Today is Earth Day and National Administrative Professionals Day. As I was trying to think of how to recognize both very important days, I started looking for the similarities. And this is what I came up with.

As you have probably already guessed, I used to be an Administrative Professional. I always felt it was my job to support my boss and be a trusted and loyal part of their team. If you see a successful business, just look behind the scenes and you will find a strong, supportive Administrative Professional. And when you see strong, green healthy land, there is someone who is protecting and providing for our future generations to appreciate the Earth.

Happy Earth Day!

and

Happy Administrative Professionals Day!

As a small business owner and entrepreneur, tension is in the job description. You are tense about getting clients, then you’re tense to complete the work in a timely and accurate way. You’re tense when your equipment doesn’t work properly and stressed when the end of the day comes and you haven’t accomplished what you set out to do.

It’s nice to find people who can help us with releasing tension and living our life more fully. My friend, Melanie McGhee of Illumined Life, LLC is celebrating her birthday today and she is giving instead of getting gifts. On her blog, Peacefruit you can download a free meditation recording and she is beginning a local class for anyone in the Knoxville or Maryville TN area on Meditation. Click this link for a flyer on the class and what you can expect to gain by attending.

I do want to release my tension and appreciate my life more, so I’ll be listening to Melanie’s gift and breathing a lot.

Calgon, Take Me Away!

One of the first clients I contracted with when I started my virtual assistance business last year was Ingrid Gee. She is a sweet, petite blond that called me up one day and said, “I really need your help.” To say that the last year has been an adventure for us would be an understatement.

Through many obstacles and setbacks, she has developed an incredible new concept in the way we listen to Talk Radio, and it is about to launch in September. The Cherries Internet Cafe, will officially open it’s doors on September 8th in downtown Knoxville Tennessee. There will be nine live shows produced daily, and a “live” web feed will allow Internet users to not only hear the radio show, but to watch it in “real” time!

Visitors to the cafe will have the opportunity to bring in their own laptops and connect to the Free WiFi, or use one of the Cafe’s computers with full Internet connections. There will also be iPod and iPhone chargers at every booth.

Feeling a little hungry? They’ve gotcha covered! The Lunchbox will be providing tasty meals for purchase, as folks come down to view the live shows taking place behind a floor to ceiling 500 square foot glass studio. And if you’re not hungry, try a freshly brewed cup of tea at the Daisy Pot Tea Bar.

There will also be a daily talent, cooking, charity and health show, as well as several others. For more information about the shows and all the great fun taking place on Market Square in downtown Knoxville Tennessee, visit their website at Cherries Internet Cafe.

One of my responsibilities as Ingrid’s VA is to virtually plan the Grand Opening of this amazing Cafe. So if you are in the Knoxville area, stay tuned for a fun-filled week of Grand Opening specials and surprises.

Do you have Grand Opening ideas? I’d love to hear them.

That is an autoresponder I received from a friend of mine when I recently sent out my ezine Gifts. At first glance, I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever read. I thought, how clever she is. She has decided to retire early from her job and has left a comical message for her co-workers and friends.

Well, unfortunately, that was not the case. She happened to call me that same week and after laughing hysterically about the autoresponder, she told me that she had been laid off from her job because of what else? Downsizing due to a lost contract (she works for a governmental agency). She had been with this company for 18 1/2 years! She was devastated, but I told her to stay positive, that God was in control of this situation.

As more and more people are “downsized” and asked to take early retirement, home-based businesses will become increasingly popular and almost the norm. When I decided to start a home-based business more than a year ago, I had no idea if it would work, if I can handle the stress of running my own business and taking care of my family from the same space and if the services I provide would be needed. But I’m happy to report that all is good in my virtual world! My business is growing day by day. I am providing a very beneficial service to other business owners, freeing them up to manage their business. And my plans are to utilize the services of other virtual professionals to assist and support my business as part of my virtual team.

If you have been thinking of starting a home-based business, I would highly recommend it and there are many great resources out there to guide you along the path. If your background is in administration, like me, check out

or visit our website at www.avirtualbiz.com for other links and resources to help with your online success. Take charge of your career, and always be In The Office and In Control of your future.

My husband and I were in the grocery yesterday and ran into a former neighbor. As we were catching up on family happenings and neighborhood gossip, she asked me where I was working now. I told her I had my own business and that I provided administrative and management support to small businesses and entrepreneurs. Sometimes, people give me that “deer-in-the-headlights” look when I say this, so I in an attempt to make it a little more understandable for her, I told her I developed databases and websites for people. That got an “Oh, great” from her. Just over her should I noticed a lady at the meat counter who turned around and smiled at me.

After we said goodbye and I made my way to the meat counter to select a juicy steak for dinner, the lady that had smiled at me was still standing there. She turned and said, “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation and I heard you say you built websites. I need one.”

Well, who would have ever thought that just catching up with an old neighber would produce a new client, but it looks like it just might. I exchanged information for her and asked her to give me a call and I would discuss developing the website. She told me that her daughter is in high school and wants a website that she can use as her online portfoilo as she begins to apply for colleges. What a great idea!

Later, as my husband and I were sitting down to enjoy those delicious steaks, I told him you just never know who’s listening or where you are going to find someone that needs your services. Even at the meat counter at the local grocery store.

After a wonderfully long weekend where I didn’t step foot into my home-office, I re-entered my virtual workplace this morning and visited several of my local hangouts. One is VAnetworking.com. We have an incredible forum where we can share ideas, ask any question without the fear of feeling stupid and on occasion, VENT!

This morning as I weaved my way through the threads of the weekend, I came upon one by a fellow VA who had encountered a terrible experience with a client. As most of us in the US know, this past weekend was Independence Day…July 4th. We typically don’t work on July 4th. Which is exactly what this VA had in mind. Not to mention that she was feeling under the weather too. However, she had a client call her at 11 pm on July 4th! If she had been feeling OK, she would have been out enjoying fireworks at this time of night, but because she was sick, she was asleep. But wait…the story doesn’t stop there.

The next day, she was feeling better and went to see a movie with her children. This same client called her six times and the last time with some pretty colorful language included in the voice mail.

Needless to say, she is terminating the contract with this client. What this particular client didn’t understand or appreciate is that Virtual Professionals are real people with real feelings and real lives!! We are small business owners, who just happen to work from home. We can be the best partner a small business or entrepreneur can have. We are dedicated, hard-working, motivated and knowledgeable in our specific area of expertise. We respect each of our clients, their time and their business, and we expect that same respect back.

I’m very proud of my fellow VA, for taking a stand and not accepting this kind of behavior. She has no regrets and by sharing her ordeal with us, we can better prevent this from happening in our business.

As a virtual professional, I am very thankful that I can get up every morning and make the long trip down the hall to my office…and I don’t spend a dime in gas!! When I first started this business gas was a mere $2.50 per gallon, which was bad enough, but to think of the millions of people whose job requires that regular morning fill up…I’m sorry.

Working as a virtual assistant or in some other type of home-based business is just one of the ways to relieve the pressure of today’s high gas prices. Another one is the ability to purchase items online. You can buy just about anything online, even greeting cards.

I have found an incredible system called . I log into my account, select the card I want, write my heartfelt text to the person I’m sending it to, upload my personal signature and click send. Taking maybe 5 minutes and no gas, out of my day! I can even upload photos, attach gift cards to places like Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, and Starbucks, or I can attach a wonderful basket of gourmet treats, including a box of mouth-watering brownies! It’s a one-stop shop!

I have found that I use Send Out Cards for my business to follow-up on leads, remind potential clients that I’m available to assist them and to thank my current clients for their trust in me and my business. I also use it to send cards to family and friends for birthdays, anniversarys, holidays and when someone is under the weather.

You know, most people have a kind heart and would send a card if they could remember to pick it up the next time they went shopping. With Send Out Cards, you can go shopping anytime; day or night and you have more than 10,000 cards to select from, right at your fingertips.

I love it so much, I’ll give you two free cards to send to anyone you wish. Just click here Send Out Cards and see what you think. And you don’t even have to start your car.

I asked my local networking group that question last week and they look at me like I had said a dirty word!! I really don’t remember how I stumbled upon Twitter, but after only being part of this social network site for a couple of weeks I have gained around 75 new contacts. That’s pretty incredible, that I’m connected to 75 people that I have never even met, but we share that one simple question with each other every day, “What Are You Doing?”

I even have a “follower” in Australia. And I’m following him as well. With the new Social Media Boom, you are truly going to be left behind if you don’t join in.

I have connected my Twitter to my FaceBook page and I have a MySpace for the gospel group I sing with and I’m LinkedIn and need to update my Ryze page. Whew, I’m dizzy, I can really understand why my networking group didn’t understand. But I have made it my mission and part of my business to teach them about this social media “thingy.” (More on that in the future)

If you really want to stay in touch, I highly recommend that you Twitter your Facebook and get Linkedin to your MySpace and Ryze, not to mention you should Digg, Flickr, and Pounce. Oh Wow, what would our grandparents say??

How many times have we said that? How do you pronounce that?

While talking on the phone with clients, I am always taking notes to make sure I follow-up and keep track of the tasks I need to do for them. Many times they will communicate a word, that I am just not familiar with. So the famous question pops out, “How do you pronounce that?” And then the next one is, “How do you spell that?”

Well, I have found the coolest site to help you out! I stumbled upon this incredible website today and I love it! The Free Dictionary.com I was doing some research and typed in the word Mushroom and up came The Free Dictionary. It not only gives you spelling, many different definitions, translations, thesaurus and the best part is that it Pronounces the word for you!! Yep, it sure does. I was blowned away! I could play with the site all day, but that doesn’t make me any money. However, it can save me a great deal of time now that I know about it and I thought you would like it too.

Go check it out. It will (mush·room To multiply, grow, or expand rapidly) your vocabulary!!!

I wrote a great post yesterday and was so proud of it and feeling good only to find out today that I forgot to click Publish. Duh!! I previewed it and tweaked it several times and then just forget to post it on my Blog.

I think that applies to many things in business and life. We just forget to click the Publish button. We work on our business plan, we get our marketing plan ready, we have our business cards printed and then never click Publish. Or, we decide to go on a diet only to jump in the middle of a whole chocolate cake!! Or we want to start saving for a vacation or retirement and go out and buy a new car.

Why is that? Are we not committed to our business strategy? About losing weight or saving money? No, I don’t think that’s it at all. In my case, it’s the old adage, “I’ll get to that tomorrow.” I procrastinate on really important things and forget to click Publish.

Next time you become passionate about something, whether it be business or personal, be sure you click Publish, otherwize that great idea will never get posted!