1. Setting your vision and strategies to get things done
As a small business owner, having a clear vision of where you want to go is so powerful! It sets the scene for all that’s to come. To grow your business, you need to transform your vision into a plan.
When you execute your vision and plan, share it across your digital marketing platforms. By doing this, you create an amazing opportunity for your audience to connect. When engagement occurs, visibility and growth are inevitable.
Invest in these 4 simple business strategies, so you can reap the benefits for this year and beyond.
1. Reflection and vision
The best place to start, when you want to move forward and grow, is to understand where you have been. Ask yourself: What worked well last year? Why did it succeed? Are any tweaks required to remain current and relevant moving forward?
2. What didn’t work?
Assess how and why it didn’t work. Is it still aligned with your vision? Perhaps it requires a new approach or discarding?
3. Were strategies set for the last year which you were unable to meet for whatever reason?
If they’re still relevant and current, plan them into your strategy for this year and beyond where necessary.
4. When did you last review your business plan?
Remember that thing you wrote (with hope) when you first started your business? With the day-to-day running of your business, has it been neglected?
I recently reviewed mine, written in 2018. My business has consciously changed course somewhat. And it drifted a couple of degrees off course all by itself. It’s important to re-chart the course to its new desired destination.
Review and assess your:
Mission and vision and values
Ideal clients and their needs
Branding, has it changed?
SWAT and risks? Ask yourself is it still current and accurate? If not revise it with the next 2-5 years in mind, not only the next year! Time flies, so it’s advisable for your business strategy to have short and long-range plans and milestones.
The best way to ensure you reach your business goal is to go through an important annual planning process. Assess lessons learned and changes in circumstances, like:
New technology
Digital marketing and communication platform changes
Turnover
New products or services
Market changes
Environmental changes and impacts.
These all may lead to re-assessing your long-range plan.
Take the time annually, to measure your progress. Assess what you need to do in the coming year to remain relevant and on track. So set a date now in your calendar towards the end of the year, or end of the financial year, to take stock and assess.
2. Plan ahead
You might be familiar with this Benjamin Franklin quote:
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!
After all of the reflecting, re-assessing and re-aligning. The next step is to create a realistic and achievable plan. There are so many ways to plan. And an abundance of approaches and tools to assist you to stay focused and on track.
Here are some suggestions:
Annual planning
Set yourself an annual Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), (taken from Jim Collin’s book ‘Built to last’)
What strengths do you need to achieve this BHAG? List 3-5 key strengths.
What are your annual priorities?
List 3-5 priorities you will focus on this year to either leverage your current strengths and activities. Or develop new ones that align with and lead you towards your BHAG.
Quarterly planning
Break down each of the above priorities into quarterly SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant & time-bound). Plan your digital marketing content quarterly. To assist you here is a free seasonal content planner to help you do just this. Maintain clarity around your overarching vision. Be conscious of your business plan and break down the quarterly plan for each area of your business.
Think: sales, marketing, networking, financial, systems integrations,and the actual implementation of efficient work practices.
It’s important to keep current with the latest technology, algorithms and systems. Remember that change is the only constant.
Using your seasonal content planner. Once your annual and quarterly themes are in place. Break it down to monthly, weekly and daily.
3. Be visible in a digital world
Digital platforms are the way of the future. But what does this mean for your company? Sure, more and more business is performed digitally annually.
To be visible in your business, you need to have a consistent presence, spanning over numerous platforms.
People need to know about your brand, your product or service and your unique value proposition so they can choose to buy from you.
There are many other reasons to be visible.
The more your prospective customers see, hear, and read about you in various places. For example, web sites, Facebook posts, LinkedIn articles, podcasts, blog posts, etc. The more you’ll be seen as a subject matter expert.
When you become more visible, potential clients or customers become curious and are likely to visit your website to find out more. If you have a well-placed opt-in, you’re likely to increase the visibility further, once they sign up to your list. Then you can stay in touch via newsletters and emails. Visibility allows you to stay in front of mind. When your customers ready to purchase the odds will be in your favour.
Be genuinely you! If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner, become the face of your business and allow people to get to know you. This might be via YouTube videos, Facebook lives, or simply posts on social media, but don’t forget the ‘YOU’ in your business.
As you can see, there’s a strong argument for why visibility is a vital component in your marketing strategy. Choose the activities you wish to do on a regular basis. Work out where your customers are and select one or two platforms and share content consistently. Only once they’re embedded, add more. These might include:
Article marketing
Social media (Facebook, WeChat, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Google My Business etc.)
Blogging & guest blogging
Guest podcasts or run your own podcast
Webinars
E-books
Online courses
Attending events
Newsletters
Vlogs
This list could go on. Remember to re-purpose and cross-promote. With content marketing, allocate enough time to plan and implement a consistent strategy. It can be quite time-consuming but there are tools and systems available to assist.
Owning your own business has numerous perks, you can do what you love, with flexibility. You can be a decision-maker and see the tangible difference you make to your clients or customers, delivering your service or product. Following your passions can only ever be brilliant, right? Well… yes, so long as you get the right balance.
On the flip side, there are numerous stressors. As a business owner, the buck stops with you. You’re likely wearing multiple hats while putting in long hours, many unpaid. There is the worry of cashflow or feeling isolated or the uncertainty of which step to take next. There simply is never enough time to do it all.
Take YOU time
It’s important to acknowledge when you need a day off, to be proactive about your mental and physical health. Maybe it’s a quick yoga session, a night out, a cup of tea or a trip to the beach. Whatever it is, find something that recharges your batteries.
What is your time worth?
Another way to value ‘you time’ is to recognise how much you charge per hour. Let’s assume you earn $150 p/hr. If you’re spending time on recurring work, which isn’t essential for you to do, then consider outsourcing it to someone who earns less than your hourly rate. In this scenario, $50 or $140 p/hour is still a brilliant investment. If you utilise this additional time on your core business activities and relationship building, your business is sure to grow. So remember to value your time, it’s a smart business strategy. Do you know over 1/3 of small business outsource a portion of their work, and that statistic is growing!
Work time is valuable, but so is your downtime because the productivity of your work time is directly correlated to how much downtime you get and how much sleep you have. So remember to practice self-care.
Another clever way to take time for you is… when you plan your year, plan a holiday or two each year. Get it in the calendar, it gives you something to work towards and plan around.
By following these simple four steps, you’re set for a well-planned, visible year. With a crystal-clear vision of where you are and where you want to be. You can take valuable ‘you time’, outsource where needed, and watch your business grow.
Need help with your digital marketing?
At Versatile Marketing, we provide professional outsourced marketing support for small businesses just like yours. If you’d like to find out more, visit our website or book in a complimentary discovery call. Don’t forget to download your FREE copy of our seasonal, printable content calendar. Just sign-up at the bottom of this page.
Nick’s passion in both work and life is growth development; he is continually looking for and finding ways to growth hack and build success for both companies he works for and himself.
If you run a business, you know how important an online presence is. Even if you’re not necessarily selling products or services from your website, it’s still a good idea to give customers and potential customers a way to find you – and to find out about you.
So, how do you ensure your company is visible online and ranks higher than the competition? Well, it comes down to three words: Search Engine Optimisation (more commonly known as SEO)
What is SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is an important digital marketing tool. It allows your website to increase its visibility online. That translates to more traffic and more opportunities to turn prospects into clients.
It’s also an integral tool in terms of brand awareness, relationship building, and positioning yourself as an authority in your industry.
SEO uses various techniques to help you move up a search engine’s ranking so that you begin to appear on the first page when anyone searches using keywords related to your service or industry. With over 3.5 billion searches performed every day on Google, customers and prospective customers are clearly using search engines to find what they need.
Why is SEO Important?
A staggering 67% of all people who perform a Google search only check the first page of Google when seeking out information. Meanwhile, as high as 92% of clicks happen on the first page of Google search results, leaving a mere 7% of clicks for all remaining search results pages.
That means it’s very important to work to improve your company’s ranking on key search criteria. If you want to be seen, you need to try to get to the first page of the search results. This will not only improve your visibility, it will help with the likelihood of people clicking through to your website, driving traffic onto it, and helping you get one step closer to converting clicks to customers.
Organic search is also a very big portion of a company’s website performance. Chances are, your clients aren’t finding you through business cards or email signatures. They’re seeking you out by Googling words related to the products or services they need. There are a few easy SEO strategies you can put into place to help grow your business and increase your online presence.
Are there benefits to SEO?
While SEO isn’t a magic bullet, it is an important part of a larger overall branding and marketing strategy, mostly because it dramatically improves your company’s visibility. Visibility is just one aspect of why SEO is important, however. There are many benefits to implementing SEO into the bigger marketing picture. For example:
It gives you and your business credibility
Whether you like it or not, searchers are making mental notes in terms of the rankings they see. Psychologically, they feel search results that are closer to the top are “better”. A higher ranking is like an extra vote of confidence from Google and people tend to click on the first few ranked results. At the end of the day, higher rankings translate to more credibility, whether it’s real or perceived.
It’s one of advertising’s best ROIs
SEO rewards those websites that are highly ranked – more than any other form of on- and off-line advertising. The reason? It allows your business to market itself to people who are looking for the products or services your business provides. In a sense, customers are already specifically searching for you. You just have to convince them that your business is the right one to choose, and a high ranking due to SEO does most of the work for you because, as mentioned above, your higher rank already lends you more credibility.
It gives you insights into your customers
SEO gives you an invaluable opportunity to learn more about your customers. By using Google Analytics to track your traffic, you’ll be able to unlock data and metrics to learn:
How they search
The language they use
The technology they use for browsing
The region they live in
The dates and times they are most active
These insights can help you make more informed marketing decisions, like when to offer sales and to whom, both on and offline.
With 91% of people checking reviews online before they buy, it won’t be long until virtually everyone is searching for products or services online. That means it’s more important than ever for your business to be easily located online as well. If people have a hard time finding you, they’ll end up spending their money with the competition.
As you can see, SEO is an important aspect to branding and marketing, and, as mobile usage rises, will continue to grow in importance. Making sure you’re visible allows you to source new customers and gives you an edge over the competition. More importantly, by ensuring you’re visible locally, you’ll be improving the chances of landing customers that are close at hand. At the end of the day, SEO continues to be an important part of an overall holistic digital marketing strategy.
Versatile Marketing takes great pride in their professional blog writing service, Deb and one of her Associates specialises in blog writing. Utilising your brief, we provide quality researching, blog topic brainstorming and planning and drafting a well constructed blog, with your key audience in mind. So, if your business needs assistance with blog writing , utilising some of the important SEO factors, book in a discovery meeting today.
When and why outsourcing work to a Virtual Assistant is smart business decision!
Are you trying to do wear all the hats in your business and yet somehow the dream of owning your own successful business is looking different to the reality?
Have you been dreaming that someone could swoop into your business and rescue you from the mountain of paperwork, emails, digital filing, social media, copywriting and the rest? A person you could trust to keep the business running while you are away for work or pleasure?
It’s likely that you need a virtual assistant! These highly skilled and efficient professionals are the ultimate multi-taskers. They make your life easier by helping your business run more efficiently.
But what exactly does a Versatile virtual assistant (VA) do? What are the benefits of hiring one? And why do you (and your business) need one?
What is a VA?
When I am attending networking events, parties or even when I’m at the shops and someone asks “what do you do?” and I respond with “I’m the proud owner of a virtual assisting business”, the next question is always “What is a virtual assistant (VA)?”
So, let’s start by answering this question with a basic definition:
Please take note of the word ‘person’ NOT robot – if you are looking for the automated robotic type of VA. The one with no personality or soul, you have come to the wrong place! I bid you farewell, as we at Versatile VA have plenty of both. 😉
If you have read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. Virtual assistants were an integral part of the 2007 bestselling book. Ferriss claimed to have hired virtual assistants to pay his bills, check his emails and run parts of his company.
In fact, in a 2018 report by BankWest Curtain Economic Centre “Future of Work in Australia” “11.6% of the Australian workforce are independent contractors, equivalent to around 1,270,000 workers.” An increasing number of these workers are virtual assistants.
What work can a Virtual Assistant help with?
Virtual Assistants skill sets vary, some are generalists, some specialists and others management VA’s. Some of the most common jobs they perform include:
Office administration
Secretarial work
Transcription/translation
Data entry/spreadsheets
Appointment bookings
Database management
Proofreading/editing
IT services
Blogging
Social media support/marketing
Graphic design
Photo editing
SEO
Sales and marketing
Inbound and outbound phone customer support
Website design/management
Accounting/payroll
HR Admin
Project Management
With technological advances and the ability to perform vital business functions in an office less environment, there are incredible benefits VA’s bring to businesses.
Why should you hire a VA? What are the benefits?
There are a multitude of benefits when hiring a Versatile virtual assistant. Here are a few:
1. The standard 9-5 business day does not apply
Owning your own business has peaks and toughs. Sometimes you need a piece of work done urgently. Or you want to maximise efficiency by utilising additional hours outside of your standard working hours to give your business a brilliant competitive advantage.
This is but one of the perks of having your own VA. (It’s important to note, most VA’s charge an urgency fee for work which requires an urgent turnaround.) However, pre-arranged after hours work, is how we roll.
2. You value your time
When you wear all the hats in your business, it can often lead to stress and overwhelm. It often means something isn’t being done with the level of focus it deserves.
While you most likely have the skills necessary to complete both the administrative and specialised tasks. It’s been proven when we are stressed or not at optimum energy, our executive and critical thinking skills suffer.
If your rates are higher than your VA’s, consider how you could be making more money by working on your core business function. Having your own VA creates space for you to work smarter and devote your workday to the key areas of your business requiring your full focus and energy.
3. Increased productivity
Imagine a rainy day, traffic is delayed, moods are lowered, and irritability increased as the average employee makes their way into the office. Dripping wet and cold they start the day with probably a less than a go getter attitude. You are now paying for them to make a coffee and have a chat with their colleagues about the traffic, the rain, their weekend and so on.
Alternatively, with no travel time a VA is ready to work, possibly donning some attractive Ugg boots, but with a vitality that is unequalled by any rainy day, peak hour traffic suffering employee. Employees can also cost an employer money and resources in non-productive time.
A VA will time track their work, clocking out for toilet breaks, coffee breaks and everything else which is NOT working on your project or task. That means you receive 100% productivity.
We are also business owner’s and have a vested interest in your business’s success. Our business model lies heavily in repeat business and referrals from happy clients.
4. You only pay for work on your project
Many small businesses have peaks and toughs in busyness, so too their need for business support. The good news is, as your VA is an independent contractor, you can negotiate the terms of their engagement to work within these peaks and toughs. You are no longer paying for twiddling thumbs.
New research, conducted into Australian business productivity by Nitro, revealed; out of the 1000 Australian workers interviewed, productivity pain points costing businesses included:
43% felt wished they could reduce meetings
70% said they lacked proper training
54% impacted by negative workplace culture
48% delayed by outdated technologies and systems
An employee earning $80,000 costs a business $5000 in unproductive hours.
Your own VA works productively as:
There are no distractions with broader organisational meetings.
They are trained and qualified to perform the tasks, or will draft systems and processes as you show them the ropes.
They provide their own computers, anti-virus, software programs etc and can easily adapt to the systems the hiring company uses.
There are no negative cultural issues to distract them from being passionately focused on achieving brilliant results for their hiring company.
5. Timezone advantage
Some VA’s work across alternate time zones as another productivity offering. Working around the clock to maximise business productivity. Versatile Virtual Assistants work in Australian NSW time zone. As we only service Australian businesses we can take calls, hold meetings, schedule calendars with ease, because are always only a few hours apart from all the states and Territories. There are some tangible benefits of hiring an Australian VA for your business rather than an overseas counterpart.
6. Reduced operational costs
Virtual assistants are independent contractors so that means you don’t have to pay for:
payroll taxes
annual leave
sick days
insurance
office space
worker’s compensation
other employee benefits
equipment costs
paid training or bonuses.
As we cover our own expenses, you simply hire a VA to perform a specific job. Pay them for their service, and that’s it. Hiring a VA is a big money-saver and a clever investment decision.
When should I outsource?
Whether you’re an entrepreneur or an executive, time should always be regarded as a valuable commodity. With many balls in the air, how you manage your time will determine your level of productivity. Thus, the best time to hire a Virtual Assistant is now! You might especially want to hire a VA if:
You’re overwhelmed by your current workload.
You want a collaborative business support, so you’re not doing it all on your own.
There’s a backlog of blogs to write, filing, data entry & emails to action or you need someone to manage a project.
You want to use your time more productively.
You need something done but don’t have the skills or time to do it.
You might think you can’t afford a VA if you have a start-up, or don’t need one if your company is already established, but VAs can be game changers for almost any business. After all, there is truth in the saying, ‘time is money’. If you spend more time supporting your business instead of building it, you’re not maximising your efforts.
Now that you know how beneficial a VA can be for your company, what’s stopping you from hiring one?
With our versatile experience covering over 20 years’ in several industries and business functions from management, contracts, compliance, project management, office administration, blog writing, social media and more, we are more than equipped to assist. More than that, Versatile VA’s genuinely care about your business and its success. We invite you to check out our business services. Whatever type of business you own, we are confident we have the skills to make it run even better. We will be your behind the scenes secret weapon.
At Versatile Marketing you can access customer centric, experienced virtual assistants and online business managers any time you need it without the costs of having an employee. By staying focused on your core business function and outsourcing the rest, you can free up your time for personal breaks and scale your business. We look forward to working with you in the near future!
What is a VA?
There are a multitude of benefits when hiring a Versatile virtual assistant. Here are a few:
When should I outsource?