We are very excited to be moving in to the New Year! There have been lots of things going on behind the scenes here at Virtual Business Partners that we wanted to share with you!
Virtual Business Partners has Added New Team Members!
If you haven’t had a chance to visit our team page, I encourage you to do so! Virtual Business Partners is pleased to provide a full suite of services for our clients. We offer web and graphic design, transcription, calling campaign support, video marketing support, remote IT support services, bookkeeping, administrative, media and PR, business development, administrative and marketing support. Our core areas of expertise service clients in the financial services industry, coaches, authors and speakers along with those businesses or business owners who seek generalized assistance. We will be going in to our 6th year of business and we look forward to continued growth!
Learn more about our Administrative Virtual Assistant services.
Learn more about our Coach or Author Virtual Assistant services.
Learn more about our Financial and Insurance Virtual Assistant services.
Get A Jump On 2012 Business Planning!
- Is your marketing plan up to date?
- Are you still unsure of social media? And yes financial planners, you can do this too!
- Do you know what is second in search to Google? Give up? It’s YouTube! Do you have existing video? Would like to know how video can work for you? Did you know that you can repurpose content and turn that in to a video?
- Did you promise yourself last year that you would delegate more and didn’t?
In a recent teleconference given by Dr. Len Schwartz, he recommended, and so do we, the following 4 steps to get a jump start on your 2012 business planning.
- Create a Reactivation Campaign. This includes lost clients, clients who are missing in action and colleagues or people that you haven’t talked to in a while. Do this on a monthly basis! Start reengaging with people again. We are always excited when our clients come to us wanting help in setting this up. A small note can have a BIG impact! Here are some ideas on what to send:
- a. End of year / beginning of year letter or email. Include benefit rich things that you have going on that will serve that audience. Perhaps you will want to offer a free account checkup, or a complimentary coaching session to catch up. These messages need to be compelling and targeted. Let your audience know you are speaking to them! After a few days have your assistant or virtual assistant follow up to make sure they received your message and if they would like to take advantage of your offer.
- Social Media. If you are in financial services, you are allowed to have a personal Facebook page and be able to promote yourself! Having a personal Facebook account versus a business page will also allow you to invite people to come like your page! LinkedIn is another valuable source to promote you and your business. In January 2012, we will be releasing a comprehensive guide for using LinkedIn if you are in financial services.
If you are in other industries, it’s important to determine where you are at with social media and more importantly, where your ideal clients are within the social media realm. When we work with our clients, we customize social media campaigns by knowing how to look up and search for key people to follow, how to develop lists and who to follow on those lists, how to create compelling content to drive traffic to your sit thereby increasing your page likes and follows!
- Positioning Yourself. It is important to know what it is that you do best and what sets you apart from what your competition does. To do this, sit down and write 25 reason why you are different from other people or businesses that do what you do. This is VERY important! For example, are you a knowledge communicator, does your staff have unique skills sets, do you service a particular client niche, are your hours of operation different from most, do your product and service offerings differ from others? What is that sets YOU apart? When you determine this, it’s time to communicate that to your list.
- Internal Referral Strategies. Dr. Schwartz stated that 99% of people do NOT gave effective systems in place. It’s time to make a system that works. Start by asking your clients. You can ask them a question such as, “I was thrilled to be able to help you with XYZ! I wanted to see if you can help me? Do you know of a friend or family member that also needs help?” Because you were able to help your client, they are able to relate and have a true understanding of what you did for them and will be more inclined to help.
- Doreen’s 5th Step – Delegate. It’s important to realize that you can’t do it all. It’s also important to realize that it is very common to feel like you let yourself down because you have to put things off. I can relate. It’s why I do what I do in my business! Letting go is sometimes one of the hardest things to do because often times we feel that no can “do it as good as we can” or that “the wheel has to reinvented over and over”. This is farthest from the truth! When you surround yourself with people who truly have a vested interested in your success and consider themselves to be your business partner for the long haul, you can start to let go and do what it is you were meant to do!
Lastly, we’ve upgraded to a new computer and accounting system! We look forward to honoring our commitment by using the best and most efficient tools in our work.
Source: Dr. Len Schwartz: http://drlenschwartz.com/