My friend and co-author Sally Kuhlman wrote an excellent article on New Year’s Resolutions that I wanted to share with you. I believe a number of us at this time of year waiting for January so we can “start over” or fix things we consider “broken”, but why do we wait? You can start a new resolution any day, any time of the year!! Read on:

We waste a lot of time waiting for things.
Have you ever said any of the following statements?
I’ll join the gym and start exercising in January.
I can’t put my website up until I have the perfect logo.
I’ll go to that networking meeting after I get my new business cards.

What are you waiting for? What is your excuse?

We all make resolutions on New Years and we all know what usually happens to those resolutions.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
–Albert Einstein.

Why wait until the New Year to set your resolutions that probably are not going to happen anyway? You can set goals today, make an action plan and put yourself in the driver’s seat of your life today!

The first step in setting goals is to know what you want. If you don’t know what you want, how are you going to get it?

Take out a sheet of paper and write down ten things that you want to accomplish.

Now take those ten things and write them in the present, positive form. For example, if you want to make $50,000 a year; write I earn $50,000 a year. If you want to go to the gym three times a week; write I go to the gym three times a week.

Now, pick one goal and write down every thing you need to do to reach that goal. If your goal is to get one more client what are you going to do to get that client?

Start with writing your goal in a present, positive statement at the top of the paper.
Goal: I have one new client.
Action Steps:
1. Attend at least one networking event per week (Research networking events in your area – ie. Chamber of Commerce, BNI, Toastmasters)
2. Join one new online networking forum. Network online – network with peers and potential clients. Research online forums. Join forum, introduce myself and participate in discussions.
3. Follow up with potential clients. Make phone calls, send handwritten letters, send emails.
4. Send sales letters to target market. Research and get addresses of target market, write letters, mail letters, follow up with phone call.
5. Spread the word! Talk about what you do. Be proud. Tell your mom, the bank teller, the cashier at the grocery store, your kid’s teacher, the lady at the dog park, everyone! Be excited about what you do.

Now focus on your goals. Read your list of goals everyday. Read them twice a day! Read them in the morning and before bed. Do the action steps. Add them to your to do list. Commit to taking charge of your life. You have a choice. You can sit around watching TV and surfing the internet or you can be taking action steps to get you closer to reaching your goals. What are you waiting for? Go! Get in the driver’s seat now!

About Sally Kuhlman
Sally Kuhlman, founder of Virtual Simplicity provides administrative, marketing and technical support to entrepreneurs and non-profits.Managing and developing a growth-oriented business is something that all businesses strive for, including Sally Kuhlman, owner of Virtual Simplicity and Yvonne Weld, owner of Able Virtual Assistant Services. They decided to combine their knowledge and wrote a book, “Managing Your Thriving Business for Success” which gives you the tools to successfully manage your own thriving business. For more information about getting organized, setting goals and managing your thriving business, visit http://www.thrivingbusinessmanual.com/managing

My dear friend Heather has just developed an e-book which is just awesome. For anyone thinking of starting a newsletter, this e-book tells you how to start a newsletter, how to find content for your newsletter and provides a number of invaluable tips and hints in how to market and publish your newsletter.

Newsletters are a great way to keep in touch with clients and other colleagues and everyone should have one. Please take a look and the best thing …. it is only $7.

Expand Your Business One Subscriber at a Time

The old saying “you’ll never get to where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re going” couldn’t be truer when it comes to running a business. Every business should operate by a plan, a plan that pulls all your goals together and can serve as a blueprint of your business. Why is this important? There are many reasons. What if you needed someone to step in and help you run your business for one reason or another? What would you do? What would they do? If you document your business procedures, anyone can step in and help. Documenting your procedures also gives you an opportunity to examine and improve them. It can help to improve communication throughout your organization and communication is important when trying to keep customer service in the forefront. Let’s take a deeper look at some of these areas.

Documenting your business procedures and policies is critical because it allows anyone to step in without the fear that they can’t do it as well as you can. It can give you the chance you need for a well-deserved break or help you out in the event you are sick or injured. Imagine the time saved, the frustration alleviated and the confusion cleared up when everything that needs to be done is written down – available for all who need it. The benefit to your clients is obvious. They would continue to purchase product or services with no break in service or quality. But that’s not the only benefit of documenting your procedures; it gives you a chance to look for ways to improve or enhance and is critical in reaching your goals.

When documenting your procedures look for ways you can improve your operations and procedures – how you can become more efficient. If you work with others, or others work for you, talk to them and ask them if they have ideas for ways to improve products or services. Often, they have feedback that can be very beneficial. Don’t be afraid to look at other company’s procedures for new ideas or different ways of thinking. Sometimes the combination of the two can result in higher efficiency and lower cost. Most importantly, be sure to listen to your employees or subcontractors. Not doing so can lead to miscommunication, frustration and inefficiency.

Take this opportunity to examine areas where there seems to be a lack of communication. Are you finding differing opinions and ways things are being handled or done by your employees or subcontractors or from client to client? If so, you’ll want to address that immediately. Customer service is crucial to creating and maintaining a thriving business and consistency is one of the keys to great customer service. Your customers or clients need to know that what they expect to happen will happen – every time, without failure. This creates a confidence in your clients that you can’t buy.

So create a plan, pull all your goals together and then you’ll know exactly where you’re going. Documenting your procedures and policies lets others know where you’re going as well. That way, if need be, they can help you down the path.

Finally, don’t be afraid to use customer surveys and questionnaires to determine the areas that your procedures and protocols are lacking in customer service. Again, remember customer service is one of the biggest keys to creating and maintaining a successful thriving business. Your clients use your products or services so they know.

Recently I met with a photographer friend and we were discussing my Virtual Assistant business. I had never thought about the benefits that a photographer could gain from partnering with a Virtual Assistant until I spoke with her. Our conversation opened my eyes to a whole new market I had never considered, but the more I thought about it, the more excited I became by the prospects. I started to make a plan and make a list of the ways that such a partnership could be best utilized.

1. Website Maintenance

Utilizing a Virtual Assistant to upload recent photographs, set up client galleries and maintain pricing and availability schedules on a photographers’ website is an invaluable service. Many photographers spend so much time maintaining their website; time they would much rather be utilizing behind the camera. Other photographers utilize their web designers and find that the prices are much higher than a Virtual Assistant’s price and the turnaround time is often longer than a Virtual Assistant’s is.

2. Blog Maintenance

Many photographers have begun to blog about their experiences and share their personalities with prospective clients. Virtual Assistants could easily upload articles, photos and stories to the photographer’s blog and also insert links to helpful information for the photographer’s prospective clients. For those photographers that are not as computer savvy, but realize the advantage of the personal contact a blog can provide, can use a Virtual Assistant that can provide services to, not only maintain your blog, but install a blog as well.

3. Client Contact and Follow Up

Virtual Assistants are a great asset in maintaining client contact on your behalf. A simple greeting, sent in the photographer’s behalf, on a wedding anniversary is one of those touches that not all photographers have the time to provide. Your Virtual Assistant can keep track of the important dates and make sure that your clients are never forgotten. Christmas cards, thank you notes and birthday greetings are just a few other contacts that your Virtual Assistant can make on your behalf. Perhaps you have always thought of sending a survey to your clients. Wouldn’t it be great to have this taken care of for you? Your clients are more likely to provide honest feedback to your VA and your VA can provide you with a summary of the survey results for future marketing and business operation decision making.

4. Email Management

Many photographers would love to have someone reply to the many inquiries they receive via email. Simple messages of unavailability, directing potential clients to online portfolios and a thank you for inquiries are just some of the emails that could easily be answered on a photographer’s behalf. Imagine only having to deal with one email each day with a summary of the emails received and how they were handled on your behalf.

5. Scheduling and Appointment Setting

Virtual Assistants can maintain a calendar on your behalf of availabilities, bookings and appointments with potential clients. By allowing someone else to schedule your appointments, you can spend more time being creative. Your Virtual Assistant would simply work with an online calendar of which you would both have access and would also provide you with daily, weekly, monthly and yearly agendas. Reminder calls are just another way that your Virtual Assistant can assist you in making sure that potential clients are never left waiting and appointments are never missed.

6. Marketing Materials

A Virtual Assistant can work with you to create a portfolio, promo package or other marketing materials required for meetings with potential clients, trade shows and networking events. Virtual Assistants can also create and maintain a newsletter to update past clients and provide potential clients with great information on what is happening in your business.

7. Basic Administration and Research

Typing of contracts, filing, proofreading services, formatting documents and voice mail management are just a few of the many secretarial type tasks that your Virtual Assistant can provide on your behalf. Your Virtual Assistant can also conduct market research to see what your competition is up to and find out what potential clients are looking for.

8. Database Management

A Virtual Assistant can not only create a database of your past and present clients, but they can also maintain this database. They can track important dates and maintain contact with your clients. They can also track prospects and leads, as well as referral partners and potential joint venture partners. Other things that can be maintained in a database are inventory, pricing and promotions. Any data you would like to maintain a list of can easily be accomplished by your Virtual Assistant.

9. Bookkeeping

Even those Virtual Assistants that don’t specialize in bookkeeping services (and several do), can still provide bookkeeping services such as creation of invoices, tracking of deposits paid and accounts payable management. Your Virtual Assistant can work hand-in-hand with your accountant or bookkeeper to ensure that your financial matters are kept up-to-date and worry free.

10. Organizational Tasks and Business Support

Just having a partnership with a Virtual Assistant provides you with the ability to bounce ideas off someone for future development and growth of your business. Your Virtual Assistant will be open to offering you feedback and suggestions in how to better organize your files, time and business for even greater success. After all, if you don’t succeed, neither does your Virtual Assistant.

Remember, the single most important thing about partnering with a Virtual Assistant is that you are gaining an invaluable member of your team. Your new partner will be there only when you need them with invaluable expertise and a drive to succeed and make your business thrive.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Yvonne Weld is the owner of ABLE Virtual Assistant Services and offers administrative and bookkeeping support to busy solopreneurs. She is also the author of The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Thriving Business and Managing Your Thriving Business for Success. For more information and for your free downloads, visit her Web site.

The only way to stay ahead of the game – to truly have a thriving business – is to always keep your eye on your competition. You have to continually research your competition, find new and innovative ways to stay on the “cutting edge”, continually review your products and services, and make sure you can deliver. So how can you do all this and run your business at the same time? This article will give you ideas you can start using in your business today!

The best way to stay ahead of your competition is to keep your eye on them. You may be thinking that I already said that. You’d be correct. But it bears repeating. If you don’t keep track of your competition you’re setting yourself up for some problems down the road. So how can you track your competition? There are several ways. You can set up Google alerts on the Internet. You’ll receive a daily email with links to sites that mention or are published by your competition. You can also read journals, newspapers and business magazines in your industry. Often you’ll find very valuable information contained in them. Be sure to monitor business television programs, radio and podcasts if those are appropriate tools in your industry. So, essentially, the best ideas on how to stay ahead of the competition include continually researching your competition.

You’ll also need to find new and innovative ideas to stay on the “cutting edge”. You’ll need to continually update and enhance your products and services with the latest technology. If you don’t and your competition does, you’ll quickly be left in the dust. A great way to track what’s new in your industry is again by reading trade journals and watching business television shows or listening to business broadcasts. It all depends on your industry.

Not only do you need to stay on the cutting edge of technology and other advances, you must also keep current with what your clients are looking for. Continual reviews of your company’s products and services are critical to meeting your clients’ needs. If you’re not providing what your customers are looking for, they will go to someone who is. The key to repeat business is continually meeting your clients’ changing needs, effortlessly. This is largely customer service and is one of the keys to creating and maintaining a thriving business.

Don’t mislead your clients though. So many products and services overuse words such as “new and improved” and “enhanced” – make sure what you are promising you can deliver. Your reputation is on the line. Over-promising and under-delivering can be very detrimental to your business growth. In fact, your business may not survive if word-of-mouth is the primary source of your client contacts or leads. Reputation is another one of the keys to a thriving business. It’s like trying to grow a plant without water – it’s just not possible. They must have water to survive and to thrive. You must have a fantastic reputation to attract clients and succeed in obtaining the ever-important repeat business.

Staying ahead of the game is not as hard as it may seem. A careful plan – actually it should be part of your business plan – outlining how you will track your competition, develop new and innovative ideas, stay on the cutting edge, and meet ever-changing customer needs is critical to a successful thriving business. Feed and nourish your business as you would any other living thing and you will be on the road to creating a thriving business for yourself.

I am so excited to say that my friend Sally and I have officially launched our book today. “Managing Your Thriving Business for Success”. This book is the 2nd in my series of Creating a Thriving Business.

”Managing Your Thriving Business for Success” provides you with the tools to successfully manage your own thriving business through the introduction of proper business strategies. Success can be easily attributed to seven key factors which are outlined in the book:

• Good time management and scheduling
• Setting goals and evaluating them continually
• Setting boundaries and sticking to them
• Good business planning, both short term and long term
• Evaluating our return on investment for every business decision
• Ensuring that we don’t “Go it Alone”
• Proper stress management

By utilizing the management techniques discussed in the book you will reach your goal of having a successful and thriving business.

The introductory price for this book is $29.95 and you can get more information at our website at Managing Your Thriving Business for Success