One task that can take up time and paper is getting a contract or agreement signed. Time and paper can be saved using an online resource called Echo Sign. This service makes getting a document signed by both parties as easy as sending an email – and it can be done in minutes. There’s nothing to install and a free account can get five documents signed a month. It’s been very useful in my business, making the turn around time in getting documents signed almost non-existent. Also, there’s no paper to print. Documents are stored electronically. Visit their website at EchoSign.com.

Are you always jotting yourself a note on a sticky note? Save yourself money and paper by using Jott.com. Jott converts your voice into emails, text messages, reminders, lists and appointments. Just pick up the phone and send yourself a Jott. Your Jott will be in your Inbox when you get back to the office. No more sticky notes!

Would you like to receive all your bills electronically and not deal with the hassle of paper anymore? Of course you want to sign up for any e-statements you can. Another great online resource is PayTrust.com. PayTrust allows you receive, review, pay and organize all your bills online.

Do you like going to seminars to learn more about your industry but find you can’t afford the gas anymore? Teleseminars may be the answer you’re looking for. Save gas by never leaving the comfort of your home or office. Check out Conference Call University at CCULearning.com.

Many solo professionals are saving time and money by using the services of a virtual assistant to help create and implement online marketing for their service businesses. Search for a virtual assistant in your area and see how he or she can help.

Special Note

This is an information packed workshop. We’re aware that you can’t possibly absorb it all in a single sitting. That’s why the cost of the workshop includes a 2-CD set containing 5 hours of audio and over 50 pages of reference materials and notes for you to review at your own pace as often as you like.

Topics:

Marketing Your Services 101

• Basic concepts of permission marketing; Dos and Dont’s

Defining Your Ideal Client

• How to identify your target market, clearly define your ideal client, and questions to ask yourself to determine if a prospect is your ideal client

Networking Creates Word of Mouth Referrals

• The importance of networking in person, how to effective network, role playing

Converting Prospects to Clients

• How to prepare to interview a prospect, questions a prospect may ask and how you can answer them, questions you should ask your prospect, questions to determine if the prospect is your ideal client

Effectively Marketing With Your Newsletter

• Various newsletter tools available and basic information about them, where to find content, what the reports mean and how you can use them

All attendees will receive these free reports:

• Identifying Your Ideal Client and Target Market
• Networking Creates Word of Mouth Referrals
• Converting Prospects to Clients
• Effectively Marketing With Your Newsletter
• Bonus Tips: Grow Your Business as a Chief Virtual Officer
• John Jantsch’s 17-page report 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success

Bonus #1: All attendees will receive access to the Members Only Forum at no additional charge!

Bonus #2: Every attendee will receive a copy of the 72-page workbook Building Blocks: Succeed as a Chief Virtual Officer.

Cost: Early Bird Special (Register before noon June 30, 2010) $75

Regular Price (After Noon June 30, 2010) $100

Register Here: http://sacramentovaworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Join us for April’s Group Coaching conference call on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 11:00 am PST. We have arranged our schedule for a 60-minute call. If we need to stay on the call for 90-minutes, we’ve left our schedule open to accommodate that so you get all your questions answered.

All who register will receive by email after the call:

• John Jantsch’s 17-page report 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success
• Bonus Tips: Grow Your Business as a Chief Virtual Officer, a 10-page report

Win a copy of the book, Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch! Each attendee during the live call will be entered into a drawing and the winner will be announced at the end of the call.

On this call you will learn:

• Basic concepts of permission marketing
• Dos and Don’ts of marketing your virtual assistant services
• The importance of marketing by networking
• and more…

Register for the call. Only $20!

I have a client that has a half dozen different virtual assistants working on her team. She recognizes that each one has specific skills and talents. Imagine you are a small business owner starting a retail business. Would you really hire one person to be your accountant, attorney, salesperson and business coach? No. You would hire individuals specializing in each area so that the work they each did was the best and made the best use of their time.

I encourage you to build a network of fellow virtual assistants and then freely refer business to each other. There’s plenty to go around. Instead of getting stuck and caught when you cannot accomplish a task you don’t have the skills for, your client will be impressed that you were able to find someone that specializes in that particular skill.

I have found that I love the general administrative tasks that involve lots of typing, data entry and ten-key. Several clients have had me compile spreadsheets of contacts to include names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, websites, and additional notes. Many find this type of work tedious and boring. So give me a call if you need someone to handle that type of work.

On the other hand, I have not had extensive experience with setting up shopping carts. Yet many solo professionals now need this type of work. If that’s your expertise, let me know so I have someone to refer those prospects to when they approach me for that type of work.

Working together, virtual assistants can grow their businesses. There is enough to go around!

Learn Why Now is the Time to Grow Your Business & How You Can Succeed While Others Fear and Fail

Carpe Momentum

In an economy where every new client, every new project can feel like a stay of execution instead of a new start, you need to see every opportunity, and seize it.

Here’s why.

And how.

Where & When

Friday June 12th
1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
9380 Elk Grove-Florin Road
Elk Grove California

Space is very limited. Register Now!

It’s a notebook.

I’ve spent an hour this morning trying to remember the details of a conversation I had with a client, so I can write an outline for our next coaching session. I feel like I’m not providing the real value I want to deliver when I can’t get back in the emotional moment that sparked a very clear picture of our next chat; our direction for the next session.

Thing is, I really was taking notes—but on what my client was saying, not on what I was saying. I mean, I’ll remember my own words, right?

As a matter of fact, no; I don’t.

I’m planning on recording these calls, strictly so I can go back and review what was said and how it was said, to recapture the emotional impact. My benefit comes from changing how people feel based on what they think about, not just sharing facts for them to sort out in their own head.

My dad never went anywhere without a little thirty-nine cent notebook in his shirt pocket (he write in it with a fountain pen, in green ink—but that’s another story.) When he needed to remember something, he just wrote it down. Not only did he actually remember things later (reviewing the notes) but his mind was free to concentrate on the moment instead of spending part of its energy remembering the three simple little things he needed to remember—they were in the notebook, not his head.

Why haven’t you decided to ride the wave of social networking? Some small business owners I’ve talked to give these reasons for not jumping into social networking: 

1. It’s too complicated.
2. It takes too much time.
3. There’s no way to track the return on investment
4. You can’t get new clients from social networking 

Social networking does not need to be complicated or take hours and hours each day. So how can you use social networking responsibly and effectively? Remember – no one wants to be inundated with offers of your costly services all day long. When I start getting a dozen messages everyday from the same people over and over again offering their expensive services, I quickly tire of that and don’t want to hear from them anymore. 

However, I do appreciate receiving valuable and interesting information, tips, quotes, etc. So start small. I suggest taking these steps in this order: 

1. Post tips your prospects can use
2. Offer a free report or gift to those who sign up for your newsletter
3. Put together a free or low-cost teleseminar to build your list and promote it 

Remember, social networking needs to be about building relationships – not primarily about self-promotion. So balance is needed when using social networking as a marketing strategy.

A virtual assistant can help you get started in social networking and assist in maintaining your profile. Save time by having your virtual assistant update your social sites on a regular basis. There are tools, such as TweetLater.com, that can be used to schedule Tweets in advance so you’re not spending every minute of the day on Twitter. 

If you’re not using social networking to market your business, you’re missing out on a big piece of the puzzle. Remember that it may take seeing your information 8-20 times before a prospect picks up the phone to call you or contacts you through your website. So let’s get busy and start networking! 

Sue Canfield

For over 25 years Sue Canfield, Virtual Office Administrator and Owner of Awesome Assistant, has helped small business owners with administrative tasks. Since 2005 she has worked with over 30 clients to help them grow their businesses, specifically by using online marketing strategies such as email newsletters, blogs, articles, and social networking. Her mission is to partner with her clients to work together to create and implement strategies to promote their businesses. For more information about how she can help your business, visit http://www.AwesomeAssistant.info.

A reader commented on one of my strongly-worded blog posts. They disagreed vehemently. I was not surprised.

What surprised me was the offline contact from the reader who explained why they took the subject so seriously; it was something they were facing in a very real way, right now.

What followed was a 5,000-word email conversation about the issue, which finally ended in complete agreement with my original post.

Here’s where the ‘learning experience’ happens.

Re-reading the 10 pages of conversation I realized that this was information nearly anyone could benefit from. I asked if, perhaps, I could share an anonymised version of the conversation with others.

The answer was a horrified emphatic ‘no!’

I realized after some thought that I had changed contexts; from a private conversation to a public forum. No, nothing had really changed, and I certainly hadn’t shared anything with anyone. But simply asking the question was unexpected; the surprise we’re supposed to be avoiding.

Don’t go around surprising people. It doesn’t work.

The first doesn’t exist, and the second is not why you’re in business.

If you’re in business for the right reasons, you love what you do; it’s what gets you out of bed in the morning. Of course you love your family; of course you have other interests besides work. No respectable person puts work ahead of family; no reasonable person only has one interest, to the exclusion of all others.

But you’d better love what you’re doing, especially if you’re self-employed. Honestly, why would you hire yourself to do a job you don’t like?

So, let’s assume that your work is just another manifestation of your passion.

Do you really expect to take it off and put it on like a sweater? And what does it have to do with money?

Sometimes I work late into the night, missing some family time because I’m in the zone. Sometimes. But, just as often; more often, actually, I take time in the middle of a ‘business day’ to spend time with my wife, my daughters, my friends. I take time, right in the middle of the week, away from work and the office, to share in spiritual activities with my family. I stop work at 4:00 most days to work on an album of jazz songs I’m writing with my older daughter; then, I go back to what I was doing. Or, I don’t. I keep my goals loose and flexible where possible, so I can decide how to spend my time.

Work/life balance means being balanced in my own head, not balanced on a clock or calendar.

And money? C’mon; I’d do 90% of what I’m doing right now, even if I had enough money to retire. I love writing. I love coaching solo professionals, writers, musicians, helping them communicate with their prospects and fans better to establish trust and build relationships. I love my web business; sorting out what’s needed, designing tools, doing usability studies, helping clients build what they really need instead of what they think they need. (Okay, if I really had money, I’d offload the coding to someone more talented than me.)

I love to barter. If someone has a skill I can benefit from, and they need something I can do, I want to work with them. What I don’t want is to turn our genuine human caring into a commercial enterprise. Fer cryin’ out loud; the whole point of my consulting business and my writing is to do exactly the opposite, to get businesses to be more human, to stop behaving like abstract entities with no soul, and start speaking and trusting and caring like real human beings do.

Work/life balance is how you choose to serve yourself and the ones you love, every minute of every day; choices about the long run, not the moment.

And, in the long run, it’s not about money. Not ever.