Rebecca's blog

I have just joined a new networking group in Surrey called Ripley Connections-  www.ripleyconnections.co.uk

I host a networking meeting once a month in Guildford (www.ladiesat11.com) which is great for my personal development and exposure but it is also rather refreshing to attend a networking meeting without being 'in charge'!

Whether you are running your own business, working as an employee, dealing with the snow or whatever frustrations come your way I thought these simple 14 ways to keep motivated were worth reading.

They come from Omar Periu, one of the world’s best known motivational speakers and I think it is always useful to refer to simple motivational strategies.

We do the jobs you don’t want to do, jobs you don’t have time to do and the jobs you can’t do!

I attended Nicky Kriel’s Social Media Strategy course yesterday (www.nickykriel.com) and soon realised that the other people on the course were unclear of what my business was about.  So this blog gives a brief over view of what a Virtual Assistant (VA) is and how they can help you.

I want to introduce you to one of my clients ‘Cabbage White Jewellery’ (www.cabbagewhitejewellery.co.uk).  Cabbage White’s founder Kelly Smithson established her business in 2005.  Kelly’s initial designs focused on beaded jewellery but Kelly is an accomplished silversmith and today offers a wide range of handmade jewellery for all occasions.

I really enjoyed reading an interview by Rosamund Urwin in the ‘Evening Standard’ 9^th January 2012 where she interviewed Julia Hobsbawn ‘London’s networking queen’.

Julia talks about the importance of face to face networking as well as spending time on Social Media.

As a small business owner, networker & host of a monthly networking meeting myself I found these particular lessons in networking from the article to contain some useful tips:

Choose face-to-face meetings over Facebook

I came across an interesting article via the Washington Post last week written by Zoe Fox.

In my role as a Virtual Assistant I manage a number of my clients online websites, social media sites etc and have to remember a variety of passwords so I found this article really worthwhile. 

Zoe explains why choosing ‘password’ as an online password is not a good idea:

Stamp Duty Land Tax Planning (SDLT) for Property purchased above £500,000

I couldn't keep this a secret - one of my clients is able to save purchasers half the value of their potential stamp duty. 

Lucy from Guildford says 'After doing our research into this it seemed the most sensible idea to save much needed money.  We employed a specialist solicitor who handled all the paperwork for us.    The whole process saved us 50% of our stamp duty which for us was £18,000.  Fantastic!   We can't recommend it highly enough.'

I am really enjoying attending a variety of networking meetings at the moment.  They are all so different in terms of regular ones, visitor days and client led meetings.  I have also been to a couple of conferences and then I was reminded about 'Woking Means Business'.

I heard Paul Webster from the Webster Partnership talk about their upcoming 'Woking Means Business Exhibition' when I was at the Ripley Connections networking event last week and this reminded me to take a further look at their website.