Essential Admin Preferred Vendors, Free Trials, Discounts

FREE TRIAL. RingCentral is my all-time favorite virtual office provider and I've used many!

Offers toll free and/or local numbers (or you can transfer your existing toll free number for free). RingCentral is an easy-to-use online service that keeps you in touch with your customers and in control of your communications. It screens and forwards incoming calls, takes voicemail, sends and receives faxes, and notifies you of important messages.

Plans start at just 9.99/month, with 100 included minutes. Messages and faxes can come to email. Multiple mailboxes available. No "double leg" billing for connected calls. Call announcer lets you know who is calling and for which client/number/extension. Find Me service forwards callers to multiple numbers to ensure calls aren't missed. Tons of features. Perfect way to have your virtual team appear centralized to your location.

GoToMyPC is the preferred vendor for remote desktop accessibility. Whether you travel and need access to your primary PC, or sharing information and/or training with your virtual assistant, GoToMyPC allows you to access your computer from any web browser. Easy setup. They also offer a free trial period plus a $10 discount.

Use the button link at the left for 20% discounts off your domains! Each domain purchase includes a POP3 address and plenty of alias/forward accounts. Not to mention, they offer lots of free features other companies charge for (domain forwarding, masking, etc.). They sometimes run discounts at $1.99/domain! We use GoDaddy for all our domain purchases.

Is your website hosted with a company that offers you no (or limited number of) POP3 email addresses? No problem. For a low yearly fee, you can purchase a block of email addresses to meet your needs. Domain doesn't have to be hosted by GoDaddy and the email addresses are flexible (i.e., if you have 10 domain names, you may have an email address at each or several). We use this product for numerous clients.

Constant Contact: FREE trial Do-It-Yourself Email Marketing. Constant Contact includes: Customizable website visitor sign up form; Over 100 professional HTML email templates (newsletters, promos, invites and more); List management and hosting (including unsubscribe and bounce mgmt); Automatic delivery in the correct format, HTML or text; Real-time reporting (including opens, who clicked on which links and more); You can try it free for 60 days. Every free trial also includes a subscription to their email marketing best practices newsletter and email campaign coaching tips.

VerticalResponse: Build, send and track email campaigns in minutes. No contracts, no hosting fees, no monthly fees, no support fees. You only pay for email delivery . . . about a penny per email. VerticalResponse offers an easy-to-use web-based tool that gets you up and running with opt-in email campaigns in minutes - and gets your email delivered. Take a free test drive!

Save time and money with the easiest-to-use online meeting solution: GoToMeeting. You can present, demonstrate and meet all you want – for one low flat fee. Try it free and discover how you can use Web conferencing to:

Give Sales Presentations and Product Demos

Meet and Collaborate across the Globe

Provide Online Training

Here are two tried and true Do-It-Yourself (or have your VA do for you!) Email Marketing Hosts. Each are excellent, and your choice would depend on your needs. One charges a monthly fee (without per email charges), while the other charges per email charges (without a monthly fee). Depending on the size of your list(s), frequency of mailings, etc., would determine which to choose. Take a free test drive of each to choose the best solution tailored for your needs.

iStock is our preferred vendor for royalty free stock photography because images generally range between $1 and $5, depending on resolution/file type. Their library is HUGE, their search function is easy to use, and while you're searching for an image, you can save it to your "lighbox" for easy collaboration and organization. Purchase a small bank of credits and use them as you need.

FREE TRIAL: Carbonite is super inexpensive, easy to use and continually works in the background without hogging your system resources. You can backup unlimited amounts of data for the same low cost ... it's only $49.95 per year.

Install it, select which files/folders you want backed-up and that's it! Easy right-clicking lets you select or deselect files for backup. Colored indicators tell you if an item is scheduled for backup or is successfully backed-up. You set it once and forget it.

Don't get discouraged if you have a lot of data to backup and it tells you it'll take several days to complete the initial backup. I did at first, until I realized how it works --- in the background without hogging resources ... you don't even know it's working. I've tried a lot of backup systems and love this one the best -- by far.

Get $25 Off your first order from PrintingForLess.com

Tired of paying too much and waiting too long to print your advertising materials? We were too! Then we discovered PrintingForLess.com:

Up to 50% cheaper than offline commercial printers

Instant online pricing for over 20 product types, including postcards, brochures, business cards, catalogs, stationery, presentation folders and much more

Online proofing

Acceptance of almost of ANY file type imaginable

Industry-leading customer service from graphics professionals

Industry-leading Heidelberg presses produce the highest quality four-color printing of your promotional materials

Order from www.PrintingForLess.com and receive $25 off of your first printing order. Simply input RP1EJQW35 in the Promotional Code field on any PrintingForLess ordering page when completing your order, and you will see the discount applied on your receipt.

FREE TRIAL. Internet fax comes standard with all toll/free or local number Virtual Office accounts described above. However, perhaps you only want an internet fax solution, and don't need a complete office solution.

Plans start at just 7.99/month, with 300 included (sent or received) pages, and low 5.9 cents for each additional page -- applies to either toll free or local number. Compare to eFax: (as of 2/07) $16.95/month, $10 setup fee, includes only 130 pages received/month +15 cents/extra page and 30 pages sent/month + 10 cents/extra page. With their toll-free numbers, all incoming pages are 20 cents/page and there are NO free pages included.

Easy, secure, affordable, and convenient: RingCentral Internet Fax is a complete fax service for your business. You’ll get a toll free or local fax number (or you can transfer your existing toll free number for free) with which you can receive faxes in your email inbox as well as in your own Web-based RingCentral account. Included with your plan is free fax software for signing, managing, and editing faxes electronically. And RingCentral InternetFax works with Microsoft Office so you can send a fax instantly from Word, Excel, or Outlook, as well as from your RingCentral tools, allowing faxing from any application.

Build your website with Homestead! Use their award-winning web design software to create websites in minutes. Web hosting, domain and email included.

Homestead is perfect for small business and professionals who want an online presence but do not want to learn programming. Packages start at $4.99 per month.

The Essential Admin website was built in 2001 using Homestead, before I had web design experience. It's so easy to manage, has so many features and is so affordable, our site is still with Homestead today!

I was introduced to The Queensboro Shirt Company while placing numerous orders for one of my REALTOR clients, and then used them myself when my husband started his service-based company. The Queensboro Shirt Company has been in the business of quality custom shirts for over 30 years. Since their early beginnings, they've expanded their product line as well as added some really great online tools to help their customers "visualize" their custom products.

For example, with my first order for my husband's company, I had a hard time picturing how the logo colors would look on different colored shirts. With simple mouse clicks, I could change my colors in the design area, including the logo image, logo text color, tagline color, shirt color, etc., to see how it all looked together. They have specialized products, too. For example, my husband works with a lot of water. They have special T-Shirts and Polos that "capture water and wick it into the air". This will help him stay dryer. They have more than shirts: caps, totes, computer bags, blankets, aprons, scarves and more. Also, they have great guarantees ... if I don't like what I receive, I return it ... even though it's custom. They also back their quality with their Industry-Unique Unconditional Ten-Year Guarantee. Low minimum orders and they offer both custom embroidery and custom print items.