Launch Strategy for a New Blog

Announcing a new blog is an exciting thing for most web-based business owners because you now have this interactive platform for your audience to engage with you from.  If you didn’t have a blog before (and if you were also lacking a social media presence), you may not have any idea who is out there enjoying your work.  Launching a blog opens the doors to get to know your online audience in a more intimate way.

Since you have two groups of people — those who know you now and those who don’t yet know you — the blog strategy needs to incorporate both of these groups.  It is important to personally invite the people who know, like and trust you into the environment but it is equally as important to set up some things that will attract in new prospects as that is the goal of your blog.

Some Pre-Announcement Checklist Items

Before you announce your blog to the world, you’ll want to make sure that the following is set up to ensure that people can hook into your blog and share it easily.  You’ll want to ensure that:

• Feedburner is set up and ready to accept subscriptions – you’ll need to decide if you want people to be able to sign up via e-mail for new blog posts or if they will just add the feed themselves to a feed reader of their choice.  Once you decide that, make sure the technical pieces are set up and ready to go.
• Social sharing is set up - you’ll also want to be sure that your social sharing plug-ins are set up and have been tested.  These will allow people to post your blogs to their social networking accounts and other outlets.  People sharing your content is what helps you to reach new audiences so it is vital that these are in place.
• List building is in place – if you plan on building a list (and you should), you’ll want to make sure that your blog is equipped with an opt-in box in the column and your freebie / giveaway (something to entice sign-ups with) is ready to go.  If you don’t want to focus on traditional list building, use Feedburner’s e-mail subscription option to at least collect some of the information from your readers.
• Your auto-post options are set up – if you want to, you can push new blog posts automatically out to Twitter, Facebook, etc.  This is completely a personal choice as you can also manually share the blog post to these mediums if you wish.  The benefit to these tools is that even if you schedule a blog post in the future, at least it will go out to your social networks without you having to think about it.
• All of your social networks and other profiles are updated - don’t forget to go back to every one of your accounts and profiles and, where possible, add in your blog’s URL.
• You have at least 3-5 blog posts posted - one is not enough.  People are going to want to feel like there is an abundance of relevant and on point material to bookmark it or subscribe via RSS.  Make them feel like there is just too much on your blog to read at once so you get return readers.
• Analytics is installed - this is going to be key in determining which of your content pieces are the most popular, where people are coming from and how long they are staying on the site.  Install it from day one so you can also track your progress and see growth.
• You have a PLAN - what is the long-term vision for your blog?  Do you want it to serve a specific purpose?  Will this be to generate more visitors and in turn, more potential customers/clients or is the goal to monetize the blog itself?  Make sure you have at least some goal for your blog so that you’ll keep up with consistent, quality posts.

Once this checklist has been followed through, it’s time for the big announcement!

Announcing the Blog

The first place to start is in announcing the blog to the world.  This means telling everyone you know that you now have this space and that they can come and interact with it.  To make sure that you hit all of your current network, you should:

• Announce it to your e-mail contacts – these are the contacts that currently sit in your native e-mail application (Gmail, Outlook, etc.).  You should send a personal e-mail to these contacts that gives them the new blog URL and tells them a little bit about the first post and the direction / purpose of the blog.  Encourage them to also provide you with ideas for posts they’d like to see and make sure they know that you are open to any and all feedback.
• Announce it via your social networks – you’ll want to create at least 2 weeks worth of updates and reminders to go out 1-2 times per day.  People will not see every Tweet or every Facebook update so you want to make sure that you get the fact that you have a new blog in front of as many people as possible.
• Announce it to your e-mail marketing list – if you are already doing list building, make sure to send an e-mail out to your list to let them know that you’ve got a new blog.  Since these people already subscribe to your content, they will be great community builders for your new blog.
• Add it to your e-mail signature – now that you have a blog, you want all new contacts (and existing contacts) to be reminded of it all of the time.  Add your blog URL to your e-mail signature immediately.

Indexing the Blog

Since you now have a presence, you want to start getting the roots of your blog buried deep within the Internet soil.  To do this, you’ll want to take some time to:

• Create an account at Technorati – this will get your blog indexed with Technorati, one of the leading blog search engines on the Internet.
• Create an account at Digg – when you post your blogs, you should also have them cross-posting to Digg to get more visibility and traffic.
• Add your blog to blog directories – a few of the places you’ll want to consider include Blogged.com, Bloggapedia.com and Best of the Web.  There are a lot of blog directories out there so look to see which might offer the most strategic alignment for your industry and add it there.

Once this is complete, you will now have a much more expansive reach every time you post a blog entry.

Getting to Know Your Fellow Bloggers

This piece is less “do it for the strategic benefit” and more “do it because it’s just a nice thing to do.”  This piece should also be done because you want to become part of a blogging community and not because you are looking for the sheer benefit of extra traffic alone.  However, here are some tips when getting to know your fellow bloggers:

• Look for blogs that are complimentary to yours – for example, if you are a publicist, you may want to look for other media type blogs.  When you find them, add them to an RSS feed reader and start reading the posts and commenting.  Make sure that the URL you leave in your comment is your blog’s URL.
• Guest posts for other blogs - find relevant and popular blogs and ask if you can author a guest post for their site.  If they agree, you can link back to your own blog in the author byline to see some incoming traffic.  Be sure though that these posts are really high quality because people will only continue on to read more content on your site if they found that article really helpful.

Consider Using Gamification to Attract Visitors

I thought this MSN Business on Main article was particularly relevant to this topic: “Get Your Game On.” The article focuses on using “gamification” to entice website visitors, increase blog interaction and make your business generally more fun.

Here is a short synopsis:

“There are countless ways you can make doing business with your company a game, but the point is to make your site sticky — so that people keep coming back and learning about your products and services. For example, this article by Zichermann describes a game offered by the restaurant chain Taco John’s, in which consumers are rewarded with bonus points for taking a photo of themselves with their breakfast and posting it to Facebook or Flickr.”

Consider ways that you can integrate this idea into your blog and business.

Done and Done

There you have it!  An easy way to launch your blog.  Up next?  A six-month blogging strategy to help you get the most traffic to your blog on an on-going basis.

Reader question:

I have 270 people on my Facebook Fan Page, how do I get more to follow me?

I’ve already done the suggest to friends button to invite the people on my profile page. I have some new friends on my profile page but I was waiting to establish a relationship with them since I have spoken to these people in years.

I was thinking of having a contest/draw for a complimentary service by asking people to invite their friends when I reach a certain amount of people and then have another contest later to continue increasing the number until I reach at least 500.

What do you think?

Response:

The process of gaining new friends, fans, followers, etc. is an interesting one and one that I get asked about a lot.  The truth is, there is no real magic formula to getting your number of fans to go up.

Think of it this way… if you walked into a networking event and just stood in the corner or at the bar, you wouldn’t get to know very many people, right?  Or, if you were delivering a seminar but you were dry, boring and the information you shared was regurgitated, you aren’t going to necessarily walk away with people who loved what you did.  People want authenticity and they want interesting.

Making friends, fans or followers on social media comes from having interesting things to say, interesting resources to share and forging relationships with the people you meet.  It also comes from the value you give to the community.

There is this perception on social media that more followers / friends / fans = success.  It’s just not the truth.  You could have 100,000 fans on your Facebook page but the real value is in knowing how many of those people listen to what you have to say, interact with you and interact with the other people you’ve attracted.

However, that being said, there are some ways that you can attract more people to you.

• Start a blog. If you aren’t blogging yet, do so!  You can utilize the blog as a feeder system into your other outlets.  For example, you could start a blog post on your blog but have the rest of it posted as a note on your Facebook fan page which will drive people there.  Blogs allow you to give the ultimate amount of value and they never disappear so you benefit from them for a long time to come.
• Interact in groups, pages, etc. to find other similar people. Sometimes the “if you build it, they will come” idea just doesn’t work.  Instead, you have to go out and find people to friend, fan or follow.  Once those relationships are being built, you’ll naturally find people who are ideal for your world.
• Contests are a great idea – when done correctly (see examples at bottom of post). There is something to be said about a good Facebook fan page contest but there is even more to be said about the bad contests.  The goal here is to create something of interest that will want people to come to your site but you also don’t want to come across as saying, “I just want MORE fans!”  Yes, that is the end result but saying so might make your current “fans” think, “Well… I wonder what’s wrong with the lot of us that is here!”

After you gain new “fans”, building the relationship and having them stay a long-time “fan” is something you’ll have to work on personally and that will just take time, authenticity and a little effort.

Do you have an interesting way that you, or someone you know, has used to gain more fans on Facebook? If so, leave it as a comment so we can continue the discussion!

***

Here are some examples of Facebook fan page contests that have worked.  Thank you to my friends on Twitter for providing the references!

• From @DLPhotography – a contest to drive people to the Facebook fan page: http://www.daniellelynnphotography.com/all-posts/firstbirthday-ottawa-photographer/
• From @NtQtSouthSurrey – @Klutchphoto is hosting a contest for her photography business as well: http://klutchphotography.com/blog/?p=280

Also, before you do a contest, be sure to read the Facebook Promotion Guidelines!  There are some distinct rules you need to follow.  If you prefer a short cut, this blog post sums up the rules nicely.

This weekend and past week, I’ve had the unfortunate experience of dealing with a non-paying client.  Generally speaking, we collect pre-payment on all services and then keep detailed time logs of the work that is complete.  We allow our clients to have a period of time to look over the time logs and if they have anything they are unhappy with or wish to clarify, they can do so and we work with them to ensure that they are satisfied.

Every once in awhile, I’ll meet a client who is just awesome.  Or, at least it starts that way.  The client is happy, excited, we finish some really great work for him/her and over time, develop a relationship that seems like it’s going to last forever.  That is until the client runs out of money.  Now, we do our best to help our clients make money but we can only do so much.  For example, if we suggest that the price on their newest program is ridiculously high and they don’t adjust it, it is not our fault if they do not sell seats into that program.

So, this past weekend, I was dealing with someone who had obviously run out of money.  How do I know this?  Their eChecks have come back NSF (non-sufficient funds) at least three times and the time between invoice and payment was getting longer and longer.  Now, since we had entered into an awesome relationship, I had allowed them to pay-as-they-went.  Yes, I know.  Stupid mistake on my part in hindsight but this person seemed like a trustworthy person who had appreciated and loved the work we had done to date.

Here we were with two open invoices that were unpaid.  I had mentioned that after these invoices were paid up, the client would have to start doing pre-payment on all work since we couldn’t wait any length of time before getting paid.  I mean, that’s only fair right?  You do work, you boost someone else’s business and they pay for that work to be done.  Seems like a logical business transaction to me.  I was willing to work with this client to come up with a plan that worked for both of us if need be.

After mentioning that we would have to go to a pre-payment after she paid up on what she owed, she conveniently found a new team to work with.  Then, the finger pointing e-mails started.  Up until now, the client had been more than happy with the service.  However, when it came time to having to pay the bill, there were all of these things that we had apparently done wrong, things they weren’t happy with and “other clients” that they had referred who were also unhappy with the service.  (Side note: after checking with those “other clients”, it turns out they are more than happy.) The kicker was that in one of the e-mails, the line was used that I was “all about the money.”

This line has inspired this blog post.

Why do people think that asking for payment on work you’ve done is being “all about the money”? Of course I’m all about the money.  If I do 25 hours of work for you, I want to be paid for that work.  I don’t run a charity and I certainly need to eat.  However, I’m also about other things – being flexible, providing value to my clients, checking in to ensure that they are happy and listening to problems when they come up and working to fix them.

Being “all about the money” is not a bad thing in business – it’s a necessity. Wanting to be paid for work that has been performed is not a privilege I have to earn – it’s what should naturally occur in a business relationship.  Thinking that you can run a business and not focus on the money aspect is just silly.  Again, there are going to be other aspects of your business that are equally as important but YOU WOULD NOT HAVE A BUSINESS IF YOU DID NOT COLLECT REVENUE.

Entrepreneurs that don’t pay their bills or who haggle invoices or who discredit the work of the people who work alongside them need to grow up. Being in business is about creating fair transactions on both sides.  It’s not about trying to get things for free and it’s certainly not about dodging out of paying your invoices.  That’s just poor business practice.  Instead, these entrepreneurs should be paying their invoices with gratitude knowing that the support they are receiving, in whatever format it comes in, is awesome and helpful.

I’ve got some work to do to our own invoicing and billing allowances but if anything, this situation has taught me that I am totally okay being “all about the money” sometimes.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t have a business that could sustain my day-to-day life for any length of time.

What do you think?  Is being “all about the money” a bad thing in business (keeping in mind that there are still those other areas of importance I mentioned previously)?

It’s Social Baby Day in the web-o-verse and we thought it would be fun to share photos of our team at BSETC when they were much, much younger…

Can you guess who these cute children are?  Leave a comment!

#1 — Who is this precious baby??

#2 — I’m in love with the tie… Seriously.

#3 — Berets for babies were totally in style back in the 80s…

#4 – Our team member is the bright eyed baby on the left!!

#5 — Our geek-in-training is the guy on the right! He and his friend made that giant keyboard!

#6 — This trio is ADORABLE but our team mate is on the left hand side… So cute.

#7 — Look at this cute little Gerber baby!!

#8 — Omg, how cute is this little girl??

#9 — Another beautiful little girl… (whose daughter looks identical!!)

#10 — This picture just makes me smile… SO adorable!!

#11 — Another gorgeous little girl

#12 — Our team has a lot of feminine energy and here’s another beautiful girl!

#13 — Another one of our cute team members!

#14 — Although this little girl is a bit out of the baby stage, she still qualifies as one of our team member’s younger selves!!

The rest of the team was either too shy or unable to send pictures but we’ll get some of the others soon!!

My e-mail wasn’t delivering me any messages from Basecamp. My latest broadcast went out without the ‘name’ code in it. I spelled a word incorrectly in my latest blog post and it went out to my 345,600 Twitter followers (I don’t really have that many followers by the way). A client had trouble checking out in my shopping cart.

This all happened this morning.

Okay, it didn’t really but it could have… Really, it all could have gone to h-e double hockey sticks this morning and my entire business would have crumbled and fell apart and people would have unfollowed me and boycotted my business and called me names.

Or… the people I am talking about would have realized that I’m human and that businesses everywhere make mistakes and are infallible.

Let me stop talking in hypothetical terms and bring it down to one statement: you have to learn how to roll with the punches.

Sometimes, in business, things go wrong. It’s inevitable really. When you’re building an entire business around technology, stuff happens. Things aren’t going to work or go as planned.  In fact, sometimes, you may feel like everything on the planet is butting up against your ability to be successful but guess what?  It’s not true.

Nothing is affecting your ability to be successful except for the way you handle certain things that come up. If you become upset whenever a mistake happens, there is going to be a long trailing effect from that.  Your team will be less inspired, your clients will see your anxiety and feel that they too can never make mistakes and you’ll cause yourself undue stress.

Instead of becoming upset, frustrated, stressed out, anxious or angry, try breathing through it. After you’ve taken a breath, ask yourself, “What do I need to do to fix the mistake?” Generally, it’s as easy as e-mailing your list to say, “Whoops! I called you name when really, I do know you… That wasn’t very friendly of me!”  Or, you fix the technology issue and move on.

If it’s a team member or an assistant that has made the mistake, bring it up, ask them what they can do to fix it and then move on.  Team members, clients, colleagues, etc. are all much more inspired to be around you and help you do amazing work when you can see these things for what they are – a natural by-product of running a business.

The way to stay successful is to remain calm and roll with the punches.  Otherwise, you’ll never survive the long haul.

How do you handle mistakes in your business?

I have the utmost respect for entrepreneurs.  Regardless of their situations, they all share a common personality trait – the desire to succeed.  Nobody enters into the business world looking to or wanting to fail.  Nobody goes into it saying, “Well, if it does work out, that’d be cool.”  No, most of us hit the business world with the desire to create something bigger than we can imagine and we go into it thinking, “This WILL work!”  It’s our drive and our tenacity that allow us to stand amongst the entrepreneurial crowd with pride.

Until you meet those people who tell you, “You’re only successful because…”

I have come across a few women, over the course of the past six years, that have attributed my success to one key fact – I haven’t had any offspring yet.  Put aside the idea that I may very well be a driven, focused, motivated individual who wants to create a business that is sustainable, successful and a lot of fun to be in AND I’d probably have this drive regardless of whether or not I’ve also given birth to children…  Nope, it all boils down to how underused my ovaries are.

Now, I know that the men reading my blog may not be having my particular issue (mostly the underused ovaries part…) and I think it might be pretty specific to the female generation. Women can have difficulty sometimes with comparing themselves to another women in a similar situation.  So, when a woman is feeling like she isn’t as successful as the other woman she’s speaking with, she makes excuses as to why she isn’t there yet.  Generally speaking, the excuses are pointed directly at the other woman.

“You’re only successful because your husband has a great job and you can afford to take it slow.”

“You’re only successful because you’ve got a great support system.”

“You’re only successful because you got lucky and met the right contacts early on.”

When I hear any entrepreneur use these lines to compare themselves to another entrepreneur, I like to gently remind them that it doesn’t matter how the stars align and how perfect a scenario is, when it comes to running a business and being an entrepreneur you’ve either got it or you don’t.  The willingness, the drive, the motivation, the focus, the desire… you either have those traits or you don’t.

We don’t know a person’s history unless we’ve walked in their shoes and we’ve gone through what they’ve gone through.  We will never know and it’s time for us to put down the, “You’re only successful because…” and change it to, “I admire your ability to…”  Changing your attitude toward other people’s successes will allow you to experience your own success more fully.  You will be able to fully stand in your achievements and say, “I did this.  I created this.  I have the ability to succeed.” without attributing it to any other outside factor.

What do you think?  Have you ever been told that you’re only successful because…?  If so, what did you reply or how did you feel?

Just got my Moo business cards and I wanted to show you the unboxing!

First, let me just tell you that this company is awesome.  With hundreds of designs to choose from (or, create your own) and high quality printing, their cards are unparalleled to Vista Print and other similar printing companies.  I had asked on Twitter about business cards and a few people highly recommended the company so I ordered my cards last week.

I did the regular business cards, wrote in text, left off pictures and placed the order on rush delivery. They stated that they’d be here by February 26 and it’s the 23rd — nice surprise when a company goes beyond your expectations!  I had also placed a second order for business cards the very next day and e-mailed to see if I could get them in the same delivery order.  At first they had said no but to my surprise, they were here today too!

In the box, there are cool puzzles, this fancy little box for the business cards and of course, the high quality, thick stock cards.  They have that smooth surface that I love and the print quality on the text is awesome.  I’m really impressed!

Here are photos of the unboxing:

The box the cards came in. It also had an insert to organize your cards.

My cards – there are a variety of backs but the front is the same on all.

Trina’s card – a series of beautiful digital watercolors.

In each box were these little puzzles.  A great fun thing to add to the order!

I get a lot of e-mail and I’m betting that you do too.  Lately, I’ve taken to unsubscribing from nearly every publication that I get e-mailed to me.  If it’s another pointless newsletter filled with salesy garbage, I don’t want it.  There is enough of that “stuff” circling the web as it is.

Today, as I was going through my e-mail, I received yet another newsletter.  Going through the motions to unsubscribe, I realized that this one was different.

This one had my e-mail address, and a group of others, in the “To:” line of the e-mail.  Realizing that my contact details were exposed, I scrolled down to the unsubscribe button and clicked it… only to realize that I was met with a Constant Contact “Test Message Only” error.  Turns out, I was forwarded a test e-mail that someone had generated from Constant Contact… I couldn’t even unsubscribe.

Scrolling back up, I noticed that the e-mail was in fact forwarded from the e-mail address that the test had gone to.  Not only was this particular e-mail not in compliance of CAN-SPAM laws, it was just a messy way to get a message across to your audience!

After realizing all of this, I sent the following e-mail to the company’s owner:

“Please remove me from this mailing list immediately.  Your unsubscribe button doesn’t work because this was sent out as a test instead of an actual e-mail.  If you have an assistant looking after this, he/she may want to know that it’s against CAN-SPAM laws to not allow unsubscribe from your e-mail list.

Also, my e-mail address was exposed (as were your other recipients) in the “To:” line of your e-mail.  I don’t want my contact details shared with anyone that I do not share them with as I get too much e-mail as it is.  Exposing my details goes against CAN-SPAM’s privacy laws.

Hopefully you understand that these suggestions don’t come from a place of negativity but being an Internet marketer, I do my best to inform people about the things that are happening in their business that may not be compliant.”

The owner of the company promptly wrote back an apology, which was appreciated and included the following line:

“I have an intern from the college i teach at doing this and will look into it.”

This is where I stopped in my tracks to write this blog post.

Too many business owners are cutting costs in the WORST place in their business — their operations. Instead, they pour buckets and buckets of money into coaching, info-products, training, seminars, networking events, etc. and they scour the Internet looking for CHEAP outsourcing.

Why?

When we’re investing in more information, more training, more networking and we’re lacking on the investment back in the business’ core, things WILL fall apart when your momentum picks up.  Or, you won’t have time to implement 3/4 of what you learn so it becomes a waste of capital.

The worst part is, when all of the mistakes happen, the messy business operations happen and the business’ image is flawed (as the above example shows) the business owner places the blame on their team.  The very team that they went cheap with because the value of that particular service, to the business owner, just wasn’t there.

When you invest in your team, think about the fact that they are your core.  They maintain your operations.  They make sure that your professional image is carried through everything you do.  Outsource cheaply and you cheapen your image.

Luckily for this particular business owner, I was willing to point out where the errors had gone wrong and how they were in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act.  Had I been someone who didn’t care as much about informing them or who was really irritated over the situation, it could have gone very sour.  That business owner could have lost their right to their Constant Contact account, their ability to send out e-mails without being blacklisted and who knows what else.

However, this is just my opinion… what do you think?  Do you think outsourcing cheaply cheapens your business or do you think budgeting this area is important?

P.S. — I’ve been told that this video has helped people understand the value of outsourcing. Check it out:

Last Friday, February 12, we had the honor of attending the 2010 Bootstrap Awards here in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We had got word that we were a finalist about a week prior to the event and we were excited! The Bootstrap Awards honor local businesses who had little to no capital investment in their businesses. Since BSETC (Business Services, ETC) is fully funded by me, we qualified and won!

We took home the first place award (and a boot!) in the category of Best ‘Pixie Dust’ Technique of the Year. (Learn what ‘Pixie Dust’ is here.) We also took home a second place win in the category of Most Innovative Source of Bootstrap Capital of the Year. Lastly, we were one of six finalists for the big award that will be given out at an award ceremony in April for Fastest Growing Bootstrap Startup.

BSETC, my company that won the awards, is a creative, professional outsourcing firm that helps business owners build, grow and manage their online businesses. Providing services that range from administration all the way to web design, the company helps create departments for entrepreneurs and start-ups that can’t afford full time staff. Check out the company here.

Here are a few photos from the event:

Erin Blaskie with her Boot!

Erin Blaskie and Scott Annan at the Bootstrap Awards!

The Coveted Boot!

Even though my business has grown to the level that it has, I still do all of the new, potential client calls.

Call me crazy and tell me there are better ways to spend my time but I continue to do these calls myself because I have an amazing red flag detection system.  I like to think it’s genetic but I really think it’s attributed to working with some very non-ideal clients in my past.  Having serviced over 300 entrepreneurs in their businesses, I can tell you… not all clients are good ones (sorry!)

One of my biggest red flags on any new call is what I like to call the baggage flag.

Better yet, let’s call it the bag tag… oh wait, that doesn’t sound appropriate… Baggage tag?  Nah, let’s just go back to baggage flag.

Imagine this… you’re me and you have a call scheduled with a potential new client who, on the onset, seems like a perfect match.  They have an online business, they are into the whole Internet marketing thing and they just seem to have it going on.  Exciting right?

So, you get on the phone with said person and they are all nice and pleasant and the call is going well until you turn their attention to what brought them to hire an implementation company.

New Potential Client:  “Oh, this isn’t my first time.”

You:  “Oh?”

New Potential Client:  “I’ve actually had quite a few VAs in the past couple of years.  However, they just didn’t seem to work out… I woke up one day and one of my virtual assistants had just disappeared… another one just wasn’t meeting my expectations… this other VA I hired, well let me tell you, didn’t… blah blah blah”

You:  “Sounds like you’ve had a lot of unfortunate experiences.”

From this point forward, the new potential client fills up their entire booked time with me discussing previous VA experiences and asking me to prove how we’re not going to step into those same mistakes.  Next thing you know, the half hour is up and the entire time was spent focused on the past instead of on the present.

BAGGAGE FLAG!

Instead, new potential clients (if you’re reading this and the above sounds like you, note taking time!) should push a big, giant reset button before starting any new conversation or working relationship.  This will help you re-focus on what’s important.

It’s like any relationship.  Let’s say you have this boyfriend (or girlfriend) who is really unromantic.  Never buys you flowers, never surprises you with chocolates and never takes you out.  Now let’s say you’ve met Joe/Joanne.  Do you spend your first date explaining how your previous relationships failed and grill them about how they are going to be different?  No.  You don’t do that because you’ll cause your new date to go running for the first exit.

Same principle applies with business.

If a new potential client spends all of their time talking to me about how previous relationships didn’t work and they stay so focused on how we’re not going to screw up too, they are going to miss out on our excellence.  They’ll miss out on my award-winning (okay, so that’s stretching it) pitch about what I’ve built and how our team is so different than other VA companies.  They’ll miss the fact that we don’t even really call ourselves VAs but rather creative professionals.

Most importantly, they’re missing the present moment.

Do you have your own red flags when speaking to potential clients?  If so, what are they?