So, are you ready to stop settling for this frustrating, crazy-making approach to running a business? Are you itching to get back to doing what you love for the people who really need you?

Because the THRIVE Hiring System is finally here.

Learn proven strategies and tools for finding, hiring, and working with support teams that bolster YOUR success – consistently and reliably.

Click here to register: THRIVE Hiring System

We’ve got your hiring needs covered, from soup to nuts…

6 LIVE training calls, including:

• Team module: Who You Need and When
• Hire module: Find and Hire the Right People
• Release module: Letting Go So Your Team Can Support You Effectively
• Incentive module: Compensating Your Team to Contribute to the Bottom Line
• Validate module: Building Long Term Relationships With Your Team
• Expand module: Next Steps as Your Business Grows

• PLUS 2 “open mike” Q&A calls with me, Tina Forsyth
• PLUS 1 year of access to the THRIVE Directory & Job Board 
• PLUS a 1-year membership to the THRIVE Community Discussion Board (online)

For just $497, you can END the outsourcing misery for good and start THRIVING as an entrepreneur.

Click here to register: THRIVE Hiring System

Can you imagine? In less than 2 months, you could have a team of professionals who rally to SUPPORT YOU, exactly how you need it.

No more babysitting. No more drama. No more running for cover when something blows up. (Even better … how about no more stuff blowing up in the first place!?!)

Start LOVING Your Business Again…

Because when you have the right team in place, living that 6- or 7-figure dream no longer seems impossible but very realistic.

Our video series re: the Top 10 Questions about how to find, hire and work with a virtual team is complete – missed any of the videos? Not a problem, you can check them out here. 

Just to recap we covered:

1. How do I know who I need to hire in the first place?
2. What attributes should I look for when hiring someone?
3. What do I delegate vs. keep to myself?
4. How to know if someone can actually do what they say?
5. Where is the best place to find the people I need?
6. How can I afford the help I need?
7. How to know when to fix something vs. fire the person?
8. How can I get great people to stay with me?
9. I think I’m a control freak, yipes! What to do?
10. How can I make sure I’m not settling?

As mentioned in the videos we are putting the final touches on the new THRIVE Hiring System – which is a complete step-by-step program to take you through the hiring process from start to finish (it will open up for registration next week.) 

If you would like to take this further and get this team thing figured out once and for all let me ask you… 

What would you like me to cover in this new program?

Just post your comment below or send me an email if you prefer. I want to make sure to include as much as possible for you to get the right team in place. 

Many thanks!

I will admit, having worked in the world of online biz for a while now I’ve become a bit bored with the idea of automated marketing – in particular the world of email based marketing. It’s almost like I’ve heard so much about it over the years and worked with it in so many different ways that I’ve almost forgotten the true value of what is behind this idea.

Enter in Infusionsoft*… which has renewed my excitement for the power & value of what automated marketing can truly be. (So much so that I’m offering a new training for Infusionsoft – early bird for this expires today, check it out.)

The appeal of automated marketing is of course the fact that it’s automated – who doesn’t want to have marketing activities working to their benefit without having to lift a finger! And yet ‘traditional’ automated marketing – especially of the email kind – seems to fall apart for a few reasons:

1. Email is no longer the best way to connect - I think this goes without saying as we all know about deliverability issues, email overwhelm and such. People simply aren’t paying attention to email as much anymore, and yet most of us still rely on email in a big way to market.What to do? Connect with people in other ways of course – good ole phone, fax, letter, voicemail to mention a few. Part of what I love about Infusionsoft is that it builds these options into an automated marketing sequence, so it doesn’t have to be just strictly about email anymore. Super cool!
2. It can feel so impersonal - people want to connect with people. And I think that the purpose of any good automated marketing strategy should lead to an actual “person to person” contact in some way, shape or form. Be it a phone call, group meeting, live meeting or something along those lines.That isn’t possible of course with every single thing we do in marketing (or is it? hmmm) but I think it’s VERY important to consider. People can see through something that is just strictly “another email trying to sell them something” vs. you wanting to truly connect and provide value to them. Imagine signing up for someone’s newsletter and actually getting a call from someone as a result, wouldn’t that knock your socks off? It would mine.
3. We tend to forget it is there – when was the last time you revisited the series of emails that people get when they sign up for your newsletter? As I’m typing this I’m embarrased to say that it’s been over a year for me, eek!Like anything, automated marketing needs some good TLC in order to truly serve as a business building tool. You need to revisit your automated marketing sequences on at least a quarterly basis to really ensure they are still relevant and valuable to people.
4. Connecting with people based on where they are at – one of my fav features of Infusionsoft is how much it allows you to segment your lists. Instead of just an “everything for everyone” approach you can actually tailor how you reach out to people based on where they are at and what they want from you.For example, you can actually reach out to people who click a link in your ezine that leads to your new program. And based on whether or not they take action on that page (i.e.: make a purchase) you can follow up with them to say either “thanks for joining” or “hey, I noticed you didn’t join… ” and continue the conversation with them from either perspective.

The reason I love Infusionsoft so much is that it has reminded me of the above, and truly renewed my passion for the power of automated marketing. We are in the process of making the switch to Infusionsoft and my head is already spinning with ideas of how we can improve our connections. A delightful thing indeed.

* In the spirit of full disclosure this is an affiliate link for Infusionsoft and I will get paid a commission if/when you decide to use the system. And on that note – if you do decide you want to move forward with Infusionsoft let me know as we have a bunch of folks taking our Infusionsoft Training who would be delighted to help.

Comments, thoughts?

Curious about Infusionsoft? I was too… as I’ve seen it popping up all over the place the past year or so. And so I decided to dive in and get to know a bit more about this tool and see what all the buzz is about.

Let’s just say I’m very impressed to say the least. I’ve recorded a video for you with my thoughts PLUS have a very special invite for you to join me next week.

>> Click here to watch the video and sign up for our no-cost call on May 11th re: “Infusionsoft: What Is It and Why Should I Care?”

PS – Everyone is welcome to join me for this call, whether you are an Online Business Manager or Virtual Assistant who wants to learn a new way to support your clients, OR if you are a business owner looking for a way to *finally* automate your marketing process.

We all know the importance of hiring a team, I know I don’t need to go down that old road again with you (we can’t do it all on our own, and who would want to, etc…).

The thing is, even though most of us know we need a team to support the growth of our businesses, many of us get stuck knowing who the heck we need to hire in the first place!

I’m a firm believer that all business owners need at least two people on their team:

1. A Strategist - be it a coach or a mentor, you need someone to help you with the big picture decisions in your business around what you are creating, where you are headed and specific strategies to do so.
2. An Implementor – someone who can actually do stuff for you, help turn those strategies into revenue streams.

Now what that looks like and who those team members actually are will vary depending on what stage you are at in your business. I won’t dive into hiring a coach/mentor here right now, other than to say we all need one! However, I do want to give you some specifics re: who you need on the implementation side of things – in particular when it comes to hiring an Online Business Manager.

There are three basic stages that business owners go through:

Stage 1 – Exploration

This is the “figuring things out stage” of business – where we define exactly who we are serving and what we are offering them. Who you need to hire at this stage is usually someone to help with specific projects – setting up your website/shopping cart, general administration and such. This could be a Virtual Assistant or other kind of specialist such as a web designer, etc.

If you are in this stage of your business you want to make sure you have a strategist (coach or mentor) – someone to help you work through all these big picture decisions. It is usually too premature to look at hiring an Online Business Manager yet. As I like to say, if you want to hire an OBM you need to have a business for them to manage – which leads us to the next stage…

Stage 2 – Foundation & Growth

You have a clearly defined business model, know who you are serving and what you are offering. You have steady, proven income streams as a foundation for the business and now it’s time to focus on growth.

This is a GREAT time to bring an Online Business Manager onboard – so they can manage all the day-to-day stuff that will otherwise bog you down (and prevent you from truly focusing on growth activities – as Sandra shared in her comment above!).

Stage 3 – Flow

The business is growing by leaps and bounds, systems are in place, revenue is flowing in and everything is “set.” At this stage some business owners may actually want to actually pull themselves out of the business and maybe focus on new projects/businesses (or take some time off!).

An OBM is still a key player at this stage, and some businesses will want to consider hiring full-time dedicated employees for their business. Not all businesses will go this route, but we are starting to see this happen on a more regular basis in this virtual online world.

So let me ask you – what stage of business are you at?

This is just the start of helping to define who you need on your team – there are of course other factors that we’ll be sharing in future articles.

If you are chomping at the bit to get this figured out for you and your business I am now offering personal 1-1 Hiring Assessments. Let me dive into the specifics of your biz and tell you exactly who you need to hire (and more importantly in some cases, who not to hire!). If you are interested in a session, email my OBM Tiffany at tiffany@onlinebusinessmanager.com or give us a call at 1 (877) 576-2229.

A sure sign of being a geek is when finding a new system just makes you want to sing out loud in glee! I will admit that I am a geek, and have recently ’sung out loud’ about the (relatively) new membership management system Wishlist Member.

We’ve been using Wordpress to manage our membership sites for years now – basically just piecing together some stuff in the blog to make it work. Well Wishlist Member takes a regular Wordpress blogsite and turns it into a full fledged membership system. Tres cool!

What makes it so great? Let me share a few of my favorite things…

• As per any great membership system, it allows you to setup separate login accounts for each member vs. doing the ‘one login for all’. So you can give/remove access for people as they come and go in your membership. REALLY important.
• It connects to the 1ShoppingCart system – so people can automatically get access to your membership site when they join the membership vs. having to load them manually. And it will also remove access for people who fall behind on payments.
• You can email members direct from this system – which I love! It’s super quick and easy to send messages to members vs. sending through the cart (which can be slow at times).
• You can have more than one level of membership setup in the same Wordpress blog. So people will get access only to the stuff that applies to them, and not those areas that they aren’t a member of. This really opens up some pretty cool opps for expanding membership offerings!
• It’s really easy to add a nice ‘login’ box in the sidebar of the blog. Makes the site looks so professional and is of course easy for folks to know how to login to the site (which can be surprisingly hard to find on some sites.)

Want to see a sample of Wishlist Member in action? We recently implemented Wishlist for the Thomas Leonard Success Strategies program – click here to check it out. Unless you are a member you won’t be able to access the material of course, but you can see the overall flow/layout of this membership site.

There are many other cool features in this system beyond my favs, go to the Wishlist Member site to learn more.

Want to learn how to use Wishlist? Or get someone on your team up to speed?

 We are offering a brand new course for VAs and online support professionals on how to manage memberships using Wishlist Member. Be sure to check it out – early bird registration is in effect until May 29th ($100 savings).

I had someone ask me yesterday if I preferred Go Daddy vs. another domain registrar (whom I shan’t name). My answer was Go Daddy for sure! I have a few key reasons for this that I wanted to share, in case you are considering where to register your domains (or maybe thinking of moving to a new registrar).

• Their Discount Domain Club – for about $100 a year you can get 30%-50% savings on the cost of domains. Once you hit about 30 domains this becomes well worth it. And being that most of us collect domains like we collected baseball cards as kids (actually it was stickers for me) it doesn’t take long to hit the 30 domain mark.
• Auto Renew – I set my domains to auto-renew each year so I don’t have to go through the process of renewing a bunch each month. Surprisingly, not every registrar offers this!
• Domain Forwarding – you can set a domain to forward to another domain within Go Daddy, vs. having to setup hosting for the domain and setting it to forward there. Very handy for those domains that just need to point to an existing website.
• Can buy .ca names there now – as a Canadian this is GREAT! As it used to be that .ca names were only available via another registrar and were literally 5 times the price.
• Everything you need to setup a website – I personally don’t use their hosting and various other tools, but if you are new to setting up a website they do offer lots of options there too.
• Danica Patrick – yes, their commercials are a bit ‘bimbo & busty’ for my liking, but gotta love that they have a woman who is kicking butt in a man’s world as their spokesperson.

Is Go Daddy the only registrar to offer these things? Probably not, I don’t know much about other registrars but would recommend that you check for these features and any others important to you before making the decision. Although not impossible, once you do start with a domain registrar it is a bit of a pia to move all your domains later.

This is a slight pet peeve of mine, so forgive me if I come across a bit ranty.

I get so annoyed when I continue to receive the same ‘I’m out of the office’ or ‘I’m checking email twice a day’ email every time I send a message to certain people. It becomes just one more thing filling up my inbox, and we all know that we don’t need that!

Don’t get me wrong, I know these emails are important. I do want to know if you are out of the office on vacation or if you only check email at certain times. Then of course I know when to expect a reply.

What annoys me is the fact that I’m getting this same email over and over again, especially when it’s someone I email multiple times a day. To protect the not-so-innocent, notice how I’m refraining from naming names.

So here’s the tech tip.  Most of us set up an autoresponder in our email hosting plan. This sends out an email in response to every new email – indiscriminately.  The autoresponder isn’t smart enough to know if the same person has sent 10 emails or even 20. 

The alternative – much friendlier – is one you can set up using a Gmail account.

Guess what? Gmail is much smarter than your average ordinary email autoresponder.  It knows to send out your automated message just once every 4 days to each individual that emails you. Translation? It doesn’t matter how many emails a particular individual sends you in a short space of time, your ‘I’m away’  reply will be sent just once every 4 days. Love it!

How to set this up for yourself?

If you already use Gmail as your main email service, you simply need to turn on the Vacation responder setting. To do this:

• Click ‘Settings’ at top of page. You will be on the ‘General’ tab.
• Page down a bit and you will see the Vacation Responder section
• Put in the message you want to send out and set the Vacation Responder to on

If you don’t use Gmail as your main email service, for example, you collect your email in Outlook, or in webmail or something else, there are a couple of extra steps.

(This is what I do as I’m an Outlook fan, which may make some of you cringe, but hey, it works.)

• Setup a Gmail account for yourself, or if you have one already dust it off.
• Set your regular email account to forward to the Gmail account.
• Repeat the steps above. Forwarding your email on to Gmail causes Gmail to do its job with your ‘I’m away’ message. 

Done! Just that easy…and don’t forget to send an email to yourself to test it and make sure it works.

You *need* to grab a copy of Sheri McConnell’s Create your Group program.

Those who know me know that I very rarely recommend things for purchase… for the simple fact that i’m quite picky myself! (who me? picky? just ask my husband, haha). There are LOADS of programs, systems, products, classes and various other offerings out there for all sorts of things – many of which are more hype than value.

That being said, I will wholeheartedly recommend something when I know it is worth your money - and Sheri’s Create your Group program is just that.

Having helped create and support a number of membership and group based programs over the years, I know that there is a right way to do things and a ‘not so right’ way. What it boils down to is this – save yourself the headache of stumbling along and having to learn the hard way about setting up your group. Instead, follow Sheri’s step-by-step *proven* system which she shares in great detail through this program.

Why am I promoting this today? Sheri has less than 100 copies left and after those are gone this product will no longer be available. So hop to it!! Grab a copy today if you have any interest in starting your own group either now or in the near future.

And a sneak peek for you, to prove how much I value what Sheri has to offer. Her and I are partnering up on a brand new association to be launched soon – and she is one of the *very* few people I know that I would every consider partnering with. So I can say from personal experience that Sheri rocks, and i’m a huge fan (in case you couldn’t tell by now, hehe).

Again – less than 100 copies left, click here to check it out.

Global Network Studios has asked me to present at the ”Virtual-ize Your Business” event for 2008 (and is also giving me 17 ‘tickets’ to give away.  The first 17 to register with me can attend the first two days of this 7-day event for FREE). 

At this event you’ll learn about vast resources that are already available to you in order to “Virtual-ize Your Business”. Learn from qualified experts in Outsourcing, Automating, ‘Virtual’ Strategies – and how to use these to rocket your business skyward, no matter what the economy is doing. 

This telephone event starts out with a series of FREE panel discussions on October 14 & 16 (i’m speaking on the second day)

>> October 14 – “Why ‘Virtual-izing Your Business’ may be an attractive necessity in order for your small business to survive and thrive”

>> October 16 – “Business tools of the future (meaning, RIGHT NOW!)”

… and continues November 10 thru 14 with over 10 expert presentations presenting their best information on how to thrive in your business by “Virtual-izing Your Business”.

• “Dare to Work Fewer Hours” with Joan Friedlander
• “Joint Ventures meet Social Marketing” with MaryPat Kavanagh
• “What’s Your System to Build a Company?” with Spencer Parikh
• “Outsourcing for Increase” with Randall Bird and Will Owens (2 sessions)
• “What You Must Know About YOU, Before Hiring Virtual Staff” with Cindy Greenway
• “Defining Your Objectives and Eliminating Distractions” with Matthew Best
• “Increase Your Audience Using Blogging and Podcasting” with Dr. Paul H. Jenkins
• “How To Turn Your Website into Your #1 Salesperson” with Stacy Karacostas
• “Graduating to Hiring an Online Business Manager” with Tina Forsyth
• “Getting Back to Doing What You Love” with BevAnn Bonds

Go ahead and sign up now for the free 2 days – it will be fun!