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 Networking
Keeping Track of Your Virtual Assistant Team
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Many successful virtual assistants will need to assemble a team at some time in their career. A team increases your business possibilities and opportunities. But, handling all those people will take more than just a little brain power.
Putting the Pieces Together
Make a list. Whose skills will you use for what jobs? There are several ways you can do this. Let’s say that you want to hire someone to do article writing. You can use that same person for all your article needs across all projects, if they have the right qualifications. Or, you can use a different VA for each specialty that you handle, i.e. someone who is experienced with financial matters works with those clients and someone else who is experienced with website development can work with online businesses.
What you want to do is spread out the work so that deadlines are getting met. Even with one other person, burnout can come quick. Take inventory of how many people you will likely need to cover your overflow.
Getting your Mind Right
What’s this all about? Well, it involves how you will manage your team. Micromanaging is not what you want or need. That is just a fancy and roundabout way of doing all the work yourself. It is exhausting and not cost effective. You’ll have to let your team of professionals operate on their own with minimal guidance ONCE you are comfortable with their skills.
You already know that each person will have a different way of working. The important thing is that they can deliver for you. You can give each person a probationary period to evaluate their work. That’s another reason to implement your team approach while the overflow is light. You don’t want to test them under fire.
Tracking Projects
A project management system lets you keep track of not only the projects but the subcontractors as well. You can have them upload their work at various stages so you can see how they are doing and report to your client. Any documents that are needed by you and them can be uploaded to the project.
This system works well for asking questions, posting new information and hosting discussions with your team. There are options for you. ClientSpot is a system that allows you to create client lists, post projects and add users. Each contractor can have their own username and password for the system and limited access to only their projects.
A similar system is ManyMoom. Here, each client can have access to certain projects and it seemlessly integrates with Google products as well as many social networking platforms.
Tracking your team is a matter of project management. To ease your mind, know who is doing what, when and how.
How to Respond To Negative Client/Customer Feedback
Posted by: | CommentsIf you are a business owner, you’re eventually going to get some negative feedback from your customers or other people you work with or for. While your initial reaction is probably to get mad or upset, negative feedback is actually a good thing. It means that your customers are giving you an opportunity to improve your business.
The most important thing to remember when getting negative feedback is to not get mad. Sure, getting mad may give you an energy burst to be more effective and get more things done, but it’s more likely going to get you worked up over nothing and make you waste time.
There are two things you can do instead of getting angry or upset, and which one you choose depends on what kind of negative feedback you got. Negative feedback can pretty much be divided into two categories: useful and mean spirited.
If someone sends you feedback that simply says they disagree with you and says nothing more than that, your next step is simple – ignore it. There’s nothing you can do to change their opinion and acknowledging them is simply going to waste both your times. Just forget about it and move on.
Just because feedback is negative doesn’t mean it’s bad. Negative feedback should be looked on as an opportunity for improvement. And while this person may have been upset and not have been the nicest person in sending their feedback, the first thing to do is thank them.
It doesn’t have to be big, just a quick email letting them know that you value their opinion and will look into the issue. If you already know, you can let them know how you’re going to fix the issue at hand. This will not only help you keep a customer (and possibly make more by referrals), it will also encourage them to send more feedback so you can make further improvements in the future.
Once you have helpful negative feedback, the first step is to analyze whether or not it matters. Just because a suggestion gives a good idea, doesn’t mean it’s worth the time and money you have to put in to it. If a problem is difficult to fix but only affects a few of your customers, it’s probably not worth it to spend your resources making it better.
After you’ve decided you need to take action, it’s time to brainstorm what action to take. This could take a few minutes, or even a few weeks. If you are getting stuck, you can even ask customers (or the person who gave you the feedback) what they think would be a good fix.
For each possible action, also go back and weigh it based on how much the negative effect matters. While you may agree that the problem needs fixing, you may not agree that you need to make a substantial investment to fix it and opt to go for a cheaper, but less effective fix. Once you have all your options laid out, it should be much easier to choose a solution.
Once all this is done, you can finally implement your solution, but don’t forget to let your customers know about the changes – particularly the one who inspired the changes in the first place.
Can’t think, brain numb? Motivation won’t come?
Posted by: | CommentsBelieve it or not, we all have times when we just can’t get motivated to “get up and go”.
Whether that “go” is to go to work or to write an article or to clean house or to tackle a huge project for a client.
How many times have you taken the time to sit in on this or that teleseminar or to even read this or that motivational book to learn hundreds of ways to improve your life? But then all that learning just set up camp in your brain because you didn’t do anything with it.
Instead, you got side-tracked watching that crazy Aflac duck in his latest predicament (I love that duck!). Perhaps you didn’t feel like doing what you ought to have been doing and so you did nothing!
Aflac duck or not, sometimes even the highly motivated of us may sometimes find ourselves in the throes of lazy and more readily disregard the nagging pull to start on an important task.
So what’s a body to do?
Actually, there are probably dozens of solutions. We’ll just focus on six of some of the best techniques we’ve found. Of course, “best” is really subjective but these will be a springboard to get you thinking along these or similar lines.
Try them all or do a mix-and-match. With six, there ought to be at least one or two that will motivate you to get your motivation jumping.
1. Talk to get motivated. It’s the New Year, so now’s the time to tell everyone you know you’re going on a diet. Really! Or you’re going to work out at the gym three times a week. Sound familiar? Many years ago, one or two of the young women I worked with would begin each new year with resolutions like these. And they would talk about it and talk about it and talk about it.
And all of the talk (mostly) worked because once you “make it public” by telling someone, it not only boosts your motivation it does hold you accountable to yourself. Well, it’s supposed to be a means to hold you accountable!
What you do is create energy and motivation as well as a desire to lose weight or to stick to an exercise regimen.
2. Stimulate your desire. I am a “knock on your door” salesman’s dream, and a full shopping cart’s my nightmare!
Over the years, I have managed to amass a cupboard-full of dishes and pots and pans and drawers and closets of jewelry and snazzy make-up, and whatever, from a multitude of sales people hocking their wares on the neighborhood streets or, in latter years, on the airwaves.
You name, it I think I have to have it.
That’s motivation; someone’s message was a significant call to action to motivate me to sign up for or to buy whatever they were selling. Oy!
So, if we watch them we can learn how to be our own sales people. Minus the “you can’t live without this’ push, that is.
3. Stimulate your pain. In this instance, the pain does not refer to the pain you experience with a broken leg or with having eaten something that upset your stomach or that which gave you that famous Excedrin headache number 59.
But rather, it’s the emotional distress to which you might be subjected if you didn’t go to work. Or to avoid a math test you took a snow day from school without the benefit of snow. The consequence maybe resulted in a loss of pay or a lower grade on the test. Or worse.
4. Find a true interest. If everyone around you is thrilled to stand in line at midnight for the latest Harry Potter book or to line up for tickets to the opera and you would rather skip three meals than do either, then figure out something that motivates you to action. Like maybe you don’t like to clean house but if you somehow got word Jon Bon Jovi is stopping by soon, how fast do you suppose your motivation would motivate a clean house? The neighbors alone would probably take care of that for you!
5. Boost your energy. Perhaps you’ve noticed how the desire to lose weight sometimes leads some of us to drink coffee, to use diet pills or to drink diet pop. This is because the energy-inducing ingredients in these products boost our systems and act as an impetus to motivate us. Actually, exercising and getting a good night’s sleep will as well.
Since the “moody blues” can sometimes be brought on by too many sugary foods, and the “sugar blues”, in turn, can quickly put you to sleep in your chair or at best kill your motivation, a wise caution is to limit the use of sugar products.
6. Take any small step. Neil Armstrong said, “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind”. He probably didn’t mean it quite like this. But, if you commit to doing just one task for one day toward your goal, perhaps like writing a paragraph in a sales letter, it won’t be long before you get motivated enough to finish the sales letter because you just know when it’s finished you’ll be able to finish uploading your e-book to your Web site and you can then start selling it and earning money. Money speaks pretty loud.
Bottom line, motivation techniques really do work.
Some of the foregoing examples attest to the fact that motivation techniques really do work. However, the “how” is up to you since what stirs your colleagues or neighbors may not stir your soul.
In any case, a good laugh can overcome a lot of things so whatever the path you choose to use to rev up your motivator, let humor be your guide.
About the Author
Want something to read? Click to Konceptuality to get your copy of our weekly ezine, “On the Bright Side”. Karen McGreevey, Virtual Assistant and Expert Author, at Konceptuality specializes in editing/proofreading and general administrative support services to small business consultants, coaches. Contact Karen at kmcgreevey @ konceptuality.com for details.
High Ticket Coaching – Revealed – 4 Methods to Improve Your High Ticket Coaching
Posted by: | CommentsDo you constantly get negative feedback about your coaching programs? Do your previous customers refused to work with you again? Do your clients describe your coaching programs as total waste of time and energy? Then, you’ve got to work really hard in improving your offerings otherwise, you may consider sinking your teeth into another field.
Here’s how you can improve your high ticket coaching:
1. Stick with what you know. When deciding on the topics for your coaching programs, make sure that you stick with those ones that you know very well. Obviously, you will not become an effective coach if you are virtually clueless on things that you are talking about. So coach about the things that have an actual experience on or those things that you have studied before. If you experienced great success in SEO for example, you can offer coaching programs to those new marketers who would want to follow your footsteps.
2. Plan your content. If you intend to launch email coaching programs or launch a member-only website where you trainees can access all the information they need, you need to carefully plan your content and make sure that it will offer your clients with in-depth information. List all the topics that you would like to touch on before you write your content. Let me give you an example; if you are coaching about article marketing, you may write about tips on how to write an effective article, how-to guides on how to properly distribute articles online, the various ways on how to use articles, the art of writing a resource box, etc. Make sure that you explore all the angles of your topic so you can offer your clients with complete, detailed information that they will surely appreciate.
3. Make it easy to understand. Keep in mind that not all online users are using English as their primary language. Thus, it would help if you can make your content very easy to understand. Make use of simple terms and keep your sentences short as much as possible. It would also help if you can insert graphics, illustrations, and relevant images to help your trainees visualize the message that you are trying to get across.
4. Teach from first-hand experience. You cannot base your content on hearsay or information reported to you by a third-party. If you want your coaching programs to be more effective and more convincing, you’ve got to have an actual experience on the things that you share to your trainees.
By the way, do you want to learn how to sell high ticket classes and coaching programs via the internet?
Download my new recording: “How to Sell High Ticket Products Online” here: High Ticket Selling Secrets
About the Author
Sean Mize teaches coaches, consultants, and small business owners how to package their knowledge and sell it in high priced coaching, consulting, and online class packages. Sean says “If you have an existing marketable service or skill that you can teach others, I can teach you to package it into a high-priced class or coaching program, guaranteed” Visit Sean at: Internet Marketing Coaching
7 Tips for Submitting Articles
Posted by: | CommentsNow that you have written those helpful articles to bring more business to your business, they’ll need to find a home. Good articles can find plenty of homes at article submissions websites. Here are the basics for getting that article ready and submitting it to an article site.
1. Write about what you know. This goes for anyone who wants to write articles and have them accepted by a submission site. For the business owner looking to increase traffic and revenue, the topics will pertain to your business in general, business products that you sell, and/or business services that you provide.
2. Aim for an article length of at least 400 words. Some sites will accept articles with as few as 250 words, but it will take at least 400 words to flesh out an idea and gain the interest of the reader. Check with the sites you will submit to for word count requirements.
3. Proofread the article. There is nothing worse than an article with typos and grammatical errors. Good articles have been rejected because of simple errors that could have been avoided. Use spell checker or a second pair of eyes to be sure the article is ready to go to a submission site. Even if you use a ghostwriter for the articles, give the work a once over to be sure it says exactly what you are trying to convey to the reader. Don’t forget to use keywords for a more SEO-friendly piece.
4. Check out the sites where your article will get the most coverage. Popular article submissions sites with high marks will work the best. If you don’t want to put all of your eggs into one basket or even a few baskets, use an article submission service. They submit good quality articles to hundreds of sites for you depending on the subject matter of your articles. You submit once on their site and that’s that. Be aware that there are sites that don’t accept submissions from article services. For those you will have to submit one by one.
5. Some sites require registration. Even for the free ones, the registration comes with a profile page. This is where you will post links to your business and talk about it.
6. Keep a running list of article submission for your records. This way, you can track when the articles are published, the upfront payment, and how business traffic and sales change as a result of the articles.
7. Wait for news that the articles have been published and are being viewed. Submit more articles as you have time. It is a good idea to keep making regular submissions. If you gain a following you don’t want to lose them.
Becki Noles is the virtual business manager and online marketing dynamo of the Virtual Accuracy Companies. She and her associates work with the top business and marketing coaches in the United States and the world over providing SEO, Pay Per Click, website development and technical virtual assistant services. Get the free 9 part series “How to Market Your Business” by visiting The Selon Group (a division of the Virtual Accuracy Companies).
How to MANIFEST All the Clients You Need
Posted by: | CommentsI’m known in the marketplace as someone who takes a no-nonsense, no-excuses approach to marketing and getting clients, meaning, I do what it takes, and create systems for everything so that I’m always marketing. (By the way, my clients now do the same.) In turn, I always have a full roster of clients. That’s what I teach in my private coaching, in my Boot Camps, and in my Client Attraction Home Study System.
One thing though, which only my private clients know about me, is I also throw in a healthy dose of Manifestation, which means focusing on what you want in your life, in such a way that you start attracting what you want quickly. Some might call it “positive thinking,” but I believe it goes WAY beyond just thinking positively about something. It also takes action.
I use “manifesting” for just about everything I want to attract in my life (a certain amount of money, my boat, a new home, etc.); however, for the purposes of this article, let’s focus on attracting clients, lots of them, who happily pay your full fee.
As for just about everything in my Client Attraction System™, I’ve even come up with a formula or system for manifesting clients. Here it is:
1. Figure out EXACTLY what you want in great detail (how many clients, paying you how much, with the best of circumstances).
2. Come up with your BIG GOAL (“My practice is bursting at the seams with 15 clients happily paying my full fee of $_____.”)
3. Each day, write it down several times (I do this at least 9 times), each time imagining how great it will FEEL to sign on these new clients.
4. Go back and read the big goal OUT LOUD (this ‘locks’ it in place).
5. Spend several minutes, eyes closed, imagining your full practice in all its details and glory.
6. Write down one BIG action step you’ll take that day to make this happen.
7. Notice the synchronistic, happy “coincidences” you experience during the day that seem like a sign from the Universe, as they relate to your big goal.
8. Each day, spend a couple minutes writing down how very fortunate you are, what you are grateful for today, and what you would like to attract more of.
9. While you’re at it, write a letter to whatever you call your Higher Power (I call mine “Universe”) and go into greater detail about what you want, asking for it to be done by a certain date.
10. Have faith in the process. Don’t cancel out all your “manifesting” with negative comments or thoughts such as “why am I doing this anyway, it won’t happen, it never does.” If you start thinking that way, you can stop yourself right away and revert back to the big goal, and how it will feel to achieve it. Faith in this process is 80% of the game.
Granted, there’s a lot here and I do just about all of it each day, but you don’t have to. Even if you do only ONE of these things, consistently, you’ll start noticing opportunities coming out of the woodwork, happy coincidences pointing you in the right direction. Take action on these, they are divinely sent! As a result, you’ll start attracting lots more clients. I promise.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT:
It’s a new unusual way of attracting more clients, one that we’ve never talked about here and one that you might not be familiar with. However, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. Even if you are familiar with it, perhaps you’ve not taken the time and effort to apply it consistently. Make some time for in your day for this, each and every day, and you’ll start seeing results quickly.
If you like the idea of this and want to try it in addition to the more pragmatic marketing stuff we regularly talk about, you’ll probably enjoy the book “Excuse me, your life is waiting” by Lynn Grabhorn. I did.
About the Author
Fabienne Fredrickson created The Client Attraction SystemTM, the unbeatable system to attract more clients, increase revenues, with more time off. To get your F.R.E.E. Audio CD and articles on attracting clients, visit www.ClientAttraction.com
Seven Social Bookmarking Secrets (Pt. 2)
Posted by: | CommentsIn an earlier article, I listed the five ways that webmasters can profit from social bookmarking and the increased presence it can bring. I explained exactly how their websites can benefit from:
* Repeat visitors
* Viral social bookmarking
* Viral linking
* SEO-friendly links (from social bookmarking sites)
* SEO-friendly links elsewhere (as a result of links on social bookmarking sites)
Now let’s look at what you, as a webmaster, can do to increase your website’s benefits from social bookmarking.
MAKE IT EASY for your visitors to social bookmark your website.
This means offering them as many options as possible. You might want to use a multi-bookmarking service, such as the free script that I developed called TheBookmarketer.
It also means making the bookmarking links easy to find, usually at the top of the page or at the base of an article. You can see this in action at the top of http://www.thehappyguy.com/stop-bad-breath.html or at the bottom of http://www.wv-travel-directory.com/directory/0-world/185-airlines/view.html.
BOOKMARK YOUR OWN PAGES. This one is just sooooo obvious.Yes, this means signing up for accounts at several bookmarking services. Choose as many or as few as you wish, but remember that when it comes to marketing your website, the more venues the better.
Do I have to remind you to call your mother? This would be an excellent time to ring her up…”Hi mom, How are you doing? Yes, I know it’s been a few years…by the way, do you Digg?” Don’t be shy; ask family and friends to social bookmark your pages, too.
SWAP BOOKMARKS with others who also want their pages bookmarked. For instance, if you search Google for “Grab The Bookmarketer For Your Site”, you will find other websites that are actively courting social bookmarks. All you have to do is offer to bookmark some of their pages if they bookmark some of yours. It’s a lot like a link exchange, except that it plays out on other websites. Now some social bookmarkers look askance at such joint ventures, and some even think that webmasters should not be promoting their websites at all.
PARTICIPATE in the social bookmarking site. There are some services that don’t feature much participation; others are very participatory. Searchles offers one of the highest levels of participation. Where you have the option, develop a large friend’s list, so that you can easily share bookmarks. Bookmark, tag or comment on others’ bookmarks. Being a good citizen gives you credibility in the community…even the online community.
BOOKMARK OTHER PAGES that already link to your website. Don’t just bookmark your own pages; bookmark those that link to yours. Choose especially pages that are relevant, that do not compete directly with yours and that list very few of your competitors. Let’s face it, if traffic to all those pages goes up, so does traffic to your website. And if link value goes up to all those pages, so does link-value to your website.
IF YOU HAVE A LIST, ask them to bookmark any new page on your website that you want to generate traffic to. And speaking of new pages…
HAVE OUTSTANDING CONTENT. If your content doesn’t stand out, the best you can do is your own contrived bookmarking. Sure, that can help, but it’s nothing compared to the power of thousands of people bookmarking your web pages because they think it’s just awesome!
All the social bookmarking and SEO tactics you employ can massively help to market your website, but without great content your chances of success are pretty slim. Put up the content, make it easy for people to social bookmark your website, bookmark some of your own pages and encourage anybody you know to bookmark them , too..
About the Author
David Leonhardt is “The Happy Guy”, a respected SEO-SEM marketing consultant. Read the David Leonhardt SEO blog, specifically the blog post about social bookmarking from which he expanded this article.
5 Ways To Profit From Social Bookmarking (Pt. 1)
Posted by: | CommentsSocial bookmarking is a phenomenon that has caught on like wildfire, yet there are still many website owners who have no idea what it is, let alone how you can use it to increase your website leads, sales, subscribers and even your repeat visitors. Get ready to ride the next wave of Internet marketing.
Everyone knows that a bookmark is a piece of paper that marks a page so you can find it easily again. Most people know that a computer bookmark is a link on your computer that marks a web page so you can find it easily again.
A social bookmark is a link that marks a web page so you can find it easily again, but also so you can share it with others (that’s why it’s called “social”, usually by posting it to one of several dozen social-bookmarking websites.
Social bookmarking is all the rage these days, with websites like Del.icio.us and Digg and Dzone and Reddit and Furl and, well dozens if not hundreds of others commanding a presence among the top traffic generators on the Internet. People like to bookmark their “finds” and they like to show off their “finds” to others. Hence bookmarking, hence social bookmarking.
Webmasters hoping to capture the attention of today’s Internet user should heed the signs and recognize the phenomenal opportunity presented by social bookmarking. In a follow-up article, I will explain the “how-to”s, but here are five types of marketing advantages ofsocial bookmarking.
REPEAT VISITORS: Considering that many people do not buy/register/contact/take action on their first visit to your website, repeat visitors are a necessity (not to mention laser-targeted prospects!) You can get more repeat visitors to your website if they can find your website again. That means getting them to bookmark your website, either on their computer or on the social bookmarking site of their choice. The more bookmarking options you offer, the more visitors are likely to return. The easier you make it for them to bookmark your site, the more of them will. However, you really must have quality content, or nobody will want to bookmark your page.
VIRAL BOOKMARKING: When somebody bookmarks your website on their own computer, they share it with, well, themselves. It’s a private thing. But when they bookmark a web page on a social bookmarking, it’s more “social”. Other people will see it. Other people might share it. Other people might even bookmark it. Websites like Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia and SpicyPage are ideal for this. In fact, many of the biggest users of a social bookmark website are often users of several. However, you really must have quality content, or nobody will care that somebody else has bookmarked your page.
VIRAL LINKING: When somebody sees your link at a social bookmarking website, they might bookmark it…or they might add it to their own blog or portal or fan site. Suddenly one person’s bookmark becomes several links to your website, presumably from reasonably well-targeted sources of traffic. However, you really must have quality content, or nobody will want to blog somebody else’s bookmark.
SEO-FRIENDLY LINKS: Many of the social bookmarking websites offer no direct SEO value. The links might feature the NoFollow attribute. Or the mea robots tag might be set to NoFollow. Or your bookmarks might not show on unique URLs. Os the links might use a redirect script that search engine spiders don’t follow. But there are some social bookmarking websites that offer SEO-friendly links.
SEO-FRIENDLY LINKS ELSEWHERE: Even if a link from a social bookmarking website is not SEO-friendly, don’t underestimate its SEO potential. There is a whole industry growing just to game Digg and Del.icio.us, knowing that if a website’s bookmark can stick on the home page for an hour or two, it will mean dozens or even hundreds of inbound links from reasonably relevant blogs and portals and fan sites. And this is natural linking, the kind that search engines love! However, you really must have quality content, or whose going to post a link to your website just because they found it bookmarked?
About the Author
David Leonhardt is an effective SEO writer and SEM consultant. Read the David Leonhardt SEO marketing blog, specifically the social bookmarking blog post that inspired this article.
