Tag: solopreneur

Categories
Communication Skills

Communication With Your Virtual Assistant is Essential

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Pulling together a virtual team is vital to the success of any solo professional, but even more important is maintaining regular communication with your team. If you were all sitting together in a office environment, communication wouldn’t be such a big issue – you could just walk over and chat to your assistant. But working virtually you have to set aside that time on a regular basis to talk and update one another.

This is true for all of your team members, not just your virtual assistant, but your web designer, your graphic designer, your bookkeeper, or any other team member you have on board.

My clients are long-term regular clients, who are looking to develop a partnership with their virtual assistant. I maintain that communication by recommending that we have a weekly telephone call. I schedule it in as one of the first jobs I do when we start working together. We have our phone call on the same day/time each week, so it becomes second nature.

Some weeks we may only have a quick two-minute check-in call; other weeks it may last for an hour. The purpose of our call is:

– to get to know one another
– to keep each other up-to-date on work
– to discuss any issues that have arose during the week that need our attention
– to plan future projects

How we conduct our phone calls is just as important as the phone call itself, and to make the best possible use of our time on the call I draw up an agenda. We work through it just as if we were holding an in-person meeting. I type up the notes afterwards and send them to my client. The notes then form the basis for our workload during the week, and are updated to produce the Agenda for next weeks’ call.

Communication is so important in a virtual relationship that you do need a regular communication system in place.

Having used this method of communicating with my clients for several years I’ve found it to be one of the best ways of staying in touch.
As well as being able to discuss issues relating to their business we can get to know one another too – essential for any virtual team!
By following this simple system not only do my clients get the best possible value of my time, but they are able to grow their businesses too!

Categories
Online Business

5 Winning Strategies To Use For Getting Highly Targeted Traffic To Your Website

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As a solopreneur, one ingredient you need for a successful online business is traffic… and lots of it! But there are so many websites out there, all competing for the same traffic, that it can be difficult to attract visitors to YOUR website!

Today, I’d like to share with you my top five strategies for attracting highly targeted visitors:

1. Offer a Free Taste

Your free taste is something that you give to someone in exchange for them giving you their name and email address, and signing up to your list. Your free taste is also your chance to show off your expertise, and give your new subscriber a sampling of what it is you offer.
It must be something of value to your subscriber, without giving away the whole shop!

Then you simply promote your free taste on your website, in your email signature, in your Resource Bio, and any other place you can think of! Place a call to action and people will read it, and click through to your website to get what it is you’re offering.

2. Get Others To Promote Your website For You

If you have products and programs for sale then you can easily get other people to promote them for you by offering an affiliate program. People will sign up to your affiliate program and promote your products and programs through their website, newsletter, and/or blog. In exchange you offer them a percentage commission for each sale that your affiliate makes – and make it a generous commission so that they have a real incentive to promote you.

If you’re currently using a shopping cart service, check out everything they have to offer – they may have an affiliate program included as part of their service. Mine does!

3. Participate in a Joint Venture (JV)

This is an excellent way to drive highly targeted traffic back to your website, and very easy for you to organize. Gather together some of you colleagues who offer complementary products and services to you and agree to promote each other’s products and services to your list.

I participated in a joint venture earlier this year where the organizer created a dedicated web page for this promotion. Everyone’s promotional ‘blurb’ was listed on the website, and each ‘joint venturee’ sent an announcement out to their list during a specified period directing their subscribers to this webpage. I got a TON of new subscribers as a result!

4. Article Marketing

This is one of my all-time favorites… one of the most successful and cost effective online marketing strategies you can do is to submit your articles to various online article submission websites. This is a great way to:

* promote your services;
* elevate you to ‘expert’ status within your chosen niche; and
* grow your subscriber list.

It has been well documented that one-way links to your website increase search engine rankings more than reciprocal linking, and article submission is an excellent way to achieve one-way linking. It works by creating backlinks to your website, which the search engines love! With each article you submit, you include a resource box that contains information about you, your business, and an active hyperlink back to your website, newsletter sign up page, product, or special offer – you choose where you want to direct your readers. For example, my resource box directs readers to my newsletter sign up page.

5. Host a Free Teleclass

Hosting a free teleclass is a great way for you to get out in front of your target audience. They actually get to listen to you presenting your information, and have the opportunity to ask you questions on the call – all of which can’t be achieved just by writing articles!
And it also gives you to chance to interact with your target market, and find out valuable information about their struggles and pains. It all goes towards building the like, know, and trust factor that is so important when building a solo service business

All of these strategies work well on their own, and I’ve had a huge amount of success with each one of them! You can choose to implement just one strategy, or use a combination. Whichever you choose, they all achieve the same goal… to drive highly targeted traffic to your website!

Categories
How-To Guides

How To Keep A Steady Flow of Clients And Prospects Coming Into YOUR Business Before It’s Too Late!

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Building a successful long-term profitable business isn’t about “marketing” your business, it’s about “managing” your business – the marketing comes once you have your management systems in place.

You cannot begin to market your business if you can’t find the information you need, don’t know who you are marketing to, and don’t know where you are in your business.

So, let’s go back to basics and take a look at one of the key office organization systems you need to have in place to “manage” your business before you can start to “market” your business – your contact management system!

If set up correctly your contact management system allows you to:

* Keep a note of clients, potential clients, and colleagues contact information.
* Easily and effectively follow-up with a prospect.
* Locate critical client contact information quickly and easily.
* Build your business.

Having all of your contact data readily to hand will allow you to build your business. You have all the information you need; it’s all in one place, and you can locate it quickly and easily. Follow-up becomes a much smoother process and in turn it builds your business.
Let me share with you below my 5 easy steps for creating your ideal contact management system so that you constantly have a full pipeline of interested clients and prospects:

1. Choose your system. You need to decide on a system that works best for YOU and YOUR business. This could be using Outlook (as I do) to manage all your contact data, appointments, To Do lists, etc. or you could use dedicated contact management software. A third option might be to utilize one of the many web-based contact management systems.

2. Draw clients into your pipeline. Once you’ve got your contact management system in place, you need to have a system for keeping in touch with people you meet at in-person events, online networking forums, or visitors to your website. One way to do that is to publish a regular ezine (electronic newsletter). This will keep clients and prospects flowing into your business and provide you with a base of interested people who want to find out more about you, your services, and your products.

3. Define the process for working with new clients. Once you’ve got prospects into your pipeline the next step is to create a system so that those clients who are ready to work with you are able to do so. This could be through an initial complimentary consultation to determine if you are a good fit for one another. List everything you currently do and come up with a system for streamlining the whole process.

4. Keep it all up-to-date. It’s all well and good having the systems in place, but if you’re not keeping it all current, then your contact management system quickly becomes of no use to you at all. Ideally, you should be updating your client data as you go along, but if you find you’re not doing that, spend 15/20 minutes at the end of each day, before you shut down your PC, reviewing who you’ve talked to/emailed, what the outcome was, and when you promised to follow-up with them. Note it all down in your contact management system.

5. Create a waiting list! If you find that you have more clients wanting to work with you than you can handle, offer to put them on your waiting list. If you suddenly get a client who has to cancel (and it does happen, for a variety of reasons), then you’re not left with a big hole in your cashflow – you simply approach your waiting list and let them know you have an opening available. Plan to keep in touch with your waiting list on a regular basis so that they don’t forget you!

Consistency is the key to keeping a steady flow of clients and prospects coming into your business. Make the commitment to spend time each and every day on your contact management system, and watch your business grow!

Categories
Planning & Management

Plan For Success

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As a solopreneur there is always an endless list of projects that we want to work on or need to complete in order to grow our business. If we don’t plan properly and build in time to work on these projects we can very quickly become overwhelmed, and in the end we don’t complete anything.

This first quarter I’ve launched two products, revamped my website, hosted a teleclass series, and launched a new service, all of which have been achieved without sacrificing client work, and without staying up until the wee small hours of the morning!

So, how do I achieve all of this, and still manage to have some free time?

Quite simply, I plan! And today, I’d like to share with you my top five tips for planning for success!

1. Create a Project Planner. I have my own one-of-a-kind List Building and Marketing Workbook that I use to plan which projects I am going to work on and when. This spreadsheet is at the heart of my business; I keep it handy so that I can refer to it often, and I update it on a regular basis.

It sets the scene for projects that I want and need to complete for the year, although I don’t necessarily plan out the whole year in advance! I plan by quarters. That makes it much easier and more achievable than trying to plan out the whole year, although I may add projects to my planner well in advance!

2. Create a Timeline For Your Projects. Are there some projects that you can’t complete or begin work on until you’ve completed a previous one? For example, one of my projects this year is to set up and run an affiliate program for my products; however there is really little point in me working on the affiliate program until I have some products to sell! So first I need to create and launch the products, then work on the affiliate program. So when planning for this, I know that I can add affiliate program set up for at least six months ahead.

3. Set Aside The Time To Work On Your Business. I have one day a week that I set aside for business development and marketing activities, such as developing info products, writing my newsletter, submitting articles, or some other activity on my List Building and Marketing Workbook. On this day I don’t do any client work (if a client has an urgent project then I may have to rethink) but as a general rule this is the day and time I have set aside to work on my business.

4. Plan The Time For Client Work. Set aside specific days/time each week that you are available to work on your client and income generating activities so that they do not get overlooked. Put this time down in your calendar so that you will stick to it.

5. Do Not Allow Yourself To Get Distracted. The truth is I only have a very limited amount of time during which I can work with my clients and work on my business. The time I do have I protect it closely and really focus on what it is I need to do, whether that’s client work or working on my business. During this time I won’t let myself get distracted by going off and reading emails, becoming involved in discussion groups, or even running personal errands.

By really focusing and making the best possible use of the limited time you have available, you can can achieve A LOT! I know I do!

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Streamline Your Office Management Systems in 3 Quick Steps!

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When you have systems in place your mind is also clear because you’re not feeling overwhelmed; instead you feel organized and calm, knowing that everything is taken care of and the systems are running smoothly. This allows you to focus on your clients and your other income generating activities. Your creative juices flow and you can begin developing additional streams of income.

Therefore running an efficient and streamlined business is all about continuously improving and ‘tweaking’ your office management systems so that they grow with your business and not hinder your business.

But why do you need efficient office systems in place? Here are some answers!

# To quickly and easily find important contact information.
# To be able to respond to client’s requests straightaway.
# So that you can immediately submit a proposal. To keep track of your business.
# To be able to follow-up with clients and contacts.
# So that you can stay on track with your projects.
# To monitor your latest marketing campaign.

Sometimes though problems don’t become apparent with your office management systems until you actually start using them — and then you may find out that they’re not working in the way that you’d hoped.

So what can you do about it?

Step #1 Look at where the problems are.

Are you constantly searching around looking for an email address? Or cannot tell at a glance if your project is on track? Or you don’t know your cashflow situation?

Make a list of where you feel the problems are, and then follow step two – you may be surprised at what you discover!

Step #2 Analyse what percentage of your time is being spent on administrative tasks.

Keep a diary for a week of how you are spending your time. At the end of the week look it over and see what percentage of your time is being spent on these jobs. Could this time be better spent on income-generating activities? Or market research?

Step #3 Compile a list of all non-income generating tasks that you currently do.

Could some of these be delegated? Would it help if you took on an assistant? Perhaps now is the time that you should start to think about partnering with a Virtual Assistant so that you can grow your business, and this list will help you determine where you need the support.

Once you have followed these 3 steps you should have a good idea of where your time is being spent, what your biggest time drains are, and where you can make improvements. You will be well on your way to deciding if you need to partner with a Virtual Assistant and will be able to see exactly where you need the support.