Stephen Marinaccio
What’s Bugging You Pest Control

Back in 2000, Steve Marinaccio started his pest control career in Las Vegas. Believing he could work year around, he moved to West Palm Beach, Florida in 2001.

He landed a Technician job with a huge Pest Control Firm. He quit because he could not believe the way the company treated their customers, taking days and sometimes weeks to get back to them!

Believing there was a better way; Steve went to work for a small pest control firm, and started building his own route. In the beginning with few customers Steve had to go back to dealing blackjack on a cruise ship. He would do pest control jobs in between the day and night cruises. With the help of some wonderful people in BNI, Steve started to network and was able to build the business to the point where he could go full-time.

Three years passed and Steve was able to take the Pest Control License test. After passing he went out on his own in July of 2005 and called his company What’s Bugging You Pest Control. The company’s philosophy is give personal service to each customer. When a customer calls with a concern, either the call is answered or returned by the end of the day. When you hire Steve you get Steve, not some unknown technician.

Why hire a tech, when you can have the boss! Steve is “The Killer with a heart!”

Here’s a little taste of what others are saying about Steve:

Countryman’s Treasured Chests is proud to announce their new website!  Visit http://www.countrymanstreasuredchests.com

Countryman’s Treasured Chests is passionate about wood. Our owner, Arlin Countryman, has over 15 years of professional carpentry and 20 years of heavy civil construction experience. In addition to his professional career, Arlin Countryman has been building fine furniture and accessories for over 35 years. Taking a raw piece of wood and turning it into a piece of art you can treasure for a lifetime is his passion! And that passion and dedication shows in every project he completes, whether it be a simple wooden toy for a child, or a wall-mounted display cabinet.

Eagle Eye Web Services will continue to consult with Michelle regarding Social Media, marketing, and ongoing website changes. Congratulations Michelle, and we look forward to helping your website and your writing soar. You can view the site here.

1. Microsoft Office:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/  (including Publisher!)
2. Membership in a VA Organization or two: http://www.ivaa.org/?page=MembershipFAQ
3. WordPress: http://wordpress.com/
4. Abode Acrobat Pro:  http://www.adobe.com/
5. VoIP Calling Plan:  http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/ or http://www.ringcentral.com/
6. Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/
7. Twitter:  http://twitter.com/
8. LinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/
9. Hosting site (loads to choose from, just let Google take you there)

10. Speak of Google, check out their calendar functions: www.google.com/calendar  

11. BONUS Remote access or online meetings software to SEE what your client is seeing:  http://www.webex.com/

Many of these software tools offer free trials before you buy so you can get a good understanding if you like them.  They are well worth the investment in time to learn them and money.

What would you add to the list?

If you’re under 25, you probably don’t remember the wonder of Saturday morning cartoons. Or at least don’t appreciate it as much.
If you’re over 25, can you still remember the anticipation of actual kid shows on T.V.? My brother and I would rise and shine at 5:30 in the morning, with no complaints, so that we wouldn’t miss a minute.

The cartoons were the culmination of a week of hard in school and, with very few exceptions, the only time animated shows were on T.V.

My children have never known a world without access to video-on-demand on a computer or DVR. So in thinking about how lucky they are, I started thinking about in what ways they are missing out. So here’s my top 10 of what I miss about

Saturday morning cartoons:
10. Anticipation
9. Something to look forward to
8. Learning patience (although I would never have said THAT as a child)
7. Playing outside after school (I don’t get to play outside often after work)
6. Classical music as the background music in Hanna Barbara Cartoons
5. A special day each week
4. Not fighting with my brother for 4 hours
3. Seeing the Road Runner get away from Wile E. Coyote… again… and again…
2. The theme songs. Scooby dooby doo, where are you?
1. The slogans. My favorite cartoon slogan was Underdog’s, “Never Fear, Underdog is here!” What was yours?

What do you miss about the “good old days”?

Did you know that there are 889 Meet up groups for Small Business Marketing worldwide?  50 of them are in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex.  For Women Entrepreneurs – there are 2,072 Meet Ups worldwide.  I could go on…

The message here is that Meet Ups are the networking way to go these days and if you are not taking advantage of them, then you’re missing the boat. 

What is a Meet Up group?  It’s a group of individuals who share a common interest.  And, as the name suggests, Meet Up groups usually meet face-to-face.  The members may share an interest in a leisure activity, a sport, a type of business, or the desire to network in a particular geographic area. 

When I decided to become a Virtual Assistant, one of the first pieces of advice given to me was to find a group of like-minded individuals and start networking.  And I’m passing it along to you.

Here’s what a Meet Up group can do for solo-preneurs:

1. Find Your Sounding Board:  When you join a Meet Up group, you gain a think-tank where you can bounce ideas around and get a gut reaction.  An idea may seem great when you were alone in your office and might not seem so great when you say it out loud.
2.  Grow Your Business:  You meet people from all over with different perspectives and backgrounds.   There are different types of Meet Up groups.   One type is networking with other businesses in your area to which you can provide a product or service.  It’s a non-threatening environment to share what you do and how you can help.  Another type is networking with folks in the same industry as you.  This lets you get to know people who are in your same boat.  Why is that important?  Because you can learn from them:  Share your successes and failure, Learn from the failure of others, Share your challenges and learn from the successes of others, and Learn from the guest speakers chosen by your peers to join a meeting. 

One of my Meet Up groups, Virtual Assistants of DFW, meets monthly and we always have an interesting guest speaker.  Recently, we had the privilege of visiting with Tracey Clarke and Jamie MacLeod, owners of Virtual Administration in the UK.  Tracey and Jamie shared their recipe for growing their virtual assistant business into a huge success.   Now, insight and ideas like that are worth the price of lunch.

…from Left to Right:  Julia Lilly, Lissa Duty, Cindy Flood, Tracy Smith (that’s me!), Charity Van Vleet, Tracey Clarke, Kay Wright, Sharon Tousley

Do you need more time to focus on making money in your business?  What if you are spending time on administrative tasks and your competition isn’t?

These are real tasks that real Virtual Assistants are doing for clients today.   This is by no means an exhaustive list, just ask your VA…

In alphabetical order, your VA can:

1. Convert an old contact database to new software.
2. Convert your manuals to Word or PDF documents.
3. Coordinate air travel, car rental and hotel reservations.
4. Create and send surveys to your contacts, collect responses, and consolidate results. 
5. Create dynamic presentations for your next meeting.
6. Create Excel reports to monitor your key indicators of success.
7. Digitize your receipts & documents.
8. Enter prospects into your contact management software for your marketing campaigns.
9. Fill out forms, applications and other documents (on-line and off-line).
10. Follow up with a personalized e-mail using the business cards you collect at a Trade Show.
11. Gather questions and answers from a webinar and create an FAQ document.
12. Keep you accountable in completing your daily to-do list.
13. Locate a hard to find item on the Internet.
14. Mail or e-mail past due notices or follow-up via telephone to collect on past due invoices.
15. Manage your calendar, confirm appointments, and send reminders to you .
16. Manage your company’s e-zine or newsletter.
17. Manage your e-mail while you’re on vacation & call you with a summary at the end of each day.
18. Order your office supplies & arrange for delivery to your location.
19. Organize your e-mail rules so that you get to the most important e-mails first.
20. Organize your inbox and voicemail box.
21. Prepare a PowerPoint presentation for your on-line webinars.
22. Prepare manuals, flyers and mailings.
23. Prepare PowerPoint slides from sketches of diagrams and charts.
24. Repurpose your existing content and convert to e-books and blog posts.
25. Research & find unique gifts for clients.
26. Research summer activities for children, showing costs, events & locations
27. Resize, group and upload photos to your website.
28. Send cards to your clients, friends and family members for birthdays and holidays.
29. Send thank you notes to your clients immediately after they use your services.
30. Set up and manage your Facebook Business pages.
31. Set up a new blog.
32. Sort, route and answer routine e-mail messages.
33. Take minutes during tele-conferences and summarize take-aways for you.
34. Take your box of business cards and create a distribution list for your e-newsletter.
35. Track projects and deadlines.
36. Track special dates & order flowers on your behalf.
37. Transcribe your voice mails into a succinct e-mail document easy to review.
38. Type up handwritten notes from a meeting or seminar.
39. Type, edit, format, proofread & grammar check your documents.
40. Typing letters, print on stationery, address, and mail.
41. Update Twitter, Facebook and your blog.
42. Update your to-do list.
43. Verify information in your database.

So stop the madness, find a VA who specializes in this arena, and take your business to the next level.

If you run your business from home and want to give that impression of looking bigger – then work with a Virtual PA. You don’t have to employ someone.

Having your own PA gives a little prestige and shows that you’re happy, confident and trusting when delegating work. Plus, working with a good PA lets you concentrate on other areas, letting them get on with sorting your daily/weekly activities and of course acting as that expert gate keeper.

Having a virtual PA on board gives you independence to move forward, having someone to rely on, take the load when something goes a miss, for example children being poorly, ideal situation whereby you can ask your virtual PA to cancel that important appointment with a client and reschedule while showing a professional, confident front.

Most sole traders/entrepreneurs are so busy wearing 20 different hats, tying themselves in knots and forget the purpose of ‘enjoying life’ – isn’t that why you decided to go self employed anyway…

Having the independence to go and do – leaves you relaxed and happy that your virtual PA is fielding your emails, answering them on your behalf, building relationships with clients, suppliers, business colleagues, booking your appointments and dealing with letters and reports.

If you’ve already got a busy family life and spend your time driving from meeting to meeting – the last thing you want to do on your return home is type up your notes from the day’s event before you forget what was said.

Find time in your day to speak with your PA and give them the information verbally over the phone. They’re most likely far quicker than you at typing and setting the letter/report out to look good.

If you are in a new business or have been going a good while, give yourself and someone else some independence. Delegate and use professional support offered by the virtual assistant.

Do you use Twitter?  Do you want to take your brand recognition to your Twitter profile?  Below are the quick and easy steps in creating a custom Twitter background.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Create Image (Images must be smaller than 800k. GIF, JPG, PNG.)
2. Log in to Twitter
3. Go to “Setting”
4. Go to “Design”
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page
6. Click on “Change Background Image”
7. Click “browse” and choose your content from your computer
8. Click Open
9. And “Save Changes”