kO′ch VA adj. 1. a highly specialized and niched virtual
assistant who is in tune with their coaching clients and customizes solutions based upon their individual needs and goals 2. differs from a general virtual assistant as they only partner with members of the coaching industry [syn: 
Author Archive
How the Fierce Handle Fear – Get Your Copy Now!
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I’m so excited – today is the day…book launch day for How the Fierce Handle Fear. One of my favorite clients ever is Janet Slack of Solopreneur.biz and she is one of the co-authors of this fabulous book!
In addition to Janet Slack, you will get the wisdom of:
Andrea J. Lee
Donald Trump
Sandie Glass
Sophfronia Scott
Howard Kay
and many others
You’ve probably heard from me already about How the Fierce Handle Fear: Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times, I’ve written blog posts and tweets about how it’s helped my life. The best part is if you purchase the book within the next 24 hours, you’ll get a powerful free bonus. (And did I tell you that the proceeds from the book go to charity?)
These are challenging times and I really believe that your ability to handle fear is one of the most important skills you can master. This book of the best ideas of 22 amazing experts will help with exactly that whether the issue is little scary moments or the big, mind-numbing fearful events.
http://www.HowtheFierceHandleFear.com
Now, here’s the offer good for today only:
If you buy your copy of How the Fierce Handle Fear from Amazon.com within the next 24 hours you’ll also get exclusive access to the complete audio collection of the groundbreaking “Fearless Fridays Telesummit”. This was the recent event featuring over 30 amazing speakers offering their best tips on handling fear.
Just go to http://www.HowtheFierceHandleFear.com for details on how to get the recordings and other bonuses.
The proceeds from the book sales will go to Frank McKinney’s Caring House Project Fund which provides needed help to the desperately poor and homeless throughout the world.
I would love for you to share this link with your family and friends. Getting a grip on fear will help us all to move out of these challenging times and on to the better ones ahead.
How to Build Trust With Your Clients
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Build Trust: Give Something Away for Free
Your relationship with your client is one of both necessity and pleasure. You need clients to stay in business. And hopefully, you enjoy connecting with your clients. To build a good rapport and maintain trust, it takes a plan and ongoing strategies for success. Here are a few ideas you can use to build and maintain a positive relationship with your clients.
Communicate with them often. Now maybe you already do this. Maybe your customers receive regular emails from you. However, what you say in these emails is important. If each and every email you send is a promotion or asking for a sale then they’re going to stop reading your emails pretty darn quickly. They’re going to lose trust in you.
On the other hand, if your email communications are chock full of valuable information, value, and benefit then you’re building trust. Customers will look forward to our information.
The same goes for social networking. You can communicate with your customers on a regular basis. Instead of posting promo link after promo link, post real, human interactions.
Prove you’re worth trusting. If you are a service provider then it’s imperative to post samples of your work on your website. And if you’re a service provider, retailer or even an information marketer or affiliate marketer you can provide case studies to demonstrate the value of your products or services. This provides credibility and it makes it easier to trust you as a provider and business owner.
Give away things for free. Free can be used as a marketing and relationship building tactic on many levels. For new prospects you build trust by providing valuable information and free downloadable information. For current customers, they love freebies too. You can give away reports, videos, and ebooks . You can even take it a step further and give current customers a coupon or freebie.
For example, current customers can be offered a free report as a loyalty thank you. You can even start a loyalty program that awards customers with points or dollars they can use toward future purchases.
Be Transparent. Transparency is a word that’s thrown around a lot lately. It essentially means that you don’t hide any of your polices or procedures. You’re 100% up front about who you are and what you’re about. This may mean making sure you have a double opt in for your email signup, a privacy statement that’s easy to find, contact information and even a FAQ page. Transparency helps customers and clients trust you.
Show gratitude. Depending on the size of your client base and the nature of your business, ending clients and customers a personal message is a great way to build rapport. Send cards and gifts during the holidays if it fits your budget. Or just send a note now and again with some helpful information.
There are many ways to build rapport and trust with your clients. Begin by taking a look at y our clients and what you can do for them. Then set about to create an ongoing plan to connect and build trust. A little planning and action can go a long way to creating a business that is successful today and ten years from now.
Using The Thesis Theme for WordPress
Posted by: | CommentsThe WordPress Thesis Theme is one of the favorites among site owners with minimal technical knowledge. Basically, it makes it easier to change your site without knowing PHP or even HTML.
There are many themes to choose from. Here are five reasons you might want to use the thesis theme:
Ease of use
This is a great platform that allows you to have a good-looking site with minimal technical know-how. It is easy to change, no matter how little knowledge you have.
It contains a panel on the side that enables you to alter the theme without the need to change the code. If you want to make more advanced alterations, you might need to know some PHP and HTML. However, for most changes this isn’t necessary. It’s much more customizable than the free themes.
And even more complex jobs are relatively simple. You might have to change the code a little, but when compared with other themes, it’s not hard.
Just be cautious. You still have to know what you are doing. While this theme is simple to use, like any theme it’s possible to mess things up if you get reckless. For this reason, take time and read online instructions about working with thesis theme before you start experimenting.
Inexpensive
The thesis theme will run you $87 dollars to use it on a single site, and $164 for multiple sites. Considering how easy it is to use, this is very reasonable. It’s certainly pricier than some themes out there, but the quality more than makes up for it.
Support
The main site has a responsive support forum. Should you run into any difficulties, your question will be answered very quickly. The main developer, Chris Pearson, even answers the questions himself on occasion. This is one of the main selling points of this theme.
Instructions
As mentioned before, there are sites online that have in-depth instructions on how to use it. This isn’t the case with a lot of themes. This makes using it much simpler than one of the lesser-known themes.
SEO friendly
One of the big benefits of this theme is that it is easily optimized for SEO. The code is not complex, which means the site is much more likely to get ranked than other themes. Uncluttered code is always well liked by the search engines.
Some bloggers have reported an increase in traffic largely from using this theme. It’s not magic, so you can’t expect to just install it and see instant results. However, it certainly won’t hurt your efforts, like some of the free themes.
The bottom line is, the WordPress Thesis Theme is one of the better ones out there. if you are looking for an easy to use theme that is relatively affordable, look no further.
Google Places and How It Can Help Your Business
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Google says that one out of five searches on Google are related to location. For that reason they created Google Local which has since been transformed into Google Places.
If you’re familiar with Google’s Local Business Center, then you’re also familiar with Google Places. Google changed the name of their local business center to offer better services to businesses and their users.
Like its predecessor, Google Places is designed to help people find businesses and to help business owners reach out to their prospects. Like the old fashioned Yellow Pages, Google Places offers business information organized by category. If you sell dog treats in Austin, Texas all your prospect has to do is look for Dog Treats in Austin, Texas and they’ll find you.
However, unlike the old fashioned Yellow Pages, Google Places is available on any computer and mobile device. This is important because many people use their mobile device as a resource for finding stores, services and businesses.
What Does Google Places Offer?
Google places offers the same tools and features that Google Local Business Center offered and they’ve added several new features including:
- Service areas: Designed to help internet marketers make their address private and help brick and mortar establishments cater to people in a geographic region.
- $25 Enhanced listings and tags to help users search.
- Business photo shoots. Businesses can upload their own photos or request a free photo shoot of the interior of their business which can supplement existing photos.
- Customized QR codes which can be placed on smart phones and business cards and scanned to help people find your establishment
- Business owners can post real-time updates to their Place Page. This makes promoting special events, offering coupons or incentives easy.
- Google Places also offers a personalized dashboard for business owners so they can track the data including how many times prospects have found your business on Google, what keywords they used and where they came from.
Getting Started On Google Places
Getting Started on Google Places is easy. If you have an account simply log into your account and create a listing. You can add coupons, description, location and you can use the QR code to market your business.
If you don’t have a Google account, then it’s easy and free to get one. Visit Google Places and sign up. You can immediately begin creating your listing.
Why Use Google Places?
Google Places is good for business even if you do not have a brick and mortar establishment. Many people prefer to do business with local businesses and they conduct searches for these businesses online or on their mobile device. You can reach a whole new audience by listing your business with Google Places.
Using Google Buzz for Business
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Goggle Buzz is one of the newer social networking sites today, and it’s rapidly becoming more popular all the time. One reason, of course, is the Google name that is attached to it. However, it’s not just popular because of this. There is plenty of substance to back it up.
How do you access it?
It’s entirely located within your Gmail account, and it’s free. All you need is a Gmail account.
Who would benefit from using it?
Anybody just looking to catch up with friends could use it. However, it’s especially effective for businesses.
It is inspired by Facebook, Twitter and other popular social sites, as it takes on aspects of each. For instance, it enables you to upload pictures and videos. And you can easily have a conversation with other users. All of this enables you to give your business personality.
So how can your business benefit from it? Here are five reasons you might want to start using it:
Post wherever you are
One of the strengths of Google Buzz is that it works great with mobile devices. This allows you to post wherever you want, quickly and easily.
It even has a feature that enables you to speak into the phone, and it will automatically convert your words into a post. In other words, you don’t even have to write. This only works with certain applications, but it can be very convenient.
And you can let others know where you are posting from, if you want. This could be useful if you want to give your posts more personality.
Convenient
It links with the more established social sites. Therefore, you can see other people’s activity on Facebook and Twitter without even having to leave Google Buzz. This means you can view other people’s tweets right from the Buzz platform.
Segment your posts
One of the unique features about Google Buzz is that you can choose who you are posting to. For instance, you can just post to a certain group of contacts, or the entire Buzz network. It all depends on who you want to see your post.
This is especially useful for businesses. For instance, if you have a list of proven customers, you can do a post only they can see. And you can then write a message for those who haven’t bought from you yet. Therefore, you can tailor your posts to your audience, much like segmenting an email list.
Blog compatible
You can link your Buzz account to your blog. Therefore, whenever you update your blog, it will update your Buzz account. If you have a lot of followers, this could translate into a lot of money provided you have good blog content.
Filter
If you are subscribing to others’ RSS feeds, the Buzz has a filter that eliminates posts that wouldn’t be of interest to you. You just tell it what to block. This saves you time, because you don’t have to sort through hundreds of posts you don’t care about.
The bottom line is, you would be smart to use the Google Buzz, because it gives your business personality. While it will require time and effort, the Buzz can be very profitable for you.
Are you ready to give Google Buzz a go? If so, Follow Me on Google Buzz
Attracting Younger Clients
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It’s no secret that getting younger customers is critical. It’s important, because you could potentially have a client for life if you handle the relationship correctly.
So how do you attract them? Here are few tips to make it happen:
Know where young consumers hang out
One of the obvious places they go to is social media sites. The biggest age group using the popular social networking sites is the eighteen to twenty-four bracket. YouTube, Twitter, and MySpace are all examples of social sites that offer a huge amount of profit opportunity.
Know who your customer is
Trying to target all young people is not going to work because it’s not specific enough. You will want to narrow it down to a certain age and gender to be more effective. This will enable you to speak exactly to your customer, instead of trying to design some generic advertising that appeals to everyone.
Get in a conversation
More and more, young people are doing business with companies they trust. Trust is one of the most important words today for business.
How do you build trust?
You have to show you care about their needs, and can help them. If you ram one advertising message after another down their throats, they will know you just want the money.
So you first have to identify their needs, and show that you have a solution for them. You want to engage your target market in a conversation and answer their questions.
This will establish you as an expert. So you first have to give them a lot of great free information. If your free information isn’t that good, they will assume that what you are selling isn’t that valuable either.
Ask them questions. This will show them you care about what they want. After you’ve done this, you can explain how your product would meet their needs.
Use video
As mentioned above, video social networking sites are really taking off. Video is one of the best ways to engage your customer. This is because people can comment on them, much like a blog.
From the comments, you will be able to see the needs that your customers have. Then you can design you product to better meet those needs.
Emphasize benefits
More than ever, young people don’t care about how long you’ve been in business. They are interested in what you can do for them. Your credentials aren’t as critical as the benefits you provide to them.
So don’t talk about yourself, talk about what you can do for your customer. It might be useful to mention you are an expert, but the main focus should be on the benefits.
Remember, you are in the business of helping people. That’s the only way to make money. So engaging your customers, finding out their needs, and meeting those needs is how to attract younger customers.
Setting Up a Profitable Virtual Assistant Business
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A virtual assist business can be extremely profitable. However, a lot of people mistakenly think it’s an easy path to riches.
This is not true. The vast majority of VA companies fail. This is because of a few critical mistakes made during the beginning stages. Here are the five mistakes to avoid:
Mistake #1
Not having a plan
It’s essential to have a business plan in order to make money. Anything sustainable doesn’t happen by accident. It has to be intentional.
The truth is, starting this business is not cheap. Knowing ahead of time what you can afford to spend can save you from disaster. Therefore, a good plan will include a budget and marketing strategy.
Mistake #2
Trying to be a jack-of-all-trades
Attempting to do too much is a common mistake. Many owners try to handle every task in order to get more business.
However, if you do this, you won’t be able to focus your marketing on one specific group of people. As is often said, “if everyone is your customer than no one is your customer.”
Becoming the best at one particular skill is usually more profitable than being average at twenty. This will help you stand out from the crowd. You might want to consider investing in training if you really want to master a skill.
Mistake #3
Putting up with distractions
If you are going to work from home, make sure you are in a place that is free of distractions. In other words, don’t have your office in a high-trafficked part of the home.
This is one of the biggest killers to productivity. Instead, set up a dedicated workspace where you can have uninterrupted work time. If possible set a schedule and stick to it.
Mistake #4
Not focusing on the marketing
It is difficult to make money without being a good marketer, even if you are the best VA in the world. If you can’t attract business, your skills will not do you much good.
Mistake #5
Not having a scalable business
That’s not to say you shouldn’t do any VA assignments yourself. After all, you might really enjoy them. However, recognize that there are limits to the amount of tasks you can do yourself in a 24-hour day. That’s why hiring people will enable you to accept more work, and therefore make your business scalable.
For instance, if you have a web design VA business, you might only be able to finish one site a week yourself. However, if you have 5 subcontractors, then you can take on 5 times the projects.
The bottom line is, having a VA business can be extremely profitable. When you avoid the five common mistakes listed above, you can have a strong, viable business.
Get and Keep Clients
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How do you keep your current clients? This is a huge problem with most businesses. They go to all the trouble of finding a new client, only to lose them.
Don’t let this happen. When you carefully cultivate a relationship with your clients, you can potentially have a customer for life. And most importantly, they will refer their friends to you, which will get you free business.
Referral advertising is one of the most effective there is, because people are always more likely to believe what their friends say about a business than the company themselves. Here are four tips to help you keep your customers happy.
Great customer service
This is easily one of the most important aspects of retaining clients. If they call you, don’t wait days to get back to them. Contact them immediately. And make sure the people you hire to handle the phone calls are extremely knowledgeable about your business.
Get feedback
For instance, if you sell a product on how to get and attract affiliates, you might want to ask clients what their biggest affiliate management challenges are. Also, ask them for feedback on what you can do to improve your product and/or service. These gestures just show them you care about their opinion.
Apologize profusely for errors
If you are ever in the wrong, don’t simply apologize and forget about it. And definitely do not blame it on the client! Instead, at the minimum give let them know you were wrong and go above and beyond to make it right.
Over-deliver
Many businesses build unrealistic expectations with lofty claims, and then the client is disappointed in the final product. Instead, make sure you always deliver more than they expect. You do this by under-promising and then delivering more than they anticipate. It’s no more complex than that.
For instance, if you are setting up an affiliate program, be realistic about when you can get the finished product to them. Then attempt to get it quicker than you said. Saying you will get it to them by a certain date and then failing to do this always leaves a bad taste.
Another great method to over-deliver is to provide unannounced bonuses with your product. This is done all the time in the information product world, but it can easily be incorporated to physical goods as well.
For instance, if you set up an affiliate program, you might include an extensive written overview of the program for free. Just think of related times your customers will want down the road, and include them as a surprise bonus.
If you implement just a few of these strategies, you will be amazed at how many of your current clients keep buying from you. And don’t forget that they will also refer you new business as well. Take time to carefully manage your customer relationships, and you could be profitable beyond your wildest dreams.
How to Sell Your Ebook
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Planning, writing and creating an e-book can be a labor of love. At the very least you want your efforts to result in good sales however with a few steps your labor of love can rise above good sales and achieve bestselling status. Your eBook can have great sales, here’s how:
1. Make sure your e-book provides a benefit. The very first step, and often the step that takes the longest is the research phase where you analyze your audience and potential book topics. In addition to your book needing to provide a benefit to your audience, a bestseller provides a benefit that is in high demand, even though sometimes people don’t know they want it until they see your book.
For example, “how to win friends and influence people,” was a bestseller because it provided a very clear benefit – the ability to be liked. Make sure your book topic provides a clear benefit to your target market.
2. Make sure it has an attention grabbing, benefit promising book title. Your book title needs to accomplish many things because it is the first thing people will look at when visiting your website or considering a purchase. Your headline needs to appeal to emotions, provide a benefit, and grab their attention. Chicken Soup for the Soul is an example of a book title that tapped into emotions and aroused enough curiosity to get people to look further into the book to see what it’s about.
3. Make sure you have credibility. Credibility can be on the back cover, on the inside flap, on the cover with your name. It’s demonstrated in many ways. For example, if you have a forward by someone highly respected in your industry, several positive reviews, or even a short bio explaining your knowledge and experience, they all lend to your credibility and help prospects make a decision to become customers.
4. Find the right promotion strategy for your audience. Simply publishing a book won’t make it sell. You have to promote it. Here are just a few ways to promote your eBook:
- Reviews
- Social networking
- Advertising – including banners, text, ezines and pay per click
- Affiliates
- Joint Venture
- Word of mouth
- Selling via retail sites like ClickBank, eBay and Amazon.com
All of these marketing strategies may or may not work for you. Create a plan, set goals, and test and track your tactics for success.
5. Work hard to get some press! Press publicity are one of the best ways to grow a book’s sales into bestseller status. Submit press releases to local news outlets and online. Contact the media, get interviewed and connect with people online to help you promote your book.
When it comes to making your e-book a bestseller, putting together a great package is the first step. It has to be a book people will review well, one that looks professional and keeps its promise. Once that’s accomplished, it’s up to you to get the word out about your book. Create a marketing and promotion strategy and follow it through.
When Outsourcing Don’t Forget to Plan Ahead
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When you started your business you had a plan, a business plan. It no doubt mentioned something about future expansion. Now is the time to put those plans in place.
The best time to think about expanding your business is before it actually happens. Then, you can put your plan into action much more quickly and seamlessly. Part of expanding is outsourcing.
Are you ready for a multi-VA team?
It was a team of one, but now you are happily getting too big for a one-person show. To keep moving upward, you’ll need others to make it happen.
Choosing your team
The team will be comprised mostly of other virtual assistants. These aren’t just any virtual assistants – they think like you do and have a similar work ethic. Just like your clients did with you, you’ll want to do some research and interviewing to find just the right people.
You may have already thought about what jobs you will outsource. Keeping it simple is a good way to start until you get a feel for how the team will work together. Interviewing is only the first step. Keep in mind that you may want to outsource more delicate matters later. Look for a variety of skills in the people that you choose for your team. The more skills that they have, the more useful they will turn out to be to you.
Starting off on the right foot
Get all of your ducks in a row from the beginning. This includes contracts, agreements and instructions. Each virtual assistant will need a contract that spells out, but is not limited to: pay per hour, pay schedule, process portfolio, etc. Agreements between you and your subcontracting VAs stipulating confidentiality and non-compete clauses are essential.
Written instructions about how to do what you ask avoids as many mistakes as possible later. Even though your subcontractors know how to say, write a report, they don’t know how you write reports for your clients. Pleasing your clients is the important part here.
Crossing all the Ts
One “T” in particular is taxes. You are not just responsible for yourself but others who work for you. Hiring subcontractors is considered freelancing. This is another area that needs to be specified in any contracts with your team. As a subcontractor, they will be responsible for their own taxes and insurance. What you will provide (for US workers) is a 1099-MISC form for them that specify what you pay them so that they can use it to file their taxes.
The cost of subcontracting will figure into your hourly or per project rate for your clients.
Planning ahead for business growth will make you healthy, wealthy and wise.
