by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Mar 18, 2014 | Customer Service, Entrepreneur
Jane Wurwand, Founder, Owner of Dermalogica and The International Dermal Institute clearly understands the inherent value in the ability to scale your business via delegation. This mindset is a key driver for success. Delegating enables you to grow your organization, so you can focus on your core company objectives, removing you from the daily back end details which eat up your valuable time and actual productivity.
I am speaking as the Founder of my own company and I know just how challenging it can be to let go and delegate. Only by letting go of certain details and delegating them to fellow team members to handle that the company had the opportunity to truly grow. If I had clung on to the day-to-day details, or if I was a micro-manager, would my company be the success that it is today?
As a business grows, the founding visionaries need to let go of the details. This seems like a contradiction, and I really get it. I am speaking as the Founder of my own company and I know just how challenging it can be to let go and delegate. Only by letting go of certain details and delegating them to fellow team members to handle that the company had the opportunity to truly grow. If I had clung on to the day-to-day details, or if I was a micro-manager, would my company be the success that it is today? The simple truth is no.
Most business owners are more prone to think, “I can do it all myself,” but this self-limiting thought process does not allow you the time or full productivity to dedicate to the core of your business. You may be buried and merely just busy doing more menial activities that are NOT the best value of your time.
If you are entrenched with 10, 20+ hours a week on social media management, curating content, writing, editing, proofing and scheduling blog posts, calendar management, writing newsletters, WHO is operating your business?
Click to read the full post on Huff Post for Women
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 27, 2014 | Entrepreneur, Small Business
Being an entrepreneur is no easy endeavor. It requires a 24/7/365 days a year drive, dedication and commitment to growing your business. It isn’t a hobby – it’s a lifestyle and you need to be prepared for the ups and downs. Times of scarcity and prosperity but you dive in and do what needs to be done.
The digital environment gives you a broad scope to share your message and your mission. You have a voice but you must have ears to listen and offer solutions. Communicate quality rich content and engage every day, building your communities and your networks no matter how you feel. No matter what is going on in your personal life. You have a business to operate.
“When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser. The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.” Mary Kay Ash
It was once suggested to be personable, not personal. There can be a fine line depending on your social platform but sometimes a mix of both gives your audience a peek into your life and who you are. You have the opportunity to share a glimpse of yourself, your passions, your dreams and your pains. Keep it real.
“People relate to stories. Tell yours in a way that allows others to connect with you in a real and authentic way.” Rebekah Radice
In this reality of online relationships, your option to share a piece of yourself will also help to build trust and loyalty, showing the person (s) behind the brand.
You are human and not just a logo or a company pushing a widget.
You are as human as your audience; don’t treat them like machines.
Social media is not a conveyor belt to sling blah content to the masses.
Companies come and go every day; it is a sad fact. Many entrepreneurs and start-ups put their “blood, sweat and tears” into growing their business, and sometimes it falls apart. It could be the market, the niche, the financial climate, but it happens. When or if it does, it doesn’t represent failure, but a time to redirect and navigate the changes.
Innovate and review your industry, methods, systems and processes.
- Take a step back.
- Breathe.
- Remove your filters and blinders.
- Change your viewpoint.
- Think about what may be missing.
- Where do your customers live online?
- What do they want?
- Eliminate your emotional ties and think strategy.
- Overlook your struggle.
- See this setback as a challenge to overcome.
- Don’t go down without a fight.
- What can you learn from your present situation?
- Scream “WTF” if you must but keep moving.
- Know that your dream is closer than you think.
What challenges have you faced as an entrepreneur? What measures have you taken to overcome the challenges toward success?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 26, 2014 | Blogging, Content Marketing, Entrepreneur
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. Remarkable content is written for your buyers and their needs; providing solutions to their questions and problems. You have the opportunity to attract your audience with compelling content and images through your blog posts, website, e-newsletters and online discussions.
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.
Adam Connell of the Blogging Wizard wrote this dynamic post full of marketing tools to help you find, organize, post and promote your content.
Content is one of the most powerful ways to get more traffic to your blog and sell more products. To put things into perspective, $43.9 billion was spent on the production and distribution of content in 2013. That’s a crazy amount of money but illustrates the extent to which companies are investing in content right now, and that figure is set to increase. And the beauty of it is that over 60% of that is outsourced putting the power back into the hands of bloggers, freelance writers and professional copywriters.
Click to read more: bloggingwizard.com
Image courtesy of bloggingwizard.com @adamjayc
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 6, 2014 | Business Values, Communication, Entrepreneur, Small Business
Your business can’t survive online without the trust from your consumers. They won’t buy unless they feel the know, like, trust factor. You must 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. There can be an uneasy feeling and some have been burned, which is something you must understand and respect from the customer’s point of view. It is up to you to help them develop a comfort level and place of safety to do business online.
I believe fundamental honesty is the keystone of business. Harvey S. Firestone
You don’t need a contract to instill honesty and live by a moral compass. Give out what you expect in return and nothing less. Your business depends on it. Your reputation will either make you or break you. Credibility and a sound reputation is what gets you to the finish line toward establishing rapport and a long term relationship.
Each of your social platforms showcase you and your brand. You have the opportunity to personally interact with your followers – your potential customers on a personable level. Let them get to know you through your content, postings, engagement and dialog. Keep it real and keep it you.
Trust = Authority x Helpfulness x Intimacy / Self-Promotion Steve Rayson The New Formula for Social Media Trust
Your 10 Tips to Build Trust:
- Offer solutions: SHOW them you care and are truly interested in listening and solving their problems. Consumers have pain points that need care and understanding. Demonstrate that you you know what they want and need.
- Communicate clearly and responsively. No one likes to be on hold listening to ear bleeding elevator music. Engage. Whether you are responding to a post comment, email or client text message, don’t keep them waiting and wondering. Service them promptly.
- Be transparent. It helps to instill trust and shows the human side of your company and your brand.
- Be accountable. Do as you say; back up your words with actions and if you make a mistake, own it 100% and correct it. The customer is the one who writes your paycheck.
- Privacy and confidentiality. Respect a client’s proprietary information and discussions. There is no reason to share this type of data. You are being trusted with details or questions and they should not become public knowledge or water cooler chatter. Lock it up!
- Testimonials. When you receive recommendations, make sure they are openly displayed as they help to validate your service and your company. Add them to your website, email signature and other marketing collateral. If it is a tweet, then save it as a favorite so others can see “real-time” recommendations. Ask for them on your LinkedIn profiles.
- Under promise and over deliver. It may be a cliché but it is a premise of good business and service. There is nothing more disappointing or frustrating to be let down by a vendor missing a deadline.
- Educate and share valuable content. Enrich the lives of your audience without self-promotion and you become a trusted resource not a snake salesman.
- Feedback. Never bury your head in the sand. Always ask for feedback on a job, a post, a conversation. If you don’t ask, you don’t receive and you won’t know what you are missing. If you off point, you won’t be able to take charge and correct the course. Feedback is a valuable learning tool toward successful relationships and communication.
- Commit to your word. Very simple yet some have a propensity to fall back and forget such a courtesy. Do as you say without hesitation. There is enough misrepresentation in the world, especially online but if you intend to build your brand, your reputation and your business, then follow through with your verbal handshake.
How do you build trust and instill confidence with your customers and community?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jan 28, 2014 | Entrepreneur, Virtual Assistant
Entrepreneurs and small business owners alike are extremely busy building, generating, troubleshooting and growing their organizations to scale and own a piece in their market share. It can take an army to build a business; a team to orchestrate your success and manage each facet of your internal systems and processes.
Entrepreneurship requires 150% dedication, focus and effort. It is not a part time endeavor to embark upon while meandering through life. If you are choosing to operate a business, then you must live and breathe your corporation, from top to bottom, every day. A strong interrelated component to your company is your online world and reputation as a solid and reputable organization. Your customers are online every single day and you need to be where they are, serving them and providing solutions.
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” Calvin Coolidge
Social Media Marketing is essential platform as part of your marketing mix. Consumer buyer behavior reflects their consistent quest for up to the minute information about your company’s products and services. People buy from people and customers prefer the immediacy of the web, the data they can search, the recommendations they find and a community for their voice. You need to not only have an online presence but to be actively listening to your prospects, colleagues, partners, competition and clients.
“Companies need to realize how important it is to integrate social into every part of their marketing and communications plans of 2014.” Lindsay Bell & Laura Petrolino – Arment Dietrich, Inc.
Keeping a tidy and productive digital office necessitates a visible online presence with consistency and frequency or your voice will get lost within the noise and fundamental chatter. Building and maintaining your networks takes a lot of time, energy and focus. There are literally hundreds of social channels to choose from, which can be overwhelming. You need to evaluate and understand your audience, where they hang out, what they want and what they consume.
Managing your online presence, social channels AND daily business operations requires an extensive amount of time, energy and triaging of tasks and projects. Some days go much smoother than others, averting the challenges and roadblocks.
When you are hit with a few time bombs, take a step back or six, and ask yourself, what is the competition doing that I’m not? Why do they seem to effectively manage their day to day operations and business systems with such ease and simplicity?
They may just have a secret weapon that you don’t. A vested and dedicated partner.
A Virtual Assistant
“If you want to grow your business past a certain level, you’ve got to add more people. You’ve got 24 hours in the day, and you’re never going to get more. So if you need to take care of more stuff. . .because that’s what you need to do to grow a business—do more stuff—you’ve got to add other people’s 24 hours. You’ve GOT to delegate!” Laura Roeder
What does your competitor know that you don’t?
- Too many hats reduce their focus on their core mission. It isn’t about the fashion statement but getting things done.
- There is another entrepreneurial expert who can support their business, brainstorm ideas and share in the passion of building their business.
- They want to work ON their business rather than IN it.
- They understand the virtual assistant offers different strengths and brings a different skill set to the digital world.
- The Virtual Assistant uses a variety of tools and platforms to help enhance and expedite daily tasks and systems.
- They don’t need to stay updated on every single new tool or platform.
- They are better able to prioritize and accomplish their goals.
- Work life balance isn’t just a phrase but an important lifestyle decision.
- Social media is time suck and they need support to gain greater visibility and notoriety.
- An extra pair of eyes and “brain matter” benefits the editing and proofing process.
- Valuable and rich content curation takes hours of time and they want to focus on building relationships instead.
- They would rather be in the field networking and meeting clients than managing their appointment scheduling and reminders.
- They are able to be more organized and have increased time management to focus on what is important, rather than on what needs to be done.
- They save money by delegating because they only pay for project time, not benefits, insurances, training, office supplies or taxes.
- In order to make money and experience the ROI from their online activity, they value and understand the opportunity to partner with an executive Virtual Assistant.
“You cannot grow your business all on your own so stop trying to. It’s time for you to trust others to help you. Without delegation your business will be limited by your own time and energy.” Matthew Swyers
What will be your secret weapon in 2014 to help you drive your business and meet your goals? If you’re looking to take your business to the next level, you’ve got your Ace right here.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jan 23, 2014 | Content Marketing, Entrepreneur, Social Media
2014 Buzzword? Not in the least. Just do a search. Google shared about 1,010,000,000 results (1.21 seconds). 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. 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.”
Content marketing is sharing without selling but eventually, you do experience lead conversion because you have been feeding your audience rich, educational and valuable content. You are the person or company they turn to! Since most have turned away from traditional forms of media, elicit a response from your online audience, similar to Pavlov’s dogs. Don’t focus on what you have to say; understand what your target market wants to read. Convey your passion for their needed solutions and service, don’t just try and push a widget. Everyone has widgets.
What makes you different? Better? Worth the investment?
“The single most significant trend is the continued emergence of content marketing as a standalone discipline. Content, in all its shapes and forms, is core to everything we do as marketers.” Econsultancy.
Content marketing is NOT just for your website! It is daily curation and sharing of content within your social media network. Quality content. A little cotton candy fluff only starves the bears.
“Spending energy to understand the audience and carefully crafting a message that resonates with them means making a commitment of time and discipline to the process.” – Nancy Duarte
- Make your content newsworthy and enriching
- Attract and retain attention!
- Curate from a variety of sources
- Follow industry leaders
- Sign up for the RSS feeds
- READ everything before you curate
- Engage with your favorite bloggers
- Ask questions
- Monitor trending CM hashtags
- Use social media tools to follow and find conversations
- Save and digest the content
- WRITE!!
Content Marketing Considerations:
- Goals
- Strategy
- Editorial calendar
- Content
- An understanding of your buyer personas
- Where does your audience hang out
- What are their greatest pain points?
- What drives them to purchase?
- What are they searching for?
- Appeal to their logical mind as well as their emotions
- Write for them. To them….. not the search engines.
- Find the best distribution channels
- Cross promote or vary content
- Track and measure engagement, conversation and results
In a recent study by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute their results demonstrated that 93% B2B organizations now use content-based tactics for their marketing promotions and 73% specified they now produce more content than the previous year.
Custom content is 92% more effective than traditional TV advertising at increasing awareness and 168% more powerful at driving purchase preference.
If you need a little more convincing about the value and necessity of content marketing, take a bite from the menu and these are just the appetizers.
Top 6 Content Marketing Trends To Watch Out This 2014 (Infographic)
12 Most Innovative Ways to Create Content That Gets Shared
Top 10 Ways a Content Calendar will Improve Your Inbound Marketing Strategy
30 Steps for Getting Started with Content Marketing – Smarter Shift
25 Top Content Marketing Tools Every Marketer Should Use
The 3 Ways to Succeed at Content Marketing When Everybody in the World is Doing Content Marketing
Content Curation Tools: 21 Criteria To Select And Evaluate Your Ideal One
2014 Content Marketing Trends and Tactics
7 Metrics To Accurately Measure Your Content Marketing
What will be your first step in implementing your content marketing plan?
Send us an email from our contact page if you would like a little help organizing and facilitating your plan for CM success.
“Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” – Jon Buscall
