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: 
Archive for Business
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.
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
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.
Outsourcing Your Own Things to Free Up Your Time
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Who says that outsourcing is strictly for “work”? As you grow your business, you still have other responsibilities that need to be taken care of. Check to see if these duties can be passed on to someone else.
When work and home collide, it can become insane. You will be folding laundry in your home office between emails and researching articles. Or, you’ll be going over reports in your head while you cook dinner. This is not what you had in mind when you decided to go into business for yourself.
Get Some Help…Again
You’ve already turned a big corner by outsourcing your virtual assisting work to other VAs with the right stuff. Now, turn your attention to your home. Those activities can also be outsourced to others with the right skills to do the job.
1. Childcare – Part of owning a home business is that you can spend more time with the kids. You may have even worked out your business day around keeping the children at home. As the business becomes more demanding, you’ll want to rethink that scenario. Hiring someone to look after your kids, even on a part-time basis can make a huge difference. You have options: a nanny in the home, a part-time babysitter from the neighborhood or a childcare center.
2. Housecleaning – Hardly anyone wants to clean even if they have the time. You might be sitting at your computer working but don’t let that fool your family. You can become mentally tired just like you can become physically tired. After a day of managing clients, you won’t want to pick up one more thing whether its clothing or a dirty dish. Budget in to hire a maid service. You don’t have to be the Rockefeller’s to afford it. If you do a thorough cleaning of your home, a service can come in just to touch things up once a week or twice a month. It will make a big difference.
3. Bookkeeping – You’ll need to balance the books if you own a business. All those numbers may start running together after a while. Waiting until tax time to handle them is an accident waiting to happen. Hire a freelance professional or another VA who specializes in bookkeeping to help you keep the business finances straight all along instead of at the last minute.
4. Your Business Needs – While you are building your business, administrative tasks seem to fall by the wayside. You’ll feel more at ease when you can find someone to do these things for you. Tasks like the following are perfect for someone else to handle for you.
• Updating your website
• Writing content
• Answering emails
• Sending out newsletters
What’s that? It’s the sigh of relief you’ll breathe when you outsource your needs so you can spend more time growing your business and doing the things in life you enjoy (yes, I mean more than working).
Tasks That Can be Easily Outsourced to a Virtual Assistant
Posted by: | CommentsSometimes your workload as a virtual assistant can get quite heavy. One of the best ways to handle it is to outsource some of your work to other virtual assistants. But, where do you start with that? Let’s dig a bit deeper to get your mind wheels spinning. If we can get you out from under some of that heavy load of working all the time, life will be a whole lot sweeter, right?
What Tasks to Outsource
When you work with clients, there is a measure of confidentiality going on. Companies trust you with their databases, email correspondence, meeting schedules and legal documents. These can’t fall into the wrong hands. So, as the person who won the client and is responsible for keeping their information safe, you have a decision to make about what you will allow others to do for you.
The first important decision that you made was to work with someone someone else who can provide the same service that you have for your clients (more about that in a moment). Congratulations on letting go of the reins just a little bit. Now, what will you give them to do?
The jobs that you will probably be looking to outsource at first are those that don’t involve a lot of contact with confidential information. And, the jobs will be small at first so that you can get an idea of your new helper’s work style and ethic. Here’s a short list of tasks to help get the juices flowing:
• Article submissions
• Article writing
• Creating reports and presentations
• Creating newsletters
• Internet research
Article writing can be used for website content or article submissions. Clients with websites like to keep it up-to-date with fresh, pertinent information and if you find someone who can help you whip out that content in a timely and top-quality manner, you’re in business.
Companies use reports to send to their clients and also for internal use. Creating reports involves knowledge of tools such as spreadsheets and databases as well as how to pull information together for presentations using PowerPoint. Depending on the information contained in the reports, this may be the perfect job to let go of and pass on to someone else.
Internet research is used for many things: writing manuscripts, articles, preparing reports and more. It is a unique skill to be able to entice search engines to give up their treasures. If you have someone helping you who doesn’t mind digging into research and possesses the skills to find what you need quickly, you’re on the right track.
Even if you don’t outsource any job that involves confidential material, it is wise to get any subcontracting virtual assistant to sign a confidentiality agreement. This way, as you get more confident and need more in-depth help, you don’t have to worry about anyone selling trade secrets. On that same note, you may want to consider having all your assistants sign and Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) depending on the nature of your work. While we won’t go into detail about NDAs, this can help protect you should you and your assistant part ways.
Choosing the Right Person
Who you work with all depends on your personality and their level of proficiency with the task. First of all, no two people will do the same job exactly alike. Let’s get rid of that preconceived notion right now. If not, you will drive yourself crazy and nitpick over everything they do. What you are looking for is someone who knows what they are doing and can demonstrate the skills needed to get the job done correctly and on time.
Outsourcing is the perfect way to get the help you need from other competent virtual assisting professionals. Start with small jobs and progress to more delicate assignments as you see fit.
How to Set Up An RSS Feed
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RSS feeds are a useful tool for people who want to keep tabs on websites, blogs and membership sites without having to surf and visit the websites individually. RSS feeds essentially send information to the visitor.
As a business owner they’re almost an essential tool to provide to your visitors, because they help you stay in connection with them on a regular basis. In fact, many people have readers that aggregate all the feeds they subscribe to and organize them so they’re easy to read and access.
On that note, here’s how to set up effective RSS Feeds.
1. Determine what content you want to make available to your visitors. What content do you want them to be able to subscribe to? For example, if you have an information-based website, you may want them to be able to subscribe to categories or to all new articles or to give them the choice.
2. Create your feed. You can use an RSS channel editor to create your RSS feed; if you’re not comfortable coding then this is an easy step. There are a number of channel editors and you can do a quick search online to find one that meets your needs. My personal favorite is Feedburner. It’s a snap to set up and all the work is done for you.
You can also create your feed yourself. It’ll look something like this:
<?xml version=”1.0″ ?>
<rss version=”2.0″>
<channel>
<item>
<title>Your Article Title Here</title>
<description>Your article summary/description here.</description>
<link>http://linktoyourwebpagehere.com</link>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
3. If you choose to do it yourself, upload your RSS file. You’ll cut and paste the code into your website code. Or if you’re using FTP, you’ll upload the file into your server.
4. Validate the feed. There are a number of free validation programs available online. This is an important step because errors can be present if you’ve created the feed yourself or if you’ve tweaked it.
5. Your next step is to let people know they can subscribe to your feed. Advertise. Place a button on your web page(s) and promote it. Many internet users love RSS feeds and take full advantage of them.
Make sure you update your feed as needed and stay on top of RSS technology. It has changed over the years; there are actually three types of RSS feeds and you want to ensure you’re giving your visitors the best you have to offer.
Do You Earn What You Are Worth?
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In today’s economy, everyone is looking to make more money. I have talked to some business owners who feel that they need to cut prices to get business. But the question remains, are you making what you should be making?
To find out what you’re worth, you can start by shopping around to other people who do the same things. There are lots of sites that people can use to hire businesses, and often they let you see competitor’s prices. You may also speak to potential clients and ask for what they normally pay, though many will be tempted to give you a lower rate to get a better price.
Remember, just because someone does the same job as you, doesn’t mean you should charge the same as them. A writer who is a native English speaker is generally much more valuable than one who isn’t. Someone with twenty years experience often makes more than someone with two (but not always), and someone with proven results can make more than someone who is just starting out.
Just because you know what you’re worth doesn’t mean you can necessarily make that. When it comes to making what you’re worth, good marketing is key. There will always be people who can charge lower rates than you so it’s important that you don’t compete on price alone.
Let potential clients know what makes you different and why you’re worth more. The key is letting people know how good you are and convincing them that paying more for your services is going to help them make more money in the end.
Here are a few things to help you make your case:
Samples. Samples of your work will help potential clients know that you’re good at what you do.
Client testimonials. This is one of the best ways to let potential clients know that your services are worth what you’re charging. If other previous clients have good things to say about you and your services, it will really vouch for you.
Charging what you’re worth can be scary, particularly during difficult times. However, with a little thought and planning there’s no reason why you can’t stand out from the competition – even with higher rates.
