I recently conducted a survey of entrepreneurs who are still doing everything themselves. I discovered that the #1 reason why entrepreneurs hold back from investing in support is they still believe that the cost to build a team is greater than the potential revenue growth.
Well that's just baloney!
In my experience, the fastest, most direct path to making more money is getting things done with speed. And if you are trying to get everything done yourself, well, then it's just not all going to get done is it? So what suffers? Your income!
I've made it my mission this month to help everyone discover the 9 Simple Virtual Team Outsourcing Tips to Make More Money in Record Time. I'll share them with you here and I hope you will pass it on to others who really need to discover how profitable it can be to outsource and delegate!
1. Follow Up And Thank You Cards. Do you have a stack of business cards that you never followed up with? Delegating the follow up to a Virtual Assistant can not only save you time but ensure that your prospects have a higher likelihood of actually becoming clients!
2. Setting Up Products On Other Sites. If you have products, books, audio programs then hire an assistant to post your marketing materials on 3rd party sites.
3. Affiliate Management. Affiliates are a great marketing strategy, but can be overwhelming if you are managing it yourself. Train a Virtual Assistant (or find one who is a specialist for a bit more) and watch the $$ roll in.
4. Email Blasts. 50% of my income is generated from every email blast that goes out. Why not have a team member create and manage your email blast campaigns for you?
5. Blogging & Social Networking. This latest craze deserves attention, but keeping up with it can be time consuming. Hire an intern, trainee or low-cost blogging expert to keep up with this marketing technique. If done properly, it works!
6. Event Announcements. Getting your events posted on all the sites for increased visibility can take a lot of time. The benefits are increasing your list size and potential sales. Train your Virtual Assistant to post your marketing materials on these sites and watch your #'s go up!
7. Speaker & Teleclass Bookings. Do you have time to contact all the potential speaking gigs out there? Probably not, but your virtual assistant can. Increase your bookings by allowing someone on your team to make the connections for you.
8. Product Fulfillment. Get a 3rd party company to take over shipping your products. Use a company like Vervante. Your customer service ratings will go up, and so will your sales!
9. Bookkeeping. Believe it or not, outsourcing your bookkeeping actually makes you money. First, you aren't making money while you are updating your bank records. Second, most of us make tons of mistakes costing us lots of money.
Did you get some great ideas here? If you put just one of these money-making opportunities into place this month, imagine how much more you can accomplish! If you are just getting started, you might want to test the waters with just one delegate task. Once you see how quickly it pays off, you will want to outsource more. Good luck!
Melanie Benson Strick, Million Dollar Lifestyle Business Coach & Virtual Team Building Expert, teaches business marketing strategy
business ideas and entrepreneurs how to stop feeling overwhelmed so they can create more money, freedom and prestige.
Going Green by Going Virtual - Top 10 Tips For Creating a Virtual Work Environment
Many companies are supporting a virtual work environment, which means that their employees have the freedom to work from wherever they wish. These companies don't believe in long drawn out meetings, endless phone calls, and wasteful "office chatter". However, they do support work/life balance and team building. Because of this, these companies are often far more efficient than most, i.e., work that a normal 40 hour a week employee can do, their employees typically get it done in about 15-20. Also, companies that choose to go virtual have an overhead that is extremely low, are reducing their carbon footprint by reducing waste.
Here are the top 10 tips for taking your office virtual.
1. Be comfortable with the technology - Instant Messaging Programs, Skype or another web based phone system (for international calls) and e-mail are all necessities when going virtual.
2. Phone service - Thinkbright.net is a good, reliable internet phone service provider. You buy the phones, give them to your employees, and can have anywhere from 1-4 extensions. As long as your employees have internet connections at home, they plug them in, and calls can be transferred to them just like you're in an office. It doesn't affect their internet connection. This is an inexpensive alternative to the larger phone companies.
3. File sharing - A great file sharing program like Yousendit.com or Google Docs, helps to eliminate the need to print out large documents
4. Virtual faxing: The online fax service, myfax.com, is ideal for sending and receiving faxes. Your documents can be scanned, uploaded and sent, just like a real fax machine. You also get your own fax number with whatever area code you'd like.
5. Be flexible - Find other places to work, rather than the home office, at least twice per week. This change of environment will help to keep your mind sharp, and eliminate the onset of boredom. Remember, you're doing this to stay away from cube life, not to enhance it. If you don't need to be by the phone all day, or don't mind making calling back from your cell phone, find a local library, coffee shop, or outdoor venue that you can work from. This will keep things interesting.
6. Regular meetings - Have regular weekly meetings with your staff - with a pre-set agenda for each meeting. Keep these meetings to no more than 1.5 hours. Encourage everyone to become prepared with a brief summary of their reports, and any un-resolved issues that weren't able to be solved during the week. This also encourages team building.
7. No matter who you are meeting with, always have an agenda and stick to it
8. Be-communicative - Encourage lots of communication between your co-workers and employees.
9. Independent contractors - Look into hiring independent contractors. Websites such as sologig.com, guru.com and elance.com are good places to find qualified people to do projects that you just don't have the time for.
10. Tracking - Track the results of your virtual program and record how much you are spending, vs. how much you are saving by going virtual.
Although working virtually may not be for everyone (surgeons, heavy equipment operators, actors, etc.), there are many opportunities for those that would like to ditch their office and have more flexibility in their work life.
Since 2002, we have been providing marketing departments, under the direction of Prachel Carter, to companies who just don't have the time to handle it themselves. We have assisted over 200 busy managers and entrepreneurs with marketing support tasks such as News Releases, Copywriting, Marketing Research, Customer Surveys, and Brochure Development & Design. Because we are a Green company, we offer our services primarily to companies that are Eco-Friendly. Visit our site at http://www.soulstice.net
Here are the top 10 tips for taking your office virtual.
1. Be comfortable with the technology - Instant Messaging Programs, Skype or another web based phone system (for international calls) and e-mail are all necessities when going virtual.
2. Phone service - Thinkbright.net is a good, reliable internet phone service provider. You buy the phones, give them to your employees, and can have anywhere from 1-4 extensions. As long as your employees have internet connections at home, they plug them in, and calls can be transferred to them just like you're in an office. It doesn't affect their internet connection. This is an inexpensive alternative to the larger phone companies.
3. File sharing - A great file sharing program like Yousendit.com or Google Docs, helps to eliminate the need to print out large documents
4. Virtual faxing: The online fax service, myfax.com, is ideal for sending and receiving faxes. Your documents can be scanned, uploaded and sent, just like a real fax machine. You also get your own fax number with whatever area code you'd like.
5. Be flexible - Find other places to work, rather than the home office, at least twice per week. This change of environment will help to keep your mind sharp, and eliminate the onset of boredom. Remember, you're doing this to stay away from cube life, not to enhance it. If you don't need to be by the phone all day, or don't mind making calling back from your cell phone, find a local library, coffee shop, or outdoor venue that you can work from. This will keep things interesting.
6. Regular meetings - Have regular weekly meetings with your staff - with a pre-set agenda for each meeting. Keep these meetings to no more than 1.5 hours. Encourage everyone to become prepared with a brief summary of their reports, and any un-resolved issues that weren't able to be solved during the week. This also encourages team building.
7. No matter who you are meeting with, always have an agenda and stick to it
8. Be-communicative - Encourage lots of communication between your co-workers and employees.
9. Independent contractors - Look into hiring independent contractors. Websites such as sologig.com, guru.com and elance.com are good places to find qualified people to do projects that you just don't have the time for.
10. Tracking - Track the results of your virtual program and record how much you are spending, vs. how much you are saving by going virtual.
Although working virtually may not be for everyone (surgeons, heavy equipment operators, actors, etc.), there are many opportunities for those that would like to ditch their office and have more flexibility in their work life.
Since 2002, we have been providing marketing departments, under the direction of Prachel Carter, to companies who just don't have the time to handle it themselves. We have assisted over 200 busy managers and entrepreneurs with marketing support tasks such as News Releases, Copywriting, Marketing Research, Customer Surveys, and Brochure Development & Design. Because we are a Green company, we offer our services primarily to companies that are Eco-Friendly. Visit our site at http://www.soulstice.net
Why You Need to Submit Your Site URL to a Deep Links Directory
If you are running your business primarily from the Internet, then one of the main things that you will need is traffic to your site. There is a direct correlation between the amount of traffic that you receive to your site and how successful you are online. One of the ways that you can increase your website traffic is by submitting inner links, or pages, of your website to a deep links directory. By doing this, you will increase the chances that your website is ranked better in the search engines; and as a result, you receive more visitors.
One of the reasons that people visit the link directories is because they need to find what they are looking for quickly and do not have extra time to waste. Savvy Internet surfers know that when they are looking for an article on a specific topic that the best way to find one is by visiting a web directory that features deep links to websites.
One of the most annoying things, as cited by many web surfers, is having to search through tons of junk just to find what they are looking for on a site. Deep link directories help you to avoid this pitfall. Instead of surfing through an entire site, visitors can find exactly what they are looking for with a single click of the mouse. Deep link web directories offers surfers this ability.
Whenever you submit web pages on your site besides your home page to a deep links directory, you make it easier for visitors to find the information they are searching for on your website. People are more inclined to bookmark your website when you make it easy for them to find information that they are looking for. And once they know that your site is easy to navigate, they are more likely to return and also to invite friends, relatives, and family. It is proven that repeat website traffic, as well as referrals, is the best kind of traffic to receive. A deep link directory can help your online business accomplish this goal.
There are numerous advantages to submitting your website to a deep link directory. What is not to love about free traffic that boosts your online business' profit potential? In addition, your visitors return and invite others also, which all means more profits for you. And since submissions to deep link directories are often free, you have nothing to lose but if you moments of time.
Author Resource:- Ron Subs works with Web4URL.com, a free deep links directory, as an online business consultant. More information about Ron Subs can be found at http://www.web4url.com
One of the reasons that people visit the link directories is because they need to find what they are looking for quickly and do not have extra time to waste. Savvy Internet surfers know that when they are looking for an article on a specific topic that the best way to find one is by visiting a web directory that features deep links to websites.
One of the most annoying things, as cited by many web surfers, is having to search through tons of junk just to find what they are looking for on a site. Deep link directories help you to avoid this pitfall. Instead of surfing through an entire site, visitors can find exactly what they are looking for with a single click of the mouse. Deep link web directories offers surfers this ability.
Whenever you submit web pages on your site besides your home page to a deep links directory, you make it easier for visitors to find the information they are searching for on your website. People are more inclined to bookmark your website when you make it easy for them to find information that they are looking for. And once they know that your site is easy to navigate, they are more likely to return and also to invite friends, relatives, and family. It is proven that repeat website traffic, as well as referrals, is the best kind of traffic to receive. A deep link directory can help your online business accomplish this goal.
There are numerous advantages to submitting your website to a deep link directory. What is not to love about free traffic that boosts your online business' profit potential? In addition, your visitors return and invite others also, which all means more profits for you. And since submissions to deep link directories are often free, you have nothing to lose but if you moments of time.
Author Resource:- Ron Subs works with Web4URL.com, a free deep links directory, as an online business consultant. More information about Ron Subs can be found at http://www.web4url.com
4 Reasons to Publish an Ezine of Your Own
An Ezine is a word that combines email marketing with magazine. Today people publish Ezines as an online newsletter to provide quality education to their subscribers.
Although an e-zine has lost some of its luster, due to blogging and social networking, it can still be a valuable marketing tool. Here are four reasons to publish an easing of your own if you are not currently doing it.
1. First of all not everyone pays attention to blogs and social networking. There are still a number of people who prefer to sit down and read emails to get their information. This presents an opportunity for you to build a subscriber base of people who want to subscribe to your email newsletter.
2. A second reason to publish an Ezine of your own is it gives you an opportunity to build credibility with your audience. You do not have to always be selling when you send out a message to your list of subscribers.
As a matter of fact, you are better off to provide valuable information that people feel good about reading. Only then will you be able to make sales to them.
3. Having a list of subscribers to your Ezine does give you the opportunity to sell to it as well. You can sell advertising in your Ezine and make money, or you can include product of your own people can buy.
A quality list of subscribers can be worth a fortune to you, and an Ezine allows you to do that in ways that you might not be able to with just a website or blog.
4. If you have a list of your own, you can trade solo ads with other publishers. This allows you access to literally thousands of subscribers it you may not have been able to reach.
You can invite them to subscribe to your own Ezine, as well as offer products that may interest them. There were plenty of other publishers who will let you mail to their list if you are offering a product that does not directly compete with them. You just need to let them have access to mail to your list as well.
This is 4 reasons to publish an Ezine of your own. There are many other reasons, but the bottom line is publishing an Ezine is a great way to build a mailing list and make money at the same time. Anyone can do this with a little bit of effort.
About the Author:
Herbert Davies invites you to visit his home business ideas website to see the Top Picks for 2008. His website is dedicated to researching home business ideas and opportunities that can help you get started today. It includes free work at home opportunities. Please click here now to learn more:==> http://www.honest-home.com
Although an e-zine has lost some of its luster, due to blogging and social networking, it can still be a valuable marketing tool. Here are four reasons to publish an easing of your own if you are not currently doing it.
1. First of all not everyone pays attention to blogs and social networking. There are still a number of people who prefer to sit down and read emails to get their information. This presents an opportunity for you to build a subscriber base of people who want to subscribe to your email newsletter.
2. A second reason to publish an Ezine of your own is it gives you an opportunity to build credibility with your audience. You do not have to always be selling when you send out a message to your list of subscribers.
As a matter of fact, you are better off to provide valuable information that people feel good about reading. Only then will you be able to make sales to them.
3. Having a list of subscribers to your Ezine does give you the opportunity to sell to it as well. You can sell advertising in your Ezine and make money, or you can include product of your own people can buy.
A quality list of subscribers can be worth a fortune to you, and an Ezine allows you to do that in ways that you might not be able to with just a website or blog.
4. If you have a list of your own, you can trade solo ads with other publishers. This allows you access to literally thousands of subscribers it you may not have been able to reach.
You can invite them to subscribe to your own Ezine, as well as offer products that may interest them. There were plenty of other publishers who will let you mail to their list if you are offering a product that does not directly compete with them. You just need to let them have access to mail to your list as well.
This is 4 reasons to publish an Ezine of your own. There are many other reasons, but the bottom line is publishing an Ezine is a great way to build a mailing list and make money at the same time. Anyone can do this with a little bit of effort.
About the Author:
Herbert Davies invites you to visit his home business ideas website to see the Top Picks for 2008. His website is dedicated to researching home business ideas and opportunities that can help you get started today. It includes free work at home opportunities. Please click here now to learn more:==> http://www.honest-home.com