First, thank you to all of you who thought of me while I was away (a couple of AR associates even sent me emails).  It's nice to be missed...  :-)

The first week I was away because my new mother-in-law came to visit from Ohio; and my sister-in-law flew up from Del Mar, CA to surprise us.  :-) (I'm smiling with love...really!)  So that week really got packed quickly. 

The second week...

Well, let's be honest.  When real estate slows down or the market changes, many real estate professionals start to cut expenses.  Many times this includes marketing expenses.

For a VA, an agent cutting marketing expenses also means cutting VA hours from time to time...  So not too long ago, this got me thinking.

In my past life I was a Coach and Trainer for HouseValues.  I REALLY enjoyed Coaching and Training, and have often thought about ways of implementing this.  In all honesty, often times a VA does do some coaching (especially when agents find they need to get back to doing some things themselves). 

Technically, I've been a way from Coaching for awhile now, so I took the opportunity to get reacquainted.  I took a couple of new marketing courses, and I started a Coach Certification program.

I see this as a great compliment to Virtual Assisting, and I really like sharing tools, techniques and new strategies.  I'll let you know how it goes.  And hopefully I won't put myself completely out of the VA business!