Your Elevator Speech
You’re driving down the road. You’ve been talking to yourself all the way. You’ve been telling yourself you can do this. You keep running your “elevator speech” through your head. You keep saying “I can talk to these people. I can explain my business if they ask me what I do. I can walk up to people and introduce myself.”
Then, you get to your destination. You’re pumped and ready to go! You walk in the room and there’s 50 other people there. You either freeze and wait to see if someone comes up to you, look around to see if you know someone so you’re a little more comfortable, or you give up and leave. Why?
Don’t you chit-chat with people when you’re waiting in line at the grocery store? Do you “pipe in” a conversation at a store if you know you have the answer to what someone is asking? Why, then, can’t we talk to 50 other people about our business? Is it because it’s 50 people we don’t know or because we’re just not sure what we should say?
Put a smile on your face and feel confident. You are good at what you do and your business is worthwhile. Be excited about that! Don’t be afraid. If you show your afraid or have a problem explaining what your Virtual Assistant business is about, it will show. Clients aren’t going to come knocking on your door or calling you if you show you’re afraid and can’t explain your business to them. They want to give their business to people that are confident so feel confident.
When they ask you about your business, explain to them what you can do….PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets, Websites, SEO, newsletters, article submissions, press release submissions, article and/or press release writing, logo’s, cold-calling, etc. Whatever it is, tell them. Hold your head up high when you tell them too. Don’t mumble.
Just remember that it’s up to you. If you think positive and show them you can assist their business, they will call. They will beat down your door to be your next client. They will, in turn, recommend you to others. If you fumble with your words or freeze at the door, how are they going to know you and your business? How are you going to gain those clients?
It’s your decision. It’s your destiny. It’s your choice as to which fork in the road you’re going to take.
THE BAND WAGON JUST GOT FULLER
It did!
As a small business owner, entrepreneur, et al, you’re like a lot us—looking for ways to market your business and, in the process, gain new prospects and customers.
The latest “fad,” a good one at that, is to “use video” to promote your business. After all, the “spiders” like Google love to feast on them and are inclined to place video highly in their analytics rankings.
So with that incentive alone, you decide to “jump on the bandwagon,” too.
But wait just a minute!
Because marketing with video has become the new “Rubik’s Cube,” or the new “Cabbage Patch” doll, or the new “t-shirt that says ‘I Google myself regularly,’” if you actually do intend to get on the bandwagon, there are a few things to consider.
What is your plan? (It seems everything leads back to a plan.)
Getting your video ready and “taking it to market” is one of the latest Internet trends. Many entrepreneurs, marketers, and even large business owners will focus on the “how-tos;” the how-to of what to say, the how-to of how-to upload the video, or the how-to of where to place your upload.
The important thing is to not just toss some video shots together; the end product will be disappointing to your visitors and to you. Just like your Web site, your video presentation is a reflection of you and how you do business. Thus, it’s better to take your time to produce quality work. Someone has already been first, so now it really doesn’t matter if you come later with better.
Like putting together any worthwhile efforts, you first come up with a list of things to do when producing a video. However, there are also several things to NOT do in your video marketing. And they are the focus of this piece. Such as:
Forget about “safety in numbers” this one time
If you want to attain the most success with your video efforts, you have to go it alone. Sometimes when a person is going to be in a photo or a video, they may be camera shy or feel “more is better;” suddenly, they want someone in the show with them. This is a really HUGE error! The point of your video is to acquaint your visitors and customers with YOU, perhaps your product or service, and with what you represent. Your brand! In fact, in the video you become your brand.
So when your pals are in your video, they are distracting and take the viewer’s eyes away from your product or service, your message, and you. And unintentionally, they may show you up!
In essence, then, your fireworks just fizzled!
It’s time for your commercial
Have you ever wondered why or how sponsors of TV shows pack so much information about their product into 30 seconds of more often than not annoyance? It’s because they realize they have so little time to grab the viewers’ attention before they’re off to the kitchen or otherwise taking a break. Or worse, changing the channel!
Internet frequenters are somewhat infamous for running away from Web sites
How often have you gone to a Web site then quickly scooted away because the page loaded slowly? Your distraction meter kicked in and impatience got the best of you? This seems to happen more and more as Internet surfers tend to lose their tolerance to wait, or they’ve found other diversions that steer them away from what they thought they wanted in the first place.
This means you’ve got to have a video or graphics and audio that will capture your visitors’ attention. NOW! But it’s not good enough to just grab them; you’ve got to have something to keep them there long enough that they realize what you have is something they can’t live without.
You need a P-O-W!
So that as your video begins the first words out of their mouth or the first visual they see must be something concise and compelling. You know, what’s it in it for them?
Do you know the “who” for your marketing
Since you have a target market, it’s best to market your video to that particular audience. Of course, others will navigate to your site and may even stay to view your video. Or maybe not! Those who stay will be interested in learning about your product or service. How you dress, your narrative, your language, how you present yourself in the video should all be geared to the audience you want to pull towards you, the niche you’ve identified for your service.
You can be a star
With a little bit of practice, this reminder and the “how not tos” outlined here will be enough incentive and encouragement for you to be the star of the show as you were really meant to be.
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED!! Business Ownership is a True Ride!!
One of the biggest lessons I have learned as not only a Virtual Assistant, but as a business owner, is that you can absolutely never plan as a business owner. I know that sounds absurd coming from someone who plans, plans, plans and who preaches being organized, utilizing effective time management and scheduling. However, I have learned a valuable lesson over the last few weeks … expect the unexpected.
How many of us haven’t become a “rider” in the roller coaster of business ownership? Even though I try to plan as best I can, it seems that life likes to throw little hills and valleys in my business. Just when you think you will have some extra time to work on a “secret” project that you have a great idea for, your business seems to begin the steep climb and the client work seems to come from no where. Don’t get me wrong I am absolutely not complaining, but it makes a person wonder how to effectively ride out this coaster and get the most from the ride.
I am a true idea person and every time I turn around another idea comes into my mind. I do take the time to write all these ideas down, but finding the time to implement them can sometimes be the challenge. As a business owner, the client’s needs must come first – because let’s face it without them we wouldn’t have a business nor an income, and for me my family time is just as if not more important than the success of my business. This busyness leaves little time to implement my ideas without sacrificing sleep or family time. So what is one to do?
I finally realized that I can implement these ideas without having to sacrifice my client work or my family or my sleep to get there. I just have to realize that not all my ideas have to happen now. So for those of you out there struggling to find balance remember you are not alone … you just need to learn to expect the unexpected!! Once you embrace this and decide to enjoy your roller coaster ride the ride seems a little less bumpy!!
You Can’t Fit A Square Peg into A Round Hole
No truer words have been spoken, especially when it comes to choosing the right clients. When you own your own business, you have the option to choose with whom you would like to work. I think it’s one of the best perks that comes with being an entrepreneur.
During the lifetime of your business you will meet all kinds of interesting people. Some of them you will like some you won’t. When meeting or speaking with a potential client, it is important that you interview them as much as they are interviewing you. Are you listening to what they are saying and what they are not saying? What is your gut telling you?
Now in a perfect world, you will meet, fall in love and work happily ever after together, but our world is far from perfect. There will be a time when you meet a potential client that you just don’t think will be a good fit for your business. Or maybe a current client that you thought would be a great fit but it’s just not working out. What do you do?
While it may be tempting to see dollar signs, keep in mind that is only a part of the picture and very small part at that. By taking this client on even though you have reservations and your instincts are telling you otherwise, it can and probably will cost you more in the long run. When I say more, I am speaking not only about money but about time, energy and frustration not to mention the countless hours you may need in therapy.
When you have to let a client go or turn down a potential client, don’t necessarily see it as a loss but rather an opportunity. An opportunity to perhaps match up that client or potential client with someone who is better suited for their needs. Isn’t that one of the things we do as Virtual Assistants? Help our clients? Even if it means helping them find someone else, it still says something great about who you are and what you do. It says that you weren’t attached to the outcome, you weren’t in for the money, you weren’t trying to make it fit by squeezing a square peg into a round hole.
You were in fact looking out for your business and in turn looking out for theirs. At the end of the day I don’t know any business owner who couldn’t be proud of that!
Organizing
Before you read any further, look around your office/desk. Now STOP! Is your desktop clean? Do you have files or papers in your “inbox”? Where’s your calendar? Have you looked to see what you need to accomplish today, tomorrow, or next week? Do you have calls you need to make or meetings you need to attend (either virtual or onsite)?
Before you can actually begin to work, you need to get organized. It may be difficult at first, but once you’re even partially organized, you feel better about your work.
First off, you may be busy but you need to figure out a day to just do nothing but clean. It may not take you a whole day, but you should still block off the entire day. If you get things cleaned up in less time, GREAT! You’ll at least know what you need to do after your area is clean.
Now, say tomorrow is the day you’ve chosen to clean and organize. Start with the desk. Take a look at everything on your desk and start putting it away where it goes. If there’s papers laying around, put them in a pile. Once you’ve completely cleaned off your desk, file those papers. Put them where they go. Now you should be feeling better already!
Next step…get a piece of paper out. If you use a Franklin Covey planner or something similar, get it out. If you use an online calendar, pull it up. Write down (or type) everything you need to do and then start prioritizing it and putting it in the appropriate date that you need to do it. If you have little reminders of birthdays, anniversaries, meetings, etc. lying around, write/type them in your calendar. Write/type any VA meetings you have or Websites you need to visit (the VA Revolution should probably be at the top of that list).
Another thing that you might start using to keep you better organized is Highrise. I’ve been using it more and more! I’ve been finding it very helpful for client notes and things.
Wow! You’re on your way to feeling better about your office, your work assignments and are ready to roll!
The Power’s Out!
Do you want him?
He WOKE.ME.UP! to tell me “we don’t have any power!”
And then the rains came, and came and came!
This, after we’d spent the day wondering if the many tornadoes spotted on the weather radar were going to touch down on us, or how high the water would rise.
We happen to live in an area of the country that is unfortunately being ravaged with an over-abundance of rain. Flooding and the inability to use water for drinking, bathing and other bathroom needs, as well as for washing clothes, for who knows how long are compromised. Restaurants have been shutdown by the health department for “hygiene’s” and “safety’s” sake, and city-imposed curfews during the overnight hours manage to cause pretty much of a hardship all around.
Much worse for some than others!
I heard on the news yesterday that people in a neighboring state saw a dog “sucked up into a tornado funnel cloud, tossed around and then set down—or dropped is more like it”! City officials of the city in a town near us recently struck by a tornado have described how they’ve spent considerable time searching “around the town” for the City’s computer hard drives so they could begin to resume City business!
All this aside, the “searching for a hard drive after a tornado” comment really resonated with me, enough to get me wondering how my business would fare if I were to experience a natural disaster such as that. The flood waters rose so fast and so high here, those in the flooded areas said they had no time to grab anything other than maybe a change of clothes. One man did manage to snatch his insurance papers.
Tornadoes often swoop in during the night when most everyone is asleep. Again, not a great scenario for gathering computers, printers, or the office books! Families–kids and pets—are more apt to take precedence.
Many of us have our Plans: a Business Plan, Marketing Plan, Operations Plan and the like; I hope we’ve also thought to include a “back up” plan that specifically consists of a “disaster plan” targeted toward natural disasters.
Making arrangements to have someone assume a stand in, lead position in your business in a “vacation” role or at the time of an “unexpected illness” is a fantastic idea. But regularly backing up your files to an external hard drive, thumb drive or disk is an even greater action not to be overlooked. Of course, it’s necessary to make sure it’s in your plan and that that’s what goes with you first, after the family and pets are accounted for and out the door.
Prior to these recent natural disaster incidents any thoughts I entertained about “back up” plans were only associated with computers that might crash, not computers that fly up and away ala Mary Poppins or ET.
Because of the rude reminder that in natural disaster events there is often no time (or even no thought) to grab essentials, office or otherwise, I’m convinced now more than ever that my purchase and use of Carbonite (www.carbonite.com), an internet backup service, was an excellent decision. They say, “It is easy to install, set up takes just one minute and it’s completely automatic. As soon as you add or modify a file Carbonite automatically backs it up to their secure servers.”
You may remember I commented on Carbonite a month or so ago. However, with the nation-wide recent turn of weather events, it just seemed like this is one of those things that begged to be repeated. In fact, because I’ve experienced this first-hand, it resonated closer to home more this time than it might have at another time.
Experience is the best teacher!
I do feel that with Carbonite on my computer, if I’m unexpectedly awakened to another “the power’s out” missive, I will, of course, be concerned initially. Because I will wonder if the food in the refrigerator will be all right. But I’ll quickly go back to sleep knowing my “business and files” are in good hands.
And easy to get to when I’m ready!
Are You Charging Enough?
As a new Virtual Assistant, we spend the most amount of our time trying to determine the best price for our services. We worry if it’s too high or too low, we worry if the price will attract clients and we worry if we can create a thriving business based on that price. Here are some of the mistakes we make, as Virtual Assistants, when setting our price.
Undervaluing Expertise
We often look at our price and think “no one will pay that”. I know this is especially true for many Virtual Assistants as we worry that we will be judged by others in our field and not for the expertise we provide. Especially since there is so much talk about outsourcing to those in countries where $5-$10 per hour is a huge amount of money. Remember, if you have numbers of years in the field of your business and or an expertise that is in demand, you can feel justified in setting your price higher - especially if you are offering a service that not all Virtual Assistants are able to offer.
We Can Do it Faster
Many of us base our price on how long it takes us to finish the job. After years of doing the task, we become very fast at completing this task. Instead of pricing based on how long we take to complete a task, we should be looking to industry standards (or at the least thinking about the time it takes the average person to complete the task). As a tip start quoting prices based on the actual project- When we tell someone that our fees are $40.00 per hour (for example) they are thinking in their head how long the job takes them to complete. They might be thinking … I don’t have $200 to complete this job because they are thinking that they take 5 hours to complete the task. They forget that because of our expertise we can probably complete the job in 2-3 hours so quoting $75 - $125 will yield you the same amount, but they won’t be as scared by the numbers. Don’t be afraid to offer some average times it takes you to complete different tasks together with your pricing sheet.
We are Running a Business
We have overhead costs, unbillable time and other hidden costs that need to be factored into our price. For example, hiring an in-house assistant may cost $10-$15, but you can guarantee that the overhead costs can easily double or triple that cost. The comparison to our price as a business owner and the price of hiring staff needs to take these things into account. What we charge per hour is not all going into our pockets.
The biggest thing to remember is that in order to ask a price and receive it, you must be confident … it is easier to convince a pending client to work with you and pay your price when you are confident in it. Otherwise a person is likely to think that they can “talk you down”.
10 Tips to Get Repeat Website Traffic
1. Update the pages on your website frequently. Stagnant sites are dropped by some search engines.
2. Offer additional value on your website. For affiliates and partners you can place links to their sites and products and ask them to do the same for you. You can also advertise their books or videos, if these products relate to your industry and are not in competition with your own product.
3. You can allow visitors to ‘opt in’ to get discounts and special offers. Place a link on your site to invite visitors to ‘opt in’ to get a monthly newsletter or valuable coupons. Two places I highly recommend for autoresponders and newsletter distribution is 1ShoppingCart and Aweber.
4. Add a link to your primary page with a script ‘Book Mark or Add this site to your Favorites’. A great Book Mark script is available here.
5. Brand your website so that visitors always know they are on your site. Use consistent colors, logos and slogans and always provide a ‘Contact Us’ link on each page.
6. Create a ‘Our Policies’ page that clearly defines your philosophy and principles in dealing with your customers and visitors. Also post your privacy policy as well so that clients know they are secure when they visit your site.
7. Create a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page which addresses most of the doubts and clarifications about your product or your company that are likely to be asked. This helps to resolve most of the customers doubts in their first visit to your site.
8. Ensure that each page on your website has appropriate titles and keywords so that your customer can find their way back to your site if they lose the book mark.
9. Never spam a client, who has opted for newsletters, with unsolicited emails. Later if they decide they want to ‘opt out’ of the mailings, be sure you honor their request and take them off the mailing list. They may still come back if they like your products. But they will certainly not come back if you continue to flood their email box with mails they no longer wish to receive.
10. Blog about it. Blogs are naturally search engine friendly. The key is to set up a self-hosted WordPress blog. If you don’t know how to install a blog go to Desperately Seeking WordPress and if you’re looking for blog customization, the Selon Group would love to hear from you.
Anything you can do…I can do better!
Notwithstanding their bent toward grandiosity, these words (from an Irving Berlin 1946 tune for the “Annie Get Your Gun” Broadway musical) easily set the stage for the argument that as a Virtual Assistant (VA) you really can do many if not all of the things (just as good as or) better than those performed by an “in-house” administrative assistant, executive secretary or similar personnel.
No, you can’t.
Yes, I can!
Of course, there are many factors, occurrences and mechanisms that must be in place in order for this to be achieved. However, if you have the skills, the knowledge, the experience, the technology, the wherewithal, and especially the sticktuitiveness, there’s really no reason why you can’t accomplish a good many of the tasks like those of your “brick and mortar” counterparts.
No, you can’t.
Yes, I can!
If given half a chance.
Yes, I can! Yes, I can!
In fact, in many ways a VA can surpass the accomplishments of her onsite equivalent.
In addition, as a VA you have the “luxury” of performing the work from home on your schedule. You also have the opportunity to work for many different factions, learning new things and keeping abreast of cutting edge technology as a result. And, you can choose what work (or tasks) you want to do. You “set the rules” so they meet your needs and wants. And you can say how much.
Sooner or later…I can do anything
With opportunities like these, the end result is that you provide quality service to your current clients and those yet to be.
And, in the long run you really can do it for them–for less.
Anything you can do, I can do better…
I can sleep tonight!
I did something completely outside the box…for me. But it took a few major “boos boos” before I managed to “get with the program!”
More is always better right? Un unh!
That’s a NO!
Over the weekend I ran into “issues” with my anti-virus software, anti-spyware, internet security-ware and some other stuff relative to opening and closing my browsers and programs. Somehow, I had all my anti-bad guy software so that none of it could talk to itself or to each other, and do the job right. Because, among other things, several months ago I tried to uninstall one software application.
But, it didn’t go away. After all!
Consequently, I experienced a whole litany of computer ills; including the almost demise of Firefox. It would not open. I also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to correct the problem by turning my computer on and off. Then my Outlook wouldn’t open, nor would Word. Or if it did, it wouldn’t load properly. When an internet page would open, it wouldn’t load entirely.
And the “error” messages I received looked like a cross between Japanese, Chinese and chicken scratcheese.
Oy!
So the big questions became how do I get this fixed? Do I take my computer to a computer fix-it person? Or do I call someone to come in to take care of it? In either scenario, how do I choose someone? And do I really want to clean house to get my computer fixed?
In one of the rare moments when I was able to get Firefox to open–by the way, IE didn’t work so hot either–I decided to do a search of computer repair/tech shops in my local area. In the process, I eventually came up with a really great idea that worked for me!
I decided to choose a company that provided “remote assistance,” having found two specific places that I felt could fit my needs and my pocketbook. I called one of the places Monday morning, although I could have completed the transaction without a call, via the web. The technician connected with me remotely and two hours later (give or take a few minutes) with my “tutelage” (I watched him work the whole time—it’s one of my fun things to do on a Monday morning), my programs and browsers were working. The offending “bad guy” software was gone and a few other adjustments were made to things I had done over the couple years since my computer had been in my ownership. Things I didn’t even know about!
And now I’m good to go
Moral of the story is two-fold. I really don’t have to have every piece of anti-spyware, anti-virus software made, and when I don’t want to clean house, look for online solutions.
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