Author: Steve Slisar

Steve Slisar has been training people how to use computers since 1994, opened a training centre in 1999 in Dee Why and by 2005 had 3 training centres and created over 35 individual courses that include Screen videos with audio commentary, training workbooks for those who prefer to read to learn, and exercise files that are used with the tasks in the workbooks so you get practical experience in the software you are trying to learn. Now the creator of 5 of the most popular online MYOB training courses in Australia.
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What Do You Need To Start Your Own Bookkeeping Business?

Starting a Bookkeeping Business is Low RiskID-10093149

If you’re already employed as a bookkeeper or have graduated from our MYOB training course and starting your own business is something you’ve always dreamed of, then turn that dream into a reality.

Starting a bookkeeping business is one of the few low-risk start-up options, because a bookkeeping business, unlike other bricks and mortar businesses, can be operated from your home-office, eliminating many of the costly overheads that eat into your profits.

In fact, many of the overheads related to running a home-based bookkeeping business involve items you probably already have or are inexpensive to source, such as a laptop, mobile phone, internet connection, and a designated work-space.

But like any business, just because you have previous experience or the zeal to make your venture a success, doesn’t necessarily guarantee success—a business plan does. This should be the first thing you do.

  1. Writing a business plan lays out things like what services you will offer, pricing structures, and how many customers you will need to turn a profit. But it also forces you to do market research and compare your services and prices with your competitors. Our Registered BAS Agent has created a bookkeeping business template that you can use if you start your bookkeeping business with us!
    Market research, no matter how experienced you are in the industry, can help you establish a point-of-difference from other bookkeeping services and aid in the setting of your rates. Many small business courses like our Small Business Management course cover writing business plans as well as other strategies to ensure you manage your business efficiently.
  2. Contacting an insurance broker to find out what kind of policy you will need should be your next port-of-call. Rather than calling many different insurance companies and going through their product disclosure statements yourself, a broker can do this for you and find the best policy at the best price.
  3. You’ll also need to contact an accountant to discuss the ways to maximise your business tax deductions—this could also serve as a good way of drumming up some business, as many sole traders still take their shoeboxes full of receipts and bank statements to their accountant to sift through come tax-time!
  4. It’s also wise to consider ways you can grow your business using low-cost marketing strategies. Many small-business owners make the mistake of thinking that as a small business, they don’t need to worry about marketing, leaving it to the big guys instead.

But some of the biggest companies in the world started out as a start-up in someone’s garage or home-office! As a small-business owner, there are many marketing lessons you can learn from big business.

Believe and you will achieve

If you’ve been dreaming about one day starting your own bookkeeping business, then what are you waiting for? We now have the training, coaching and mentoring support to help you start a bookkeeping business and work from home as an independent contractor working your own chosen hours. We’ve teamed up with a registered BAS agent and business coach to compliment the small business management course and provide you with the support and training you need to start a bookkeeping business without joining a bookkeeping franchise and paying ongoing franchise fees.

National Bookkeeping Business Plan Template
Get a bookkeeping business plan created by a registered BAS agent and get started fast

Become a National Bookkeeping Licencee

If this is something that interests you explore the “Start a bookkeeping business” opportunity with National Bookkeeping and get franchise like support without loosing a percentage of every hour you work. We can help you succeed in your own bookkeeping business by give you the training you need.

National Bookkeeping is designed to help ordinary people start a bookkeeping business as an independent contractors working from home as a virtual assistant with the help and support of existing businesses.

 

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The Marketing Lessons All Small Businesses Can Learn From Big Businesses

ID-10069551We regularly receive tips from the academic board of our small business management course and they’ve recently shared something about marketing.

[quote]One of the biggest mistakes a small-business owner can make is to think that advertising budgets and marketing strategies are the playthings of big business.[/quote]

By borrowing some of the strategies some of the biggest businesses do well, there are many marketing opportunities small business owners can utilise to generate some organic business leads—and many of them are low-cost!

  1. Web Presence – Face it, whenever you speak to a potential new client, the first thing they do is Google you. If you don’t turn up in Google, or worse, what does is out-of-date or uninformative, you’ve already lost some of your credibility and you haven’t even done business with them yet!
    Your website should clearly outline what services you offer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it! Design a website that shows off your personality and sets you apart from your competitors. Our WordPress course can give you the skills you need.
  2. Email Marketing – Is a great low-cost marketing option providing you do it right! Many companies—big and small—make the mistake of bombarding their mailing lists with too many advertising emails, most of which are irrelevant and often result in the click of an “unsubscribe” button.
    The trick, here, is to divide your mailing list into categories based on your client’s interest and business needs, and then tailor EDMs or newsletters to each category. The messages with the best cut-through are quirky and informative and act simply as a touch point with your customer that isn’t blatantly spruiking your business or rehashing your sales pitch.
  3. Social Media – If you’re going to use social media for your business, great! But if you think that by just starting a facebook page and then arbitrarily updating it with photos or your latest special offers when you feel like it will work, well you’re wrong!
    If you’re going to use social media for your business, make sure you deliver value to your social media friends and followers. Special offers are great, but after a while people tire of them. Keep your content fresh and interesting, and above all, regular!
  4. Google training coursesOnline Advertising – The thing about the internet, particularly search engines like Google, is that they’re terrific if you know what you’re looking for. If you don’t, however, it’s like running into a crowded Allianz Stadium on grand final night and calling out, “where can I find my car keys?”
    This is where online advertising comes in. Search engine advertising (also called Search Engine Marketing or SEM), like Google Adwords, is a cheap way to get started so that anytime someone searches on google using your keywords, your ad will appear with a link straight to your website.

Don’t forget—Apple Inc, once a little start-up in Steve Jobs’ garage—never launches a new product quietly, so why should you launch your business quietly?

If you create a good marketing plan and stick to it, you’re guaranteed to see results. If you’re unsure what goes into creating a marketing plan, we cover marketing strategies in our Small Business Management course.

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Teleworking – How Does It Affect Your Work-Life Balance?

ID-10090542We are constantly refreshing the content of our MYOB training course so that you can benefit from all the new information that is always coming in about being a bookkeeper, running your own bookkeeping business — or doing the books for someone else’s business.

We have previously discussed the benefits of teleworking to both the employer and the employee, and while the benefits  of, for instance, reducing the home-office commute and increasing workforce participation, are hard to ignore, there are some downsides that could adversely affect your work-life balance.

High-speed internet, smart phones, tablet devices and cloud accounting software like MYOB Account Right Live may make it so much easier to connect with work from the comfort of your own home, but it’s also making it increasingly difficult to switch off.

Study Proves We Work More from Home

A study conducted by Dr Carolyn Axtell, a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield in the UK, found that many workers often worked an additional 15-20 hours per week merely because they could remotely access their work from home.

In addition to the self-reported “voluntary” additional work hours, in a separate study carried out by the University of Toronto, workers also reported that it was often expected of them to check emails, take calls and log into work outside of office hours, including when on holidays.

But the additional work hours and interruption to workers’ recreation time, according to Dr Axtell, can significantly impact a person’s health as well as their relationships with friends and family.

Poorer quality of sleep and psychological stress brought on by an increase in phone calls, emails and texts out of work hours were among workers’ main complaints, while Dr Axtell also found many employees felt they became less productive working from home.

Productivity levels, according to Dr Axtell, tend to level off among employees that are working long hours and, over time, even drop when tiredness and stress impairs performance.

You need to take time out

Quiet timeTo combat stress and losses in productivity, managers and employees alike, need to implement protocols to enable teleworkers to switch off.

Working to time—rather than task, taking regular breaks, sticking to a work routine and maintaining usual sleep and work patterns are among the top tips teleworkers can adopt to avoid overwork. By switching off gadgets at the end of the day and notifying colleagues, managers and clients of when you are and are not available will ensure you’re not stressing about returning an email during your holiday!

Want to work hard, start a business

I’ve written several blog posts about starting a business and in particular starting a bookkeeping business (because a large number of our students enrol into our MYOB Training Courses) and the fact that we are so well connected to the Internet and each other almost makes us work as though we own the business.

If you are looking to start your own business or want to learn the skills required to manage a small business remember that we have just launched our Cert IV in Small Business Management. Enrol today and enjoy a massive discount for a limited time only.

 

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Are you thinking about starting a business this year?

small business course and business plan

Starting a Business

The first step in the process of starting a business is making the decision, but what happens next? It’s the idea. The great thing about being human is that we are always full of ideas. It doesn’t matter what level of education or even your age we all have ideas and we all have desires so the first step of starting a business is pretty simple.

The most important step however is action, how you develop your idea into a product or service that others are interested in or need. We provide online training for Australia’s most popular accounting software, MYOB so it’s clear there is a demand for bookkeeping skills in small businesses. If you have accounting or bookkeeping skills and qualifications and are interested in starting a business you might want to explore a Small Business Course that has now been loaded on our Learning Management System (LMS).

The Small Business Management course covers all the aspects you need when starting a business and the first subject covers “Originate and Develop Concepts“. The rest of the course goes through all the skills you need to create a business plan for your new business so it is a great course to do if you are thinking about starting a business. It’s also a good course if you want to elevate your skills in your current work too.

Our small business course is designed by Maggie Richardson from the Australian Small Business Centre and the good news is that she’s helped over 1,000 people build business plans to turn their ideas into reality. You’ll also be happy to learn that businesses are more successful when they operate to a business plan. If this is your year to start a business come and join us online with the Small Business Management Course.

National Bookkeeping Business Plan Template
Get a bookkeeping business plan created by a registered BAS agent and get started fast

Start a Bookkeeping Business

If a bookkeeping business is something you’re interested in then you’ll be excited to learn that our Registered BAS Agent and Course Creator, Jacci has completed Maggie’s Small Business Management Course and created a business plan for a bookkeeping business that you can use as the basis for your own plan – most of the hard work has been done.

Just change the details for your own circumstances and you’ll have a plan that will help you get clients and stay on track to make a profit and enjoy the benefits of choosing your own hours and working close to home.

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Do you stand out when looking for work?

Create Postcards to use with your resume to find a jobIt’s that time of year when people are turning their new years resolutions into action and we’ve noticed a massive increase in students searching for help in writing resumes, as well as resume and business plan templates for those who are looking at starting a business.

I was speaking with Rehab Consultant Ross Miller, who helps people who’ve been injured at work find more sedentary office type jobs, and he mentioned an interesting idea.

[quote]Create a Postcard with your details on it and attach it to every resume you send[/quote]

At first it seemed a little absurd but after we got talking and he revealed more of his idea it made a lot of sense.

When you submit your resume with your job application you end up as a document in a pile and for years people have been looking for ways of standing out from the crowd. With the advent of new printing technologies like moo.com in the UK, it is becoming easier to produce and print a professional, full colour, Postcard for not a lot of money.

Social-Media and online MYOB Training coursesRoss’s idea is to create a Postcard with your photo and a brief bio about yourself on one side, plus an image that reflects the industry you want to work in (picture of a retail shop or office etc) and some words to describe it on the other side. What do you think of that idea?

If you like this idea let us know on our Facebook page. If you have other innovative ideas share them on our Facebook page.

NEW in 2014

Are you looking for work closer to home or interested in changing your working style from an employee to an independent contractor so you can work your own hours and do things you actually enjoy doing? Look at the Work at Home Opportunities that we help to create!

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MYOB course students have already achieved their 2013 resolutions

MYOB training course certificate for your resumeWhen we closed our last Sydney training centre in 2006 and put all of our MYOB course content online it was very early for online training and I was a little worried that students would want to do online courses. What I’ve discovered in this first week and the first week in most of the previous years confirmed my decision to offer our training courses online.

Traditional training centres have a strict schedule that they need to fit into because they have room-hire, trainers and need to get enough students to fill a class. The convenience of online training has enabled many students to enrol and even complete their MYOB training while they are on holidays and have the time to do it. What a great way to get through your new years resolutions quickly.

We’ll be doing a certificate run at the end of January 2013 so when most people (who aren’t aware of online training) are thinking about enrolling into a course at a training centre, our students will have a MYOB Certificate to put in their resume.

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Teleworking – how does it benefit you?

Teleworking, home based business work from home

Teleworking from home

While Australians have had the ability to telework by using laptops, tablet devices, and smartphones, to connect to work for sometime, it’s unusual for employees to do this on a regular basis or even to be employed solely on this basis.

However, research both locally and internationally has shown the great benefits that teleworking can offer employers and employees, and in fact, the country as a whole.

For employers, teleworking assists with the recruitment and retention of staff, particularly young employees and those transitioning to retirement, but it also reduces staff turnover and absenteeism usually triggered by changes to family circumstances.

Teleworking saves money

In other, more tangible senses, teleworking reduces the costs associated with office space, such as energy costs and infrastructure, now that employees can remotely access files and documents using cloud accounting and storage software like DropBox.

But the real benefits for employers are derived from the benefits experienced by their employees.

Being able to work from home has been shown to greatly increase an employee’s work/life balance, which in turn drives job satisfaction and on-the-job productivity.

And by reducing commute times and the mental stress associated with juggling work and family commitments, employees have more time to up-skill by enrolling in distance education or online courses (like one of our MYOB courses), which will be even better with the NBN, which increases the number of highly skilled workers in the labour force.

Teleworking levels the playing field

While employers have access to a larger labour pool and employees likewise have access to a larger pool of employers now that geographical restrictions have been removed, teleworking also increases the instances of people starting a home-based business.

It is these benefits from teleworking, such as the increase in labour participation, the uptake of further education, and the growth in new home-based businesses that is not just great news for Australian employers and employees, but also for the Australian economy.

The scary news about teleworking

The major risk to Australian workers is that the increased pool of workers also includes workers in developing countries like the Philippines and India who are often very well trained and willing to work very hard for much lower pay. Even if we look at the USA we find remote workers who are willing to perform most small business operational tasks for $15 per hour.

There may be a benefit in living in the Australian time zone, speaking good English and writing well, but when it comes to many fields of work like graphic design it has really become a global market place for workers.

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How Do You Earn $80 Per Hour as a MYOB Bookkeeper?

How much can you earn as a MYOB Bookkeeper?

FOR ANYBODY WHO DECIDES to be self-employed and own their own business, or who is doing so already, the question of how to match the hourly rate of someone working on salary while working in your pyjamas is one that frequently goes unanswered.

But ponder no more.

If you’re well versed in the advanced features of MYOB, Xero or Quickbooks, possess an accounting qualification and can operate your business as an independent contractor, you’re well on your way to earning the big bucks as a bookkeeping consultant.

Specialist skills earn you more money

Currently, bookkeepers with a good understanding of things like time billing, job reporting and forecasting, advanced payroll, end-of-period transactions and journal entries, as well as Australian tax, are highly sought after by other businesses to work as consultants.

Of course, you could also carve out a niche specialty for yourself if you happen to be highly skilled in a particular sector or industry.

MYOB Training Online

Our MYOB courses (offered for one low price and include lifetime access) cover 85% of the MYOB skills the majority of MYOB bookkeepers require to perform most bookkeeping tasks. For everything else, however, it’s a good idea to engage the services of a specialist who can provide a solution to your specific needs.

We also provide in-depth online training courses in Xero, Quickbooks, Small Business Management and start up and social media.

learn cloud accounting online training course videos xero excel myob quickbooks

At EzyLearn we include all versions of a software program in our training courses. When you enrol in Lifetime Course Access you get access to ALL versions and ALL FUTURE VERSIONS as we continually update them — at no extra cost!
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Does Google compete with MYOB in cloud accounting?

Cloud accounting software and training

I was recently speaking with a professional journalist who told me she uses ZoHo for her accounting. Luckily I am aware that ZoHo offer a large range of office applications that all run in the cloud on Google Chrome market place. If you are a gmail user you know what I mean.

Google is one of the largest cloud based software companies that most people know. Everything they do is in the cloud. If you have seen their Android platform for mobile phones you’ll be familiar with their Play service (where you can buy apps and games and music from the Google store as opposed to Apple’s iStore. The Google Apps market-place is just the same, and there are thousands of applications (many of them free) that you can install and use.

I spoke with her about our online MYOB Training Courses and when I probed a bit deeper in my conversation with Angela, this is what I discovered:

How I came to ZoHo is pretty simple: it was a Friday afternoon (notoriously the busiest day of the media’s week) before a long weekend (it was a lot like a Yoko Ono album: a shambolic combination of chaos fraught with anxiety) and I had to file my first freelance article and invoice the magazine in order to get paid.

When you start out as a freelancer, all your energies are solely trained towards getting that first commission. You worry about that other stuff later.

Later was now. And I had less than thirty minutes to whip up an invoice that didn’t betray that this was my first commission. But I had never properly seen an invoice before in my life. After all, I was a writer, not an accountant.

Enter the miracle of the modern world (some say electricity, I say Google). After Googling “invoice template”, up popped ZoHo and while the journalist in me wants to tell you that I shopped around, did my research, made comparisons with other cloud accounting apps, I didn’t. It had me at Sign Up For Free.

Like most other writers I know, I rather loathe the admin/business side of my business. Chasing people for money, in particular, is maybe the least favourite part of my job.

Aside from it going against my “be free and artistic, not rigid and business-like” mantra, I do not ever recall seeing Carrie Bradshaw awkwardly hunt down her editor at Vogue for money that was owed to her.

So imagine my surprise, then, when I came across clients that didn’t pay up by the invoice due date!

Fortunately, ZoHo takes care of all the awkward “overdue invoice” correspondence, with a nice, albeit slightly passive aggressive, form email that’s automatically sent out to those offending late-payers.

If only I could just remember to record the payments for the invoices that have been paid, I’d also be able to avoid some awkward “sorry, I did receive your payment – ZoHo must have malfunctioned somehow” emails.

Clearly, the business side of my business is still a work in progress.

The thing about Google is that if you think about it, they compete with almost everybody in some aspects, but ZoHo is just one of many apps that provide accounting services on the Google Apps market place.

As part of our offer for MYOB courses we include 12 months access to the Bookkeeping Academy which provides training on a number of different cloud accounting programs including Reach Accounting from NetRegistry, SAASU and Xero.

 

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Is Reach Accounting good for serviced based Small Businesses?

We have previously written blog posts about our Bookkeeping Academy and in particular, how students of our MYOB training courses can gain access to this for FREE. We are currently creating training materials on how to use Reach Accounting from NetRegistry.

We are currently creating new content for various cloud accounting software vendors, and in particular is the Reach Accounting package. This package is ideal for small serviced based businesses such as graphic designers, website designers and even bookkeepers . The Sales layout (Invoice) is more suited to small service based businesses’ as it does not allow you to manage items or inventory, but at only $14.95 per month it is extremely affordable while enabling you to remain compliant with your recording and reporting requirements.

Reach Accounting BAS Calculation Report
BAS Calculation Report

Our Course Designer, Certified Bookkeeper and Registered BAS Agent had this to say about Reaching Accounting:

I love the report functionality and its ease of use, especially for people who are not familiar with bookkeeping or accounting reports. The BAS Calculation report is a prime example of this, whereby [quote]it gives us the information needed to simply transfer onto the BAS[/quote] . Another thing that really impressed me was the Thank Client Email functionality, this is received by the client in a professional look, displays the information needed and they can also see a list of their transactions regarding the invoice just by clicking a link in the email.

We are continually creating new content for our Bookkeeping Academy and if you have not already, sign up to one of our MYOB courses which include Lifetime Membership, and free 12 months access to all the content at the Bookkeeping Academy.

Please feel free to share your comments with us our Facebook page and connect with us at Linkedin.

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Join the Google Petition to keep the Internet free

keep the internet free and open - from googleEverything we do in our business to help people find work, start a business or become more productive using our MYOB courses is made possible because of the Internet. When we provided MYOB training at our Sydney training centres we could only service people living around Parramatta, Chatswood and Brookvale because of the physical location of our centres and the costs were higher because we had to pay rent, good quality trainers, computer equipment, training materials and more.

Today I received an official blog post from Google about a petition they are compiling in support of their “Keep the Internet Free and Open” campaign and I thought this is something that needs to be shared. We’ve seen so many examples of restriction of speech for people in dictatorship type governments and we also know the financial cost of tightening controls on ownership of key business sectors (monopolies usually means strategic power, which means they can set the price they want).

You can do just as I have and participate and show your support by signing the petition. It also gives you the opportunity to write something meaning full… I hope I find my quote appearing somewhere on the Internet soon – it was very inspiring…

 

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What is Teleworking?

Teleworking from home in Australia - NBN

In a nutshell, teleworking is the ability for employees to work remotely, usually from a home office, rather than travelling to the workplace. And it’s something that Australia, and indeed, the rest of the world has been moving towards for some time.

If you think about it, ever since the widespread adoption of email, the wheels have been in motion for an era where people could opt to work from home rather than commuting to the workplace every day.

For a while, though, it has been a bit of a logistical nightmare. If you’ve ever tried to work remotely before, then chances are, at some point you’ve uttered one or all of these complaints: “This file is too large for me to email”, [quote]I don’t have that software installed on my home PC[/quote]  or “My Internet’s really slow. I might as well just come into the office”.

But when you throw things like broadband Internet, laptops, tablet devices, smart phones and the latest little life-saver, cloud accounting and storage software (like Dropbox) into the mix, working remotely, or teleworking, slowly but surely got easier.

The benefits of teleworking to employees and employers, plus also to the Australian government are huge, which is why the Australian government spearheaded the move to a National Broadband Network (NBN), which, when rollout is complete, will see high-speed Internet cabled into nearly every Australian home (93%).

The NBN will give you the freedom to things like enrol in distance education or complete one of our MYOB courses, work from home, or even start a home-based business without having to worry about poor or unreliable internet coverage.

Teleworking is the future of all Australian workplaces – you can learn about the benefits of teleworking here.

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I was scared of social media

EzyLearn facebook page for MYOB coursesI recently featured Robert Crane from CIAOPS with his advice to small businesses regarding Linkedin ( I hope I didn’t confuse him with the CIA in the USA!?) and I’m following it up with our own story about social media.

Two years ago we were promoting our online MYOB training courses knowing that the MYOB Setup course used training materials from version 15. I know, you might be thinking to yourself that MYOB is now past version 19.5 (if you are using the old naming convention), but if you know MYOB software you’d know that the navigation around the software didn’t change significantly until their latest version. Regardless, I was afraid!

I felt VERY comfortable keeping our training materials at that version, but I was terrified of people talking about it! Particularly in social media. Most of our courses now have updated videos, workbooks and knowledge reviews for the latest version (2012) so I am proud to announce it! We also offer both versions to all students (along with lifetime access) and the video format we use is not longer flash so the training videos can be viewed on an iPad.

You might not know that we also make a lot of our MYOB training videos available for free at YouTube and I was scared to share that information as well because I was scared that no one would then do our online MYOB courses! What I have learnt in the past few months is to embrace social media. My team and I are very proud of the MYOB courses we offer, our lifetime access, our money back guarantee so we are now announcing all our social media websites.

Please feel free to share your comments with us our Facebook page and connect with us at Linkedin and here’s to a successful social future to us all! Let’s not be afraid of social media any longer.

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Are you a website designer who needs a bookkeeper?

Website-Designer SEO and PPC in AustraliaIf you are familiar with our online MYOB courses you’d know that each course includes at least one training workbook and each workbook goes through a common scenario of daily, weekly and monthly transactions to teach our students how to use MYOB accounting software. We are now seeking information from website designers and SEO professionals about their bookkeeping needs because we are assembling a new MYOB training workbook for website designers!

When we start designing our workbook case studies our quest always begins with “What does a web designer and SEO expert offer” and here are some of the things we have come up with.

  1. Concept design and website goal setting
  2. Theme design (if you use WordPress)
  3. Page structure, menus and written content
  4. Images to be used (graphic design, clipart or custom photography)
  5. Blog writing
  6. Social Media Marketing and commenting
  7. E-commerce
  8. Domain name registration
  9. Hosting Services
  10. Setting up and managing Google Adwords Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing

If you are a website designer and you want to have some input into the the contents of this course please feel free to make contact. You need to be an Australian based company and you can feel free to promote your services via our facebook page.

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CIA Provides Secrets about Linkedin

LinkedIn: The Living CV

I’VE WRITTEN A NUMBER of posts about the power of LinkedIn to replace the traditional resume, but after speaking with an expert from CIA (Sydney-based company, Computer Information Agency or CIAOPs) I learnt some new secrets about Linkedin. Robert Crane, CIA’s Director, shared some tips as to how and why LinkedIn is a fantastic tool to help you get a job AND find more customers.

Robert-Crane-Digitar-web-linkedin-secrets
Robert Crane is the Director of Computer Information Agency

Here’s what Robert had to say…

One of the greatest advantages that Internet based technologies can provide is leverage. Nothing could be more the case than with social media. Unfortunately, too many businesses and professionals fail to see the potential that it can provide themselves and their businesses. Probably the most effective social network for business is LinkedIn.

You may be surprised to know that LinkedIn in has been around for over a decade. It was around long before Facebook and Twitter as a source of connecting business people together. LinkedIn allows you to create a personal or business profile to which you can add all kinds of information.

[quote]Many professionals use LinkedIn as a “living CV” where they can post their career and achievement records for others to view.[/quote]

Sharing that information with others help them grow their potential network and makes it easier for others to locate people with the right skills.

The True Power of LinkedIn

This is where the key technology of search begins to reveal the true power of LinkedIn, for not only can you share your information with others, independent parties can search LinkedIn and locate individuals with the skills they need. This is reason why so many HR people use LinkedIn to locate and target individuals with the skills they require.

[quote]Posting resumes and trawling employment website is now ‘old school’. Indeed, the highest quality applicants are signed up via Linkedin even before a job is offered.[/quote]

Is It Too Late for You?

This means that if you are not using Linkedin your competition probably already is. So what can you do to catch up?

  1. Firstly, you’ll need to create a LinkedIn account and then fill in the information about yourself. The more professional information you provide the better. It is also important to include a professional headshot as part of the profile so if you don’t have one of these go out and get one.
  2. Once you have all your information entered start looking for people and associates you know who are already on LinkedIn. When you find them send them an invite to ‘connect’ with you on LinkedIn.
  3. Once you network starts to grow make sure that Linkedin becomes an ongoing part of your business strategy. Don’t let the information you have entered get stale. Revisit your account regularly and ensure it is always as current as possible. As you meet new contacts look them up on LinkedIn and ask them to ‘connect’ with you. Always be looking to grow your network and don’t be afraid to ask people in your network for introductions to others on Linkedin.
  4. When you start to feel comfortable with Linkedin use the testimonial feature to ask business contacts and clients for referrals. These referrals can be directly posted on your profile for all to see.
  5. Nothing lends credibility like endorsement so always continue to seek them out and grow the number that you have. Once the endorsements start to flow make sure you direct other information about your business to your LinkedIn information. Use it on your website, business cards, etc.

Other Powerful LinkedIn Uses

The more you work with LinkedIn, the more powerful you will find it. When you need something you can ask your network of contacts, you can search their skills for what you need, and you can join any number of special interest Linkedin groups on the very topic that you are seeking assistance on. Because Linkedin has become such a worldwide tool for business, chances are you’ll find the person or business you’re looking for, if you know how to use it.

Jump On the Social Media Bandwagon

I went to a seminar recently and heard Nick Bowditch from Facebook speak. He said that the businesses engaging with, and using, social media will be the ones still around in 5 years. Perhaps it’s arrogant to think that social media is so mighty, but given the speed with which technology is moving these days, and the ferocity of competition, it’s better to build a profile, reputation and brand that people know, like and trust — and social media is the opportune way to do this.

Social Media and Digital Marketing online training course_comp

Are you in business as a bookkeeper, tradesperson, retailer, trainer or real estate agent and want to stand out from the crowd? We can teach you the online marketing techniques to help you do just this! Check out what’s included in our comprehensive Social Media and Digital Marketing online training courses.

 

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Woman who loves tech loves MYOB software

Telework Australia Website - work from home and MYOB coursesI wrote an article about work-at-home mums earlier this year and handed out praise to our own EzyLearn team, who are mostly work-at-home mums. Ever since I opened my first training centre in Sydney’s Northern Beaches suburb of Dee Why back in 1999 mums have come to EzyLearn to get new skills to find work and MYOB was always a popular choice.

Our MYOB courses have been popular because bookkeeping skills enable mums to work their own hours and earn a good hourly rate. The bookkeeping industry is also evolving to the point where the Internet and cloud accounting is enabling bookkeeping as a virtual service that mums can perform at home!

I’ve always disliked the term virtual assistant (or VA) because it makes you think that VA’s aren’t real that they are virtual. I was speaking with an HR consultant from the UK and he told me that in Europe they use the term remote worker or remote contractor which I think it much more relevant because it’s more accurate. The Australian government appears to have adopted the term Teleworking and they’ve assembled a website to explain how it works and encourage this type of work in Australia.

Frederique Digitar - MYOB invoices and working from homeOn the topic of women working from home, I had the pleasure of meeting Frederique from Women Love Tech the other week and we got into a conversation about the blogging business. I write this blog to help our MYOB course students learn more about bookkeeping, accounting software and the computer industry as it evolves into the cloud, but Frederique covers a lot of topics that are of interest to tech savvy women. She’s written some interesting articles about technology and I thought this one was very handy for anyone operating a business. It’s about how to create a good invoice.

One of the best parts of working from home is that you can get more done (if you have a good working environment and dedication to the task), it saves on traffic and it empowers more individuals to control their own destiny!