Seven “Quick Fixes” Every Marketer Needs To Know About  

As entrepreneurs we are all involved with the marketing of our businesses.  We make the final decisions about what mediums we’ll use, how often we’ll use them, and how much of our marketing budget will be expended to them.  Managing the results and determining what works and what doesn’t is what will drive your businesses profits throughout the year.

When your profits begin a downhill slide or just seem at a stalemate, you scratch your head and ask a thousand times, “What am I doing wrong?”  Well, the truth is that you may not be doing anything “wrong”, but there may be some things you could do to bring about a change.  The next time you’re up against a brick wall, try implementing these techniques into your marketing campaign, and watch those blues disappear!

1.  Change Your Advertising Focus

Hey, everyone may be a prospective customer, but let’s face it… not everyone is interested in what you have to offer.  Why waste advertising dollars on those who don’t even pay attention?

Find your niche.  Identify the audience with the greatest need for what you have, and learn all you can about them.  Become a specialist who knows what they need, and advertise directly to them.  You’re customer conversion rate will soar!

2.  Be Unique.

There are plenty of copy cat marketers out there trying to mimic the success of those around them.  Sometimes it works… sometimes it doesn’t.  But the fact of the matter is that the more unique you are the more attention you will get.

What isn’t your competition doing?  Yeah, try that!  Chances are they can’t or aren’t willing, too.  That’s your key to success!

3.  Offer a Bonus.

Who will pass up a freebie?  Add these “on the house” products to your sale to sweeten the deal.  The freebie doesn’t need to be anything too big, or cost you anything.  Just the idea of the bonus will increase the perceived value of the purchase in the consumer’s eyes.  And yeah, they’re all looking for the best buy for their buck!

4.  Gather Follow Up Info.

Most clients don’t make a purchase the very first time they walk through your door, or visit your site, but don’t let them escape your clutches.  Find out who they are, and how to contact them in the future.   The longer you keep a line of contact open with them, the more trust you build up.    Sooner or later they’ll be back and ready to buy!

5.  Wipe Out The Risk Factor.

The biggest reason people hesitate before making a sale, is the lack of confidence that they are making the best choice.  No one wants to invest in a product or service that doesn’t live up to its name.  In fact the fear of making a bad choice is greater than the desire for the product or service.

You can totally eradicate the risk factor for consumers by providing an unconditional money back guarantee.  When you guarantee satisfaction, they won’t be so hesitant to get out their wallets and commit themselves to the purchase.

6.  Be Diverse.

The buzz word in the Internet Marketing realm is Affiliateships.  Affiliate marketers find products or services that are related to their own products and services, and offer it to their customer.  The customer wins because he can learn more about the product he is investing in, and you win with commissions for an easy sale.  After all, it’s much easier to sell to a customer with his wallet out and open than to build a relationship with a brand new customer.

7.  Keep Your Eyes Peeled.

Marketing is an ever changing entity.  The Internet has brought tremendous change to the way we do business and advertise.  It’s wise to keep your eyes peeled for new advertising methods that will add to your profit margin.  A word to the wise:  don’t go too far out on the limb.  Keep 80 percent of your marketing budget working on the tried and true methods that have made you successful, but use the remaining 20 percent to test for ways to increase your advertising success.

These seven tactics can bring even the most sluggish marketing problem to life.  Try one or all of them and watch your sales begin to climb once again… or even for the first time!

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!

Three Reasons to Market Through Email AFTER You Sell

For years, email marketing has been a pre-purchase exercise. Marketers spent almost all of their resources on acquiring customers before selling to them, rather than acquiring customers after the sale. While this method is obviously effective — just look at the empires built on pre-purchase marketing — it is by no means the be-all and end-all of marketing forms.

After the worldwide recession hit in 2008, businesses instantly cut their marketing budgets. Advertising expenditures plummeted, global marketing presences were almost eliminated, and businesses that were sales-focused found themselves out of prospective buyers. In the race to target anyone and everyone that was interested in buying, marketers worldwide found themselves without any proven marketing resources.

This focus on size over substance is present in almost every form of marketing, from offline resources to online marketing tactics. Marketers brag about their mailing lists, touting millions of readers, all the while ignoring the fact that each reader is almost completely valueless. Despite their massive size, their marketing lists are largely pieced together, and almost completely devoid of any post-purchase subscribers.

The money is, as they say, most certainly in the list. However, it is not just in any list. The most valuable marketing resources, and the targets of any serious email marketer, are the attention of any prospective customer than can, will, and has bought before. Once you have overcome the initial sale, repeat business is as simple as creating additional marketing resources.

Sometimes it is best to forego the short-term subscription and focus on customers that are ready to buy. Before you start an all-inclusive marketing list, consider these three reasons to keep your list exclusive and limited to customers that have already bought from you:

1) Post-purchase marketing gives you authority.

It is easier to sell a $1000 product to a current customer than it is to sell a $20 product to someone you barely know. Commerce, especially online commerce, is all about trust and authority. Establish trust with a small initial sale and you will give yourself an avenue for larger, more profitable future transactions.

2) Customers qualify themselves. Prospects require your qualification.

Marketing to new customers is an uphill battle. You are constantly re-evaluating your assumptions to appeal to possibility, and quite often they can fail to be worth your time. The vast majority of pre-purchase prospects turn out to be duds, and the few that buy from you are typically the type of customers that would buy without ongoing email marketing attention. Focus on fostering qualified customer connections, not indiscriminate and valueless connections.

3) Post-purchase marketing is exclusive and value-adding.

Exclusivity is a currency by itself. Marketers have forever capitalized on the “exclusive” offer strategy, offering each customer a one-off opportunity that is available to almost everyone else. While many are content with false exclusivity, true exclusivity gives you a marketing opportunity that is almost completely unparalleled.

The internet, especially over the last few years, has given marketers intense power to undervalue and skim over their personal relationships. Customers can be sent a template email, and marketed to with the same materials as everyone else. A focus on true exclusivity and one-on-one treatment goes a long way in the world of template emails and form letters, and will be appreciated by your clients, customers, and business contacts.

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!

Avoiding Pushy Promotions on Social Networking Sites

When Google recently changed its instant search feature it created lots and has attracted steady criticism from some leading social media users, many of whom believe that it’s too geared towards sales-friendly search terms. While there’s no shortage of differences between the way Google directs its users and the actions of a networking website, similar complaints are growing significantly more common in the social media scene.

For most, it appears to be a reaction against ‘pushiness’ – the willingness of websites and marketers to direct their users down a specific path. Facebook’s sidebar prompts are a frequent target for most complainers – the sidebar boxes appear based on a user’s actions, making it difficult to visit any pages without being prompted to complete a task, often one that’s geared towards an advertisement.

The prompts have appeared on Facebook for some time, but amid recent privacy concerns they’ve grown into a major issue. The end goal of these promotions is to increase interaction – a task that social networking websites are particularly apt at. But when these actions aren’t user-prompted, it becomes difficult to know which interactions are called for by friends, and which are automated.

For social media marketers, the revolt against pushiness could be a blessing in disguise. While users appear to be growing increasingly distrustful of websites such as Facebook and Google, the amount of trust assigned to other users of these websites appears to be fairly consistent. As privacy concern reports continue to put Facebook in the public eye, it’s marketers that appear to be avoiding worry.

There’s a lesson to take from this ‘pushiness revolt’ – Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking websites benefit from a lack of hard sales. Users very rarely enjoy being told what to do, and they’re particularly reluctant to completely predefined actions at the request of a machine. While that could sound like a strike against marketers, it’s really something that can be used to build an advantage.

Avoid hard sales and you’ll win the trust of social media audiences, particularly on a platform that’s loaded with advertising and incentives. If your goal is to build an organic audience on a mainstream social media platform, it could be worth limiting your commercial intent until you have the amount of followers required for voluntary, action-based social marketing.

For those looking to “sell” something, I usually suggest the 80/20 rule. Post 80% resources and information and 20% buy from me type posts to get the best results!

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!

How to Use YouTube to Improve Online Brand Awareness and SEO

Online entrepreneurs and marketers have much to gain from creating a YouTube channel and launching a video marketing campaign. Once a YouTube channel has been created, the following steps should be followed in order to improve brand awareness amongst internet users as well as enhance a brand’s visibility not only in video sharing communities but also among search engine users:

1) Select a Topic

Choosing a topic for video marketing need not be a difficult task as there are many options to choose from. It could be focused on better or unconventional ways by which a product can be used for best results or simply demonstrate the expertise of an entrepreneur on a given topic. It could also include testimonials from loyal customers or even made just for pure entertainment. When it comes to selecting video marketing topics, entrepreneurs are only limited by their creativity.

Furthermore, online entrepreneurs and marketers need not limit themselves to developing just one video. In most cases, publishing a video marketing series works best and increases the potential of a brand to gain loyal viewership.

2) Record Your Video

Upon selecting a topic and planning out all scenes and important communication points, entrepreneurs should be ready to record. The technology used for this is not as important the concept of the video as there are marketers who have shot videos with mobile phone cameras have seen the same success as those who have recorded in HD or other more sophisticated devices.

Recorded videos should be focused, direct to the point, and kept below 2 minutes. Upon recording, simple editing software can be used to fix the transition between scenes, remove unnecessary takes, and finalize the video for public viewing.

3) Implement Video SEO Tactics

When a video is ready for the public, it should be uploaded to a YouTube channel and optimized for proper video SEO. To do this, marketers should include pertinent keywords when entering a title, a description, and tags. Furthermore, a link to the brand’s website should be added towards the end of the video and in it’s description. Doing so does not only generate backlinks for a site but also directs viewers to a place where they can learn more about the brand featured in the video.

4) Generate Video Views

Apart from making a video available in a YouTube channel, entrepreneurs should look for other videos with related content and post their own videos as replies. Doing so increases the potential of views and enhances a video’s relevance to certain keywords. More views and backlinks can also be generated by promoting videos on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Once a video has gained enough views and backlinks, it starts appearing in Google search results for targeted keywords and phrases.

Video marketing is definitely much more difficult to pursue than content marketing. However, the results an entrepreneur can gain from this strategy makes it worthwhile. With a proper video marketing campaign working entrepreneurs and marketers can easily improve online brand awareness, visibility, and SEO.

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!

Podcasting Tips for Businesses Targeting Female Audiences

Generally, women are multi-taskers. Whether they are career-driven individuals or simple homemakers, women rarely focus on one thing at a time. That is the reason why podcasts are so appealing to them. With podcasts, they are able to take in information that they’re interested in without having to take precious time off of their busy schedules.

If you own a business that targets female audiences, creating a podcast would be the perfect way to generate interest in your niche or whatever it is you have to offer. While podcasts are effective communication platforms for both genders, targeting a purely female audience requires a very specific communication strategy.

To generate interest among women, keep them engaged, and actually have the ability to turn your listeners into customers, here are a few simple podcasting tips for you:

1) Tell Stories

Women find it easy to make connections through stories and you should take advantage of that fact. Communicate your messages through narratives and anecdotes that place your brand or your offerings in the context of your listeners’ lives. Doing so will allow them to easily take in and absorb what you communicate. Furthermore, your messages become more memorable and easy to share to others.

2) Be Entertaining

No matter how serious or technical your messages are, you should be able to communicate them to your listeners in a fresh and entertaining manner. Always try to imagine that your listeners depend on our podcast to get information that would be too boring or unentertaining to read. A new and fun approach to something serious but relevant will surely keep your listeners tuned in.

3) Speak on a Personal Level

Many podcast hosts speak as if they’re simply reading from a script or going through their notes. Add personality to your own podcast by speaking as if you’re conversing with your listeners. That will make your female audiences feel like they’re simply listening to a trusted friend over brunch and they are more likely to pay attention. You may even want to consider getting a co-host to turn your podcasts into actual conversations.

4) Keep it Light

Always keep in mind that your podcasts can be accessed through various mobile devices. Being multi-taskers, your female listeners are likely tuning in while they’re on-the-go or working on something else. If your podcast requires your listeners to take down notes, you’re definitely going about it the wrong way. Keep your discussion light and avoid talking about things in a manner that requires your listeners’ complete attention.

Female listeners are generally easy to please. The best thing about having that type of audience is, if they like your podcast, they are likely to encourage their friends and relatives to tune in as well. Follow the tips above and you will find it easy to engage your audience and keep them tuned in. In no time, your listeners will not only be your brand’s advocates but its endorsers as well.

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!

Using Your Social Network Presences to Promote Your Podcast

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you should already know that social networking has taken the internet and the rest of the world by storm. Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are all excellent platforms you can utilize to promote your podcast and acquire new listeners. Best of all, using these platforms for promoting your podcast is easy and often cheap or free, depending on what social media marketing strategy you choose to engage in.

Keep in mind that your social network marketing efforts don’t have to end with just the “big” sites. There are a number of niche social networks you can tap into. For one, take a look at services like Ning. Ning allows its users to create their own social networks, often for very specific interests. Seek out and become a member of these micro social networks. Through them, you may not be promoting your podcast to many people at once. However, if you’ve carefully selected the right networks to tap, you will have a much easier time convincing people to listen to your show. They have the same interests, after all!

Targeting by Groups, Fans, Likes, or Dislikes

Most large scale social networks employ some method or function that allows users to tag or become part of a group related to a topic they are particularly interested in. Take the time to find these niche groups of fans and promote your podcast to them. If you’ve successfully picked groups that cover the same topics as your show, you will garner much more positive attention among users than if you were to attempt this in unrelated groups or those with broader interests.

Bulletins & Announcements

Utilize your social network’s announcement system. Have you recently released a new podcast or do you have some exciting news to share with your audience? Let everyone on your friends list know about it. You may spark interest in people who haven’t thought about your show for a while, regaining old listeners. Remember, not everyone uses RSS feeds or has the time to keep up-to-date with all their favorite sites. However, it certainly does seem like everyone has time to log into their favorite social network to see what’s going on.

Getting the Most Out of Your Friends List

Trying to add as many people to your list as quickly as possible can be time consuming, expensive, and most likely very ineffective. Instead, consider what kind of people listen to your show. If you can, try and compose an audience profile. This should include such information as the average age of your listeners, what gender tends to listen to your show more (certain shows may have a very high number of female listeners or vice versa), and what their relationship or financial status is. By targeting your efforts to individuals that seem to fit your typical audience profile, you’ll produce much more valuable results.

Social networking sites are powerful platforms and, if used correctly, they can be one of the most effective ways to promote your podcast. When trying to use these platforms for marketing, always remember to be genuine in your efforts. As long as you try to promote yourself to people who will actually be interested in what you have to say, gathering a very large listener base through these sites will not be an unattainable goal by any means.

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!

Two Ways to Optimize Your Sales Process Using Social Media

If there’s one invention that’s divided business owners, it’s the internet. Data-driven entrepreneurs have embraced the internet with open arms, enjoying its mathematical nature and obsessing over its ability to turn math-driven businesses to the top of the heap. ‘Organic’ entrepreneurs, however, have often felt isolated by the internet’s mathematical nature and its inability to produce ‘natural’ sales.

Enter social media, and exit the ambiguity of social enterprises. Companies that were once almost completely organic in their sales strategy now have a way to calculate their customers’ worth – by using the hundreds of analytics packages available online. These two sales tips were designed to help you do the same – increase and optimize your bottom line though social media analytics.

1) Consider Sales as Your Most Important Metric

Some social marketers users obsess over their follower counts, their ‘influence’, and their ability to chat with other people. They’re somewhat important statistics, particularly if your business model is one that involves display advertising. For sales-driven businesses, however, they’re utterly worthless as measures of progress, value, and advertising income.

Focus on your sales, and how you’re driving those sales. It’s entirely possible that a Twitter account with just fifty followers has the potential to drive more sales than a five-hundred follower user. Take a look at your bottom line, and ignore numbers that are often superfluous to its development.

2) Micro-Test Pages, Accounts, and Promotions Using Google Website Optimizer

Testing isn’t just for pay-per-click advertisers. With Google Website Optimizer now completely free and built for marketers, monitoring the conversion data of your social media accounts is easier than it’s ever been before. When you link out to a promotional page, use a Website Optimizer link to split the traffic down the middle – 50 percent directed towards one page, and 50 percent towards another.

Then, compare the difference in sales across several pages. A brief period of micro-testing can often lead to years of proven sales techniques, all of which remain tailored to your industry. Regardless of the size and demographic makeup of your audience, micro-testing is likely to give you a significant increase in per-reader sales rates and social media income.

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!

Three Tips for Crafting an Effective, Tweetable Message

Few social networks sum up public discourse more effectively than Twitter. Thanks to its short-form nature and enormous audience, a single topic of discussion can often evolve into a completely natural case study for marketers. Be it immense disapproval or the immense success of a single meme, Twitter offers a unique look into conversation.

But how can you make that conversation happen, regardless of your particular product, sales team, or industry? While it’s very difficult to create conversation out of nothing, particularly for a product or service that’s just patently uninteresting, it’s very easy to optimize a discussion so that it spreads throughout the social media landscape like wildfire.

Apply these three tactics to your next Twitter promotion, compare them against your past experiences, and learn what a bit of creative copywriting tweaks can do to your social media ROI.

1) Learn to love the ‘…’

Add an ellipsis to the end of your tweets and you stand to experience a twenty percent increase in click-through traffic. This timeless tweak has been used by performance marketers for decades, both online and off. Whether you’re tweeting a message or advertising a product on Adwords, this simple tweak can help you instantly increase the amount of readers that visit your linked page.

2) Use numbers, instructions, and summaries.

Numbers catch the eye. Instructions can increase involvement. Summaries attract users looking for information, particularly those that want to understand more about a particular topic. These Twitter tricks were all mastered by copywriters years ago, and they’re still just as effective as ever. Use them and you’ll see an increase in traffic.

3) Get people scared, even if there’s nothing to be afraid of.

In order to increase the amount of time that readers spend thinking about your product, it’s important to project a situation in which it isn’t present. If you want to increase sales of your pest removal product, remind readers about the dangers of bed bugs – all at 11:30PM.

Got an investment to pitch? Scare people by reminding them that others could get ahead of them if they choose not to leap at the opportunity. People respond to fear, even if it’s minute and fairly inconsequential. Use ‘fear words’ in your tweets to draw in readers, and use your additional content to make them familiar with your brand, your company, and your product’s advantages.

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!

Three Tips for Connecting with Social Media Leaders

When asked about his social media strategy, best-selling author and leading productivity blogger, Tim Ferriss, suggested that marketers try one of two strategies: target ‘thought leaders’, or target ‘traffic leaders’ with important, unusual questions. The tactic was one of several used during the promotional build-up to his best-selling book and the pre-launch of his own personal website.

While some may point to the advice as being outdated or rather unspecific, it appears to be even more relevant today than it was when issued almost twelve years ago. The blogosphere has grown even more convoluted and difficult to navigate, with top personalities publishing their content at several domain names and major faces communicating with followers on hundreds of services.

Add a puzzling social media scene and you’re left with a setting where the only real way up is by spending months networking. These three tips – each based around the idea of thought- and traffic-leaders – can help you make the oh-so-important connections in the social media world without being forced to push your message on bloggers against their will.

1) Approach people offline when given the chance.

Most social media leaders live in fear of their email inbox. The hundreds of messages that make it through their spam filter daily are each plastered with ‘urgent!’ announcements, grabbing attention and making it difficult to read each one. With overflowing Facebook inboxes and a lengthy list of responses on Twitter to catch up with, it’s difficult to get a single word to a social media power user.

So don’t. Don’t try. Don’t even plan to write an email. Instead, look at the offline events at which a social media leader is appearing and make an effort to drop by. An offline introduction can build a rapport that simply isn’t possible through blog posts, direct messages, and email.

2) Don’t pitch. Listen and offer advice when you can help.

Never pitch. Never even think about pitching. It’s a sure-fire way to end up in the ‘do not call’ list, and it’s something that shouldn’t even appear in your social toolkit. Instead, speak with top social media presences the same way you would with a friend or acquaintance – share jokes, offer some cool quotes, and let them know that you’re not just talking to them for exposure.

Bring up your business when they ask and you’ll gain an instant point of connection. Not only will they ask you for more information, they could offer to help you with marketing and online buzz. A dedicated effort towards not pitching will give you a huge advantage should the subject of business come up later in conversation, if only because they know you’re not being exploitative.

3) Follow up the old-fashioned way – on the phone.

Remember how crowded email can be? If you’ve had a great chat with a social media leader, be it at a conference, a local event, or simply at an internet meet-up, ask for their phone number instead of a flooded email address. Not only does phone contact give you an advantage in message volume – it’s one of several methods that allows you to command relative urgency during your conversation.

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!

Women Need to Delegate More

Through her position as president of Count Me In, and CEO of her own company, Merlino has witnessed firsthand the unique challenges that women in business face. In her experience, the biggest obstacle for women in business has to do with many female business owners’ desire to take on all aspects of the business.

Merlino finds she is constantly coaching women on becoming better delegators.

“You can have it all as long as you don’t try to do it all,” Merlino said. “Women can feel like they have to do it for themselves or are the best person for every job, which leads to more time being spent working in their business rather than on their business,” she said.

Merlino said that the first responsibility female business owners need to start tasking others with is the production of goods or the delivery of services. She believes that time is a business owner’s most valuable resource, and is constantly encouraging women to put their time to good use by developing a system of delegation that is as brilliant as the product being made.

“If you’re in the cookie business; that means getting out there and selling your product and looking for opportunities to get you to the next level,” she said. “To grow, you need to hire a strong team to make the cookies. It’s working on your business, not just in it.”

“Too often, Merlino said, business owners view hiring employees as a strain on revenue instead of an opportunity to make more money.” In fact, she said that this lack of critical thinking about money is one of the greatest challenges facing the businesswomen she meets. She encourages them to step out of their comfort zones and take charge of their finances.

“Know and go where the money is,” Merlino said. “Whether it’s your banker, investors, or customers, you need to know where your money’s coming from. You should constantly be developing and deepening these relationships.”

“Women who own businesses also must learn how to make their money work for them”, Merlino said. Though many women believe they need grow their business no further once they’ve made enough money to support themselves and their families, Merlino disagrees. “Such women, she said, while successful, are misguided in the belief that by keeping their businesses small they are able to have more time with their families.”

“This is the fallacy that I think is the worst,” Merlino said. “You believe that keeping the business small will allow you to do everything you want to do. But if you build the business bigger, then you will have more money and more time.”

So Merlino coaches women away from this line of thinking and teaches them how to grow their businesses gradually and logically.

“To grow your business sustainably and increase revenues and profits, you need to have a plan and focus your energy on implementing it effectively and on a clear timeline,” she says. “Commit to a plan, and keep your vision clear and at the forefront.”

Merlino’s years of experience also means that she has seen and heard many ideas for businesses. She says the best way to know if a business idea will be successful is to ask questions and do research in the field.

She instructs us to ask yourself, ‘Is this product needed and wanted? Is there truly money to be made with this idea?  “A business that has the potential to appeal to different demographics and can be offered up in a variety of distribution channels is an indication that there is a potential for the business to grow and thrive”, she shared.

Merlino encourages women to be open to the professional feedback and constructive criticism they receive while trying out different business ideas or expanding an existing business, but she also believes that they need to be confident in their abilities in order to be successful.

“Having the right mindset is incredibly important,” Merlino said. “Be confident and don’t let the fear of failure get in your way of succeeding.”

Merlino is confident that through programs like the ones offered by Count Me In, more women will become leaders in the world of business and in the world at large.

“I see how the world is changing,” Merlino said, “And I do my part to keep pushing. The women who grow their companies do the same.”

Source:  BusinessNewsDaily.com

The entire article can be found here: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3924-how-female-business-owners-can-get-ahead.html

I spent many years holding myself back by not doing a little delegation of my own.  I now have a professional team in place to help me manage and implement my own marketing (as well as my clients’), my accounting/taxes and other business aspects that I do not have a passion for handling. They are being taken care of by experts in those fields.

I have seen steady growth, as much as 25% in many of the past 23-years, and I’m already showing positive signs of growth over this past year.  Take a close look at where you’re spending your time and whether or not you should be delegating some of those tasks to someone else.

Jeannine Grich, CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan check out her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: https://accbizsvc.com/, or contact her at [email protected]

Ready to find out how to take your business to the next level? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to discuss your marketing and website/social media presence, here!