Davis Virtual Assistants

A fine good morning to all my gas-guzzling Killer Sharks! I’m so glad you drew another breath this morning, and that you’ve decided to join me on the road to riches and fame. Yes, yes, yes … gas may be $4.48 per gallon (at least it is here) but who cares. You’re not allowing anyone or anything to stand in your way. I applaud and admire your aggressive and entrepreneurial nature, and all that you do to keep the economy rolling. Carry on!

Thrifty Thursday^** for May 29, 2008, is your “Name It and Claim It” for June 2008. If you’re a fence-sitter or if you want your VA to handle a one-off project for you to get a feel for how she operates, this one’s for you. Enjoy a 10% discount on your June 2008 invoice for any virtual service offered by the sharky and geeky Davis Virtual Assistants team. If you want to try Article Marketing, need someone to add a mountain of blog posts, or you’ve got a business card scanning project, we’ve got your back! There are so many things which are preventing you from focusing on your core responsibilities, that being the Idea Babe or Idea Dude in your business, developing information products, and bringing in more money and more clients. You’re not a paper-pusher, and you can’t fake the funk when you’re a business owner. Act like the bad ass Big Kahuna that you are, and begin the process, today, of outsourcing your administrative back office. While you’re at it, let go of some of the technical stuff as well, like updating your shopping cart and website.

Thrifty Thursday^** for 5/29/08 is extended through close of business next Wednesday, June 4, 2008, so you have until then to contact me and claim your discount. Don’t delay … you don’t want the Guppies who are nipping at your fins to get ahead of you in the game of business! Contact the virtual assistant, right now, and tell me all about your business pain.

** This Thrifty Thursday discount may not be combined with any other discounts offered by Davis Virtual Assistants.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

One of the 10 worst films of all time.

Ridiculous and horrible script. I adore Cate Blanchett and her work, and I’m wondering why she agreed to make this film. Shia LaBeouf is a good actor getting better, but there was nothing for him to play with to get his character rolling. Excluding the blade tricks, but blade tricks do not a movie make. Harrison Ford is still gorgeous, but the sheer stupidity of the script made me not care about his hot factor. And Steven, you could have stepped in, slapped George, David and Jeff about the neck and head a few times and said, “Guys … Lori thinks this script sucks, and so do I.”

Fell asleep 3 times during the film. (My apologies to the lovely lady to my immediate left if I snored quietly during your film-watching experience.)

To the two very young motorcyclists behind me, I forgave you your age and lack of wisdom when you exclaimed with young whipper snapper glee, “That movie was awesome!” Children, children, don’t make me make an example of you in public. This was a terrible film and try as I might, the theater wouldn’t refund my money.

The hype of it all and I was stoked to see Indiana back in action. An incredible waste of my hard-earned dollars, my time, and my mental focus. There is nothing good about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and even the well-worn Indiana Jones theme music can’t save this film.

I am so disappointed. It’s three days later and I’m still lamenting the crappiness of this film.

Note to Santa: Please scratch off this DVD from my personal Christmas list. While you’re at it, if any of my family, friends, colleagues and/or enemies have requested you send this DVD my way later this year, please also scratch off those requests from their lists.

A stupendous good morning to all my Sharks, and a round of applause to all my Guppies for finally heeding my advice and choosing to outsource! It’s a very good day here at the world’s most amazing virtual assistant company, and I hope you can say the same about your business.

Thrifty Thursday^** for May 22, 2008 encourages you to let go of the chaos rolling around in that gorgeous head of yours! Now, while I’ve blogged previously about not feeling sorry for yourself, today I’m giving you carte blanche to do just that, but to do it in a very positive way. I want you to talk to me, right now, and brain dump about all the things that are going wrong with your administrative back office. Were you up until 3:00a this morning working on stuff? Are you p-p-p-petrified about outsourcing and don’t know how to begin the process? Are you drowning, literally and figuratively, in all the stuff which must be accomplished in order to keep your business in business? Not only do I want to hear from you today, I also want you to let go. That’s right: Let go of it all! You’re too special and wonderful and important to have such an insane amount of stress holding you back. It’s okay to ask for help, and today is your day to begin this process.

Thrifty Thursday^** for 5/22/08 is a 10% discount on your July 2008 and August 2008 invoices on any virtual service we offer! No matter how big or small the administrative task, and some technical ones as well, chances are nearly 100% the geeky and administratively-inclined folks at Davis Virtual Assistants can handle it for you. If we can’t, no worries because I know someone who can.

You started your business for very specific reasons, and I doubt any of those reasons involved paper-pushing! You suck at it, you despise it, and yet you continue to do it. Is that how Killer Sharks roll? Absolutely not! That’s Guppy action, and it’s time for you to join the bigger fish and play their game.

Thrifty Thursday^** 5/22/08 phone lines close at 6:00 PM U. S. Eastern time today. Contact the Virtual Assistant, invite me to your pity party, and I will show you a better way.

^** This Thrifty Thursday discount may not be combined with any other discounts offered by Davis Virtual Assistants.

Two things which are upsetting me today:

Someone … anyone … give me some to smile and laugh about right now.

Every morning, without fail, I listen to these three songs in this order:

Good morning, campers! Time to jump out of bed and get rolling on the day. Go workout, clean the stink off your bod, get dressed, and have a hearty breakfast. At the end of the day, contact this virtual assistant and talk to me about all of today’s successes!

Thrifty Thursday^** for May 15, 2008, has been offered before and I’m sure I’ll offer it again! It’s all about the “A” word, Articles, and getting your well-crafted and keyword-rich articles posted to web-based article marketing portals. Not only do we know the very best sites, we also know how to HTML code the keywords in your articles, which will help enhance your SEO (search engine optimization). Gone are the days of you twiddling your thumbs about article marketing! Your competition is posting articles, and this is one of those times when you need to jump off the bridge like everyone else has. Posting articles must be a very important aspect of your marketing arsenal, and the folks at Davis Virtual Assistants will be with you every step of the way.

To get you moving in the right direction, I’ll extend a 10% discount on your June 2008 and July 2008 article marketing invoices. Sweet. Save some dough on yet another project you can outsource, and all the while know you’re doing something very good for your business.

For my partners-in-crime on Wild WE Ning, your discount is 15% for both June 2008 and July 2008, but only when you mention the “secret phrase of the day” when you contact me!

Thrifty Thursday^** phone lines for May 15, 2008, close at 6:00 PM U.S. Eastern time today. Contact Davis Virtual Assistants, the world’s finest virtual assistant company, and let’s get to work!

** This Thrifty Thursday discount may not be combined with other discounts offered by Davis Virtual Assistants.

Good morning, campers!

So, what did you do this weekend? Did you play, as I did, or were you stuck at the keyboard? Did you see Iron Man, as I did, or did you work up until it was time to go to mommy’s house? Weekends are just that: the end to the week, and time for us to exploit our free time and the fabulous weather Mother Nature is giving us! Weekends aren’t the time to update your shopping cart and blog, they aren’t the time to delve into that massive proofreading project, and they most assuredly aren’t the time to work.

Now, I can’t make you “pull the trigger” and outsource. (Well, I can, as long as you’ll pay my airfare and put me up in a 5-star hotel.) However, I can give you a helluva lot of good reasons why you should need to outsource:

A fine good evening to all my Killer Sharks! Plus, a nod and wink to all my Guppies who’ve finally decided to outsource.

Griping and ranting and raving, oh my! I’m normally a very upbeat and positive virtual babe, but there are some days when I want to chuck it all and disappear. Today was one of those days …

Telephone Etiquette. Learn it, breathe it, live it. Otherwise, I’ll have to hunt you down and make an example of you. Here are the basics which escaped today’s callers:

Behaving yourself on the phone and showing respect to the person on the other end of the line are basics in business. And yet, why is it so bloody difficult for some folks to do either? Inquiring minds want to know.

Good morning and a kick ass Monday to you, my Small Business Owners! We are the driving force of the American economy, and I extend a virtual shout out and raise a cold glass of orange juice to each and every one of you. If you work virtually as I do or you’ve got a brick-and-mortar store, thank you for doing what you do and for continuing to inspire me. Carry on.

Riddle me this, Sharks and Guppies: What’s keeping you in bed? (Behave yourself! Remember, this is a PG blog.) Meaning, it’s Monday morning, you’ve got some level of the “blahs” rolling around in that gorgeous head of yours, and something (or maybe many things) is preventing you from bounding out of bed and getting a start to your day. Let’s look into Lori’s Magic Crystal Ball …

Now, I could go on ad nauseam about all of this administrative stuff, and I could make you feel bad about holding on to your “super” mentality, but I won’t. Instead, I’m drawing the line in the sand and I double-dog-dare-you to cross it and come on over to my world. My world consists of free time which allows me to focus on making Davis Virtual Assistants the dominant force in the Virtual Assistance industry. My world consists of yours truly and other amazing and killer Virtual Assistants who sympathize and empathize with your business pain. My world consists of partnerships with VAs so you will no longer feel the Monday Morning Blahs and you’ll want to get your fine self out of bed.

Outsourcing is here and now, it’s relevant, and it’s one of the components of keeping your business in business. It’s Monday, May 5, 2008, and I want you to feel ohhh so good about this Monday and all the others which are coming your way! Contact the Virtual Assistant, right now, and tell me how me and my team can make it all better for you.

This “Hey Mister DJ” is a very special post and covers a topic which I will never again discuss in a public forum. Correction, never say never …

May 1998, ten long years ago. We’ve all experienced the loss of a loved one, but it always feels particularly tragic and sickening when the person who dies is so young. Such is the case with the baby of our family, who was killed by a drunk driver ten years ago this month. It’s even more ridiculous when I tell you his twin was with him in the car … and survived.

Who dies on their birthday with their twin surviving in the same car? My baby brother Jeff, that’s who. A great kid who was blossoming into a wonderful young man, and then his life force is gone. This is the brother who would call me collect when he was stationed overseas. Collect! C-O-L-L-E-C-T! Still makes me giggle and smile to this day, with long distance bills the likes of which you’ve never seen. What a crazy guy. This is the young man who always found a way to e-mail me when he was in dangerous places. This is the kid who told me he didn’t like one of my boyfriends, and was always mean and nasty to this BF whenever he came to the house in Kansas City.

Jeff and his twin Jeremy look nothing alike, and “fraternal” doesn’t even begin to describe it. They didn’t look like brothers! Jeff’s short and stocky stature and olive skin, compared to Jeremy’s tall and thin physical make-up and pale skin made for very interesting photographs. Brothers? Maybe. Twins? No way! They were preemies and in the hospital for a number of months, and unfortunately for me I wasn’t able to see them at the hospital. I remember the day mom and step-dad brought “my babies” home to me, and mom let me feed them. The Big Sister performing her duties, thank you very much! They were so small, so tiny and fragile, I thought I would break them when I touched them, and Jeremy had numerous health problems. I slept by their crib for many a night when they first came home.

Twins are fascinating creatures to watch as they grow and mature. They seem to have their own language, and each has the other’s back to the death. I remember many a day when someone would make fun of Jeremy due to the extraordinarily large birthmark he had on his face, and watch Jeff jump in to protect him. What I remember most about my brothers is how wonderfully special and unique they turned out to be. Different and yet the same.

I never want to forget the pain I felt on hearing of Jeff’s death. It continues to drive me to speak out about drunk drivers and the damage and hurt they cause. I will never let go of the anguish I felt at Jeff’s civilian and military funerals, and I’m sure part of me will never forgive the punk who took his life.

For my regular readers and for those of you who’ve stumbled across this blog, please listen to me. The people who adore you and need you and love you want you around in their lives for a very long time, and that’s simply not possible when you’re a chalk outline on the road. When you’re out with your best buds tonight and you see one of your friends three sheets to the wind, you must take action and take their keys. Better yet, take ALL keys prior to going out and appoint yourself the keymaster. I don’t care what you have to do to get the keys. If you and six of your buddies have to jump your friend and tie him down, do it. If you have to call the cops, do it. If you have to slash their car tires so they can’t drive, do it. If you have to hide their car, do it. If you have to punch him out, do it. Get it? Feel what I’m sayin’? If the young man who killed my brother … if his friends had done any of these things, Jeff might still be a physical presence in my life. As it is, my gorgeous 23-year-old brother, who was making changes in his life and becoming a man, is in a grave. When you’re a friend, you’re a friend to the end, and it’s your responsibility to step in and try to prevent a most disastrous scenario. If you don’t, I don’t want to talk to you and I don’t want to know you. Your inaction makes you just as bad, or worse, as the punk who plowed into my brother’s car that night.

The Living Years by no means reflects my relationship with Jeff. He knew I adored him and was so damn proud, and I know he loved me. This is one of my songs when I need a good cry, and such is the case right now as I approach the anniversary of Jeff’s death. (”The anniversary” … still despise that phrase.) As you go out tonight or tomorrow or next weekend or next year … I want you to remember my words and my pain, and remember you can do something about this.

This one’s for Jeff. I love you sweetheart, I miss you, and I will see you again one day. Peace, baby doll.

Good morning and fins up to all my Sharks from the world headquarters of Davis Virtual Assistants, where the air is clean, the trees are green, and gas is $4.45 a gallon! (That last bit is completely ridiculous, and I experience dramatic fainting spells every time I have to gas up the SUV. And the Oscar goes to … )