Social Networking: Must or Time-Drain?

For most people, the answer might be both.

As a small business owner, you probably read about the importance of social media networking in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. You might even have a Facebook Fan Page for your business.

All these networks are wonderful to generate more contacts, to gain more visibility for your business and expand your contacts. However, many small business owners also realize that once they have all their profiles set up, participating becomes an incredible time-draining activity with no specific or direct or measurable benefit for their business.

Here are THREE key points to help you make the most out of this important social marketing activity. Make sure you:

Plan it! As with any marketing activity you perform for your business, make a plan that includes not only objectives but also an action plan. Set specific goals to ensure your social networking happens for a reason and will help you get more leads and/or clients.

Schedule it! Allocate time for your social networking activity. You don't need to be available all the time. If you participate you must realize social media implies a two-way communications channel. You will have to respond and be active, but organizing this will ensure you make the most out of your time on these social networking sites.

Automatize it! There are many great online tools to systematize several parts of your social networking communications. Familiarize yourself with the tools available and implement the necessary ones to make your time on these networks a productive one. Better yet--hand this task over to your Virtual Assistant!

Written by:Owner of The Bilingual VA, Victoria Miles for Virtual Assistant Networking.com

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Three Tips for Effective Time Management for Professionals

Is time management one of your biggest challenges? You are certainly not alone if that is the case. Many small business owners and other professionals are always looking for ways to make better use of their time. If finding a way to implement strategies for effective time management is something that appeals to you, you may find the tips and ideas presented here to be beneficial. Keep in mind that not everyone has the same time management problems. Look for tips that can have a positive impact on your own personal time management challenges.

3 Time Management Tips for Professionals
1. Get Organized – If you are disorganized, you’ll end up spending a lot of time each day looking for things, which is a complete waste of your time. Instead of wasting time searching for items, set aside a chunk of time to get organized and include time in each week’s to-do list to spend time getting re-organized. When you get in the habit of doing this, everything in your office will be in it’s proper place so you won’t find yourself wasting time searching for items that aren’t where they should be.

2. Reduce Socializing at Work – If people tend to stop by your office regularly to socialize, and you find yourself getting embroiled in lengthy conversations that keep you from taking care of your work responsibilities, you have a time management challenge caused by too much socializing. Consider rearranging your workspace so that it’s difficult for people to camp out in your workspace for long periods of time. Try placing the visitor’s chairs in your office so they aren’t right by the entrance to your office, or place stacks of books or files in the chairs. You may also want to get into the habit of standing up when people enter your office. This can be a signal to them to keep the conversation short and sweet.

3. Plan Your Work Wisely – When coming up with a plan for getting your work completed, think about what times of day or days of the week seem to work best for certain tasks. If you experience a drop in energy during the afternoon, schedule tasks that you consider mundane – such as filing or updating your computerized contact directory – for that time of day. If you are at your most energetic during the morning hours, use that time to contact prospective clients and to work on those parts of your job that require maximum creativity and energy. If the phone seems to ring endlessly on Friday afternoons, make sure that you’ve taken care of all of your deadline work for the week before then.

Article taken from the Small Business Channel at American Banking News - October 11

Business Marketing Tips

As interviewed: John Jantsch, Founder, Duct Tape Marketing for Score.org

What are some starting points for crafting an effective
marketing strategy?

1. Talk to your customers. They have a better sense of what makes you unique—the things that generate loyalty and referrals. Ask them what you do that they like, and you may be surprised by the responses. It may well be the little things that set you apart.

2. Build a network of strategic partners. Surround yourself with best-of-class providers of products and services that customers need. Recommend them to your customers and they’ll do the same for you. During the recession, organizations that delivered these kinds
of referrals didn’t suffer much.

What are some helpful metrics a small business should consider for gauging the effectiveness of a marketing strategy?

Setting goals for revenue and profit are obvious choices. But also consider percentage of business from referrals, and satisfaction factors that your customers say make the difference for them.
Again, you’ll likely uncover qualities about your business that you’d never thought of.

Take Your Dream From Concept to Company

Every aspiring entrepreneur maintains a vision of what professional success looks and feels like for them. However, as tangible as it may be in mind, transforming that concept into reality presents challenges. “Essentially a vision is long term, or a fast-forward look at where you want to be,” says Dee Marshall, life coach and founder of Raise The Bar, a Newark, New Jersey-based coaching and consulting practice. “In order to make the vision a reality you have to begin with organizing your thoughts,” Marshall says. She recommends utilizing a vision board—images, pictures and affirmations of your dreams and desires compiled in a central location such as on a poster board or in a book—to help organize your thoughts into a visual concept. With pictures, words, and even actual objects, goals such as those you may have you’re your business can be literally brought to life. But what do you do after you’ve created the vision board and are ready to put action towards those aspirations?

Here, Marshall offers six ways to get your business off the ground: Put it on paper. Create a one page outline that includes a mission statement, vision statement and objectives. “If you can’t come up with a one-pager, then it could be an indication you are not ready for entrepreneurship,” warns Marshall. But even that shouldn’t deter you, because it is common to have difficulty writing down objectives and goals initially. It can also be a driving force when obtaining goals becomes challenging.

Apply SMART guidelines.

Specific: Vagueness leaves room for error. Being as precise as possible limits the chances of confusion in implementing your goals and objectives.

Measurable: Pursue goals that will offer you the ability to, at any point in the process, evaluate your effectiveness in actualizing them successfully.

Action-oriented: Shape your objectives around actions that will bring you closer to fulfilling your vision.

Results driven: Goals and objectives you focus on should provide concrete tangible outcomes.

Time bound: Attach and stick to a realistic deadline.

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Time to Reclaim Time (and the Confidence of Your Clients and Customers)

Flying by the seat of your pants is no way to run a business. Playing fast and loose robs you of flexibility. It creates havoc, and instills disorganization and unprofitability in your business. You might kid yourself into thinking your lack of structure is not evident from the outside, but I guarantee you, clients, colleagues and others you work with recognize it loud and clear via untimely follow-up, missed deadlines and poor communication.

The more intentioned and methodic you are with your processes, the more freedom, flexibility and organization you give yourself and your business. One of the very best ways to reclaim ownership of your time also uses one of the simplest tools available--your calendar! Following the steps below will help put you on the path to gaining control over your time and workload, and maintaining the confidence of those who choose to work with you.

1. Holidays, Vacations and Other Days Off. First, enter all holidays, known vacations and any other days you intend to be closed. If you take two or more days off for certain major holidays, be sure and mark those "closed" on your calendar as well. At the beginning of each month, schedule a reminder to give clients and others a courtesy notice of your planned days of unavailability.

2. Dedicated Days. Do you have a dedicated day of the week for something in particular? For example, Mondays are my administration days. I don't conduct any client business and am "closed" to them on that day each week. Some people like to take Fridays off in their business to attend networking or training functions or just have a plain old "mental space" day to keep their creative juices flowing. Whatever the case, be sure and enter those dedicated days on your calendar.

3. Regular Meetings & Tasks. Do you have regularly scheduled meetings or tasks you perform each week or month? Get those on the calendar. (TIP: Uninterrupted work time is necessary for critical thought and concentration; avoid taking calls or scheduling meetings during your main project schedule. You might consider devoting one day of the week or only certain hours of the day for meetings and phone calls).

4. Routines. What are your routines? Do you tend to use the first part of the morning for getting in gear, taking care of loose ends and checking emails? Then schedule it! For example, I block out every morning until 11am for just such purposes and never schedule meetings before then.

5. To Dos and Deadlines. Setting aside time on your calendar for errands and other to-dos will help get them accomplished. Likewise, if you have important deadlines you mustn't forget, enter those dates as notes. (TIP: Add the actual deadline date on your calendar, and set the auto-reminder to alert you several days or a week in advance to give yourself plenty of breathing room.)

6. Break and Lunches. Taking breaks and lunches is good for you and your business (no one is served by you being tired, hungry or stressed out). If you're one of those folks who has to be reminded to tear yourself away from your work to take care of yourself, add these to your calendar as well.

The time you are left with is your available project/work schedule. You can be as meticulous or free-flowing with this time as best fits your work style. If you have a mix of clients and odds and ends work of varying degrees of complexity, you might not feel the need to schedule every little thing, and instead prefer to just get things done one after the other during those open blocks of work time.

If you have a few larger projects that require a bit more planning and coordination, you might see fit to schedule dedicated hours for each project to better manage them. Either way, the system above will give you the structure and foundation in order to better manage your business and workload. You'll get more done, be more organized, and those who work with you will recognize (and appreciate) the huge difference it makes.

Author: Danielle Keister is a business advisor and innovator in the Virtual Assistance profession.

Facebook 101

This week, I attended Facebook 101 for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners, facilitated by Terri Holley of Creative Blog Solutions. The class was extremely informative. Although I am a Facebook user for both business and personal purposed, the workshop gave me excellent "nuggets" of information that will enable me to enhance my experience.

For example, did you know that you can customize a page on your Facebook site so that its more brand focused? The benefit of this would be so that people who are not your friends will land on it and get an idea of you and your brand.

We also learned about ways to make all of our social media avenues come together. As always Terri laid things out in an easy to understand manner. It was alot of information, but I did not feel overwhelmed by it. I would highly suggest it to anyone looking to learn the world of or enhance your current experience with FACEBOOK.