want you to get a kick out of learning it from me.

Which leads me inevitably to admit that the reader is the only one in this relationship who counts. I might very well have something you need, but if you don’t want it I’ve done all this work for nothing. Not only that, but you’re not here just for what I know, you’re here for the experience of learning it, and even more than that you’re here for the indescribable magic that happens when you find yourself sandwiched between what you’re learning and how you feel about learning it.

That’s the magic that changes a reader’s life. And the writer’s job is working that magic.

No one can properly line edit their own writing.

This point sucks, but it’s a simple fact, so we might as well all get used to it, the same way we’re used to dentists, freeways, and working for a living. I would far rather be independently wealthy on a chateau patio overlooking the 1920s Mediterranean coast, words like pearls falling in perfect order from my quill, bouncing over my feet and across the worn flagstones.

But that’s simply not going to happen.

Instead, I’m going to write as clearly and succinctly and vividly as I know how, and then I’m going to hand it off to someone else—my writer husband, my writer friend, or the editor of whatever publication or blog I’m writing for—to be line edited. They’ll catch the awkward phrasing and constructs that make a reader stumble over my words. They’ll smooth the rhythm I’ve worked so hard to achieve (and, hopefully, catch most of my typos.)

They’ll see my words the way a reader sees them. And that’s professional polish.

The publishing industry is not Cinderella, and neither are you.

Or, to paraphrase Dylan: they ain’t a-going nowhere.

I know everyone’s breathing down your neck, exhorting you with the authority of wild-eyed fanatics to hustle your fanny out there and get your novel published. I know this is why you ask for blunt criticism and hope to skimp on the line editing, why it’s so daunting to be told this work is, more than anything, about magic.

But honestly. . .what’s going to happen if you don’t get published PDQ? Are the publishers all going to turn into pumpkins at midnight?

No. And neither are you. Novels have been written and published for over four hundred years. They will continue being published a good four hundred years from now. I spent thirty years delving into this craft in the privacy of one cozy little workspace after another, across three states and half a dozen countries, one desk in a closet and another on a minuscule Hawaiian lanai overlooking the endless ocean. You have time to immerse yourself in this craft for a very, very long time indeed before you need to start looking over your shoulder to see if the end is gaining on you.

Seriously.

Your manuscript is in much worse shape than you believe it is, but you have vastly more potential as a brilliant writer than you can imagine.

Now, you may have seen my recent moment of online glory in which I was immortalized in the Huffington Post for being dissed by my agent. That story was absolutely true. Every single manuscript that comes to me is the best, brightest, most word-perfect work of which its author feels capable, and every single one of them has aspects for which an agent with a caustic tongue could get them into the Post.

But that’s okay. I learned how to fix all that stuff.

Even more importantly, every single manuscript that comes to me has its moments of ineffable glory: a facility with words, specific telling details that snap scenes into three dimensions, plot twists and developments that carry me right out of myself, laser-like snippets of dialog and amazing character insights, things that make me sit up, make me laugh, torque my heart exactly the way a reader’s heart needs to be torqued.

These moments are the stuff of which brilliant fiction is made.

Your job is to go beyond the limits of possibility.

Of course, the biggest thing I know that you don’t is that writing fiction is an impossible labor. Great art is never as transcendental as its creator has in mind.

Readers might be happy enough with less than transcendental (but not much). Publishers and agents might be as happy as they’re ever going to get. (It’s hard to tell.) But once you’ve seen your vision and known what it’s like to capture even a fragment of that iridescent substance for your own in words, you will never again be satisfied.

So you keep at it—the impossible. Even though you know it’s impossible. That’s what you, great writers, and immortal protagonists all have in common.

Fiction isn’t really about reading or writing, it’s about living.

Finally, not the biggest thing I know that you don’t, but the most important: there’s no such thing as either “escapist” or “literary” fiction. There is only storytelling to which all of us, readers and writers alike, go over and over again, to find out what life is, learn the basic skills we need to survive it, and discover the unspeakable beauty and subtlety and significance that makes it worth living.

You don’t have to be a writer. You simply do this work because we human beings need it done.

Victoria Mixon spends her time blogging for the vast tribe of aspiring great writers in the blogosphere and editing their work with her suspenders hoisted up. She is the co-author of Children and the Internet: A Zen Guide for Parents and Educators and author of the recently-released The Art & Craft of Fiction: A Practitioner’s Manual.

Categories: Business, Craft, Fiction, Freelancing

How to Set Goals That Make Sense: A Writer’s Perspective

A guest post by Linda Formichelli of The Renegade Writer

Twice a year, in December and June, I work on my “life plan”: It’s like a business plan, but it encompasses career/finances, health, relationships, and volunteering. Each section includes a brief mission statement, a bullet-point list of goals, a bullet-point list of obstacles to those goals, and a paragraph or two where I brainstorm ways around or through those obstacles.

I don’t check on the life plan regularly during the year — just when I feel inspired. And when I go to it again after six months, I often find that I had internalized and met many of my goals without even trying.

Except the income goals. For years, every six months I’d write out an income goal, brainstorm ways to meet that goal — and do absolutely nothing different in my career to try to earn that extra income.

Eventually I smartened up, and realized two key things about setting goals:

1. Your goals need to be something you can control.

As a freelancer, it’s difficult to control how many clients you gain, how many assignments you get, or much money you make (though you can always shoot for a range; after all, we need to eat). However, you can control how many queries and letters of intro you send out, how much marketing you do, and how many hours you work. Increase these, and you’re likely to increase your income as a side benefit.

Why not try it yourself for 2011? Instead of saying you want to make X amount of money or garner five assignments from national magazines, set goals that you can control — like how much marketing you do. For example, my plan for 2011 is to conduct a direct mail campaign to 900 local businesses for my copywriting (100 down, 800 to go!).

2. Your goals need to inspire you.

Guess what? It turns out I’m just not inspired by income goals. As long as I can support my family and we can do (within reason) what we want, I’m okay. However, I am inspired by the appreciation I get from the writers I help through my e-courses and mentoring. This morning I had a client who told me she had a big grin on her face as I outlined a new idea for her. Now, that I like — I just eat it up!

So my goal is to do more teaching and mentoring. (And of course, the more teaching and mentoring I do, the more money I make.) I also enjoy writing for magazine editors who treat me well, so another goal is to seek them out, hang onto them when I find them, and weed out PITA editors. As a byproduct, I make a good income because it takes me less time to do assignments from magazines with a low PITA factor.

These goals keep me a lot happier than working my butt off to reach some magic number I don’t really care about.

So — what do you really care about? Try to set goals that make sense for you, instead of caving under the pressure to set goals that you feel you should want to reach.

Linda Formichelli has written for over 130 magazines since 1997, from Pizza Today to USA Weekend. She runs the Renegade Writer, one of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers 2010/11. She is the co-author of “The Renegade Writer: A Totally Unconventional Guide to Freelance Writing Success”

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I’m amazed at the wealth of information in the A-List Blogger Club. I’ve been blogging for several years but was not very savvy about it, and I immediately made easy but high-impact changes to my blog based on the advice there. I’m already seeing an uptick in readers, students, and clients!
Linda Formichelli, The Renegade Writer Blog