Tag: Digital Marketing

business management, businessbuildingstrategies, healthandwellness, Implementation, Marketing, organizational behavior, process management, sop creation

Achieve Your New Year Goals With a Virtual Assistant

Genean

We’re here! It’s officially 2022! Many people have spent a lot of time these last 2 years indoors, in pajamas, binge-watching all the shows to ever exist on every TV platform, but not busy business owners! The ones of us who have a strong vision and clear goals have been preparing for this new year! Are you ready to thrive in 2022?

 For a business to prosper, it needs to be running smoothly and efficiently. Take time during the first month of the year to make a plan for how you will be more productive and efficient in the new year. Some popular resolutions for business owners include: ‘become more organized’, ‘improve my social media marketing’, and even ‘work less so I can spend more time with my family’. How are you going to make this happen? 

Working on tedious and repetitive tasks can start to really take a toll on a business owner. What you really want to be doing is focusing on paying customers and clients; but how can you do so when all your time is spent answering emails or creating graphics for your social media pages? 

Don’t start the new year feeling overwhelmed by small, tedious tasks. Start fresh and set new goals. This is a new beginning, and you’d be amazed by how much time you could get back by hiring a virtual assistant. If your goal is to work towards your passion, by outsourcing to a virtual assistant, you are opening up hours to refocus on the things that make you passionate about your business. 

Social media is critical for all businesses. How will your consumers build a deeper connection with you and become more loyal customers if you don’t utilize social media? Through proper social media marketing, your business can reach larger audiences and grow your brand awareness. However, this can’t be done in a day. 

Having a strong social media presence requires many hours to be put in working towards building that audience and engaging with it. Luckily, there are thousands of virtual assistants who specialize in social media management. They can take care of creating graphics, engaging with audiences, video editing, post scheduling, and so much more. If one of your resolutions is to grow your audience and social media presence, don’t spend countless hours a month doing it, hand it off to your virtual assistant! 

Toward the middle and end of the year, we can start to feel so overwhelmed by our workloads that we begin to lose touch with more important things outside of our work life; such as family and friends. Make it your New Year’s resolution to take time for yourself. Enjoy your time away from work, take an extra day off, spend time with your loved ones, without the hassle of having to worry if work is getting done. Your virtual assistant is there to make sure that you are living stress-free while your business continues to grow and prosper. 

A virtual assistant has your business’ best interest at heart. It is our job to watch you succeed and aid in the process. You will have somebody to bounce your ideas off and provide you with support, which is indispensable when you want to achieve goals. Your virtual assistant can give you opinions and suggestions for things you may not even notice about your business. They work to make your life easier. If you haven’t hired a virtual assistant yet, what are you waiting for? Now is a perfect time. It’s a new year. Start fresh! Hire a VA! http://www.lifebydesignvs.com

art creative holidays notebook
business management, businessbuildingstrategies, Implementation, organizational behavior, sop creation

Preparing Your Business for 2022

Genean

Time flies when your business is booming. It’s that time of year again, the new year comes around and we have new goals to set for ourselves. As things slowly transition back to normal after the past two years, we need to prepare ourselves for whatever 2022 may throw at us.  How are you looking to change things in the coming year? Will you have a new vision for yourself and your business? Having a plan in place for the new year will help you review past performance and make adjustments to your business as needed. How do you plan on following through with your goals for this next year? We have gathered some tips on how you can prepare your business for the new year. 

  1. Reflect on the past year.

It’s no secret that the pandemic has probably affected all kinds of businesses in one way or another. Many have continued to work from home, others have returned to their offices, and some businesses have grown or shrunk as a result of the pandemic. Whatever the case, it is important to review the business activity in the last year to know where you can make improvements for the new year. Think about what your business has accomplished and how you can build on these in 2022. If your business is performing well in a particular area, the new year is a great time to increase that growth. What goals were you unable to reach in the last year for your business? Were they realistic? Why did they fall through?

  1. Write a Business Plan

Writing a business plan is essential when you first start a business. However, it is also very useful to have a yearly business plan to nurture your success in the new year. What direction will you be going in? Will it be the same as last year? In your business plan, you should also include budget and revenue goals for the coming year. Your goals should be business-specific, easy to measure, realistic, and relevant to your overall strategy. It is a good idea to think of 2 or 3 main business goals for the year, these could be related to financial outcomes, your customer base, or anything relevant to your overall business strategy.

  1. Consider Expansion

Plan for growth! If your business has been doing increasingly well, you may want to get ahead of the game and consider expanding your team. It is easy for a business owner to become overwhelmed once their business starts to take off. Remember, when expanding your team, the ultimate goal is to strengthen your existing team. Hire carefully and make sure you are hiring employees that fit the vision and mission of your business.

Starting a new year is an exciting time. I have been so grateful to see my business grow in the last year and I can’t wait to see what 2022 has in store for us. Our team is so excited to continue to help small business owners grow their businesses. For the solopreneur, we can help you get your time back. Are there too many tasks including employee training and development, and you simply cannot get everything done, at least not without working yourself to death? We can help! Visit us at http://www.lifebydesignvs.com

thank you signage
business management, businessbuildingstrategies, Implementation, organizational behavior

The Power of Gratitude for Your Business

Genean

It’s officially the holiday season, a time for cozying up next to the fireplace, enjoying winter festivities, and most importantly, a time for giving thanks. According to Harvard Health, “Research suggests that one aspect of the Thanksgiving season can actually lift the spirits, and it’s built right into the holiday — being grateful.” Showing gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships. This is true not only in our everyday life but also in our work life or in our business. Gratitude in the workplace can affect the overall work climate and promote a sense of belonging to something greater than ourselves–to feel a sense of meaning at work. With gratitude, the more you give the more you get in return. So how does showing gratitude affect your business?

Showing gratitude towards employees or coworkers can be extremely beneficial to a business owner. When hard work is not only recognized, but appreciated, this can directly influence performance, productivity, and retention. When a person feels acknowledged and appreciated for their work, they are more likely to continue to perform well and are more inspired to improve business outcomes. The best part of all, a simple thank you can go a long way, at no cost for you.

By showing gratitude in the workplace, you are creating an environment where all employees are happy to go above and beyond because they feel valued and appreciated. The direct results of this will include overall happiness amongst your team, trust from your team, boosts in self-esteem, and better performance. Let’s face it, no one enjoys an ungrateful employer. Many times, acts of gratitude are not received well because they are achievement-based as opposed to employee-focused. Authenticity is key in creating a positive environment in the workplace. Consider writing handwritten thank you notes to your employees to show your appreciation. It is also important to acknowledge the small things that sometimes go unnoticed. This will encourage your team to pay close attention to detail. 

Gratitude is a form of self-love. Pass it forward and improve organizational behavior. As you begin to acknowledge and appreciate the small things, you’ll be surprised at how your company culture begins to change. Gratitude leads to kindness, generosity, and empathy and it even promotes better sleep & improves your mental & financial well-being. Take every opportunity you can to make your business more personal, and never forget about the ones who have helped you reach the point you are at right now.

business management, businessbuildingstrategies

Launch Your Business With the 6 Figure Virtual Assistant Course

Genean

Setting up a business can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. In any career, when you utilize the tools and information available to you, you can learn as you go and still achieve great success as a business owner. That is what being a Virtual Assistant is all about. That’s why we have created a course for any existing or new Virtual Assistants who are looking to increase their earnings and achieve success in their business. We have gathered our tips and tricks to becoming a 6 Figure VA to help you boost or kickstart your Virtual Assistant business. Are you ready to work on your own terms and by your own design? Then this course is exactly what you’re looking for. 

VAs who know their stuff get paid better. It’s true. The more skilled you are, the more you can charge! This course will show you step by step how I grew my business from nothing to 6 figures in only 10 months and now have a team of 7 helping over 20 clients every month! I won’t teach you anything that I myself haven’t done. And I will give you all my secrets! Here’s what you can expect from this course:

  1. Full Access to the 10 Module Course
  2. Bonus 11th Module!
  3. Tons of Free Downloads
  4. Access to a Members Only FB group
  5. Live weekly training in FB group 

In this course, you’ll learn about the different types of VAs, what you need to set up your office, how to find the perfect niche for you, where to find clients, how to get the clients to say yes to you, contracts, and paperwork, payments and much more! So what are you waiting for? You’ve got everything it takes to become a 6 Figure VA and I’m excited to be your helping hand on this journey. Our course is now available for preorder. Don’t miss out on this amazing deal. 

PRE-LAUNCH PRICE ONLY $247! 

This deal won’t last! On launch day the price goes back up! 

Get it at http://www.geneanroberts.com

business management

Being a Virtual Assistant May Change Your Life!

Genean

Let’s set the scene, you wake up on a Wednesday at 8 am. Feeling sleepier than usual? No meetings till noon? You decide to sleep in and have your morning coffee at 11 am. You’ve had time to sleep in, relax, and catch up on your work on your own time. This can only be the fabulous lifestyle of a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant is a self-employed worker who specializes in offering administrative services to clients from a remote location, usually a home office, working their own scheduled hours. This is just part of the many perks of being a virtual assistant. 

Not only do you get to work from the comfort of your own home, but you are able to have so much more flexibility as a virtual assistant. According to studies, 29% of remote employees said they struggle with work-life balance, and 31% said they have needed to take a day off for their mental health. As a virtual assistant, you have the ability to work whenever and from wherever you want. When you need to stop and take a break to take a mental check, you can do so at any time of the day. Thanks to the developments in technology, working from home has never been easier. 

Another reason why working as a virtual assistant is great is because you only provide the services you choose to provide. If graphic design and website management aren’t your favorites, you don’t have to do it. As a virtual assistant, you decide what your specialties are, what services you provide, and what you will charge for those skills and services. Additionally, there is a wide variety of services to choose from. Virtual assistant services range anywhere from general administrative tasks to social media management. It’s your business, so you design it your way. 

A study by Stanford of 16,000 workers over 9 months found that working from home increases productivity by 13%. It’s interesting that once you change a work environment to something calmer and more comfortable, how productive people can actually be. Working from home removes the pressure you receive from employers and other coworkers. When you work for yourself, you make the rules and you control all aspects of your job. While hard work comes with any business and job, there is nothing more rewarding than being able to work on your own terms. 

Have we hooked you yet? What could be more perfect than being your own boss? Well, as we said, running your own small business comes with hard work. Becoming a virtual assistant can yield great success. 

Virtual Assistants can even make up to 6 figures working right from their home. Wondering how to run a successful virtual assistant business? Don’t know where to start? Is your virtual assistant business growing at a stagnant pace? 

I started out working as a VA in 2010 as a side gig to my regular job. I would continue to work as a VA for a few years on and off for a few different companies. Now, this was still a side hustle and continued as a side hustle alongside my job. Just taking a client here and there as a part-time virtual assistant. It never became more than that. Until it did. 

Before I knew it, I realized the potential in my VA business and eventually expanded into a full VA Team in just a few short months. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve and I’m excited to share that with other existing or aspiring virtual assistants. I’m proof that you can run a successful business right from the comfort of your own home or Hawaii, or anywhere there’s an internet connection really.

That’s why I’ve created “The 6 Figure VA Course” in order to help other virtual assistants reach their full potential. Find out more info at www.geneanroberts.com

Finding Clients in Your Niche
process management

Finding Clients in Your Niche

Genean

Finding and marketing towards your niche audience can set you up for success in your business. Niching down may worry some small business owners due to fear of limiting services and exposure. However, as a small business, you cannot provide every solution to every problem, as larger corporations might be able to. By niching down, you can limit competition, become an industry leader, target your consumers better, and build a strong and loyal customer base. Once you become confident in your expertise, this will shine through in your product or service, which will attract new clients within your niche. The first step is analyzing your business as a whole and what you can offer to your customers. 

To find your niche, analyze your interests and passions. What kind of problems are you able to solve in your business? Once you’ve established what your niche is and what you specialize in, how can you find more clients within your niche? 

  1. Identify Your Target Audience: In order to find new clients within your niche, it is important to consider your current customer base. What does this customer base consist of primarily? 
  2. Problem-Solution: What unmet need are you able to provide a solution to given this customer base specifically? Find gaps within the marketplace. The more you can hit on the pain points of your niche market, the more success you will have. 
  3. Research: As you narrow down your target audience, the process of understanding their needs and wants becomes much easier. As your niche may be narrowed down to a specific age group or category, you can conduct research in order to find out their needs, goals, motivations, frustrations and expectations. Evaluate the data on the demographics of your niche market and work towards solving the issues that these specific groups face and how you can be the solution to these problems. 
  4. Market: Once you’ve identified, researched, and created a plan for targeting your niche market, you can begin to market your business specifically to match the needs of these customers. Targeted ads, blog posts, social media branding and podcasts are great tools to use to find new clients within your niche. 

Whatever it is that you do, perfect it. If you can do it better than others, market to those who value your product or service because it provides a solution to a given problem. With your confidence in your expertise, you will attract customers within the same niche. Finding your ideal client begins with you. Do you have a business plan? Do you know who you’re marketing to? What do they need that they cannot find in your competitors? Once you have answered these questions, you will be able to properly market your niche audience. 

Content Marketing Agency
business management

Why It’s Important to Take Good Care of Your Employees

Genean

Having a great team for your business is essential for thriving as a business. As a business owner, you are not only in an authoritative position but also a leadership position. It is important to provide your employees with the essential tools needed in order to properly perform well. Without a solid foundation for procedures, you will be left with an unorganized and ill-equipped team. As a result, you will often receive low-quality work, confused employees, and risk of error. How can you show your employees you care? The easy answer, have some written procedures in place for your business!

In order for work to get done, you should be working towards maximizing accountability for results and creating a comfortable work environment for employees to thrive in. In order to do so, you need to set clear expectations. With clear expectations, there is less room for confusion and you become more transparent with your employees. Once you have set these expectations, you will quickly be able to track progress from your team. 

By setting expectations, you are setting your team up for success. Your employee should be treated with care and respect as they are people and not just a number. Place focus on the importance of caring for your team by ensuring they have the tools that set them up for success. 

Simply setting expectations, however, can be counter-productive if you don’t have a set of procedures in place for employees to refer to when working on tasks. What are the benefits of having these procedures?

  1. Clear instructions

Different tasks require different steps. In order to properly train new employees and keep the whole team on track, everyone should be given the same set of guidelines to ensure everything is done correctly the first time. 

  1. Quick problem solving

By readily having procedures at their disposal, employees will be able to utilize these tools to quickly resolve any uncertainty that may arise from completing a specific task, which in turn, reducing downtime and getting tasks finished more quickly

  1. Improve and collaborate

Procedures allow us to evaluate how well a task is being done. When tasks are shared and completed by a team, the team can then offer suggestions for better methods of completing the task. This allows you to make adjustments in your procedures in order to work efficiently. 

Caring for your employees and making sure they have all the necessary tools in order to do well will be reflected in the output of the work they do.  Making sure your new and existing employees know what is expected of them will help eliminate errors and increase productivity. In order for these procedures to run smoothly, it is also important to take into account the importance of trial and error. Listen to your employees and take into consideration their feedback and make note of what works well and what does not. If you have not yet created a set of procedures for your business, we highly recommend getting started. Feel free to reach out and ask about our new SOP services. 

Best Digital Marketing Company
sop creation

Best Customer Service Practices for Your Business

Genean

If you’re looking to provide value, retain customers, present business value, or reduce employee turnover, you must provide exceptional customer service to your customers. It is not only the business owner’s responsibility to focus on customer service, but the responsibility of the entire team. Customer service is especially important for small businesses as you are working hard to gain new customers and keep them coming back. Have you ever walked into a retail store or a restaurant and the staff seems to be miserable and is not at all eager to cater to your needs? How likely is it that you will return to this establishment or leave them a good review? Not very likely. As business professionals, we need to ensure that all our customers receive the utmost respect and care, as they are the reason we are still in business and we would like them to continue doing business with us. Surveys actually show that customers claim that they are willing to spend more with businesses that provide a positive service interaction. We’ve gathered some tips that will help you consistently provide excellent customer service and will allow you to exceed your customers’ expectations.

Know your product/service:

In order to sell your product or service, you need to be familiar with and have an expansive knowledge of it. If a customer comes to you with a concern or doubt, you must be able to discuss features and give valid insight into the product or service. It’s your job to upsell and provide value to your customer. As a business owner, it is important to keep in mind that you have the ability to offer a solution to a given problem. Make it your goal to know the ins and outs of your product or service so that your customer chooses your business instead of your competitors. However, avoid making any false promises or guarantees. We want to make sure we are always being genuine and truthful with our customers. 

Be Present and Attentive:

This is arguably the most essential part of customer service. In this day and age, we live in a very fast-paced environment. That being said, when a customer is left waiting for a response or doesn’t receive attention in a timely manner, it is unlikely that you will be their preferred choice in business. Whether it is in person or online, you must remain attentive to your customers at all times. Taking hours to respond via phone, email or social media might lead to the customer looking for other options. We want our customers to know that we value their time and preference. That being said, place focus not only on responding quickly but also on resolving any issues they may have in a timely manner. 

Keep a Positive Attitude:

The golden rule applies to customer service. Treat your customers the way you would like to be treated, with respect. Your attitude is everything and we never want to come across as rude or dismissive to our customers. It is inevitable that we will come across difficult or sassy customers. However, we cannot allow this to affect how we treat our customers. When a customer is perceiving our attitude in person, it is important that we keep a positive tone of voice, proper body language, and an inviting facial expression. This is much more difficult to present when communicating online with a customer. Consequently, we must go the extra mile when handling customers online. Always use positive language and focus on what you CAN do for the customer as opposed to what we CANNOT do for them. Make sure to always thank your customer for doing business with you. 

It is no secret that customer service should be a top priority for you and your team. Consider monitoring the communication styles of your employees to make sure all your customers are being treated equally and fairly. Listen to the feedback you receive from customers and adjust your customer service communication styles accordingly. Direct communication with customers can sometimes be difficult if the customer isn’t cooperative or understanding. Remain patient and trust in your ability to be the solution to their problems.

Marketing Firms Near Me
Marketing

Stand Out From the Crowd in Your Business

Genean

As business owners and leaders, it is important that we build trusting and strong relationships with our existing customers and new customers. We want loyal customers to keep coming back and interested customers to consider us. Relationship marketing is a subset of customer relationship management or CRM. Relationship marketing focuses on long-term customer engagement that can eventually lead to customer acquisition and sales increase The goal of relationship marketing is to build strong relationships that go beyond a single transaction with our company. A customer may be interested in your product or service at the time of purchase, but how can you build a connection that will keep them coming back and staying loyal to your company? We’ve gathered a few tips and tricks you can follow to build a strong relationship marketing strategy.

  1. E-Commerce 

Having a webpage where customers can go to learn more information and feel part of your organization is a great way to build a relationship with them. For example, if fitting, your website could include a section where customers can create a user profile that saves their information for the next time they visit your site. This will allow you to tailor the information on the platform to their needs and also track customer activity. 

  1. Customer Service

It is no secret that as consumers we always want to receive high-quality customer service. When you are on the phone with a company from which you are in need of service for a problem, you want to be understood. Customers appreciate when employees are kind, enthusiastic, and empathetic to their needs. A customer who is consistently impressed by your customer service will more than likely be more loyal to you.

  1. That Extra Touch

A major part of relationship marketing is going beyond your customer’s expectations. Let’s say you are the owner of a small retail store. What’s expected of your business is good customer service, an online platform, and the newest trends. However, there are some extra touches you can add to keep customers interested and loyal. Consider starting a rewards program or an email list for loyal customers to receive special deals or free gifts on their birthday. Showing your appreciation for customer loyalty will help you gain new customers and keep loyal customers happy. Even sending birthday wishes through email or thank you cards can be a small detail the customer will truly appreciate. 

  1. Hold customer events 

A great way to build brand awareness and find or retain customers is by hosting events where you can connect and build a community for your customers. For example, the popular athleisure brand “Lululemon” holds sponsored events where their customers can enjoy workout sessions while connecting with other people in the community. This strategy is perfect for interacting one-on-one with your consumer base. It is important that your consumers see you and get to know the face behind the brand. 

Running a business is not simply about transactional marketing where you only focus on increasing the number of sales. To build a lasting customer base, you must think about long-term strategies such as relationship marketing. If you’re unsure about where to start, consider reaching out to a Virtual Assistant to help you kickstart the process. 

Best Digital Agency
Uncategorized

Best Practices for Marketing in a Digital World

Genean

In today’s digital world, there is no reason a small business can’t thrive. By utilizing the many avenues of digital marketing in efficient ways you will be able to connect with over 4 billion internet users as well as generate consistent clients and revenue. We have put together the top marketing tips for small businesses.

  • Social media allows entrepreneurs, small businesses and influencers to connect with over 3.4 billion users in a nanosecond. This completely free technology is unmatched in the digital marketing space as you can find your ideal clients very easily. The most important aspect to this is time. Utilizing social media scheduling apps you can ensure posts are consistent and less time consuming in the long run. Researching hashtags that are appropriate for your niche can lead you to long term success. Consistent activity, appropriate hashtags, and communication are the most important ways to get the most out of your efforts in this space.
  • Know your customer. Finding and focusing on your ideal client base is key for success in any space, whether it be digitally or brick and mortar based. For example, if you have a nutrition business, you most likely don’t want to find clients that are looking for general contractors.(Unless you do, that’s fine too!) Look at who your posts/emails/and blogs are attracting and you can adjust your approach from there.
  • Focus on the long term. Where do you want your business to be in one month? One year? Five years? By setting appropriate and adequate milestones for marketing, you can make this time a little less cumbersome. Set and write down short and long term goals in an area you see regularly (be it an office space, calendar, or fridge!). This will keep goals in your mind and encourage you to actively work towards them.
  • Remain consistent in design when launching a campaign. Making sure all marketing spaces apply the same design aesthetic shows consistency and will let current as well as potential clients find you more easily. This simple tip will also look more professional and trustworthy. Try to use the same (or similar) colors and fonts in graphics, on your webpage, business cards and logo.
  • Develop Email Campaigns. On average, email marketing returns $44 for every $1 spent – that’s a 4,400% return of investment (ROI). You can bring more money and return customers to your business with the right emails – but what are the best emailing practices? To encourage return visits to your website, you should set up automated responses to thank customers after they subscribe or make a purchase. Consumers like to feel appreciated, with ‘welcome’ emails boasting an average open rate of 82%. A drip campaign needs to add value without spamming. Make sure the emails you create are of value. The marketplace pays for value. Everyone likes to buy, but no one wants to be sold. Keep the sales pitch out of it. Effective marketing tells the prospect WIIFM. (What’s in it for me?, meaning the prospect) What’s in it for your prospect? How will it bring them value?

As with anything, there is a learning curve and a development time. Patience and planning will ensure your long and short term business goals are being met. If at any time you need help with digital marketing for your small business, Life by Design Virtual Assistant Services is here for you. Our virtual assistant staff specializes in all aspects of digital marketing from graphic design to blog writing to email marketing, and much more.