Podcast: Blogging for Business (Ep. 8)
We’re pleased to announce that we will be hosting a weekly podcast via iTunes! Each week, we’ll be bringing you a five-minute or less podcast focused on a variety of topics: social media, Internet marketing, entrepreneurship, general business tips and more.
Episode 8: Blogging for Business
I received a question on my Formspring.me account which asked, “How long should my blog posts be and how many posts per week should you be creating to drive the maximum number of visits to your site?”
Let me preface this conversation by saying that like all things that can be done for your business, the way that you blog is often defined by your preferences and the time you have available for this tactic. For every single entrepreneur, this is going to be different. However, there are a few things that we can discuss here that will help you formulate a plan around blogging.
This episode focuses on answering that question.
Subscribe Via iTunes
Click on the icon to the left and you will be taken to iTunes where you can subscribe and download this episode along with all other episodes. Once added to iTunes, you can add the podcast to an MP3 player or simply listen to it from your iTunes account.
Listen from Our Website
You can also listen to the podcast right from this post! To listen, simply click play on the player below. You will not be able to stop and come back to the recording so keep that in mind before starting the podcast. If you have any comments that stem from the podcast, please leave them as a comment here!
Podcast: Working With a Virtual Assistant (Ep. 7)
We’re pleased to announce that we will be hosting a weekly podcast via iTunes! Each week, we’ll be bringing you a five-minute or less podcast focused on a variety of topics: social media, Internet marketing, entrepreneurship, general business tips and more.
Episode 7: Working with a Virtual Assistant
I received a question on my Formspring.me account which asked, “I’m looking at learning more about virtual assistants and how they could benefit me in my business. Also, what sort of costs I am looking at. Where is the best place to start?”
Delegating can seem like a huge expense before you work out what it may really cost. To help with this, I’ve setup a really simple equation you can do at anytime, with any task.
This episode focuses on answering that question and teaches you the equation that I use to cost things out.
Subscribe Via iTunes
Click on the icon to the left and you will be taken to iTunes where you can subscribe and download this episode along with all other episodes. Once added to iTunes, you can add the podcast to an MP3 player or simply listen to it from your iTunes account.
Listen from Our Website
You can also listen to the podcast right from this post! To listen, simply click play on the player below. You will not be able to stop and come back to the recording so keep that in mind before starting the podcast. If you have any comments that stem from the podcast, please leave them as a comment here!
Radio Interview: Social Media & The Virtual Assistant #newmediaradio
Last night I was interviewed on New Media Radio by Monique Terrell and Sam Weaver on the topic of: “Social Media and the Virtual Assistant.”
We had a great conversation around the virtual assistance industry and how social media has affected the industry both from a service standpoint and a user standpoint. In the interview, I share my opinion on “social media assistants” and talk about incorporating these trendy new services into your business without pigeon-holing yourself.
You can listen in to the interview here. I’ve also embedded the radio interview below.
Erin, You’re All About the Money!
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.
Read MoreWe’re Like an Airline – No Baggage Allowed
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?
Read MoreThought-Provoking Interviews, Straight to Your Inbox
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