This blog post has been authored by Stand Out Online Member Mackenzie Thomas, Cascade Virtual
So you have a product or service you want to sell….how exciting!
You’ve gotten the word out, made your first sale and are finding out that the amount of time you are putting into running your business (i.e. scheduling meetings, client follow up, requesting reviews and any form of marketing and website updates) is what you are spending most of your day on.
In fact, you’re spending so much of your day on it that you are finding the time you have to dedicate to the reason you went into business in the first place is far and few between.
As a result, of the clients/customers you are able to attract the product/service originally intended is still in its prototype phase rather than you becoming the expert in your field you know you can be. The opportunity for great reviews gets farther and few between and eventually you decide to shut your doors.
You didn’t go into business to develop your marketing or administrative skills. You went into business to share your genius with those who need it most and the best business strategy is always a satisfied customer…..so what’s a business owner to do?
Here are 5 things your team should be doing to push your business forward daily
1. Social Media: Just because the platform exists doesn’t mean you should be on it.
Creative marketing is the reason people are able to make millions of dollars selling painted rocks. If you have a product/service to sell, believe me their is a tribe of people just waiting to buy it.
The invention of social media has established the greatest opportunity for creative marketing available in the most saturated market possible. Chances are, you already have a page on 1-4 platforms that you are updating at least weekly with a clever meme, inspirational quote or short video and getting 1-5 or even 0 people interacting with your content.
There is no trick to social media. It’s simply effective when you are able to establish which platforms are the places your tribe hangs out, what content they are interested in when it comes to your product/services and being intentional & consistent about posting that content. But is that the best use of your time?
2. Automate! Automate! Automate! But not like a robot!
Most website platforms and email marketing software give you an opportunity to automate responses to those who interact with your online presence. What’s great about these is the comfort it gives the person interacting knowing their action is being seen while allowing you to control the cadence of their path through that interaction. These automations are great for things like receipts for purchases, auto responses to those who reach out to you using your website and scheduling. Automations however lose their usefulness and become more of a show of “client class” in your business when they are used outside of these contexts.
3. Manufacturing Personal Touch
From the largest to the smallest of companies, personal touch is a necessity. Personal touch comes in all forms and it’s cadence depends on the type of business you are providing. For example, if you own a coaching business, your clients are going to want to feel a personal connection with you. That means being able to know something about each one that allows you to interact with them individually and in a group setting as if each is your only client.
If you are Apple Inc. and you sell daily use technology products that people purchase because of the aesthetic & price tag, allowing them to be part of an exclusive group immediately, being an individual when it comes to your services becomes less important.
4. Second in Command
The most important people to have on your team is two fold. A “creative” capable of managing your marketing efforts and an admin. who handles the day to day interworking of your business which at some point will include managing other staff members and creating a company standard operating procedure (SOP) manual as your company grows. The worst thing you can do for the growth and organization of your business is to manage it yourself. We call that treading water.
5.Being Realistic Will Make Every Season of Your Business Better Than the Season Before it
Right now, you fall into one of two categories:
1. The place your business is in now is the place you dreamed of it being in at some point in the past.
2. You are fighting to get back to a place you were in that you deemed as success in the past.
The key word to both is “past“.
The world is changing all the time and like Madonna and JLo you need to be willing to keep up with the changes in your industry to remain relevant and in demand. Setting realistic annual, quarterly, monthly and weekly goals with your team creates an environment of success even if those goals get modified. Even in modification you will still know you are moving forward and making the necessary changes to streamline for demand and as we all learned in ECO.101, increased demand, increased supply.
Mackenzie is a Business Growth and Delegation Strategist at Cascade Virtual- Virtual Assistants and Remote Workforce Solutions. She works daily to liberate lady business owners to scale their businesses by showing them the streams of income available to them through streamlining their business and pairing them with the ideal Virtual Assistant to delegate necessary administrative tasks to.