What to Do When People Want Everything for Free

It’s a sticky situation. A prospect, a site visitor, or just a casual acquaintance asks for your help or advice on something. You gladly give it, thinking it’s a one-time “favor.” But instead of providing a little free advice, you’ve opened door to an onslaught of mooching! Now, every time you check your email, you find question after question. What do you do?

This is a problem many online business owners face. You want to appear friendly and helpful, but person on receiving end of your favor is draining you dry. After all, these are services you charge for. This is how you make your living.

Like many folks, you don’t want to appear rude or unprofessional. But time you take to answer questions and provide help is taking away from your ability to earn an income. Let me tell you about one approach that seems to work wonderfully.

Minimal Information

When repeat offender asks for help, offer a minimal response to question. For sake of illustration, let’s say your area of expertise is in Web site design. If person asks for information on making his/her site design more professional, you might consider saying that adding a top border to site would create continuity. You might also mention that having black text on a white background makes for easier reading (as opposed to white text with a deep purple background). However, don’t go into details.

Outsourcing – A positive approach for Small Businesses

Outsourcing is strategic use of outside resources to perform activities traditionally handled by internal staff and resources. Small business owners can outsource non-core functions to specialized and efficient service providers. It is required of businesses to hire special contractors for particular types of work or to meet demands put forth by sudden spurts in workload. Recently, trend of partnering with firms whose capabilities complement their own giving them an access to resources that were beyond their individual reach has come up. The difference between simply subcontracting and outsourcing is that outsourcing involves wholesale restructuring of corporation around core competencies and outside relationships. As a consequence, has emerged a new class of skilled entrepreneurs – Virtual Assistants. What is a Virtual Assistant? A Virtual Assistant (VA) is an independent entrepreneur providing administrative, creative and/or technical services. Utilizing advanced technological modes of communication and data delivery, a professional VA assists clients in his/her area of expertise from his/her own office. A VA completes your projects using his or her own equipment, and carries out work through email, fax, telephone and postal service. Therefore, location of your VA is not important. This gives you a liberty to look for professionals best suited to your needs located anywhere on globe. Since they're paid only for time-on-task, businesses can hire several VAs in dispersed locations and have 24-hour support -- paying far less than an employee or temporary would cost for such comprehensive assistance. The services offered by each VA differ according to his/her skills. The list of services includes general administration services, database and website development, graphic design, internet research, sales support, presentation preparation, telephone answering, bill payments, travel arrangements, bookkeeping, desktop publishing, computer training, medical/legal transcription… list is endless! Not all VAs offer all of these services. However, by being part of VA Networks, your VA can guarantee client satisfaction by a qualified VA. If your VA cannot complete your task, he/she will find another VA who can.