30 Days to Virtual Productivity Success: The 30-Day Results Guide to Making the Most of Your Time, Expanding Your Contacts, and Growing Your Business

by Gail Martin

Overview

Laptops, smart phones, and tablet PCs have made today's business owner more mobile than ever, but life on the go also makes it more difficult to stay organized, be productive, and focus on promoting one's business.

30 Days to Virtual Productivity Success is the busy business owner's guide for getting more done with less time, making productive contacts online, and using the power of the Internet to turn productivity into profits. It's an easy-to-read, quick-to-implement resource to maximize time and effort.

Author Gail Z. Martin has a 26-year marketing career with extensive experience in virtual and traditional promotion. Her unrelenting travel schedule has made her a whiz at managing her personal and professional life with online productivity tools.

Using a short chapter/quick exercise format, 30 Days to Virtual Productivity Success introduces you to the 30 Day Results System. Thus armed, you'll discover a wide variety of online and mobile programs and applications to boost productivity and increase visibility.

30 Days to Virtual Productivity Success is a perfect next step for those who have read the first two 30 Day Results Guide books, but it is an easily accessible and a powerful tool for those just discovering the series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781601632265
Publisher:	Red Wheel/Weiser
Publication date:	08/22/2012
Series:	30 Days Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Best-selling author Gail Z. Martin is a marketing expert, international speaker, and the owner of Dream Spinner Communications. She helps small and start-up businesses, consultants, coaches, authors, and solo professionals get better marketing results in just 30 days. Martin is also the author of 30 Days to Social Media Success, 30 Days to Online PR & Marketing Success, and The Thrifty Author's Guide to Launching Your Book. More information is available at www.GailMartinMarketing.com. Martin lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Why Most Business Development Efforts Fail

Networking and business development horror stories. You've probably heard them. You may have one yourself. These are the stories about how someone tried a new technique, sent out a press release, or made an effort to grow their business, and "it didn't work."

I've heard plenty of these stories. And as with most urban legends, there's usually more to the story than meets the eye. If you're reading this book, you're a coach, consultant, speaker, author, or owner of a small business, and you want more from your business development efforts than you're currently getting. You may not be investing in ways to increase productivity and expand your network at all because your business is new, or because you're afraid to fail. Or it may be that your business development efforts are chugging along with mediocre returns or muddled measurement.

Take heart. Growing your business isn't mysterious, and once you understand how the pieces fit together, you'll be in a better position to manage growth for your own company or to oversee someone to handle it for you. Let's start by looking at the seven most common reasons that business development plans fail.

1. No planning. This is true in both large and small businesses. Many business development efforts fail because there is no link between the business development actions and the bottom-line business plan goals that drive revenue. This happens because decision makers get caught up with a vivid, creative idea that isn't accountable to the bottom line, or because they forget the human side of the equation. Business development without a plan is a disaster waiting to happen.

2. Inappropriate actions. If there is no plan, then business development actions may conflict with each other. It's unlikely that scattershot actions will support a business plan goal. Disappointing results come about because of a "ready, fire, aim" approach in which actions aren't anchored to business objectives and target audiences. Attempts to copy what a successful competitor is doing without understanding why (or whether) the action is working for them is also a dangerous approach.

3. Lack of clarity about the target market. Mass marketing is dead (and highly unproductive). Trying to establish too broad a personal network without a clear target is wasteful and unsuccessful. You can't hit a target if you haven't identified it. There is a sweet spot of potential customers who could become your ideal clients. You'll need to get to know them to win them.

4. Lack of clear goals. If you don't have an upfront understanding of what success will look like, you won't know when you achieve it. Not only do your business development actions need to be linked to specific business goals, but each action should be measurable. Build in measurability up front so expectations are clear.

5. Unreasonable expectations. Just increasing productivity isn't likely to create a big spike in sales. Just joining a new networking organization probably won't save your company. Many people become disillusioned with business development because they don't understand the benchmarks for successful programs. For example, most direct-mail professionals are thrilled to get a 1-percent response rate. One percent! Yet many small businesses send out a postcard mailing and quit in disgust, expecting a response of 20 percent, 30 percent, or more. Many people give up on networking efforts after a few weeks, not realizing that it can take months, even years, to build trust and establish strong relationships that lead to sales. It's important to have realistic expectations so you recognize success when you see it.

6. Lack of clarity on how business development works. For many people, business development is a lot like a DVD player. They don't know (and don't care) how it works. Your odds of creating successful business development are slim without some knowledge of how the pieces function and of the process required to pull the pieces together. With the Internet, new tools are emerging almost daily. You'll need to know how to blend New Media and Web 2.0 tools with traditional business development to succeed in today's marketplace. Understanding what makes business development tick is essential whether you're doing it yourself or delegating it to someone else.

7. Lack of patience. "We ran an ad once and nothing happened." (Or substitute, "We went to that event once," or "We joined that group and nothing happened.") We've all heard that. But did you know that business development research shows that it takes between seven to 30 "touches" to make a sale? Customers won't buy until they have an urgent need. Until then, all you can do is create name recognition and a good reputation. That's the value of the Rule of 30. Business development has a lot in common with farming. You wouldn't plant seeds one day and go out the next and dig them up in disgust because full grown plants hadn't sprouted overnight. Seeds take time to sprout. Business development seeds also take time to grow.

Putting the 30-Day Guide to Use

Business development success begins with RESULTS. The RESULTS approach stands for:

Recommit to business development.

Expect success.

Seek partners.

Understand your audience.

Look for win-win scenarios.

Take strategic action.

Stay visible.

In the next 30 days, you can see your productivity, networking, and business growth go from zero to zoom by applying the RESULTS formula.

Recommit to set aside at least 30 minutes each day (yes, weekends, too) to devote to developing your business development strategy for the next 30 days. (Thirty minutes is a minimum. Once you get started, you'll want to spend an hour, so block out the time now.)

Expect success by throwing yourself wholeheartedly into this 30-day commitment. If the little voice in the back of your head keeps saying, This is ridiculous. This isn't going to work, you are programming yourself for failure. Program yourself for success by writing down 30 things you would like to achieve from your online productivity and business development strategy. Some ideas include:

~ Reach new ideal prospects who may not know about your product/service and give them an incentive to learn more.

~ Gain visibility in local, regional, national, and professional media.

~ Position your company as the expert and leader in its field.

Considering these three examples, come up with your own list of 30 Success Expectations and keep them handy to check back on.

Seek partners. Success in the online world is just as dependent on partnership and collaboration as in the "real" world. These partners might be trusted vendors on whom you rely for your online business development tools, cloud computing applications, or mobile apps. They might also be companies in non-competing fields that serve the same customer base with whom you can create products and joint ventures.

Understand your audience in more profitable detail than ever before with the Action Items in Chapter 3. Make a list of 30 things you wished you knew about your best customers — and create 30 questions you can use for quizzes, surveys, and online discussions.

Look for win-win scenarios. As you're choosing programs to build your online business development platform and picking your productivity and networking tools, make sure to choose programs that are user-friendly, easy-to-use, and offer a good deal to both you and to your end users.

Take strategic action by putting what you learn in this book to work for you. As you read, be sure to do the Action Items at the end of each chapter. Complete all 30 chapter Action Items in the next 30 days and watch your online business development and productivity soar!

Stay visible by being consistently present in the live and virtual forums in which you network and seek new contacts. Create a list of 30 upcoming events, association meetings, or community programs where you could enhance your business visibility and seek to expand your contacts.

Most people put off doing business development because they think it's too difficult or too time-consuming. By using the principles in this book, you'll do more in 30 minutes a day for 30 days than most business owners do all year. That's the Get Results secret weapon — strategic, consistent effort in pursuit of clear, measurable results.

CHAPTER 2

Your Profit Power Tool: The Business Plan

If the idea of creating a business plan makes your eyes glaze over, don't worry. This chapter isn't about the kind of detailed business plan you'd need to get a loan from a bank or money from a venture capitalist. In fact, the kind of business plan I'm going to show you just might be the most dynamic document you've ever created, and it is likely to be the most profitable.

First things first. If you've already written a business plan, print it out or dust it off and take a look at it. If it's more than two years old, its shelf life has expired. Why? Consumer expectations are constantly changing in response to economic conditions, new technology and lifestyle shifts. So be prepared to make some changes in your approach to ensure that it's up to date.

If you've never written a business plan, you're about to find out how to make it your most powerful business development tool. Pull out a pad of paper and a pen, and let's get started.

Define Success in Your Own Terms

Start off by defining what you mean by "success" for the next 12 months. Success can mean different things to different people. Your definition should be what will satisfy you, and it's likely to evolve over time. But unless you know what your success target is for the immediate future, you won't know when you've hit the mark.

Here are some ways to define business success for any given year:

~ Profit.

~ Market share.

~ New product penetration.

~ Media coverage and endorsements

~ National distribution channels.

~ Percent gain in product sales.

~ Industry credibility — speaking engagements, interviews, board or committee roles.

You may even think of a few more possibilities. The point is that success is more than just money, although for most companies and solo professionals, there is a target amount of money involved.

Ready, Aim ...

Now write down your top three business goals for next year. Be sure to prioritize them from most important to least important. Do they match your definition of success?

One of the reasons business development often fails for small companies and solo professionals is that the business development and networking efforts are not aligned with the prioritized business plan goals. Overwhelmed business owners take whatever business development opportunities cross their paths, or join associations or professional groups without determining their potential benefit. They don't know how to say yes with confidence and no without guilt, because they don't have any standard to judge the opportunities.

Your business plan sets that standard. Next to each of your prioritized business goals, write down who the target audience is for that goal. The more precisely you can narrow down the target audience (instead of "everyone" it would be better to say "college educated men between the ages of 18 and 30"), the more precisely you'll be able to target your business development. You may have more than one target audience for each goal (for now), or you may have the same target audience for all of your goals. That's okay. We'll look at your audiences in more detail in the next chapter.

... Fire! Or Aim Again

Once you've matched an audience with a prioritized goal, make a list of all your current business development efforts. List everything: Websites, professional memberships, event sponsorships, trade shows, networking groups, banner ads, Facebook ads, online marketing efforts, direct mail, print or radio ads, signage, social media, e-mail newsletters, speaking appearances, online and traditional press release distribution, and so on. Now that you've made a comprehensive list, match each business development effort to the target audience it reaches, and to the business goal it supports. Do you see any disconnects?

Usually at this point, company owners notice that they have business development efforts that reach a particular target audience but aren't communicating a message that supports the business goal that is now linked to that audience. For example, perhaps paid magazine ads are reaching the right type of reader, but the call to action isn't aligned with the top business goal. If the goal is "increase the mailing list with opt-ins," the ad should encourage readers to go to the Website and sign up with their e-mail address to receive some kind of reward, such as a useful checklist, article, or mini e-book.

Sometimes, company owners discover "orphan" business development efforts that don't seem to connect with any prioritized business goal. "Orphan" business development efforts might exist out of habit, or because they met an old need, or because there's an emotional connection to the action or to the person who sold it to you. But if it's not advancing a business goal, it's an "orphan" because there is no reason to keep on doing it. They might also find business development efforts that are reaching the wrong audience.

Getting the effort in sync with the best target audience in support of the right prioritized goal is the first step to business development success. Online business development and networking efforts will be most successful if the message and effort are linked to the right goal and audience, and you'll get a multiplier effect on all of your business development efforts if they are all in sync. As you'll see when we get into the details, good online business development and networking not only help to raise your company's visibility, but also create lasting relationships and brand recognition that creates future orders. If those business development actions aren't tied to the right goals and audiences, your prospect will get a muddled, ineffective message that will cost you sales.

Look for Gaps

Now that you've aligned your business plan goals according to your success priorities, matched the goals to the right target audiences and matched your current business development efforts to the right audience/goal, it's time to go "gap hunting." Here's how to "gap hunt":

~ Are there any goals/audiences without any supporting business development efforts?

~ Are all the business development efforts bunched up around one goal?

~ Is most of your business development effort supporting your top prioritized goal?

~ Are you putting most of your effort into goals you've ranked as second or third in importance?

~ Do you have target audiences who aren't the focus of any business development?

~ Is one target audience getting all the business development messages?

~ Are second- or third-goal audiences getting more business development messages than your top goal audience?

Make a list of these business development gaps, because you'll need to address them in your strategy, and you'll want to look for ways online business development and networking can help you plug the holes.

Defining Your Transformative Value

Before any customer spends money, he or she has to overcome two obstacles: ego and money. Ego is what makes people try to fix a problem themselves, rather than hire someone. They don't agree to buy until they fail. Money is what clients hope to save by doing the job themselves. Most people won't hire someone for any job until 1) they have failed to do it themselves, and 2) there is enough at stake that continued failure will cost more than paying for the job.

Every person who buys your product does so because he or she has a problem. For example, if you are a business coach who specializes in work/life balance, your clients set aside time and money to work with you because their current balance isn't functioning well. If you run a roofing firm, clients hire you to replace missing shingles. Balance or missing shingles are the problem.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "30 Days to Virtual Productivity Success"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Gail Z. Martin.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Author's Note 9

Introduction 11

1 Why Most Business Development Efforts Fail 13

2 Your Profit Power Tool: The Business Plan 19

3 Digging Into the Business Plan for Big Payoff 25

4 Mining Networking Gems From the Business Plan 31

5 Creating a Business Development Action Plan 37

6 Finding Your Real Story and True Voice 41

7 Touches to Transactions 48

8 Productivity Basics: Cloud Computing 53

9 Virtual Calendar and Scheduling 58

10 Remote Computer Access and Storage 63

11 Skype and Other Virtual Phone Options 67

12 Virtual Meeting Spaces and Teleconferencing 70

13 Sharing, Storing, and Safeguarding Documents 76

14 Where the Work Is: Virtual Freelancing Hotspots 81

15 Paying and Getting Paid 86

16 Dashboards and One-Stop Time Savers 91

17 Empowering the Road Warrior 96

18 Smartphone and Tablet Apps for Busy People 101

19 Mobile Apps for When You're on the Road 107

20 More Tools for Social Media Productivity and Presentations 112

21 Expanding Your Contacts 118

22 Organizing Time and Thoughts 124

23 Promotional Tools on Facebook and Twitter 128

24 Promote With Online Reviews and Directories 135

25 Online Reputation Management 143

26 Online Event Promotion and Management 150

27 Virtual Deals and Coupons 158

28 Free (and Almost Free) PR and Marketing 163

29 Promoting With Web Audio, Video, and Photos 169

30 Viral Marketing: Getting Your Customers to Promote for You 175

Afterword: Where Do I Go From Here? 181

Websites and Apps 185

Index 199

About the Author 207