One of my own wonderful clients, Small Business Coach and Marketing Strategist, Jennifer Davey, is the author of the “Getting Clients Home Study Program”, the step-by-step guide to getting clients, building
your business and making more income, and is also the author of
the testimonial that you see when you get to the home page of my
Virtual Assistance site. She shares this summation of when to ask
for a testimonial from your past and current clients.

Jennifer says, “Many of my clients are uncomfortable asking for testimonials.
They feel that testimonials should just come to them, and sometimes this happens.
But most of the time, clients need a nudge to write down their thoughts.

A great time to ask for a testimonial is when your client is happy with what you’ve done
for him or her, for example:

* When he or she has had success.
* When his or her problem is on its way to being solved.
* When his or her problem is solved.
* When he or she tells you he or she is happy with you.
* When he or she says thank you.
* When you deliver a product.

As soon as a client tells you that he or she is happy with you, ask if you can share
his or her story with potential clients. When he or she says yes, say, ‘Terrific, I will
send you an email with a request for a testimonial.’

Another great way to ask for a testimonial is to give your clients a survey form to fill
out whenever you complete a project, sell them a product, or finish a service.
Reach out to folks who wrote feedback and ask for permission to use their testimonials.”

Jennifer is one of my favorite proofreading clients.
I have also done transcription work for her webinars.

Small Business Coach and Marketing Strategist, Jennifer Davey, is the author of
the Getting Clients Home Study Program, the step-by-step guide to getting clients,
building your business and making more income.

Grab a copy of her Report What you Need to Know to Be Successful at Getting Clients.

Although I specialize IN proofreading and editing, I offer a wide range of services and have recently added retainer packages to ensure a steady work flow and save my clients money.

My rates are very reasonable and I guarantee my accuracy. If YOU need a Virtual Assistant for any of the services I offer, contact me to schedule a project or for more information on how we can work together to help free up your time for doing the things you excel at
and/or enjoy doing!

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing,
proofreading and transcription assignments!

Jan Tallent
Tallent Agency Virtual Assistance

573-775-4520 jan@tallentagency.com

When I decided to move my home based office services business
forward to the now popular Virtual Assistance niche, I saw a lot
of advice both for and against specializing my services.

Knowing where my strengths lie and where I have NO expertise,
I decided that specializing was the way for ME, personally, to go.

It is like when I worked in the *real world* as a Kelly Girl, which was a huge employer
for temporary office help, I only accepted assignments for file clerk, receptionist or general office. I could DO many office tasks but either did not feel qualified or frankly, did not WANT to perform several of the jobs that were offered to me.

I turned down several office management job offers although I was qualified TO do
the jobs – I instead opted to train someone else to fulfill the duties for those jobs.
I did not want the responsibility of running the offices and preferred to have set tasks
to perform daily as apposed to being in charge of staff and the stress that I saw coming with those jobs.

This said, there are Virtual Assistance services that I cannot do or do not want to do.
So I am concentrating on my strengths, which are:

Proofreading

Editing

Transcription

Social Network Assistance

Research

Because each client is as different in his or her way of wanting things done
as each office is, I am constantly in training as I work with each person.
Since I love to work and love to learn, this is a great business for me to be in.

Kind of like when I had temp jobs with Kelly Girl, I am responsible to get my portion
of the work done but ultimately NOT having the headaches and stresses of the business owner. Of course, I do still have those with my OWN businesses, but that is another story.

Since I know that most of us are feeling this money crisis, to both ensure that I can work steadily and to help the budget of potential clients, I have come up with my retainer plans. This can be of huge benefit to those who need my services but cannot afford, or do not want to spend, my hourly fees. I have beaten every other reputable deal I could find
in my specialties to achieve this.

Here are my Retainer Services – Paid in advance ONLY:

* Proofreading, Editing, Social Networking Assistance, Help Desk Assistance,
Email Account Maintenance, Blog Posting, Web Page updates, Submitting your Blogs
& Articles to directories, etc. can be retained weekly or monthly to save you money
and assure continual work flow.

* Ten hours per week $15 per hour = $150

* Fifteen hours per week $13 per hour = $199

* Twenty hours per week $11 per hour = $220

* You can use your entire retainer fee on one project
OR mix them up in any categories as needed

* Monthly retainer of at least 20 hours per week, EVERY week,
booked and paid in advance for a month at a time = $10 per hour.
Limited to TWO monthly retainer clients.

Click here to schedule a retainer project.

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing,
proofreading and transcription assignments!

Jan Tallent
Tallent Agency Virtual Assistance

573-775-4520 jan@tallentagency.com

Transcribing audio to text for reports, ebooks, etc. can be so much easier for the transcriptionist to DO and do so with maximum accuracy if, as a speaker, you use a clear and steady voice when making your recorded event.

In a moment, I will share with you a prime example of this as with permission from the speaker I am going to show you just what I mean.

I have done now quite a few transcriptions which were made much more difficult than they needed to be by the following:

*People talking so fast it is a wonder they can understand themselves

*People talking over each other and interrupting each other – this is especially difficult to decipher when you have two or more voices that are very similar!

*People who interrupt themselves to go off on another train of thought completely and then jump back to the prior subject

*People with – to be honest – horrible grammar – who do NOT want these errors fixed when being transcribed!

*People who make it obvious that there was NO PLAN on what to be said or discussed so there is no flow or rhythm to what is being said

*People who repeat the same thing several times but there is no sequence to let the transcriber know when to leave it and when to remove it

*People who come in and out of range of their microphones or whatever recording device they are using – I have done some where I had to send the file to the interviewer or interviewee with unknown and unclear notations for whole paragraphs of audio I could not hear or figure out or even give my best guess at

I know there are others and realize them AS I am doing a transcription, but these are just off the top of my head … IF you are planning on having your audio event transcribed, it might be a good idea to type up one of your shows or seminars or webinars, etc. yourself and you just might be surprised at how difficult this can be, especially for someone that probably does not know YOU or is not used to the way you speak.

Most of my Transcription Clients have, mercifully, been great voices and conversationalists TO transcribe. I appreciate that and them so very much. A normal, easy to hear and understand ONE HOUR audio file can take up to six hours to transcribe, proofread and edit. Obviously, having to stop several times to re-hear and try to translate and/or decipher is going to take even longer.

Now, on to that prime example of an interesting, fun, and CLEAR speaker who obviously has planned out what she is going to say AND has a great delivery as she is saying it – I would like to introduce you to Ann Evanston, The Warrior-Preneur and a savvy biz lady who shares “thoughts, inspiration and education – warrior style!” and one of my favorite videos of Ann’s – The Social Psychology of Social Media.

Listen to Ann’s clear, steady voice with a nice, even flow – this is just the type of speaker that is a joy to transcribe!

thanks, Ann, for the permission to use you as my prime example
and also for being a favorite and appreciated client!

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing , proofreading and
transcription assignments!

Jan Tallent
Tallent Agency Virtual Assistance

573-775-4520 jan@tallentagency.com