With Snow Leopard, you can now add pages to your .pdf using preview instead of audio acrobat. It is actually pretty easy. The key is dragging the file to the right place. Here's a quick video.

Is The Never Cold Call Again Online Playbook by Frank Rumbauskas, Jr. really "the Definitive Guide to Internet Marketing Success"?  No, it isn't.  Is it worth the $13 cover price . Yes it is.

I don't usually buy books that come advertised as part of an orchestrated campaign on Amazon to make the book a best seller.  You know, those campaigns where every big gun e-mails you about the book that will solve all of your problems for less than $20 and then offer dozens of bonuses when you send in your receipt…

But… I have to admit the hype intrigued me and I'm always up for learning new tricks and listening to new viewpoints.  I certainly did pick up a few great ideas from the playbook including:

• Some great ideas for building your platform
• A cost effective way to test press releases so that you don't need to spend money on duds
• Useful information about home page and sales letter structure
• At list of WordPress plugins to help your blog posts go farther.
• A couple of scripts to help with upsells and shopping cart abandonment
• How to make sure that your online persona matches the message you are trying to convey

These tantalizing tidbits of information make the book worth the purchase price.  I learned more from this book than I have from a few courses I've taken for hundreds of dollars each. Although you really couldn't pick up the book and create an online empire just from the information within its pages - the book does provide a nice overview (suitable for sending to your clients) of the internet marketing process and what it ultimately takes to be successful.

On the other hand, reading the book was a little like tasting samples at the grocery store.  Frank tempts readers with web addresses full of more information on a variety of topics — the trouble is — none of the addresses actually work as advertised.  He advocates for not using a traditional squeeze page and points us to some examples of his pages — yet the pages he points to are *all* traditional squeeze pages with none of the elements he talks about in his manuscript.  Yes, I know that time passes between a book being written and its ultimate publication — but it still is frustrating not to be able see any of the examples mentioned in the book.

Despite the frustration with the websites, the author is a good writer and does a great job of explaining the basics of Internet Marketing while throwing in some useful tips for those of us who have been working in the field for a while.

Two or three years ago, I took a teleseminar class from Bob the Teacher.  He had a very clear way of teaching (because he was a teacher) and I learned how to put teleseminars together for my clients.  I think I spent maybe $97 on the class and have made that money back at least 10 times because I'm able to offer something new to my clients.  About that time, Bob was trying to move to North Carolina — he offered a lifetime membership in his new teaching club for just $300.  Well, that seemed like a lot of money at the time… but I really liked how he taught so I signed up (that was one of the best internet marketing training purchases I have ever made — now people pay $97 a month to be in the club).

Now, Bob has morphed his IM Success Tribe into the IM Success Library where you get access to all of his courses (usually $47 to $300 each), strategy and brainstorming sessions for a small monthly fee .   Is the IM Success Library a worthwile investment for a virtual assistant?

If you would like to grow your internet marketing skills to attract better virtual assistant clients, then yes, I think that the IM Success Library is well worth the monthly fee (especially the very reasonable gold level).  For less than what you charge for one hour of work for a client - you get access to a huge library of courses — plus a forum in which to ask your questions.  In addition, you also get access to a huge network of people who are looking for virtual assistants to help them with their internet marketing businesses.  I have learned about half of what I know about how to make things happen online from Bob (the other half mostly through trial and error..)

The things I like about the new IM Success Library:

• Everything is in one place - if you need to learn about teleseminars, blogging, squidoo or autoresponders - you can go to the IM Success Library and a course is right there ready for your take.

• Bob covers *most* of the basics you need to help your clients get established online

• Bob's classes attract really great people — you are part of an instant network.

• The price is very reasonable for the information you have access to.

The Library is still a work in progress - but here is what I see is missing for virtual assistants

• 1Shopping Cart - most of my clients use 1shopping cart for their e-commerce and autoresponders. Bob's courses focus on aweber.  (If you are a VA and want shopping cart training and to be a member of the IM Success Library - go ahead and use my link to sign up for the library - and I'll let you take my Shopping Cart course ($197) for free. (Disclaimer: I get a commission from Bob if you use my link - I'll use my commission to cover the cost of your class.)

• Creating systems for managing your clients.  Bob isn't really focused on virtual assistants but rather internet marketers — so his library doesn't include this very important information for VAs.

• Sometimes the forums are the blind leading the blind.  There are wide range of people involved in his tribe.  Sometimes people shout out the wrong answers to questions in the forum.  The silver lining is that as a technically savvy virtual assistant you have a great chance to stand out and attract some great clients.

But, all in all.  the IM Success Library is an excellent investment for virtual assistants who would like to learn they skills they need to attract top paying ideal clients to their practices.

In the latest episode of Internet Monster Tamer Radio - I interview Scott Tousignant, founder of Fat Loss Quickie Club. During our high energy conversation, we talked about how critical your own health and balance are to having a successful business. Scott also offered up some very sneaky ways to make time to exercise.

What types of things do you do to take care of yourself?

Why is  it that you decided to be a virtual assistant?  For many, being virtual assistant is a great way to use top-notch organizational skills to make a decent living online.  But, is that enough?  I like to think that in a small way my actions to help my clients ripple out to allow them to help people.  My clients are a diverse group ranging from communications consultants to sleep and overhwelm coaches — but they have a common goal of helping people to make their lives better in some way.

Having the attitude that I am serving my clients to help them serve others gives my purpose and energy in my work with them.  I honestly believe that the intention with which work is done is vitally important.  It affects the qe a uality of your work.  When I launched my Tame the Internet Monster class last year,  Stephanie McWilliams interviewed me about the elements clients need to launch a business online.  The call covers the basic mistakes that people make, but also, toward the end, we have a very good discussion of what it means to be an entrepreneur whose primary goal is to help others.

Give it a listen, and let me know what you think…

Today is Blog Action Day.  Today, thousands of bloggers from all over the world will write on a topic — and hopefully all of our voices added together will make a difference.  I love the idea and I have participated for the past three years.  This year, the topic is global climate change — and it is tough for me to write about.   Climate change seems so big and so inevitable — and so hard to do anything concrete and permanent to combat.   As a virtual assistant, I work in the fast moving online world — combating climate change is all about moving more slowly, thinking long range — doing what we can now to save the world for our children and grandchildren.  It is hard to get your head around.

It makes me a little angry that we've wasted so much time not putting our best thinkers and scientists to work coming up with a solution. It seems like money is always a consideration before environmental impact.  What were we doing during the 80's and 90's - we could be so much farther along right now. The good news is that there is still time and everyone can do *something* and all of those things added to some serious national and global effort can make a difference.   So, let's get started.  Here are some ways to conserve in your home office:

• Go paperless - do you really need to print out that e-mail?
• Unplug all the tech when you are done for the day.  Even having the plug in the wall sucks out energy.  It also will make it easier to stay out of our office when you are done working for the day.
• Buy recycled.  Actually, most office paper is recycled these days — but spending time to find recycled furniture and other office supplies can really pay off.  Plus, the greater the demand, the more likely manufacturers will invest in making more recycled products.
• Recycle all batteries, cell phones and electronics.  Best buy and other stores have bins and most cities will let you recycle these things for free.  Lithium batteries and old computer screens (the big ones) are really bad for the environment - recycling is a much better alternative. Old cell phones can be reprogrammed and given to abuse victims for emergency use.
• Batch your errands and car pool.  I used to think I was saving energy by working from home — but then my daughter ended up going to a school 20 miles from home.  I try to at least do all my errands on the way from school so I'm driving less.
• Do you really need to drive?  In most major cities, walking or biking is faster for trips of less than a mile or two.

I admit it, I am probably one of the world's worst procrastinators.  This blog post (my 31st for the month (and sixth for this evening-written at 10:30 p.m. to make the midnight deadline of Sandra Martini's 30 posts in 30 days challenge is proof of that…)

But, I suspect I'm not alone.  I just helped one of my clients put together a teleseminar on procrastination (it is really good stuff and not to late to sign up and get the recording!).  With somewhat limited promotion - she got over 100 people to sign up for the call.  She definitely strikes a nerve.

Why is it that people procrastinate?  It is lack of time, lack of focus, lack of sleep?  I think in my case it is a little of all three — plus I'm constantly juggling and sometimes it is just easier to let some of the "rubber balls" (or less important tasks) drop for a while because I know they'll bounce back.  Keeping a list helps — as does giving myself some boundaries and deadlines.

What helps you overcome your procrastination?

One of the advantages of virtual events is that they do not require huge staffs to pull them off. There are details to plan, but not the same number or magnitude as for a live event. However, your client's event will be much better if you have a network of people that you can call upon to help you put together your event. Here are some people that you should consider adding to your network:

Administrative As a virtual assistant, you will probably be taking the lead in providing administrative support for the conference. This can include customer support, scheduling speakers, reserving the bridge line, etc. You might also be responsible for finding someone to create transcripts for the event.

Marketing Help Ultimately, the success or failure of the event lies in marketing. Here are some of the areas where you might need some marketing help.

Affiliate Manager - affiliates are a great way to fill seats in your conference. You need someone on board who can help motivate your affiliates to sell for you.

Copywriters and graphic designers and web devleopers — so you website and copy are top-notch

Technical Help You should consider two types of help here… one to make sure that the event itself goes off without a hitch — but you also want great audio and video editors if you want to make your event into another product later.

It takes a village to create a great event –if you have the right team — you already have a head start.

WANT MY FREE VIRTUAL EVENT PLANNING BLUEPRINT?

Claim it here.

While Nicole Dean was gallivanting around the Net as part of her Blog World Tour - I was busy planning a tour for one of my clients to promote the Self-Employment Telesummit.   I didn't have Nichole's new virtual blog tour guide to help me out (but I'm going to grab a copy so I'm ready for next year (or to put on tours for my other clients) - but I did learn a few things with my summer blog tour organizing adventure.

1. Virtual Blog Tours are wins for everyone involved.  Many of the blogs who volunteered to have Molly post were newer blogs - they got extra traffic from our promotion -Molly got extra exposure to new audiences.

2. The blog tour ended up being a good way for hosts to make some affiliate sales.  We encouraged our virtual tour participants to sign up as affiliates — we drove traffic to the posts - and people clicks on the links.  A win-win for everyone.

3. The tour ended up being a great way for me to introduce my virtual assistance clients to each other.  Three of the blog tour participants were clients of mine that served complimentary markets but who would not have otherwise been reached by Molly's campaign.  I love it when I can help my clients join forces.

4. You need to nag and keep your client on schedule.  Toward the end — I felt like a slave mistress and all the blog posts were coming out on top of each other — it didn't give us time to really promote them.

5. Give your hosts clear instructions as to days to post - how to insert an affiliate link, what to tweet and when, etc.  I think many of the hosts could have done even better traffic and affiliate-wise if we had taken them by the hand a little more.

Still, everyone involved had a good time and Molly got some great promotion.  I definitely plan to pick up Nicole's virtual tour e-book and learn what I can do better next time.