Goooooooodmorning Vietnaaaaaam <<First Name>>!
Hope you're excited for a new week to start.
Perhaps this is the week where you finally start charging a fee for your events, hire a virtual assistant, and practice Yoga?
I hope so!
Curious? Read on!
As you may know, I organize a monthly meetup for entrepreneurs under the name of Enter Network. The meetups have generally been doing well. But a few months ago I was wondering what to do with our low attendance rate: Sometimes, just 30 people out of 100 showed up.
To boost our attendance rate, we started charging a small fee for attendees. In this week's article, I'll discuss exactly what the results were, and whether you should consider charging a fee for a meetup (or other event) yourself.
→ Read the article here
2. Hiring a Virtual Assistant
Ever since I read the book The 4 Hour Work Week a few years ago, I've considered hiring a virtual assistant.
A virtual assistant is someone who can help you with certain tasks (for business or personal purposes) and does so over the internet, often from a different timezone. They are generally based in a developing country and therefore work at a low hourly fee.
So what could you ask them to do? Well, how about:
- Filtering your email
- Making dinner reservations
- Creating a vacation itinerary
- Conducting internet research about a specific topic you have to do a presentation on
- Making changes to your website
- Updating your LinkedIn profile page
- Gathering and paying invoices
- And anything else that has a low knowledge- or skills-threshold and can be done over the internet.
Wouldn't it be great to have someone else help you with these tasks?
With that in mind, last week I set out to find a virtual assistant. I came up with a few requirements (good level of English, experience with internet research and WordPress, etc.) and posted a job on Upwork, an international platform for freelancers.
Since then, I've interviewed a handful of people and hired two freelancers. And the results have been very positive.
Let me give you an example.
For some time, I had been thinking about creating a new page for the Enter Network website. This page would cover all the speakers invited to speak at our meetups.
So perhaps 3 months ago, I created a not-so-great-looking version of the page in a few hours. After that, I kept postponing to actually finish and publish the page — because it simply cost too much time.
Now, with the help of a freelancer from India and in a fraction of the time I would have otherwise needed, we've updated and published the Speakers page.
To me, examples like these are an eye-opener. They show that for a relatively low fee (generally between $5 and $10 per hour), I can outsource some tasks that would take much more time if I did them myself, and therefore sometimes wouldn't even get done at all.
Plus, using the help of a freelance virtual assistant means that I can free up time to spend on other productive (or perhaps not so productive) things!
So I've seen some great results, but soon I want to take it a step further. Ideally, I would outsource more tasks that 1) cost a lot of time, 2) are somewhat tedious, and 3) can be done by someone else over the internet and in English.
Tasks like: finding a good restaurant using online reviews; using Skyscanner to book a cheap flight; cleaning-up my email inbox; ordering gifts online for friends or family; and many others.
Now I'm very curious if you have tried this before; What are your experiences are with virtual assistants or remote freelancers?
And if you don't have any experience with this but you would want to start, do let me know. I'd be happy to show you how you can find someone with the right skillset to help you out.
3. And then some — Yoga and Savasana
A week or two ago I started reading a book called The Positive Psychology of Buddishm and Yoga.
It's a great book for beginners like myself who know (next to) nothing about Buddhism or Yoga. It covers the Four Noble Truths, Yogic theory and much more.
While I find the entire book quite interesting, today I wanted to discuss a specific Yoga exercise from the book: Savasana.
Savasana is also called 'the corpse pose'. And despite its name, since practicing Savasana, I've become fully convinced of its benefits.
Specifically, immediately after the exercise, I feel invigorated. My muscles tingle, and I feel full of energy. It simply feels like you just had a really good power nap.
It's truly amazing to experience this after a 10-minute session and without any previous Yoga experience. Plus there's such a difference in immediate results compared to meditation; after a meditation session I may sometimes feel different, but many other times I do not.
So with that in mind, how do you practice Savasana? Here are the steps:
- Lie down on a bed or comfortable surface.
- Now slowly but surely, relax all the muscles in your body.
- Keep breathing, and you may keep your eyes open. The trick here is to not use any muscle, and to simply focus on your breathing.
- Now stay aware, breathe, and lie still for anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes.
- Then when you're ready, start by slowly wiggling your toes and then move the rest of your body.
Then stand up, and feel the energy. Really, do it. I promise you, it'll make you feel great.
See you next week!
Jochem
P.S.
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