How Virtual Assisting Works

Here is your LAST CHANCE to get hold of the same EXACT materials that I’ve used to build my business and get it where it is today. Alicia Forest, Multiple Streams Queen and Coach, is in the midst of some creative destruction at Client Abundance, and in doing so, she’s having a major sale until June 29 in order to make ’space’ for bigger and better things, including a brand-new website. Until June 29th she’s having a CLOSE-OUT sale on her top products - and I know they’re fantastic; I’ve got most of them myself!

Anyway, in the process, she’ll be DISCONTINUING 9 products that will NOT be sold on the new website. (They’re fine programs, but she said she just wants to focus on bigger fish.)

Topics include writing successful sales copy, hosting teleseminars, launching products, hiring an assistant, managing email lists, designing a niche, and more.

So head on over to Alicia’s special CLOSE-OUT EVENT right now, which is only good through Sunday, June 29, 2008. That means you only have a few days left to grab these products at 50% OFF — before they disappear forever! You can see the quick list at her Close-Out Sale page.

The 21 Easy And Essential Steps To Online Success and How To Write Sales Pages That Sell are two of my all-time favorite products; I refer to them constantly!

Click here so you don’t miss out!

I know I am… and this is why I’m sharing details of this upcoming FREE teleclass with you.  It’s being hosted by my colleague Peggy Porter.

Title:  How to Overcome Motherly Guilt-The Hidden Barrier to Mom Entrepreneur Success

Date:  Tuesday June 17, 2008

For more info and to sign up, go here

Did I say it was free?

See you on the call!

This past weekend I turned my PC off on Friday (completely shut it down as we were in the middle of a severe thunder storm!) and didn’t turn it back on again until Monday morning.  I simply left my business to run itself!

This was easy for me to do and I didn’t worry that there would be a ton of emails for me to have to handle on Monay morning.  Why?  Because I have my systems in place!  As a solo service professional it is crucial that we have our core office organization systems all set up to allow us to take time away from our business without worrying about what is happening in our absence.  It is very refreshing to take a complete break away from your business - even if it is only for the weekend! 

When I finally turned my PC back on on Monday morning, I still had:

• New subscribers sign up for my ezine - Office Organization Success
• New customers who were able to buy and download my office organization products
• Enquiries for my services from those clients who are ready to work with me because I have created my own Client Conversion System

So what did I do with my free time?

• I spent it out in the garden - it was a beautiful HOT weekend so I was able to spend time planting
• Met up with friends
• And, most importantly, my husband and I took our boys to see Kung Fu Panda!

Are you ready to create office organization success in your business and spend your weekends doing all the things you enjoy?  If so, get started with my Complete Office Organization System - The Simple 5-Step Toolkit To Office Organization Success For Busy Solopreneurs

I had the pleasure this week of being interviewed by Kim Woodworth for the NCC (New Coach Connection) Blog.

You can read all about it here

The New Coach Connection is an online networking group that I belong to just for coaches, and it includes many VAs (Virtual Assistants) too!  Coaches and VAs operate similar business models so this is a great place for us to all hang out, learn from one another, and make new connections!  Check it out>>

One of the best time-saving strategies I’ve implemented is my client conversion system.  You know the drill; a potential client comes along and emails/calls you asking about your services.  You spend time responding, maybe even putting a detailed proposal together, and then you never hear from them again!  Not even a thank you for your email!

This is one area that’s a huge time drain for solo service professionals, but one that is so important – you need paying clients so you have to spend time responding to them.

What if there was a way you could respond to clients yet at the same time not waste hours of your precious time on this activity only for it to result in never hearing from said client again?

Well, there is! And I’m going to share it with you in this article by giving you my three steps on how to create your own client conversion system.

Step One – Capture Their Name/Email Address

If a client comes along and they’re not quite ready to work with you, you need to have a way of capturing their details on your website so that you don’t lose touch with them – that way they’ll get to know more about you and your services, and when they are ready to work with you, you’ll be right there!

You do this by giving away a free taste of what it is you do.  This could be a report, audio, mini ecourse, or some other type of freebie that is given away automatically in exchange for them giving you their name and email address.  This is known as building your list.  Once you have your list in place stay in touch with them regularly through publishing an ezine.

Step Two - Have A Defined Process For Working With New Clients

Look at what you currently do when you receive an email/phone call from a new client.  Write down all the steps in that process, and come up with ways as to how it can be systemized.

For example: 

• Do you find that potential clients are asking the same questions again and again?  If so, set up a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on your website that answers all of these questions.  (Hint:  this could also be your free taste that the client will sign up for.)
• Do you require that all new clients have a telephone consultation with you beforehand to ensure that you are a good fit for one another?  How can this process be streamlined?
• Or, do you require a potential client to fill in a questionnaire prior to speaking with you on the phone?

List everything that you currently do and come up with a system for streamlining the whole process.  You could also include elements that you would like to do but haven’t yet implemented.

Step Three – Put Your Client Conversion System In Place

Now that you have documented the process for handling enquiries you need to put your system in place that will allow you to handle client enquiries in the most time-efficient manner. 

This is the system I use and recommend, and one that will filter those enquiries for you:

• On your website tell clients what your process is for working with new clients, i.e. contact me to schedule your complimentary client consultation.
• Have a contact form on your website that client’s can fill in when they’re ready to schedule a complimentary call with you.
• Create an email template to respond to those clients who would like to schedule a complimentary consultation.  You can also use this template for those email enquiries you get, or as a script for a phone enquiry.
• If you have a series of questions that you would like answers to before your call with your client put these together into a Pre-Consultation Questionnaire which you can send to your potential client ahead of your call.  (This again is a good way to filter the serious from the not-so-serious clients - the not-so-serious clients will not want to spend their time filling in a questionnaire prior to your phone call.)
• Create a document/email template for your questionnaire – put it in a format that is easy for the client to email back to you.
• When they respond to you to schedule their call attach your questionnaire, confirm the appointment, tell them when they need to return the questionnaire by (24 hours before the call is a good timeframe) and tell them what number to call you on. 

Having a process like this in place will filter the serious from the not-so-serious clients, saving you a huge amount of your time and streamlining the whole client conversion process.

Remember:  You are the expert at what you do.  Your clients are coming to you for your expertise, so lead them with your systems.  Tell them what your processes are.  Let them work to your systems.

(c) 2008 Tracey Lawton

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About the author:  Office Organization Expert, Tracey Lawton, teaches professional speakers, coaches, and authors how to operate an efficient, organized, and profitable business.  Learn how to create an efficient and organized office in 7 EASY steps, and receive free how-to articles at http://www.OfficeOrganizationSuccess.com

These days we are so overloaded with information that it’s easy to lose sight of the basics of running a business, and you very quickly become overwhelmed and suffer from information overload! Just take a look at some of the ebooks, products, ecourses etc. you have stored on your PC - I bet they all relate to marketing your business, getting more clients, increasing your income etc. but I bet NONE of them tell you how to manage your business!

Building a successful long-term profitable business isn’t about “marketing” your business, it’s about “managing” your business - the marketing comes once you have your management systems in place.

You cannot begin to market your business if you can’t find the information you need, don’t know who you are marketing to, and don’t know where you are in your business.

So, let’s go back to basics and take a look at the 3 key office systems you need to “manage” your business before you can start to “market” your business.

Filing Management System

Creating and maintaining a filing system is the very foundation that your business is built on, so this is the very first system you need to put in place - an efficient and effective filing system.

With a proper filing system in place you will very quickly and easily be able to find the information you need, when you need it.

Contact Management System

After you’ve got your filing system all straightened out, you then need to set about organizing your contacts. This is another crucial area of managing your business. If set up correctly your contact management system allows you to:

* Keep a note of clients, potential clients, and colleagues contact information.

* Easily and effectively follow-up with a prospect.

* Locate critical client contact information quickly and easily.

* Build your business.

Financial Management System

The is the final key office management system you need to put in place for managing your business. Once you know where you are in your business financially, you will be able to much more effectively market your business.

Having up-to-date, critical, financial information available at your fingertips allows you to efficiently manage cashflow and be able to know straightaway if you can take advantage of opportunities that come your way.

So remember, go back to basics and first “manage” your business before you “market” your business.

(c) 2008 Tracey Lawton

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About the author: Online Business Manager & Virtual Assistant, Tracey Lawton, teaches professional speakers, coaches, and authors how to operate an efficient, organized, and profitable business. Learn how to create an efficient and organized office in 7 EASY steps, and receive free how-to articles at http://www.OfficeOrganizationSuccess.com

The One Traffic Tool Every Product Owner Should Be Using Daily
By Jimmy D. Brown

What if there was a magic bottle that you could rub and a traffic genie would pop out to beckon to your every internet marketing command?

After the initial shock wore off, you’d be quite happy to have it in your possession, right?

Well, in a manner of speaking, such a genie exists. She exists in the form of an œaffiliate manager.

An affiliate manager is someone who oversees the operations of an affiliate program in exchange for compensation.

And, out of all the traffic tools on the market, the affiliate manager is the one that you should be using daily in your business if you own your own product.

Why?

The bottom line is: more traffic, which results in more revenue for you.

But, specifically, there are 3 reasons why you need an affiliate manager…

1. Recruiting.

Your affiliate manager can recruit new affiliates into your program for you. Instead of you spending time trying to find (and then convince!) affiliates to join your program, your affiliate manager can do this for you while you focus on other things.

2. Rewarding.

Everyone knows that simply getting people to join your affiliate program is not enough. It takes a lot of effort to get passive affiliates to become (and stay!) active. An affiliate manager is responsible for motivating your team to remain involved in your promotions.

3. Running.

Beyond getting affiliates into your program and making sure they stay active, your affiliate manager can run as much of your operations as you want her to. Here are just a few things my affiliate manager (props to Nicole!) does…

* Creates training materials
* Write follow-up mailings
* Communicates with affiliates
* Answer affiliate support questions
* Monitors contests and incentive programs
* Posts to our blog
* Clerical stuff (creates rebrandable files, etc.)
* Circulates content (article directories, etc.)

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Perhaps the best part of hiring an affiliate manager is the fact that it doesn’t have to cost you a penny in out of pocket expenses. That is, you can setup your agreement to be performance-based: you pay the affiliate manager a percentage of the overall revenue generated through her efforts … the more revenue she brings in through the affiliate program, the more she earns.

Now, the question is:

 ** Where do I find an affiliate manager? **

There are actually quite a few ways to find quality (emphasis needs to be on QUALITY!) affiliate managers for your program. Let me share just one…

One of the easiest ways to find an affiliate manager is to visit your favorite affiliate marketing (or internet marketing) forum and post a request asking for recommendations or responses for your needs.

You can do this in two ways -

1. Post a PUBLIC Request.

That is, you post a message for everyone to see, with brief details on the position you have available and that you are seeking recommendations or interest to explore further.

2. Post a PRIVATE Request.

The other option is to identify those participants at the forum who appear to have experience and/or knowledge in affiliate marketing who might be good affiliate manager material. Then, you would simply contact them privately to see if there is interest in discussing your needs.

Running your own affiliate program is a tremendous traffic generation tool, but it has a lot of parts. There are many different activities that are involved in successfully running an affiliate program, and hiring an affiliate manager to oversee your operations is a great way to free up your time to work on creating additional products and other creative work.

A good affiliate manager can bring in affiliates, train and motivate them, and run your operations for you. Her efforts bring in the traffic; your efforts turn the traffic into orders.

It’s the closest thing to a traffic genie in a bottle that you’ll find. Rubbing is optional. Using this strategy isn’t.

———–
Jimmy D. Brown is the author of Sales Army Secrets, full of meaty details on ways to find affiliate managers, how to structure your agreement with them and tasks to have them handle. Details at Sales Army Secrets

It seems that setting up your own membership site is a ‘hot topic’ right now - or is it because I’m planning on setting up my own that I keep reading about them!

Anyway, 1ShoppingCart are running a special offer at the moment, and you can dowload their Free Membership Site Launch Guide.

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I held the first teleclass of my Spring Teleclass series yesterday - Say “YES” To Office Organization Success… And Eliminate The Overwhelm And Frustration Due To Lack of Office Organization Success

The call went well and was highly interactive - as I like my calls to be! We discussed setting up a filing management system, and the participants benefited from asking me questions about their filing systems right there on the call!

If you’d like to get in on this FREE Spring Teleclass Series, sign up now for the next two calls:

CALL #2 “YOUR Options For Creating An Efficient Contact Management System”

In this call I’ll share with you:

• How to choose the best contact management system for YOU
• 5 simple steps for keeping everything up-to-date
• Simple strategies for automating your client enquiries
• … and leave the call with your own Take Action Steps!

Date: Thursday April 17, 2008
Time: 11:00 am EST (that’s 8:00 am PST / 4:00 pm GMT)

CALL #3 “Banish YOUR Bookkeeping Blues”

In this call discover how to:

• Create a super-simple bookkeeping system
• Manage your budget and cash flow
• Know when to outsource your bookkeeping
• … and leave the call with your own Take Action Steps!

Date: Thursday April 24, 2008
Time: 11:00 am EST (that’s 8:00 am PST / 4:00 pm GMT)

See you on the calls!

I promised to follow Cristina Favreau as she reorganized her entire office. She is following my Complete Office Organization Step-by-Step System and I must say she’s doing a fantastic job with her office re-organization - just look at how she’s got her office organized now!

And just this week I’ve read how she’s now moving onto her Contact Management System.

The third main office management system that Cristina then needs to focus on is her financial management system - and I can’t wait to see how see gets on with that!