What is an LLC? (infographic)

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Rebecca

Great Infographic on what an LLC is.  If you have questions, this will help!

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Are you using FourSquare?

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Rebecca

Foursquare, or as I like to call it “You too can be a stalker!”  has over 10 million users worldwide and over three million check ins per day.  Are you part of the Foursquare mania? It’s easy to do because, like everything else, there’s an app for that. Foursquare’s website boasts that it can “unlock your world”.  Most everyone has heard of Foursquare because it’s been around a while compared to some of the other social media networks, but do you know what it really is?

According to their website “ Foursquare is a location-based mobile platform that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. By “checking in” via a smartphone app or SMS, users share their location with friends while collecting points and virtual badges. Foursquare guides real-world experiences by allowing users to bookmark information about venues that they want to visit and surfacing relevant suggestions about nearby venues. Merchants and brands leverage the foursquare platform by utilizing a wide set of tools to obtain, engage, and retain customers and audiences”.

Check in is based on your GPS location. You can have your Foursquare account linked to your Facebook and Twitter accounts so that when you check in at a location, your check in is shared with your friends and followers. (Which a stalker would love!)  When you check in you can read tips regarding the location from those who have checked in previously or leave your own tip or comment.  As you check in you can unlock badges and become the “mayor” of a location if you have checked in there more times than anyone else, which can get you rewards at that location.  Several retailers offer special deals to everyone who checks in at their location, not just the mayor.  It may be a coupon for a certain percentage off or a free appetizer or dessert.

Foursquare can be especially beneficial for the business owner for several reasons but the most profitable reason is that it is free advertising for the business.  A business can generate a buzz with its special Foursquare offers and with Foursquare being a social platform, users are actively engaging friends and followers with the businesses they checked in at. Consumers often use Foursquare to search for businesses and local establishments to determine what is closest to them.

Some places may not be listed on Foursquare but you can add it.  I’ve added our high school (which I remain the mayor of) and the football stadium.  I’m surprised each time I check in to see who else has checked in. Not many high school students have embraced this Foursquare yet, maybe because their parents can see where they’ve been. While the largest demographic of Foursquare seems to be young people who are college educated and employed, it does appeal to everyone.

So whether you are stalking someone (okay, seriously don’t do that) or you just want to play the game, you should get involved in the Foursquare community.  Every time I check in somewhere I can’t wait to see if I’m the mayor or if I get a special offer. Gotta love the free Chips and Salsa you get at Chili’s when you check in!

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How to Ask for Client Testimonials

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Rebecca

There is no doubt that the best business is repeat, recommended or referred. The most effective way to build your business this way is with testimonials from clients who are enthusiastic and supportive of the work or service you provide. Potential clients want to know you are worthy of their business and they have a tendency to believe what they read from other business owners.

Testimonials can be used in many ways:

  • ·         Post testimonials on your social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn
  • ·         Have a dedicated page on your website or you can have a sidebar with rotating testimonials.
  • ·         You can put testimonials on any of your promotional materials.
  • ·         Having trouble getting a blog together? Gather several testimonials together and post them as a blog.
  • ·         Use one or more on your newsletter each month.
  • ·         Keep all testimonials on letterhead in a notebook for when you are making a sales presentation.

Sometimes it’s hard to ask for testimonials. Here a few ways that makes asking easier:

·         Clients always tell you how great you are, how much they love you, and that they couldn’t live without you.  When they do that you should ask them to put it in writing.  They can post it on your Facebook page under a reviews tab or they can send it to you in an email for you to use on any kind of promotion items.

·         When a client tells you how great you are, ask them if you can use their comment as a testimonial to your work. Write up their comments and ask the customer to review it for accuracy.

·         Ask them to type the referral on their letterhead so you have all of their contact information and post this as a pdf on your website. Having them sign the document makes it more personal and believable.

·         Ask for a testimonial early on in the business relationship.  Clients are always excited and love you the most in the beginning!

·         Put a feedback button on your website.  This is makes it extremely easy for them to leave a testimonial.  Encourage them to let you know their thoughts and “construction criticism” as well, it may help you provide better service in the future.

·         Create a system for asking for referrals.  If you are doing an on-going or long term project for a client, ask for the referral early on when they are the happiest.  If you are doing a simple one time project, ask for a referral when you send them the project invoice.

Be sure to ask permission to use the testimonial on your promotional materials. Don’t use testimonials without names if you can help it.  Adding a city and/or state will also help to assure the authenticity of the quote. Don’t forget to always thank your client for the testimonial. Everyone likes to hear thank you. Getting testimonials from happy clients will help you to become more trustworthy in the eyes of your potential clients. By implementing a testimonial request system and incorporating testimonials into all of your marketing efforts, you’ll create the double effect of establishing credibility with potential clients and inspiriting loyalty in current ones.

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Taking Charge as a Leader

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Rebecca

Leaders who are able to look inside and see their true natural strengths are rare.  But we all have areas in which we excel.  So why not use them to your advantage? 

It all starts with YOU:  Discover your team player style!  Being aware of how you function on a team is an important factor in how your team functions.  By being aware of your unique team player style, you can consciously bring personalities on board who build on your strengths – and shore up your weaknesses. 

A team is not a coincidence.  It is a telling mirror image of the leader who formed it.  What about your team?  Does it reflect your vision?  Focus?  Principles?  Are your team members committed, focused, driven – like you?

No matter how great leaders are (or think they are), they are going to make mistakes.  It’s human nature.  But you can learn from them – and that’s the point.  Take a look at some mistakes you may have made in the past – often without realizing it and LEARN from them.  Learn what to look out for to avoid potential missteps that can damage your relationships and erode the respect and confidence your team has in you.  Pointing the finger is NEVER AN OPTION.

Leaders make the most of their innate talents, seeking out and learning the skills they need, and developing their leadership abilities.  They learn new ways to influence, convince and motivate people.  They conquer problems and setbacks IMMEDIATELY.  And, through trial-and-error experience professional development, they learn how to create and inspire powerful teams that become much more than the sum of the individuals on those teams.

Are you a member of a team?  Are you the team leader?  What are you doing to ensure that your team members are committed, focused and driven?

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Good Ol’ Customer Service

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Rebecca

I’m a stickler for good ol’ customer service – you know the type…the situation where the person helping you or waiting on you is actually “engaged” in your needs. Right?

One of my most serious “pet peeves” is when I’m in the grocery store check-out line, and the cashier is talking to the bagger and the next checker…everyone it seems, but me. “Whaatt? Am I chopped liver? Pardon me for being in your line and seriously affecting your social encounters!”

I went to the clinic yesterday to get some records from my doctor’s office. I filled out the paperwork and offered it to the receptionist –only she couldn’t be bothered with my outstretched arm, because she was involved with her IPhone!  Harrumph!

I thought all along that employees were being paid to “pay” attention to their clients – well perhaps not; at least not in certain situations. However, being in business for myself, I have only one person to blame for bad customer service – and that’s me. I can’t point the finger at someone else and chide them for the infraction.

I guess that’s what this blog posting is all about – refreshing our memories on what REALLY is good customer service? Wikipedia states, “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.”

 

 

I guess our customers/clients “expect” to be “satisfied” somewhere along the line. I think that some businesses don’t have a clue, or really don’t care, or perhaps don’t know that they’re not delivering great customer service. Whether we are or aren’t, it’s always a good idea to re-read over the rules and see how great we’re doing, or where we could improve.

 

 

So, here we go –

“5” basic rules for GREAT customer service:

 

•1.       Answer your phone. That’s an easy one. Personally, I like to speak to a live person; especially when I need an answer NOW.  I wonder how many opportunities we’re missing out on by not being available. If you’re not in the office – make sure you get call forwarding or at least an answering machine. And I believe it goes without saying…don’t be rude on the phone.  That is such a turn off with clients/customers. Your attitude comes through the receiver whether you can see it or not. Perhaps having a mirror by your desk will help. If you smile – that too will come across. Go ahead and try it – you’ll be amazed at the difference!

•2.       If you can’t keep a promise – don’t even go there! My ex-husband actually had a good saying, “Say what you mean, and mean what you say.” In other words, be true to your word and do what you just told your client that you’d do. No excuses!

•3.       Listen to your client – Make eye contact, nod in the proper places, takes some notes, ask questions pertaining to THEIR problems, not yours! I love the saying, “God gave you two ears and one mouth, because you should be doing twice as much listening as talking.”

•4.       Deal with complaints quickly – I think it’s unanimous that most people don’t like to hear complaints or criticisms about their products or services. Count me in on this one. However, the longer you put this task off, the more the customer/client will feel like they’re being burned, and the hotter the fire will become.

I used to work in a “call center,” and all the callers truly wanted was to be heard;  they wanted the problems fixed, repaired, or gone.  Easy enough. So basically, you listen to the complaint and then restate what YOU heard back to your client. If the client agrees with you, GREAT – fix the problem however appropriate for the situation and you’ll have a lifetime client. They’ll probably even give a great “shout-out” on Twitter.

•5.       Be helpful – even if you can’t give the entire store away. I’ve gone to some home improvement stores, where I would sell my oldest child to find an employee who could help direct me to a certain product. Sad to say, those images are burned on my brain and don’t you think I’ve told every living soul I’ve come into contact with about the lousy service I’ve gotten? You betcha’.

The reverse is true as well – give me GREAT service/help and I’ll be your customer until I die, and I’ll make darn sure I tell the entire world via Twitter/Facebook about your wonderful store, service, product, and sales clerks!

 

There it is 5 simple, easy, and effective ways to get you going on great customer service. If you have other thoughts on how you and your business treat your customers that you’d like to share – please leave me a comment – I’d love to hear from you!

 

In the meantime, I’d love to connect with you on my website: http://www.sherylawhite.org

Or you can connect with me on:
Twitter: www.Twitter.com/SAWhiteCompany
LinkedIn: www.LinkedIn.com/in/SherylAWhiteandCompany
Facebook: www.facebook.com/White.Sheryl.A

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Organizing GMail Calendars & Tasks

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Rebecca

If you use Gmail, you may have noticed that the task area in Gmail is not quite as robust as what you have been familiar with in the past, particularly if you are used to Outlook.

I typically add all tasks to my calendar in addition to appointments, which gets a little overwhelming to look at and gives further opportunity for balls to be dropped.

Recently, though, I discovered GQueues, a web-based full-featured task manager for your Google and Google Apps account. You can log into GQueues with your Google account login information.

In GQueues, you can set up new queues, then new categories and then new tasks to each category, re-ordering them easily by moving them around, create sub-tasks to further organize your work, and use keyboard shortcuts to enable you to work faster.

Set due dates and reminders, tag items to group similar tasks, share tasks for additional input, or assign tasks to other team members. Your team members can add comments and mark the task as complete.

As if you need another application for your smart phone, GQueues has one of those, too.

The Smart Queues section offers you the opportunity to quickly look at your inbox for new messages from team members and a list of items others have assigned to you. It also allows you to quickly look at overdue tasks, tasks due today, and tasks due in a week.

GQueues integrates with your Google calendar seamlessly, creating an additional color-coded calendar for your GQueues tasks which can be turned off if desired. Tasks can be marked complete, and additional tasks can be added right from the calendar.

Check out their tour on their website for more information. From what I have seen so far, I’m impressed.

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What is Klout?

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Rebecca

I find it very interesting to monitor what my Klout score is.  For those of you who are not familiar with Klout, this is the definition from (http://www.klout.com/kscore): The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.

 

Understanding Klout is not that hard but I am getting this right from their site because there is no way for me to explain it any better:

 

True Reach is the size of your engaged audience. They eliminate inactive and spam accounts, and calculate influence for each individual relationship taking into account factors such as whether an individual has shared or acted upon your content.

 

True Reach is broken into the following subcategories:

  • Reach
  • Are your tweets interesting and informative enough to build an audience?
  • How far has your content been spread across Twitter?
  • Are people adding you to lists and are those lists being followed?
  • Demand
  • How many people did you have to follow to build your count of followers?
  • How often are your follows reciprocated?

Factors measured: Followers, Mutual Follows, Friends, Total Retweets, Unique Commenters, Unique Likers, Follower/Follow Ratio, Followed Back %, @ Mention Count, List Count, List Followers Count.

Amplification Probability is the likelihood that your content will be acted upon. How often do your messages generate retweets or spark a conversation? The ability to create content that compels others to respond and high-velocity content that spreads into networks beyond your own is a key component of influence.

 

Amplification Ability is a composite of the following subcategories:

  • Engagement
  • How diverse is the group that @ messages you?
  • Are you broadcasting or participating in conversations?
  • Velocity
  • How likely are you to be retweeted?
  • Do a lot of people retweet you or is it always the same few followers?
  • Activity
  • Are you tweeting too little or too much for your audience?
  • Are your tweets effective in generating new followers, retweets and @ replies?

Factors measured: Unique Retweeters, Unique Messages Retweeted, Likes Per Post, Comments Per Post Follower Retweet %, Unique @ Senders, Follower Mention %, Inbound Messages Per Outbound Message, Update Count.

Network Influence is the influence level of your engaged audience. Engagement is measured based on actions such as retweets, @messages, follows, lists, comments, and likes. Each time a person performs one of these actions it is a testament to the authority and the quality of your content. Network Score looks at the Klout score of each person who interacts with you to determine:

 

  • How influential are the people who @ message you?
  • How influential are the people who retweet you?
  • How influential are the people who follow you?
  • How influential are the people who list you?
  • How influential are the people who follow the lists you are on?


Factors measured: List inclusions, Follower/Follow Ratio, Followed Back %, Unique Senders, Unique Retweeters, Unique Commenters, Unique Likers, Influence of Followers, Influence of Retweeters and Mentioners, Influence of Friends, Influence of Likers and Commenters.

 

(source:  http://www.klout.com/kscore)

 

Just recently Klout has added LinkedIn and has started to factor in your check-ins on Foursquare too.  Another reason to set up Klout and watch your score is that brands have begun offering certain perks to people with high Klout scores.  If you already have a Klout account, sign in and click the gray Foursquare button on the right side to connect the two.  I have had my Klout account for a while now but I have to say after researching it more for this blog, I find myself wanting to get my score up higher and higher!  My current score is a 38 but I follow one guy on Twitter who is at 54.  I have friends whose scores are in the 40s.  I need to get busy tweeting, retweeting, mentioning, following, and whatever else I need to do to get a higher score.  It’s becoming like a drug!

I challenge each and everyone of you to comment with your score.  I want to know, I need to know!

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What Relationship-building Strategies do you use for your business?

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Rebecca

Today, making your business indispensable is a vital key to marketing success.  It’s a terrific way to add value, enhance your brand and position yourself.  Over the last 3 months I have worked at strengthening my relationship building strategy with my clients and this simple exercise has transformed my business into a valuable resource to my existing clients and the referrals I have received.

Do you have a relationship building strategy for your business?  If not, here are some things to consider:

  • Communicate regularly – How often do your reach out to your clients?  Is the bulk of your communication focused on product/service deliverables?  It’s important to communicate frequently and vary your messages (it doesn’t always have to be shop talk)!
  • Offer client rewards – Client loyalty and rewards program work well.  Offer graduated rewards to your clients.  Whenever possible, offer rewards that remind your clients of your business and its products and services (I recently did this with a client and my reward from her was a referral – I got a new client and my existing client got something in return).
  • Build two-way communication – When it comes to client relationships, “listening” can be every bit as important as “telling.”  Use every tool and opportunity to create interaction, including asking for feedback.  Clients who know they’re “heard” instantly feel a rapport and a relationship with your business.
  • Visit your client – Although we work “virtually”, there are some of us who work with clients who live where we do.  If this is the case for you, when was the last time you spent an hour or so visiting with a client?  There is no better way to really understand the challenges your clients face and the way you can help them meet those challenges than to occasionally get out and visit (this does two things:  Gets you out of the house and puts a Face to a Name). 

These strategies have worked for me.  Transforming my business by using these strategies has communicated to my clients that I am a valuable resource for their businesses.

I would love to hear about your relationship-building strategies.

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Continued Education

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Rebecca

Did you formally end your education the minute you stepped off the platform after you received your high school diploma? Or did you go on to more formalized education to obtain an associates degree? A bachelor’s? Or even a master’s or a Ph.D?

I don’t think I set foot into an educational program until I was much older than 18 when I graduated from high school. I think I started taking some classes in a 2 year college when I was in my 40′s and found out that I loved learning new things. Perhaps I’m one of those late bloomers???

I think one of the reasons I like being a virtual assistant is the fact that I can continue my own education. I love to learn new things, take classes, and learn new technologies. For me, there is never enough time in the day to learn, or enough money to go to school. I think I take after my dad, who when he went to bed in the evening, would take along a dictionary or an encyclopedia to read before bedtime!

So, how do I go about learning new things? I have methods to my madness. I belong to IVAA.net http://www.ivaa.net (Internal Virtual Assistants Association) which has a webinar every Monday afternoon that I attend. It’s a laid back social hour and a half with learning and discussing various topics within the industry. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned over the months from just being there. I hear of software that does everything except make dinner and wash the dishes! If I spent 8 hours a day, every day for a week or two, I *might* be able to catch up with the industry news and advancements. I can now understand why doctor’s desks have piles of magazines and papers all over the entire length and width…they can’t keep up on what is pertinent to their specialty.

I looked on the Internet to see how fast and how much information was growing. The “Technium” had this article titled, “The Speed of Information” http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2006/02/the_speed_of_in.php

“Varian and Lyman estimate that the total production of new information in 2000 reached 1.5 exabytes. They explain that is about 37,000 times as much information as is in the entire holdings Library of Congress. For one year! Three years later the annual total yielded 3.5 exabytes. That yields a 66% rate of growth in information per year. This rate hardly seems astronomical compared to say the 600% increase in iPods shipped last year. But that kind of iPod burst is not sustainable over decades, while the growth of information has been steadily increasing for at least a century.”

As you can see, there is no way a normal individual can keep up with that kind of knowledge acquisition. Thank goodness for the Internet! But I digress…

I’m on Twitter (please connect with me at: http://www.Twitter.com/SAWhiteCompany)
and have many individuals and companies that share their valuable information with me. First thing in the morning after I post my thoughts, I go down the list and view the information that I think would be valuable to me. I get filled every morning with so many good pieces of information that it carries my motivation through the entire day and sometimes into the evening.

Of course there are always friends within the industry that I chat with throughout the day and they share their struggles and successes with me and vice versa, but I always come back better for it, then when I went in.

I keep track of all the new technologies and websites that are of interest to me both personally and professionally. And each day I tackle one or two of those new ideas and see if it would be of value. My list of resources is getting quite long and I’ll share those with you in another post.

I guess the saying; “You learn something new every day” is true. How about you – are you learning something valuable today – or did you stop learning when you got out of high school? Send me a comment about what you’ve learned recently – I’d love to hear from you!

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