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1. Considering Where to Market

Offline Marketing – Networking etc.
What kind of marketing do you do to help in building your business? When you attend networking events, are you attending the RIGHT kind of events?

When deciding where to market yourself – be strategic about it. It can be both tiring and expensive to try to market yourself to all areas and professions. Before you even consider joining a group/association etc., ask yourself

• “what is the benefit to me in joining this group?”
• “are these people within my own target market?”

If the people are not within your target market, I say make a note of them for future but try to focus on where your target market is hanging out. For example, if your target market is small business owners in the financial industry – would you join or attend a networking group that is catered to event planners?

Online Networking
There are tons of different ways to market yourself online. However they can be VERY time consuming and unless you stand out from the rest of your competition, they can be very limiting in results.

Before you start marketing yourself online, ask yourself:

• Who am I trying to target? Does this area help me reach my target group?
• Will spending time to market myself this way benefit me? Is so, how?

2. Introducing Yourself – Be Comfortable with Your Introduction

So, let’s say you found the perfect place to market yourself – both online and offline.

No matter what kind of marketing you do, you need to be comfortable with introducing yourself. Quite often your opening statement is referred to as your “elevator speech”. Whatever you decide to say as your opening intro, be sure that it sound like you and it feels natural to you. There’s nothing worse than trying to memorize lines that you are not comfortable with…. It will be obvious.

Remember, this is your opportunity to start building the relationship with this new contact. If they ask you questions, it’s a good thing! It shows that they are listening and are interested in learning more about you.

3. What to do with the Contact Info

So often we get a bunch of business cards or new contacts and the information sits on our desk, within a nice folder, or even in our email. It sits there long enough that sooner or later we forget we ever met all those people.

In many cases, you’ve met these people ONCE. That’s it – once.

The secret ingredient is one we all know … FOLLOW UP. What’s interesting with this point is that we ALL know that we SHOULD follow up with contacts. But yet, how many of us actually do it?

You’ve just barely started a relationship … now it’s time to build the relationship – also known as the KNOW, LIKE and TRUST factors.

Here are a few suggestions on how to make the most of meeting new contacts.

• If you attended an offline networking event, jot down some notes on the person’s business card of items you discussed, questions they asked
• Invite people to join your newsletter list – tell them you will add them if they approve
• The day after the event, think back to your conversation and the notes you jotted on the business card – if they asked a question of some kind, do you have any details you can send them? I have a client who has a stash of articles on different topics and when she meets someone that is interested in a particular topic, she’ll send them an email the next saying “it was so great to meet you. During our conversation, you expressed an interest in abc and I thought you may be interested in this article”.
• If they asked you for specific information about your business, send it to them – whether it be your rates, what you can do etc.

Thinking back to their conversation – is there anything about them you would like to learn more about? Offer to take them out for coffee or schedule a quick 10 minute phone call and continue the conversation. Show that you are genuinely interested in hearing more about them and their business.

When you connect with new contacts, listen to what they are telling you. Are they expressing frustration with items you can help them with? Do you have resources or information you can refer them to?

By having ongoing communication with prospects and following up with them, you will soon see the results turn positive as far as building your business.

The “Business Mindset” defined.

Earlier today my business partner Tina Forsyth and I offered a free teleclass for Virtual Assistants - “A ’sneak peak’ into the conversations with business owners - what they are really needing from their Virtual Assistants”. Over 200 people registered for this call.

I talked a little about “Business Mindset”. Many VAs have already told me that this topic really impacted their thought process when working with their clients so I thought I’d share here on the blog. My book (which is coming out soon!) covers more on this topic.

There is a transition that needs to take place when you own a Virtual Assistant business. You are no longer an office employee, a subordinate in a hierarchy chart, waiting for delegation from your executive.

You are now a professional business owner, an expert in your area. Your boundaries have extended. Your opinions, feedback and some guidance matter. Not only do they matter - they are expected.

This is where the “employee mindset” transition to “Business Mindset” needs to take place.

The truth is business owners who want to work with a Virtual Assistant do not want to delegate. They want a Virtual Assistant who will partner with them, provide feedback and suggestions and take on tasks as appropriate. They want someone who will

• ask the right questions,
• listen to their needs,
• identify the steps and technology required to accomplish goals,
• TELL them what is needed and provide the solutions - i.e. take care of the details.

As a Virtual Assistant - if you can apply the Business Mindset and combine it with the Marketing Mindset (we’ll talk more about this in future posts), you will have no trouble keeping and attracting clients. In fact, you will eventually need to learn how to say no to new clients.

Think of it this way - by waiting for a client to delegate work to you, you are short-changing yourself by not demonstrating what you’re really capable of. Chances of building a long-term relationship with this client are slim. Can you afford to not change?

The ninth and one of the most valuable skills you can offer to any client is the ability to help drive traffic to their websites. This is what our clients ask for help with more than anything else.

There are literally hundreds of ways to market a website and drive traffic, but all you really need to know and understand is one simple thing.

The *key* to successful traffic is to know the niche market you are targeting (or your client’s niche market).

Definition of niche: A group of people with common issues or interests, that ‘hang out’ together.

So there are actually 2 simple steps to driving traffic:

1. Know the niche market, and find where they are ‘hanging out’ together.

2. If you know where they are ‘hanging out’, you can find various ways to get in front of them or have them find you.

As an example, say that you have a client that is targeting flower shop owners.

Where do flower shop owners ‘hang out’ together? Well, first of all they have a listing in the yellow pages so it is easy to find their phone numbers and addresses. I’m sure there are some flower shop associations that you could plug into, perhaps submit articles to their newsletter. What about other companies who also provide services to flower shop owners that you could joint venture with, such as wholesalers?

If your client does not have a well defined niche it can certainly be quite difficult to drive traffic to their site. You may want to do some research to help your client find a niche or refine their niche.

Here are just a few suggestions on ways you can drive traffic, both online and offline:

- google adwords/pay per click
- search engine optimization
- link exchanges
- promo in email signatures
- online article directories
- online ezine directories
- discussion lists
- set up a public blog
- start a yahoo group
- tell-a-friend modules
- affiliate programs
- joint ventures, sharing lists
- social networking, such as Ryze
- local networking groups
- speaking engagements
- writing articles for print newsletters
- write a book
- advertising
- direct mail
- phone campaigns

Driving traffic truly is a whole other course onto itself, but hopefully this is enough to get you started.

And so I invite you to do one simple thing this week - pick one thing from the traffic list above and offer to do it for a client of yours. It could be as simple as submitting an article to a directory, or perhaps even offering to setup an affiliate program or to manage an existing one.

Remember, it is quite often the most simple things that can make a huge difference for our clients and ourselves. Don’t let yourself get caught in the perceived complexity of ‘driving traffic’, just pick one item and take it step by step.