Has the daily administrative duties of keeping your business going got you down?
Does it make sense to get help with your administrative tasks by using a Virtual Assistant?
Yes, it makes a lot of sense.
Doing the Same Thing Yields the Same Results
Doing everything yourself can only take you so far. In fact, doing so wastes money and resources rather than saving them. Your business will never grow beyond where it is today unless you get support. The more administrative, non-core, energy-draining
activities you can delegate and eliminate from your plate, the more you will be able to move your business forward in becoming more efficient and profitable.
Ideally, as the business owner, 80% of your time should be focused exclusively on activities that create the most value and profits. The more time you can spend planning, strategizing, marketing, networking, and creating and delivering your revenue-producing products or services, the greater your business will grow and profit.
7 Benefits You will Reap By Getting the Right Help of a VA Team, The Virtual Difference.
- More Energy. You’ll have more energy by letting go of work you hate or don’t do well.
- More Time. You’ll have more time for the energizing work you love, and to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
- More Focus. You won’t be distracted and overwhelmed with work you shouldn’t be doing as the business owner.
- More Productivity. With more focus, you’ll be more highly productive and effective, getting more done in less time.
- Less Stress. When you are getting things done and actually making progress, your happiness, energy and creativity levels will soar.
- Stronger Foundation. You will be creating and instilling a strong foundation for continued profitable growth in your business.
- Increased Profits. All of these benefits together are the key ingredients for generating revenue.
Gain a new business partner by hiring a Virtual Assistant Firm today, you’ll be glad you did.
There are many ways a business can benefit by hosting Teleseminars and Webinars
The reason that business owners and entrepreneurs sometimes speak on teleseminars and webinars is to strengthen their business. Whether or not you’ve done it in the past, use teleseminars and webinars will help you grow your business. Teleseminars and webinars are the perfect way to introduce your business, brand name or even an unknown company. Those that are new business owners in the industry often find it hard to establish interest simply because they have no history or sufficient background. Webinars can benefit a business by allowing the owner to represent the business and give it a face. This will affirm the fact that this business is for real. Lectures through phone and the Web also help a business build its brand.
You can become a recognized authority.
One very common benefit of teleseminars and webinars is the fact that they can be used to solidify your reputation. This is very important if you continue to start out in a certain business and have to make enough publicity for yourself. You will know your teleseminar or webinar was successful when you start to build a following among your target market. With continued success, you will be able to expand and capture a wider segment as well.
Another positive aspect to teleseminars and webinars is that they offer an opportuntity to promote a product. This is the reason business owners host teleseminars and webinars. It becomes a platform to sell books, e-books, recordings, videos as well as additional items that they offer their audience through their lectures. A speaker will generally refer to a product to be used as a reference, guide or instruction material after introducing a topic.
Since very little of the content of these products is available in the teleseminar or webinar, the audience get the motivation to purchase it.
Since the traditional methods of promoting and selling do not work well these days, many consumers and a huge segment of the target market browse and shop online. With a well made teleseminar that is delivered correctly, it is very easy to rack up sales for an item. Many experienced teleseminar and webinar speakers have reported product sales in the thousands of dollars by using these methods.
Maintain closer communication with clients.
The fact that business owners have the opportunity to keep in closer contact with their customers is another business advantage of teleseminars and webinars. The technology used in both the methods can be harnessed by businesses to make their services more personal. They are always very effective as a means to interact with a business’ audience or market on a more personal level.
Keeping expenses low is a main concern for many businesses today. A business owner must spend in order to build a brand, promote a product or launch a marketing campaign. Either with a teleseminar or a webinar, a company can benefit by receiving profits from an affordable connection through a lecture, phone call or online sources. Good cost effective methods that are easy to do and not expensive are teleseminars and webinars. And they work! That is exactly what all business owners would love to hear.
The Copywriter's Challenge
I love to write and have ever since I was a little girl. Writing for pleasure is a whole different ballgame from writing for a living. When you write for yourself, you get to be yourself and express yourself in ways in which you are very comfortable. But writing for a client is a whole different ballgame. In order to be effective you have to capture your client’s voice and, in essence, speak another language.
So what’s a copywriter to do to make their task a bit easier? I really appreciate when people give me a sample of their writing. It doesn’t have to be a short story or anything particularly long. Samples of emails, blog posts or other short pieces allows the writer (or me at least) to get an idea of the client’s speaking style — what words they like to use, how they use punctuation, any catchphrases that they are known by, things like that.
Another way to capture another person’s style is to listen to the way that they speak. Setup a telephone appointment to speak with your client. During your conversation jot down notes on anything that you might be able to incorporate in the copy that you will create. In my ideal world, the client will spend at least fifteen minutes speaking with me. During that time I get to ask questions about phrases that I might want to use in their copy. I’m able to include colloquialisms, regional slang (if the person likes to portray themselves as a Regular Joe) and other tidbits to help create an authentic work that reflects the values and style of the client.
As a copywriter/ghostwriter our job is to be invisible to the reader and as accurate as possible to the client’s voice. The time spent between a copywriter and a client will enhance the work that will be written. And all of this knowledge will make it possible for the writer to get the job done more quickly, with fewer revisions and a lot more productive for everyone too!
What exactly IS SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is more commonly known, is the process of improving the volume and quality of your website traffic through “natural” or “organic” searches. This means FREE traffic for you!
Now, obviously, the better your ranking in the search engines, the more likely you will get traffic. Everyone’s goal is to get on the first page of Google. But how is that possible?
The key to achieving SEO is keyword research. 
Think of keyword research like determining your target audience. You need to be specific – VERY specific. This means that you need to determine a long-tail keyword. A long-tail keyword is made up of at least 3 words, to help narrow the search.
For example, if you Google the term, “virtual assistant”, there are 13.4 million entries. However, if you Google the term, “virtual assistant, marketing”, the search narrows to only 1.3 million. And, to go one step further, if you Google the term, “virtual assistant, real estate marketing, the search is now only 581,000.
So, as you can see, the benefit of the long-tail keyword is that you get highly targeted traffic, with less competition. This means that the person who Googled for that term is looking for that specific service, and he/she is more likely to find what they need.
Now that you have determined the long-tail keyword you want to focus on, you need to do three things in a blog post:
- Include it in the title
- Use the long-tail keyword in the body of your blog post
- Add a link with that keyword phrase (within your blog post)
Why is this important?
Each night, the search engine “spiders” go crawling around the web for new content. The spiders look to blogs as one of the first places for new content since it can be updated regularly. When you have your long-tail keyword phrase in the title and body of your post it is given a higher authority (more points). Then, when you include a link with that phrase, it is given more points for a high quality link. All these “points” add up and help you achieve a higher ranking in the search engines.
Now, you are one step closer to first spot in Google!
The one book that may change your life
How many books do you think you’ve read in your life? How many books do you think you’ve read that have actually changed your life? I’ve read quite a few in my life and I can honestly say that I’ve never read a book that has change my total outlook on life like the one I just finished reading. It was recommended to me by my coach and within the first chapter I had this gut feeling that this was the book I’ve been looking for my entire life. I’m completely aware of how ridiculous this sounds because if I was reading this right now I would be thinking, “Ok sure, are you going to sell me Avon now?”
All I have to say is this, have you ever read a self help book, been motivated to make a change in your life, and it didn’t last long term? Me too. I used to feel like a failure. I would read a book, commit to myself to make a change, and then later reflect back about a goal I never met. I consider myself some one of the above the average intelligence, but making a change was really hard, and I never understood why. Especially if it was something I wanted to do and it wasn’t something that someone else was pushing on to me. Take weight loss for example. This has been something that I’ve struggled with for a very long time. I quit smoking three years ago put on 70 pounds, and have yet to take it off. Do I want to take it off? You bet! So why don’t I? I did know, and without knowing you were only left to draw your own conclusions. I will tell you my own conclusions were not very nice, they weren’t inspiring, they weren’t uplifting, and I once had a friend tell me to please be nicer to her friend Diane. It wasn’t just with weight loss it was with anything I was trying to make a change of in my life, maybe I wanted to become more organized, get to work earlier, remember to send cards out to people, spend more time with my girlfriends, take my child to the park more, it didn’t matter what was I was trying to do – sometimes it would work and the changes would take effect and sometimes it wouldn’t. There was no rhyme or reason, I couldn’t figure it out.
There are those people in everyone’s life whom just see more lucky. It seems everything they touch turns to gold. I wondered what was different about those people than me. Why did I have to work so much harder for things? Why did some things I try turned the junk instead of gold? Why did these people seem to just have it so much easier?
If you’ve ever felt like this or wondered any of these things I urge you to read the book What to say when you talk to yourself by Shad Helmstetter. This book answered all those questions for me and so much more. It took away my guilt and it made me feel like this year is the year that I make the lasting change in my life that I want. This is the year that I will be able to create the life that I want. I’ve heard of the law of attraction, I’ve studied it, I even have clients the teach it. This isn’t that. This was the first thing for me that really make complete 100% sense. It doesn’t seem like magical thinking more wishful thinking or even just positive thoughts – although it does talk about positive thoughts and he talks about why if you don’t do it correctly it won’t work. So if you want a good read, and you want to start off the year really making a promise to yourself and making sure comes true, then I suggest you start with this book. You’ll thank me later.
Planning to avoid shiny object syndrome?
One of the biggest problems that I see our clients have is that they don’t have a plan. They may be getting their Internet Marketing advice from other colleagues or from things they see on the Internet and they may just be trying to copy what others are doing that they may be following or they think are successful. The reason why this doesn’t work very well is because oftentimes the people that they are following have done things in a certain order on purpose. For example, there is no point in getting involved in social networking and promoting your blogs on different social networking sites if you don’t have a way to capture emails for the traffic that you’re driving back to your website. So there is definitely a reason why you would want to do things in a certain order. One of the best things I ever invested in when I was learning how to build a business online is the Nitro blueprint by Kevin Wilke. If you are currently looking for a way to develop a business online and you don’t have a plan, this is the best tool that I can currently recommend that will really get you started. Without having a solid plan to go on, you will simply be doing what I call chasing the next shiny object, so any technology that use see that you might be chasing after to try to implement – even if it’s not right for your business. To get your copy of the Nitro BluePrint click here.
If you want to purchase products that show you how to do what we do for our own clients, check out AverageJoeUniversity
Get Over It – What Is Your Responsibility To Our Economy?
It is my prediction that in 2010 the small business owner and entrepreneur we'll have the responsibility of turning around our economy. I see that most of us would admit that we didn't get into this situation by ourselves or because of a single person, and the president is doing everything he can to turn this economy around. We have an obligation to our economy to get our message out into the world to help others and by doing so will naturally stimulate the economy helping each other. I once attended a webinar by Russell Brunson who told of his personal story of how his family was started. He explained but his wife was having some trouble getting pregnant. One night while watching TV they saw a commercial for a local fertility clinic, and this fertility clinic was eventually the answer to a prayer. He explained that it was the obligation of that clinic to send their message out into the world with so that people like Russell could find them. Marketing has gotten a bad rap, it has a bad name. If you look at it from a standpoint of pushing your products or services on people you have a negative feeling and it makes you feel like you're doing something wrong. If you change how you see it and you look at it from the perspective of the customer or whom needs your information it's now your obligation to send that message out to as many people as possible so that your perspective customer can find you and receive the help they need. I believe in 2010 if we all start to believe this way and build our businesses online using the power of one to many through the technology of the Internet that we can help our government change the future of this economy. We are not powerless! Every single day you log onto your computer and yet you realize not the power that you have. Every single one of us has something special within us- knowledge, experience, wisdom, any advice that people are willing to pay for. If you knew the knowledge that you had could change someone else's life and that they would pay you for it would you share it? I say get over yourself but don't think about it from your perspective think about it from the person who needs it.
Now that's the first step is deciding to do something about it. The next step is knowing what to do and how to do it. Please join me for my free class on Thursday January 14 where I share with you the house to.
My Business Isn't Ready Yet To Support a Virtual Assistance But I Still Need Help- What Now?
This is a great question and something I hear often. Truth is, there is a very fine line that you have to walk during certain parts of your business between cash flow in and out. As a business owner I've been there. I remember only have a $200 budget per month and I absolutely could not go past that. The benefit I had, was I knew what needed to be done and because of that I knew how to monitor the work. As an example, if you don't know why your car won't start, you have totally trust a mechanic to tell you the truth and do it at a fair price. No matter what happens you can't help but think, was I just taken? If you knew it was just a transmission and you knew 6 different places where transmission specialists were you could go get quotes and be in a better position, right? That's kind of what it's like to build a business online if you don't have the first clue what really needs to be done or how to do it?
Here's are 5 more advanced things that you must do for yourself if you're serious about starting a business online. If you don't know the base things that must be done, join me on my call.
1. How often do you email your list? Are you afraid of you list? You MUST email them a minimum of once per week. If you don't, you won't catch them during their buying cycle.
2. Are you running sales on your products too often? These have to be special and make a big deal out of them. Get your affiliates involved and put a count down timer on your sales letter showing how much time is left.
3. Which reminds me, do you have affiliates? If you don't you need some. It's like having an army of people out there selling your products and you only pay them when they make a sale! To sound like Tom Cruise in Jerry McGuire – Help ME Help YOU baby!
4. What is your product funnel? Do you just have a mix and match of stuff all over your site? What is your main or signature product? What's your free product? What's your monthly program?
5. Do you know your conversion rates? How many people have to come to your site before you can get a new subscriber to your ezine? Don't know? ALWAYS know your stats.
Sure you've heard things here and there, and it's now common knowledge that you have to have a website, but what else? There's online schools out there that teach you how to sell other people's products, but what about your own? I know many people that want to hire out a consultant like myself but they can't afford it right now – especially in this economy. What is it they say? Necessity is the mother of all invention right? Well when times are tough you have to FIND a way. You want someone to pull you aside and say, "Hey, here's how I did it, just follow these steps." Well, join me for my call – that's the first step.
Have You Seen The Wizard Behind the Curtain? I Have.
I have 19 clients that keep me very busy. Every one of them is at a different stage in their business and yet they all have the same goal – to ‘make it big online.’ To launch their message and to make money with their information products teaching people how to live better lives. I pick my clients based on their subject matter expertise and by how I feel we will work together as a team. However, every once in a while you get the chance to work with a monster client – one that is already well established making multiple 7 figures doing everything online. I got that chance this year and it’s as if I’ve peaked behind the curtain and I see how the wizard is running the land of Oz. This information has changed the way I do business for all of my clients and myself. You’ve heard the phrase “Why reinvent the wheel?” Well I understand that phrase a lot better after this year and have found myself living that as if it were a religion. With so many people out there randomly and frantically running around in virtual reality trying to do anything to build a business, I have the blessings of seeing how it’s done by more than one ‘whale’ of an online marketer. I work with other VA’s that have seen behind the curtain of other huge gurus and swapped stories and strategies with them. Between the classes I’ve taken, what I’ve seen firsthand, and what I’ve learned from colleagues – I’ve now created websites that make profits even before I’m READY! The last website I launched got 3 emails sign ups and the first sale within 4 days of going live and I frankly wasn’t quite ready yet! The ezine wasn’t finished and the merchant account application hadn’t been completed by my client yet! Yikes! What a great problem to have, huh? So I’ve decided to now share my formula with entrepreneurs everywhere so they cannot reinvent the wheel either. My hope is that this knowledge I share will make their lives easier and give them the head start I didn’t have to launch their message into the world and change lives for the better. Click here to register for my free teleseminar, “Unleash The Power of Your Website” on January 14th at two times 9am PST and 6PM PST.
Is Your Website Working For You?
Websites are such a complicated but necessary part of an online business. Years ago it was necessary to have one for informational purposes only. Today it’s not just a website you need if you’re going to make it online. You must capture names and email addresses, offer product, lead clients through a logical marketing funnel, and provide enough content that you establish yourself as a subject matter expert- without giving away the farm. We bribe people into our email lists with free gifts and do relationship marketing with social media. However, some websites – if built correctly can do some of these things for you automatically – almost as if on auto pilot. If you’re not tapping into these free tools then you could be making extra work for yourself or worse yet – paying people to do things for you that could be done instantly for free. Join me as I share how to make your website work for you!Click here to register for my free teleseminar, “Unleash The Power of Your Website” on January 14th at two times 9am PST and 6PM PST.
We’ve Been Nominated!
