by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Apr 3, 2014 | Entrepreneur, Life Thoughts, Small Business
Most people equate success with financial wealth and independence but is there something more intrinsic beyond the mighty dollar? In my post “Measure of Success | Is it Dollars or Sense?” I shared what success means to me and the different levels for my personal evaluation. Every person, every entrepreneur has their own vision and measures of success.
One of my clients has recently been honored with an opportunity of great magnitude and prestige to help impact the lives of others, without financial remuneration. In discussing this extraordinary honor he said:
It’s very humbling and makes you appreciate the importance of focusing on being ‘significant vs. being successful.
I don’t think there is much of a differentiation unless you are only bound by money. When you truly think of all of the things money can’t buy, you are wealthier than you realize.
When you are able to give without expecting a return, you are rich.
When you give deeply from the heart, you are rich.
It is this wealth that teaches.
This wealth that is more significant than a coin.
After our discussion, my client shared the video Significance vs Success by Coach Tony Dungy, prior head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the Indianapolis Colts.
I believe Coach Dungy’s significance clearly represented success. What an empowering feeling to realize that you influenced someone else’s life with a positive direction. It is not only gratifying but hopefully an inspiration for others to pay it forward. Touching the lives of others holds greater power than any bank roll. It keeps on giving, far exceeding any dollar value. It is real. It is human.
Significant versus Success
Make change.
Share value.
Do the unexpected.
Random Acts of Kindness #RAOK
A Personal Story:
For many months after my mom passed away from breast cancer, we continued to receive notes and letters from the organizations that she belonged to or volunteered for over the years. Many we didn’t even know about. My dad would call me to read yet another note expressing their condolences mixed with the deep appreciation they had for my mom and her altruistic participation with their organization. She was a true giver of heart and spirit. Like no other. My mom was the director for the International Center at a local college and they built a lounge for the international students, naming it after her. A true testament to her devotion and care for others.
This is being:
1. Significant
2. A success
3. Wealthy
In response to my amazing client: being significant is being a success.
A lot of people who believe they are successful because they have everything they want. They have added value to themselves. But I believe significance comes when you add value to others and you can’t have true success without significance. John C. Maxwell
What about YOU? What are your thoughts on significance versus success?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Apr 1, 2014 | Content Marketing
Marketing has drastically changed over the past several decades in terms of the delivery methods but no matter how you look it, it is still content driven and always will be. It used to be solely about print media and ad space but now it is more about vying for attention from your online audience. This can be the biggest constraint but with the right content, geared toward the right market, you have an opportunity to be seen and heard.
Organizations are pumping up their online efforts to write compelling content and devour a piece of the market share, the hungry consumer. If you are not part of this bandwidth, churning out and feeding the insatiable, then you are doing a great disservice to your brand and your buyers. Content marketing offers the potential to communicate, engage and acquire new customers as well as to continue deepening relationships by adding value to your customers and prospects lives. For your efforts to be effective, your content must deliver an impact: a result to drive readership, sharing and interest. It isn’t merely finding an article and pushing it out. It should resonate with your company, your mission, your solutions and YOUR followers.
Your customers and prospects are searching for relevant data to help them in their buying decisions. You want to be that driver. You want to stay one step ahead of your competition, even industry colleagues, but to do this, you must be distributing value. Meeting pain points. Making sure your content conveys the information your audience is chasing.
When creating your content, think about some of the common questions you have been asked.
- What problems does your product or service solve?
- How will your product or service help them improve their career, their daily lives?
- What makes it difficult for them to do what they need to do on a daily basis?
- What are their obstacles to success?
Your solution based content can produce reactions and needs to your offerings. Help your readers thrive and flourish.
Content marketing is a strong leader in your social media channels. The Content Marketing Institute said:
“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”
Inspire!
Don’t focus on what you have to say; understand what your target market wants to read. Your content marketing strategy should serve and deliver based upon the needs of your target market, offering solutions and viable outcomes for their greatest pain points.
Get inspired with the top 8 daily habits of some of the world’s most effective content marketers.
“Traditional marketing talks at people. Content marketing talks with them.” – Doug Kessler
In a recent study by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute their results demonstrated that 93% of B2B organizations now use content-based tactics for their marketing promotions and 73% specified they now produce more content than the previous year.
Peg Fitzpatrick’s post: Feed the Content Monster defines the industry social terms and helps you to understand the what, where, why and how of content marketing. It answers all of your questions, providing you guidance and suggestions to jump in the content ring. Get ready. Research. Curate. Write. Share.
What is the content monster? This is the void for content marketers between content creation and content sharing. The content monster needs to be fed consistently. Content marketing is a great way for brands and small businesses to reach their clients and prospective clients. If you are creating your own media or blog content, content creation is a time-consuming and important task. Most blogs and businesses aren’t producing an original video or blog article each day. If you do have the time and talent to produce great quality content, you still need to share more than one thing per day on social media. So, how can you feed the content monster and curate amazing content to share?
Click to read more: pegfitzpatrick.com
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Mar 27, 2014 | Customer Service
Customer service has always been and will continue to be a driving factor for all entrepreneurs, freelancers and business owners. Without the customer, you don’t have a business so you had better be damn sure you are listening and understanding their needs because if you aren’t, your competitor is. You have the opportunity of creating a brand advocate OR a vocal, viral monster who will inform the world about your lack of service and attentiveness.
Merely satisfying customers will not be enough to earn their loyalty. Instead, they must experience exceptional service worthy of their repeat business and referral. Understand the factors that drive this customer revolution. Rick Tate
Delivering the desirable and effective customer experience is an ongoing process and should extend beyond the close. Don’t let it stop there. You have earned an interested buyer and as in any successful relationship, the attentiveness to caring should not end simply because you sealed the deal. You should always be thinking of the small touches, the nuances and added service to continue to nurture your client. Think long-term partnership.
According to The 2012 American Express® Global Customer Service Barometer:
- Social Media Savvy Consumers Have High Expectations: They’ll Spend More When They Get Good Service and Ditch Companies When They Don’t
- More Than Eight in Ten of These Consumers Have Bailed on a Purchase Because of a Poor Service Experience Compared to 55% Overall
- Nine in ten of Americans surveyed (93%) say that companies fail to exceed their service expectations.
- Americans will tell an average of 15 people about positive experiences – up 67% from 9 last year
- Americans will tell an average of 24 people about poor experiences – up 50% from 16 in 2011
Social Media Raises the Stakes for Service (infographic)
Customer satisfaction is your competitive advantage: use it or lose it.
Providing quality unsurpassed service should be as simple as treating others the way you want to be treated. It seems so simple yet many companies fall short of this basic premise. The Golden Rule is your Midas Touch.
Think of a time when you didn’t receive the service you expected:
- How did it make you feel?
- Did you reach out to customer service?
- What method (s) did you use to tell your story?
- Was your issue satisfactorily resolved?
- Did you share your experience with others?
- Would you use this company again?
Create a CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE that infuses:
- Satisfaction in your products and services
- Comfort that they know you care
- Assurance that their issues are heard and respected
- Security in believing in your company
- Trust in your pledge to them
- Loyalty to your brand and values
- Confidence that you will go the extra mile
- Reliance that your team wants to ensure 100% customer satisfaction
When you are able to serve and deliver, you will generate not only happy customers, but brand advocates; the cornerstone of your success because it isn’t just your widgets that open the door. Build your company around real promises, outcomes and solutions to build the trust of your buyers and potential customers. Your business can’t survive online without the trust from your consumers; earn the trust and loyalty of your audience; your community. Cultivate your relationships through authentic communications and reliability. Your network is always looking for validation to ensure that a potential partnership or connection is dependable, trustworthy and “real.” Remove the feeling of vulnerability and risk of doing business with someone behind a keyboard. Read about the 10 Tips to Build Trust Online.
Trust removes fear, doubt, and friction. It dislodges things that are stuck. If you want to help your dream client make change, work first on winning the battle for trust. Anthony Iannarino
How do you create the best ongoing customer experience?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Mar 25, 2014 | Delegation, Productivity, Small Business
Part of being effective during your work hours is the discipline to spend time on what is truly important even if other things try to steer you off course. Efficiency is learning about your awareness to, acceptance of and ability to determine your real work, the actual tasks and projects that propel you forward versus time suckers, bad habits, procrastination or other low payoff activities that take you away from your personal and professional aspirations. It is a continual building process and without a strong sturdy foundation, you may find yourself with a few cracks, leading to disaster, lost time or missed opportunities.
What are you putting off today and WHY? There are things we hate to do or aren’t all that much of a priority, but what happens when you continually push things under the rug? For one, your To Do list multiplies to such great lengths that some activities just get buried at the bottom.
Procrastination List or To Do list?
Go look at your list, your calendar or wherever you record your tasks and projects. I’ll wait.
How long have some of the items been on the list? Are there any you just file in your head to do, but never make it to a list to get done?
Be honest!! What are you going to do about it? And WHEN?
Stop running away from your lists and responsibilities.
Learn to take action and manage your procrastination.
Melanie Benson Strick, America’s Leading Business Optimizer gives you tips on how to SQUASH your procrastination habits. They are very simple and easy to implement today! Read what she has to say and see if you can’t change up a few of your activities and get more important things done.
“When you find yourself procrastinating high payoff activities because you don’t have time or don’t enjoy doing them, its time to activate a more powerful approach to getting things done.
Here are the four ways to squash procrastination and get her important tasks done:
Delegate. My favorite way to handle tasks that must be done but that drain my energy is to delegate those activities to someone else who enjoys doing them. My motto is if someone can do it better, faster or cheaper than me, get it off my plate.” Melanie Benson Strick
Click to learn about Melanie’s other three suggestions: successconnections.com
What are YOUR tips to manage procrastination?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Mar 20, 2014 | Blogging, Content Marketing, Social Media
Your business blog is an essential tool for your inbound marketing efforts in terms of SEO, generating social proof, credibility, creating a community, becoming known as a thought leader and generating visits, leads, and conversion to customers and brand ambassadors. It has to the opportunity to spin gold as if you have the Midas Touch.
It is THE most valuable piece of company real estate you own. With a little caressing and foreplay, it should resonate with your prospective buyers, meeting their needs, pain points and answering their questions. Whatever they may be.
“Companies that blog have 55% more visitors and generate 70% more leads than companies who don’t. Hubspot
Organizations are pumping up their online efforts to write compelling content and devour a piece of the market share, the hungry consumer. If you are not part of this bandwidth, churning out and feeding the insatiable, then you miss the train. It is a strong leader in your social media channels.
You write for them.
Not yourself.
Not the search engines.
They are the ones inputting the string of keywords to find YOU! Help them.
Laboring over content and strategy can present a challenge for many. Think about what you want to say to your readers.
Did you ever consider how much time and effort it takes to write, maintain and promote a blog? It is so overwhelming. Sometimes just coming up with the theme can be a challenge.
“Do not underestimate how vital it is to allot time to writing a post or creating an image specifically designed for each particular community. It could make the difference between comments and crickets.” Rebekah Radice.
While there are many helpful and educational posts regarding content, titles, SEO, buyer personas, best practices, tips, tools and other recommended suggestions, it can be a very large undertaking to sustain and not go insane in the process. We can also get buried in the learning process. You open one site and suddenly realize hours have gone by while you only began to research a simple topic but you sunk in the abyss of data and links.
Anatomy of a Blog Post
Begin by understanding your goals, strategy and tactics for your blog and content. Write them down and use an editorial calendar to help visualize and plan your content schedule. It is much simpler and easier when you see it “on paper.” It will also help to keep you accountable as well as organized with your writing, posting, sharing and analyzing of your metrics. This is just the bare bones, the skeleton for your writing and posting process. Read and research some of the best practices, save articles to refer back to you and put in your best effort. Guest author, Adam Connell shared some great tips and insight to help you enhance your writing and pique the interest of your audience, enticing them to share your post.
Blog
Write compelling and thought provoking content to reach your readers, answer their deepest questions and offer real solutions. That’s why you’re in business right? Not to push a product or a widget but to offer outcomes and resolutions to problems. Great content captures interest and engagement.
“Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.” Brian Clark
Why Should Your Business Blog?
Do You Make These 13 Content Marketing Mistakes?
The Benefits of Blogging: Why Businesses Do It, and You Should Too
Foolproof Formula to Incredibly Catchy Blog Titles
Keywords to Concepts: The Lazy Web Marketer’s Guide to Smart Keyword Research
Content Curation: 10 FREE Tools to Save You Time
3 Steps to Identify Blog Topics that are Relevant to Your Audience
HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator
WP Plugins
The WordPress plugins you choose should solve a specific “problem” or add key functionality and ease of use, for yourself as well as your audience. There are thousands of WordPress plugins to enhance your SEO, website speed, social sharing, curation and function of your site. Investigate and test the ones you feel will add the most benefits and features; not just because it seems like a shiny new toy.
Top 10 Social Media Plugins for WordPress
40 Experts Share Their Favorite WordPress Plugins
Content curation is now push button simple on WordPress
8 Top Free WordPress Plugins To Speed Up Your Websites Loading Time
10 Essential WordPress Plugins to Improve SEO & Usability – Search Engine Watch
Distribution
Once you written a fabulous post, you need a strategic plan to share your content and ideas. It isn’t enough just to write a post and push it to your social platforms. Use a variety of tools and platforms to broaden your reach and your message.
“The biggest mistake that I see bloggers and marketers make is spending an incredible amount of time creating a really great piece of content but don’t put the time into promoting it.” Adam Connell
32 Experts Share Their Best Blog Post Promotion Tips
25 Smart Ways to Promote Your Latest Blog Post
Conversations
Social Media isn’t a hit it and quit it mentality. If you think like this and don’t engage or only self-promote, you will not experience the value and global reach of social media. Your blog and your voice will be lost amongst those who build their relationship and give back to their communities.
“You can’t just smash blast anymore.” Instead, you have to give them what they want and then strive to aggregate with yourself so you can control your own marketing.” Jay Leopardi.
13 Tips to Humanize Your Brand
Customer Relationships – Engage Your Audience: From Profile to Preference
3 C’s of Effective Relationship Marketing
Relationship Marketing for a Digital World
What about you? How do you manage your blog, content and communications?
