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Giveaway

Win the Make More, Work Less Power Package – a $300 value!

I’m happy to announce the winners of the giveaway!

Grand Prize Power Package Winner: Maria Vences: Check out Maria’s Business

Second Prize Winner: Joseph Gannaban: Check out Joseph’s Blog

This Power Package includes 3 of the most recommended books on entrepreneurial success ever published. All are best-sellers – I’ve included links to a review of each book below.

And the books are just the tip of the iceberg. The grand prize winner will also receive an in-depth business analysis from yours truly – you’ll walk away with a detailed, custom plan for your business that has identified ways for you to work fewer hours, make more money, and grow with less stress.

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Review of The 4-Hour Workweek

E-Myth Book Review

Think and Grow Rich Review

Filed Under: business management, entrepreneurial mindset, System Development, time management Tagged With: giveaway, Michael E. Gerber, Napoleon Hill, the 4 hour work week, The E-Myth, Think and Grow Rich, Tim Ferriss

Do You Have Entrepreneurial Grit?

By Maura Raffensperger 6 Comments

What would you do if you needed several new clients right now? That’s the dilemma a business owner I know faced last week. Two of her best long-term clients unexpectedly needed to cut back, and she was suddenly facing a cash-flow crisis. Luckily, she’s resourceful … and her solution is something you can replicate.

It can be tough being an entrepreneur/small business owner/solopreneur. But what sets us apart is our entrepreneurial grit. That’s why the solopreneur mentioned above set a goal of calling everyone she has exchanged business cards with in the last 3 months. She’s not begging them for business, but she is listening when the person she calls tells her what they do, making connections when she can, and explaining what she does. And, very importantly, asking if they know someone she should contact who could use her services.

Picking up the phone and asking for business does not come easily to her. And she sometimes forgets that crucial last step: asking for business or a referral. But I’m betting she finds the new clients she needs. Last night, I stumbled on a Forbes article that reinforces the point:

…salespeople who make more calls will almost always outperform salespeople who make fewer calls. That’s no surprise, but here’s the key point: This doesn’t happen just because the act of making more calls mathematically raises the chances of success. There’s much more to it. By facing up to the task of making a call, frequent callers put themselves on a faster learning curve. They discover more rapidly what works and what doesn’t. They’re quicker to learn techniques that overcome rejection. Thus, their success yield will improve–i.e., double the calls, triple the sales. [Smarts in Business Is Not About IQ]

The concluding sentence of the article says it all:

In the real world it’s grit that makes us smart.

Let’s end with an entrepreneurial call to action:

Create a plan for the next time you need new clients right now.

Filed Under: business management, entrepreneurial mindset, Getting Stuff Done

Small Business Hiring Tips: Employee, Contractor, or VA?

By Maura Raffensperger 4 Comments

When you start to think about hiring help for your small business, you may ask ‘What is the difference between an employee, independent contractor and a virtual assistant (VA)?’. There are websites that give you a legal and IRS definition, but I want to give you a different perspective: What would help you the most?

First, let’s define the terms.

An employee takes direction from you. You tell them what hours to work , and may even train them. You pay them either hourly or a salary, and are also responsible for payroll taxes and worker’s compensation insurance. If you require them to work from your office, they are most likely an employee.

An independent contractor does work you request, but set their own hours, and use their own tools. You can give them a deadline and work specs, but they decide how to get the work done. They set their own rates and bill you.

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is an independent contractor who does their work for you remotely. I differentiate VA’s because I think of independent contractors as often being hired per project, whereas a VA is usually hired to work on an ongoing basis, typically in increments of 5 hours a month.

Many solopreneurs start by hiring independent contractors on a project basis, like an accountant or graphic designer. As the business owner’s workload grows, they often hire a VA to take care of repetitive tasks.

Hiring a VA can be more cost-effective than hiring an employee. I remember considering hiring a part-time employee for office help, then finding out that, even though I only wanted someone 2-4 hours/week, the worker’s comp insurance had a hefty minimum and it was non-refundable; even if my one employee quit, I had to pay a year’s premium. It would have been fine if I needed someone for 20 hours a week or more, and knew I would replace that person if they left, but I was ‘testing the waters’, so a VA was a much better choice for me.

The downside is that I had to let go of some tasks I would like done by someone else. I would love for someone else to enter and update my contacts. Easy to direct an onsite employee to do this, but not worth the time it would take for me to scan cards or put them in an envelope and mail them to a VA, with directions. At that point, it is the same effort as me just doing it myself. Luckily social media & automation tools (see my post Keep Your Contacts Up-to-Date Without Ever Entering a Business Card Again) make keeping track of contacts much easier now. And sharing information and files already on your computer is a breeze.

What frustrations have you faced in outsourcing work? I’m working on an e-book to help solopreneurs hire smart, and would love your comments.

Filed Under: business management, Delegation, Getting Stuff Done, time management, working with a virtual assistant Tagged With: small business hiring tips

E Myth Book Review [Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work]

By Maura Raffensperger 4 Comments

Here’s the premise: most entrepreneurs work more and more as their business grows, and end up burnt out and out of love with their business. If you can relate (or want to make sure that doesn’t happen to you), this is the book for you.

The E-Myth Revisited is my favorite business book, and the one I recommend over and over. The subtitle promises “Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It”, and the book delivers answers.

Gerber starts by recognizing the three roles every entrepreneur plays:

The technician, who provides the product or service
The manager, who supplies the order and systems (like scheduling and invoicing)
The entrepreneur, who supplies the vision for the company

You may recognize the problem most entrepreneurs face: staying stuck in the technician role, where you end up working to burnout.

Gerber’s solution: treat your business like a franchise – even if you have no plans to eventually sell or franchise your business. What this does is force you to think about creating a ‘turn-key’ business, i.e. systemizing your business so anyone can follow your processes. That allows you to hire other people to do at least some of your work, freeing you to work in the higher level entrepreneur role your company needs.

Unlike Tim Ferriss in The 4-hour Workweek, Gerber does not give his readers an unrealistic promise that they can do this in 4 hours a week. Gerber also expects that you love what you do (or you did before you hit burnout, and you can again). Gerber does promise, if you follow his advice, that you can reduce the hours you work in your business; avoid burnout; spend less time in the technician and manager roles, and more in the Entrepreneur role. (Or, as I would put it, be the CEO, rather than the secretary, of your business.)

This book gives you a sound foundation to begin this process.

What may be the best part for a busy entrepreneur is that you can read The E-Myth Revisited in a night. Implementation will take longer, of course. If breaking down your processes to figure out what can be systemized does not come naturally to you, it does to me. If you need more help, call me to discuss how I can help support you with telephone or Skype coaching.

Filed Under: business management, Delegation, System Development, time management Tagged With: The E Myth Revisited, The E-Myth

The 4-Hour Workweek Book Review

By Maura Raffensperger 6 Comments

Who isn’t enticed with the promise of the 4-hour workweek? The book has sold more than 1,350,000 copies worldwide [Wikipedia], and has remained on the Amazon Best Seller’s list from the year it was first published. Just for the marketing savvy of the title alone, this book deserves a read.*

And the book does have good points entrepreneurs can implement about outsourcing and automating, making it worth a read. The problem comes from Ferriss’s definition of ‘work’. It’s obvious from any article written about him that he works almost non-stop. As this The New York Times article noted, Ferriss spends far more than 4 hours per week in blogging, speaking and self-promotion, which Ferriss describes as “evangelizing.”

‘Work’, to Ferriss, is doing something you don’t like to do, solely for the purpose of making money. While it is perfectly reasonable that you would want to minimize the time you spend on disagreeable tasks (and certainly something I train my clients to do), the entrepreneurs I work with like their business, in much the same way Ferriss must like the blogging, speaking and self-promotion he refuses to call ‘work’.

And those regular “mini retirements,” ideally a month off for every two months of work, that Ferriss touts in The 4-Hour Workweek are alluring. But evidently more of a goal than a reality; a 2013 Inc. article reports that Ferriss hadn’t had ‘a proper mini retirement in more than a year now.’ [Inc. April 2013]

What you can take away from The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich is the basic idea of creating some form of passive income to serve as a base for the things you enjoy doing in your business and life, and outsourcing the things you don’t like to do.

On a personal note: His policy on outsourcing felt a bit ‘icky’ to me. Not because there is anything wrong with outsourcing to someone in another country, but because his motivation seemed to be to take advantage of their financial insecurity and pay them a pittance. Reminded me of a WalMart mentality – and that’s not how I want to run my business. I have outsourced work occasionally (through ODesk, now called Upwork) to other countries, but I paid what I felt was a competitive rate. The majority of my outsourced work now is to a Virtual Assistant in the United States.

Bottom line: Read The 4-Hour Workweek, use it as an inspiration for what you can outsource, and consider what you can do to create passive income as an income base.

* Ferriss used Facebook polls to test title ideas

Filed Under: business management, Delegation, Getting Stuff Done, personal organization, System Development, time management, working with a virtual assistant Tagged With: the 4 hour work week, The 4-hour workweek

Using Google Alerts to Make Prospects Love You

By Maura Raffensperger Leave a Comment

My MileIQ review has been by far the most popular post on my blog this month – people really want what this app promises to do. And evidently the people at MileIQ are using Google alerts, because I got a very nice email from them less than 12 hours after I posted my [unsolicited] blog review of their app. What a great way to use automation (a google alert set to your company or product name) to provide a ‘high touch’ customer experience.

‘High touch’ because the email I received was obviously personalized. It didn’t just use my name, it also referenced my blog, the review I had written, and even included a link to a help article on a problem I had mentioned. Here’s the email:

Hi Maura,
Thank you very much for writing a review of MileIQ. Your blog seems like it would have a perfect audience for our service.
We noticed that you might have had some trouble with a few of your drives and wanted to share this support article with you that will ensure all your drive data is captured.
If you’re not getting drives…
http://support.mileiq.com/knowledgebase/articles/288109-if-you-re-not-getting-drives
The answer to your question about turning Wifi on is yes, it helps a lot. iOS relies on this to provide significantly better location information for the iPhone. This method is also much less battery intensive than asking the phone to use the GPS chip.
Of course if this doesn’t resolve the issue we’d be happy to help you troubleshoot further.
Regards,
Nat Robinson | MileIQ

Are you using Google alerts in your business? Please share what you are doing with Google alerts in the comment section, so we can all benefit from sharing best practices (or learning what did not work out so well). And, if you have yet to start using Google alerts, click the link in the first paragraph to learn how easy it is to set one up.

Filed Under: business management, small business marketing, System Development Tagged With: mileIQ review

Oscar Selfie – How Ellen DeGeneres May Have Helped Your Biz

By Maura Raffensperger Leave a Comment

In case you didn’t watch the Academy Awards Sunday, here’s the photo that ‘broke’ Twitter. DeGeneres’ tweet knocked Twitter offline for a bit, racking up more than 700,000 retweets and nearly 200,000 favorites in just 30 minutes. Here’s why you should care, 2 useful resources, and 2 precautions you should take now to protect your business.

It was not Ellen DeGeneres’ intent to shut down Twitter, but it’s a perfect example of how a DDoS attack works.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a DDoS attack is when an attacker floods a site, with no prior warning, with so much malicious traffic that it is unable to respond to legitimate traffic.

Why You Should Care Reason #1: A DDoS attack on one of your vendors may prevent you from conducting business

Did you notice that some of your favorite web apps were down last week? I certainly did, since one of the sites that was down was AWeber, which I use to manage my list, send out my ezine, and collect new subscribers using forms on my website. Meetup.com was also down, as were several other web apps – I’ve included a screenshot of what I saw when I tried to use the Meetup site. [tip: Meetup is a good resource to find networking events].

This outage may have cost me business – anyone who tried to sign-up for my ezine or one of the complimentary downloads I offer on my website would have been unable to do so when AWeber was down. It would have looked like a broken link. And the likelihood of that person thinking “Hmm, it might be a DDoS attack on AWeber causing this, so I’ll try again later” is pretty slim.

The Meetup DDoS attack is fascinating for causing so much mayhem for what was evidently just a lark; the hackers who brought down the site for several days were demanding just $300 to stop. It would not pay, Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman told Reuters.

Why You Should Care Reason #2: A DDoS Attack on your website will be expensive

Don’t scoff – the Meetup hackers I mentioned in the last paragraph seemed to conduct their DDoS attack just for the heck of it, and DDoS attacks are increasing – DDoS attacks are now responsible for 18 percent of outages at U.S.-based data centers, up from just 2 percent in 2010, and the average cost of a single outage was $630,000, according to the cyber-security-focused Ponemon Institute. Sure, you’re probably not going to spend $630,000, but how much would it cost you — and is it money you can afford?

Precautions You Can Take

Talk to your web host (or delegate your webmaster to do this) and find out what precautions they have in place to fend off a DDoS attack. Do they have recommendations of added protections you could implement? At a bare minimum, make sure you are current with updates on your site – these often include security plugs.
Consider the web apps you use that are critical to your business. Do you have a backup plan in case those apps are down for an extended period of time? Do you know who to call for assistance? For instance, if Gmail is down, I can use the webmail feature of my domain to send and receive email – do you know how to do that? Do you need to set up a Gmail account to use in case your webmail is down? Do you have a copy of your website, stored somewhere other than on your web host? These are the types of things that need to be documented so not just you, but any employee or independent contractor can quickly check to implement your backup plan. [tip: you can delegate the research to another member of your team – but don’t forget to review and okay the backup plans they create – part of your job as CEO is to make sure your team has not missed something in the ‘bigger picture’ of how your business runs.]
Is It Down Right Now is a resource I use to quickly check when I am unsure if it’s me or a larger problem. It monitors the status of your favorite web sites and checks whether they are down or not.
Many companies will use Twitter to post updates when there is a problem, so check there. You can also use the search feature in Twitter to see if others are reporting a problem.

I enjoyed the Oscars Sunday night – and thank Ellen DeGeneres for her unintentional reminder to have a backup plan in your biz.

If you found some value in this article, it would mean a ton to me for you to share this with your LinkedIn and/or Facebook contacts. Comments are also appreciated!

Filed Under: business management, System Development Tagged With: dDos

People With Attentional Challenges are 300% More Likely to Be Entrepreneurs

By Maura Raffensperger 1 Comment

People with attention challenges are 300% more likely to be entrepreneurs

Turns out some of the characteristics of ADHD are some of the same ones that make a good entrepreneur. That’s the message Laurie Dupar, ADHD Coach, imparts in her interview for the upcoming This Is The Year Biz Telesummit. I loved interviewing Laurie because I learned so much – and I know many of my clients will too!

The trick, as always, is learning how to compensate for the challenges of ADHD (like follow-through) while maximizing the strengths (like creative thinking). Laurie has a terrific free gift for This Is The Year Biz Summit Participants: her e-book Unlock the Secrets to Your Entrepreneurial Brain Style & Discover the Innate “Success Secrets” of thriving entrepreneurs!

What’s fascinating to me is how many people hear the checklists of characteristics of ADHD and say “That’s me!”. And it may be … but I asked Laurie to define what separates ‘normal’ from ADHD. Her strategies for coping with ADHD challenges are helpful to all of us – because we all are challenged with the same issues from time to time.

Remember, Laurie is just of 21 experts interviewed for the telesummit. Grab the recordings here.

Filed Under: business management, personal organization, time management Tagged With: ADHD, entrepreneurship

How to Finally Go Big In Your Biz in 2014 – FREE Telesummit

By Maura Raffensperger 1 Comment

How many times have you said to yourself “THIS is the year my business will finally take off”?

But time flies, and life gets in the way. Unproductive days can turn into weeks and months of a business that flounders or flatlines.

But THIS YEAR WILL BE DIFFERENT FOR YOU AND YOUR BIZ when you start it off right–by listening to 21 experts share their very best secrets to building a profitable business without sacrificing your sanity and your personal life.

No travel required. Listen and learn from wherever you are by phone or computer.

You are invited to the event of the new year…

“THIS IS THE YEAR!” BUSINESS SUCCESS TELESUMMIT

When: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, January 10-12, 2014

Who you’ll hear: the smartest experts, authors, coaches, and strategists—all handpicked for their expertise in areas like social media, mindset, networking, and sales.

What you’ll get: practical takeaways, real strategies, step-by-step guides…plus gifts and bonuses galore.

What you WON’T get: sales pitches. This is pure training…and tons of it!

Cost: $0.00

Click here to RSVP now

The THIS IS THE YEAR Biz Success Telesummit is for you, if you are…

Keeping busy all the time but not generating the income you want.
Networking like crazy but not sure how to convert relationships to revenue.
Spending lots of money on marketing without knowing which tactics are actually bringing in new clients.
Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and stuck.
Toying with the idea of giving up and getting the dreaded J.O.B.
Sacrificing your relationships and your health for your business and wondering if it will ever be worth it.

Let the experts help!

Click here to RSVP

We know you’re eager for all this knowledge—you started your business so you could serve people, make money, and be in charge of your own life. But the reality of being an entrepreneur often means not enough clients, not enough money, not enough freedom…UNLESS you’re getting trained and mentored by those who have been where you are and know how to bust through and GO BIG—not in 10 years, but THIS YEAR.

Our 21 experts are bringing out all their best stuff for this telesummit and being super generous with their time and knowledge.

Listen in during this info-packed 3-day event on January 10, 11, and 12.

It’s fun, easy to sign up for, super convenient, and FREE… Listen by phone or computer, wherever in the world you happen to be.

Click here to RSVP

Consider the This Is The Year Biz Success Telesummit to be your front row pass to the information, tips, and secrets of 21 entrepreneurial experts giving you secrets and strategies for going BIG with

using social media
generating sales
networking
earning passive income
speaking
branding
fighting overwhelm
and so much more!

These professionals in their fields have all graciously offered to donate their time and expertise to help you on the path to your ultimate wellness and self-esteem. Each fun, lively interview is a full hour of valuable information and will be available for listening until the end of the day of its presentation.

Click here to join in

P.S. What do you have to lose? Just frustration, overwhelm, and worry. Learn from 21 experts FOR FREE, get tons of gifts, and make THIS YEAR the year you GO BIG…without losing your sanity! Click here to reserve your spot and receive your bonus gift as soon as you register. Then, make sure to pass this information on to anyone you think would like to attend, too.

P.P.S. This call series costs exactly $0.00 and there is no obligation to buy anything ever, but if you ever do, know that I’m an affiliate of this event–which means I believe in the value of what we’re creating together–and I may receive a commission from any sales generated.

Filed Under: business management, small business marketing, System Development, time management

The Complete Beginner’s Guide to CRM

By Maura Raffensperger 2 Comments

Let’s start with the question ‘What is CRM and do I need it?’ Why you might need it is covered in this question that arrived in my inbox this week:

I was wondering if you had any idea what kind of programs are out there that track appointments, client info and purchase history. I work for a salon part-time and they use www.booker.com which does MOST of that but my business is not spa related. I’d love to have something that sets up appointments, allows me to track what we talked about and then track what they bought and what they are interested in for future. Is this a program or is this just good note taking in my contacts?

And here is my answer:

What you are describing is Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) software. You may need to integrate it with Quickbooks for total purchase info, but you can certainly track purchases in the CRM software. Act and Salesforce are the two most popular CRM programs. ZOHO also provides a CRM you might want to check out.

Let me give you a quick example of how a CRM program differs from Outlook, for example. In Outlook, you would schedule an appointment and manually add your contact’s name to the calendar. If you wanted to see information on that contact, it is stored in a different part of the program (your contacts), and you would need to go search in your contacts for that information.

In a CRM program, you could schedule an appointment directly from the contact, and if you were in the calendar, clicking on the contact name would instantly open that contact information, including any notes you had made, and past history (any event or phone call scheduled in the past would show up in the contact history).

There are many other features of CRM programs, but it is the integration of all client data that make these powerful programs, especially for salespeople, or business owners who contact many current and prospective customers.

Some questions to ask yourself include:

How much does it cost? Many CRM programs are cloud based only (Salesforce) and have a monthly charge (which you may pay annually). Act still has a program you install on your computer, which may cost less if you don’t upgrade frequently.
Are the benefits worth the cost (i.e. will I get a good ROI on the time-savings and/or productivity gains)?
How easy is it to use? Is there a long learning curve?
Do I need to share this database with an assistant or VA? Does the software allow this? Is there an additional charge if more than one person is a user? Does my assistant know how to use/what training will they need?
Is there a free demo? In most cases, the data entered into a CRM demo can be downloaded before your trial ends, so you will not lose data you entered into the program. The exception is any notes you added to the CRM – those don’t export. Most programs will also easily import and/or sync with your current contact info.

Make sure to check out online reviews, such as http://www.salonsoftwarereviews.com/spa-booker/. Simply enter ‘CRM reviews’ into your search engine of choice to find more review sites.

If you want help quickly sorting out the pros and cons for your specific situation, I can help you determine if CRM software makes sense for you in a short phone call. Call me at 805-616-2466 to set up a phone appointment.

Filed Under: business management, System Development, time management