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Cindy Greenway: Virtually Successful - Blog Business Success Radio

Professional virtual assistant, owner of Victoria Business Solutions and author of the practical and concise book Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients Cindy Greenway, shares ideas for making the transition from employee to entrepreneur. She describes how to build business relationships with clients and provides proven ways to keep as well as increase, your number of customers. She also discusses ideas for growing a virtual assistant company that benefits everyone involved in the business relationship.

Cindy Greenway is my internet radio show guest on Blog Business Success; hosted live on Blog Talk Radio.

The show airs live on Tuesday, February 3, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time; 5:00 pm Pacific Time.

Professional virtual assistant, owner of Victoria Business Solutions and author of the practical and concise book Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients Cindy Greenway, shares ideas for making the transition from employee to entrepreneur. You will learn:

* About the role of the professional virtual assistant or VA

* How to add clients to build the virtual assistant business

* How to market the business to your target customer base

* How to retain clients and get constant repeat business

Cindy Greenway (photo left), author of Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients (Grow Your VABiz), took a leap of faith in 2003 when she started her Virtual Assistant business, only six months after the birth of her first son. It wasn't until late 2002 that she even learned of the term Virtual Assistant. Cindy has worked with highly respected and successful online-based business owners by implementing and managing technology, automating and streamlining various processes, overseeing and managing current marketing strategies, building a virtual team, and contributing to the development of new products, programs and services.

In the last 3 years, as partner of the Multiple Streams Team, Cindy has personally spoken with over 450 small business owners who were interested in working with a VA. She has a full understanding of what business owners want and expect from a VA. Cindy is also the co-founded of the Hot Skills VA Training Program, a skills building program designed specifically for Virtual Assistants who want to build their mindset and skill set to work with online based professionals.

Cindy is passionate about the Virtual Assistant profession. Nothing satisfies her more than training and mentoring other VAs as well as supporting the growth of the industry by educating the business community.

My book review of Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients by Cindy Greenway.

Listen live on Tuesday at 8:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Pacific time.

If you miss this very informative show, it will be available for free download as a podcast for iPod, iTunes, and MP3 players; or play it right on your computer. To download this, or any other of my guest interviews, go to the Blog Business Success host page and click on Archived Segments. Once there, click on the podcast icon at the end of the episode description, to download the show free of charge for your listening enjoyment. You can also subscribe to the show feed.

To call in questions for my guest, the number is: (347) 996-5832

Let's talk with professional virtual assistant, owner of Victoria Business Solutions and author of the practical and concise book Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients Cindy Greenway, as she shares ideas for making the transition from employee to entrepreneur. She describes how to build business relationships with clients and provides proven ways to keep as well as increase, your number of customers. She also discusses ideas for growing a virtual assistant company that benefits everyone involved in the business relationship on Blog Business Success Radio.

Tags: Cindy Greenway, Virtually Successful, virtual assistant business, Blog Business Success, Blog Talk Radio.

Virtually Successful by Cindy Greenway - Book review

Virtually Successful

8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients

By: Cindy Greenway

Published: Aug 1, 2008
Format: Paperback 168 pp
ISBN: 9780980903
Publisher: Cindy Greenway

As a professional Virtual Assistant, you are now a business owner and an industry professional, writes entrepreneur and virtual assistant Cindy Greenway in her practical and concise book Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients. The author answers effectively the important questions, faced by virtual assistants, of how to find good clients and how to retain them over the long term.

Cindy Greenway dispenses with the formalities and gets right down to business, as she shares proven techniques for building a profitable and growing client base. She recognizes that becoming a virtual assistant is entering into a partnership with the client, that is mutually beneficial. As a business person, Cindy Greenway stresses the importance of developing a business mindset, and not thinking of a virtual assistant as being an employee. To that end, the book is filled with easy to apply concepts and the author's personal business successes and disappointments, that emphasize the business aspect of becoming a professional virtual assistant.

Cindy Greenway (photo left) understands that building a business is about marketing the business properly. To that end, she recommends the niche market approach for virtual assistants, as a proven technique for differentiating the new virtual assistant business from the competition. At the same time, the author points out that specializing in a specific industry develops a knowledge of that industry and its problems and challenges. As a result, the virtual assistant can focus the business website, marketing, and personal contacts on addressing and overcoming those challenges.

For me, the power of the book is its practical, business based approach to establishing a virtual assistant practice. By focusing on marketing, on building a client base, and on helping that clientele to succeed, Cindy Greenway helps build a solid foundation for a new or existing virtual assistant professional. By demonstrating the partnership value of outsourcing with a virtual assistant, the author shows how to create value and become an important profit center for client companies. Cindy Greenway emphasizes the importance of considering oneself a professional business person, and not an employee, helping to establish the right marketing mindset from the very start.

I highly recommend Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients by Cindy Greenway, to anyone starting or building a professional virtual assistant business. The compact book contains problem solving ideas that can be referred to again and again while growing the company and its client base.

Read Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients by Cindy Greenway, and establish yourself as the leading virtual assistant in your industry niche. Become the professional business person, and help your company and those of your clients to grow and prosper.

Tags: Virtually Successful, Cindy Greenway, virtual assistant business, business book reviews.

Closing The Innovation Gap by Judy Estrin - Book review

Closing the Innovation Gap

Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy

By: Judy Estrin

Published: Aug 13, 2008
ISBN: 9780071499873
Format: Hardcover, 272pp
Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Scientific innovation is not important only to scientists and to the U.S. economy. It affects everyone, writes innovation thinker and entrepreneur Judy Estrin in her visionary book Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy. The author makes a powerful case for the vital importance of innovation in building a strong economic future for everyone.

Judy Estrin describes the often unsettling but unvarnished underlying causes for the decline of American leadership in science and technology. That deterioration of American industrial strength, she believes, can be traced to a failure to continue the tradition of creative thinking and innovation in every aspect of American life. The spirit of new discovery in industry, academia, government, and public education has declined dramatically over the past decades. Instead of seeking long term answers to vital questions in science and technology, the focus has changed to results that only require a short time horizon.

Judy Estrin (photo left), as former CTO of Cisco Systems, understands the modern corporate structure from an insider's perspective. She recognizes how Wall Street and shareholder pressure have shifted emphasis on long term innovative product development, to short term quarterly reports. Corporate CEOs, facing a very short job expectancy of an average of three years, are under extreme pressure to create immediate gains in profits and share value. The result of this short sighted thinking has been a loss of a generation of scientific research and development. Universities and government sponsored scientific research has suffered from similar constraints. The loser in the underfunding of scientific research is the entire economy and the overall quality of life.

For me, the power of the book is the visionary approach taken by Judy Estrin, as she analyzes the problem, and then offers concrete and workable solutions. Judy Estrin understands the process for creativity and innovative discovery is a messy business and difficult to quantify. She recognizes that false trails and dismal failures are part of the innovative process. As a result, executives seeking to apply standard metrics will often be disappointed in the results of the research team. Instead of further funding, whether internally or by venture capitalists, will very often be steered into immediate marketing solutions. In the end, the opportunities for real advancement in science and innovation are lost.

I highly recommend the important book Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy by Judy Estrin, to anyone who is serious about strengthening the role of science and innovative research in industry, universities and schools, and in government. The time is running out for American innovation to retake the leadership in science and technology. Judy Estrin provides a framework for rebuilding the scope of research and development far beyond today's declining level of true innovation.

Read Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy by Judy Estrin, and discover how to reignite the crucial spark of innovation and creativity in America. The future depends on advances in science and technology, and the time to begin that renewed innovative quest is now.

Tags: Closing the Innovation Gap, Judy Estrin, creativity and innovation, business book reviews.

Kathy Caprino: Breakdown, Breakthrough - Blog Business Success Radio

Founder and President of Ellia Communications, Inc., and author of the empowering book Breakdown, Breakthrough: The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power, and Purpose, Kathy Caprino shows working women how to reconnect with their goals and empower themselves to succeed. She shares ideas for gaining inspiration, building hope and for building a plan of action.

Kathy Caprino is my internet radio show guest on Blog Business Success; hosted live on Blog Talk Radio.

The show airs live on Thursday, January 29, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time; 5:00 pm Pacific Time.

Founder & President of Ellia Communications, and author of the empowering book Breakdown, Breakthrough: The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power, and Purpose, Kathy Caprino shows working women how to reconnect with their goals and empower themselves to succeed. You will learn:

* What causes breakdown in women's careers and lives

* How to achieve a breakthrough to regain power in life

* What are some of the warning signs of a possible breajdown

* How to achieve empowerment and purpose in life's journey

Kathy Caprino M.A. (photo left) is a career and life coach, women's empowerment expert, author, and speaker specializing in helping all professionals gain empowerment and self-mastery to navigate successfully through major transition.

In her work, Ms. Caprino demonstrates and teaches her new Guide for Empowered Living -- complete with three essential steps for empowered life change -- based on the key findings from her national research study "Women Overcoming Professional Crisis: Finding New Meaning in Life and Work." Kathy is a former corporate Vice President who has successfully reinvented her own life, directly applying the principles she teaches and coaches.

Drawing on her extensive training and life experience in business, coaching, communications, systems psychology, spiritual development, and the performing arts, Kathy assists her clients in successfully unlocking their potential, and bringing them to their highest level of empowerment and contribution.

Kathy Caprino also utilizes findings from her research with women, her therapeutic training with families and systems, and her foundational coaching work with hundreds of professionals to provide effective, targeted approaches that help clients achieve desired growth in all areas of professional and personal life.

Kathy works with clients both one-on-one and in groups nationally and internationally. She is a frequent invited speaker and workshop presenter in the areas of women's professional development, empowerment, overcoming adversity and challenge, navigating successfully through transition, empathic relating, and healthy family dynamics.

Kathy is Founder/President of Ellia Communications, Inc. and former co-founder and partner of Living in Harmony--The Center for Emotional Health in CT. She is also a career transition coach for Women@Work Network LLC and a featured contributor for Fifty and Furthermore, the website of nationally recognized aging expert, Dr. Dorree Lynn.

Previous to owning her own coaching business, Kathy built a successful 18-year corporate career in the publishing and book club and membership services industries, serving in various directorship roles in direct marketing, product development, research, and product management.

She received her M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Fairfield University, her B.A. from Boston University, and earned other educational certifications and training from New York University, University of London, and the Institute for Life Coaching Training. Her private practice is based in Norwalk, CT. She lives with her husband, world-renowned jazz percussionist Arthur Lipner (www.arthurlipner.com), and their two children in Fairfield County, CT.

My book review of Breakdown, Breakthrough: The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power, and Purpose by Kathy Caprino.

Listen live on Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Pacific time.

To call in questions for my guest, the number is: (347) 996-5832

Let's talk with Founder and President of Ellia Communications, Inc., and author of the empowering book Breakdown, Breakthrough: The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power, and Purpose, Kathy Caprino as she shows working women how to reconnect with their goals and empower themselves to succeed. She shares ideas for gaining inspiration, building hope and for building a plan of action on Blog Business Success Radio.

Tags: Kathy Caprino, Breakdown, Breakthrough, empowering women, Blog Business Success, Blog Talk Radio.

Breakdown, Breakthrough by Kathy Caprino - Book review

Breakdown, Breakthrough

The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power, and Purpose

By: Kathy Caprino

Published: Oct 1, 2008
ISBN: 9781576755594
Format: Paperback, 237pp
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Breakdown often seems to strike out of the blue, yet we rarely get to this point without warning signs along the way, writes Kathy Caprino in her empowering book Breakdown, Breakthrough: The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power, and Purpose. The author notes that many women, due to a sense of loss of empowerment, are experiencing breakdowns in their lives.

Kathy Caprino was a highly successful businessperson, with a model family, but she felt her life was unbearable. Her family noticed it too as her home life reflected her breaking down in her career. She suffered a breakdown, and recovered her passion and power when she had a breakthrough in understanding. Her book shares the powerful stories of other women who felt a similar loss of empowerment in their own lives. The directness and unvarnished truth of the experiences provide the backdrop for the author's breakthrough discovery process.

Kathy Caprino (photo left) guides women through the process of regaining their personal power that has so often been lost in the workplace. The author understands that women need a sense of purpose for their lives, and for others in their immediate families. This passion for collaboration, sharing, and helping others can even take on a global vision and perspective. Whether the cause of the personal breakdown is due to mistreatment, loss of self esteem, or any of a number of other causes described in the book, a woman receives the guidance to reclaim her personal power.

For me, the power of the book was the author's understanding that women can experience breakdowns from any number of causes, and that they can also achieve a breakthrough for reclaiming and enriching their lives. The case studies shared in the book provide background to the theoretical concepts, and serve to aid the reader toward reaching a breakthrough. As a woman discovers the purpose of her life, and feels the passion for that purpose to feel she would give up everything for it, she develops the commitment to her life's journey. Kathy Caprino recognizes that life is a journey, and not a destination, and provides the framework for enjoyment of the voyage of life.

I highly recommend Breakdown, Breakthrough: The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power, and Purpose by Kathy Caprino, to any woman who feels she has lost control of her life and has experienced a loss of personal empowerment. The book outlines the means to win back that passion and sense of purpose that gives a woman the power to speak up and achieve her dreams.

Read Breakdown, Breakthrough: The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power, and Purpose by Kathy Caprino, and begin the voyage from the loss of power that leads to breakdown, toward reaching a breakthrough that can change a life for the better.

Tags: Breakdown, Breakthrough, Kathy Caprino, empowering women, book reviews.