I have sadly neglected this blog due to being busy, busy, busy and then on top of that, being SICK for about nine weeks with a cold / flu type thing that I did not think was ever going to go away! Now I am back to “normal”, for me, anyway, LOL, and will try to do better with keeping my blog updated. Welcome to this fresh, new year with a chance for new beginnings, new friends and associates and new business!

This has nothing to do with my Virtual Assistance business except for the fact that my focus is ON this business and I have lost my eight year addiction to selling digital products, but I have decided to retire SoftwareWarrioress.com so that I can totally devote my time and energies TO my Virtual Assistance business and my marketing ezine, Rim Digest , which will be celebrating its 10th anniversary with me as its editor on February 10.

I plan to sell the domain name of 8 years, SoftwareWarrioress.com and over 50 Gig of resell digitals plus the web site and pages, etc. This way I can devote myself to my true loves, which are the services I provide as a Virtual Assistant, my wonderful clients and future ones and my ezine. I let myself get stretched in too many directions and this is my goal for 2010 – to get and remain totally focused.

To be perfectly honest, I LOVE Proofreading and Editing and doing Transcriptions and feel I do my best work when it is something I enjoy and excel at.

I am also an avid social networker, especially with Twitter and love helping others with their social networking needs. By retiring the digital sales super store business, I can devote myself to these things.

I do not, however, plan to sell three of my most beloved digital products with this sale. I plan to keep the following three, as they are totally mine, were made for ME and are my 3 best sellers:

First off is the Health Products site with a HUGE inventory of products with resell rights on three levels, Helluva Health Site , which was made for me by my best friend, Sharon McPherson, who is also the owner/operator of Templates Themes and Graphics AND the creator of this blog site and Tallent Agency Virtual Assistance site.

This has been my biggest seller of ALL time next to advertising in my ezine.

Next is the Christmas Bonanza package , which was also made for me by Sharon.

Lastly, the oldest product I plan to hang on to is my Marketing Warrioress Quick and Easy Recipes which was written and made BY ME!

These three items are available to buy but NOT a part of the SoftwareWarrioress.com retirement sale package.

I still love digital products and think they are the neatest things to hit the internet after almost 13 years of my being online BUT they need dedicated time and energy to sell and maintain and I just do not have the “fire” to devote to them any longer.

If anyone is interested in stepping into an already established business, you can email me from any of the pages at the site and I will be glad to talk to you about the possibilities.

Again, Happy New Year and thank you so much for visiting my blog in 2010!

Obviously, I am a Virtual Assistant . However, I chose to specialize in mainly three categories.

They are Proofreading , Editing and Transcription .

I am often asked about performing Services that I either do NOT do or that I know that someone in my circle of other VA’s can be more helpful with, so am more than glad to give the client a “sister” or “brother” colleague referral.

I have said for months that my dream is to be so busy that I need my OWN Virtual Assistant. Well, this past week, that finally happened! I took on an assignment that on the surface seemed entirely doable, but turned out to be more than I could handle in a timely manner.

Luckily for me, I have a wonderful network of savvy and talented business associates on Twitter , so was able to call for HELP and get my project completed and all in a timely manner and leaving me with another happy client .

The experts, or so-called ones, anyway, used to advise against interacting with your “competition”, but even ten years ago, when I took over as editor of my ezine, Rim Digest , I knew that forming allegiances with my peers could only help us all to learn and grow, and once again I was proven to be correct!

My hat is off to ALL Virtual Assistants who are willing to go the extra step to help out one of their peers and at a job rate that allowed me to get the help when I needed it.

By the way, Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Jan Tallent
Tallent Agency Virtual Assistance

I am an avid social networker and get into a lot of discussions on how we can build our businesses and get more customers or clients . Just today, several of us were talking about this in MY favorite and most responsive networking media, Twitter .

I am asked to visit and comment on a lot of blogs and web sites in the course of each day and am often appalled at the content on these pages that the “writer” wants the whole internet world to see!

Some of these documents are from every-day people and / or amateurs who are just dabbling in writing or doing it for a hobby. Do not get me wrong, I feel these people should want their works to be error free and cleanly presented, BUT my biggest surprise, and what really saddens me, is that so many of the so-called PROS or really big businesses do not seem to know, or even worse, do not seem to CARE, that their sites or blogs are horrendous with the spelling, grammar and word usage mistakes!

I do understand that not everyone is going to be a spelling or grammar genius and am not putting down anyone who is not, BUT, there is really no excuse for having sloppy, error-laden text on your web site, on your blog, in your sales copy or eBook, etc. where there are so many ways you can either check it yourself or get someone, like ME, to do it for you!

If you do your document in any word processing software that I have seen, there is a spell-checker! There is also one in every email program I have ever used or even seen. Plus, you have the extra advantage of at least MOST blog sites, for example, of having one built in that comes up with errors as you make them.

Of course, the “usage” errors would probably still get by you if you are not a great speller but the worse mistakes should not escape notice as you type whatever you are saying.

Things a spell-checker will usually not spot are “usage” errors, like:

there their they’re
its it’s
see sea seas seize
stake steak
your you’re
for fore four

etc.

but usually DO let you know when ordinary, every day words with no synonyms are entered.

If in doubt, write your document in an email program and then use the spell-checker to check it out before you post it. Then, at least, the only errors that might get by would be those pesky “usage” ones.

There are also spell-checking web sites. Do a “search” for this type of resource and you can run your document through the online checkers.

For the best chance of having your document presented in its most professional and error-free presence, hire a Proofreading and Editing specialist.
This is what we DO so that you do not have to worry about anything except creating good, useful and interesting content!

If not MY company , find another that does the spell-checking and grammar checking FOR you. You might think you cannot afford this Service , but, frankly, if you are not an expert speller or great with grammar and word usage, you cannot afford NOT to avail yourself of this much needed help.

Why am I qualified to judge your writings and offer to help you present the best possible document? Well, I was an Honor Roll student in Spelling, Reading and English all through grade school AND high school, I was one of the top spellers of medical terms and transcription dictations as an adult at Rolla Technical Institute, where as an adult I took a year of Computerized Medical Office Technology, AND in February of 2010, I will celebrate TEN years of being the editor of my own marketing ezine, Rim Digest eZine , along with my wonderful references from my happy clients and to top it all off, like the cherry on top of the sundae, this is what I LOVE doing!

If you are a serious business owner, losing just ONE potential customer or client could have paid for your site to be “perfected”. Is it not time to put this on your agenda and into your budget or at least to double check your documents before you upload them to be shared by the entire net world? It is, of course, your decision, but I can honestly say that I, for one, do NOT do business with anyone who cannot spell or has more than the occasional grammar, usage or sentence structure error in a document that was meant to sell me something.

I am currently available to give your site or document a check-up to see if having a one-time or continuous clean-up is one of YOUR needs.

You can get in touch with me via email link on any of my pages or use this form to set something up with me to check out and possibly assist you in putting your best and most professional business foot forward.

Jan Tallent
Tallent Agency Virtual Assistance