Category: Startups

How to Get Free PR for Your Business

Posted on by Amanda Bedell

One of the most powerful techniques every business should use is free publicity. As the name implies, you are spending your time and effort to attract attention to your business. Unfortunately, PR, or public relations, is highly untapped for many business owners. However, you can educate the public and gather leads and prospects through free public relations advertising locally, regionally, and nationally.

There are different media avenues in public relations you can use to boost your advertising results and your paid advertising. With a solid plan that encompasses all these areas, you’ll have a great approach to using public relations in the best way possible. Find out how you can leverage free public relations to bring more business to your company!

 

Public Relations in the Media

Public relations include many different forms of media. The attention of newspapers, television, radio, magazines, bloggers, ezines and podcasts are all powerful tools that you can utilize to get more awareness of your business. You can use the following steps to get noticed by the media.

  1. Put together a press release for your company. The press release should be relevant to your target market and address consumer interest, not just announce your business.
  2. Compact your press release to include one hook and one angle. Choose the most attention-getting to make sure the media person you are sending it to is interested in reading your story.
  3. Put your press release in professional formatting. With press releases, you need a dateline, the most essential information at the top, facts, figures, and wrap it up with contact details, including who and how. Print the press release on your letterhead.
  4. Send your press release to all television and radio stations, local and metro newspapers, national newspapers, industry magazines, and any other form of media that reaches your target market. Don’t forget to include relevant blogs, ezines, press release submission sites, and industry professionals.

Make sure that the needs of your target market are addressed and made clear in your press release. When you provide consumers with a solution to a problem, a way to avoid a problem, and an opportunity to enhance their life, the media and public will be interested in your story.

Suppose you have a connection, or the ability to get a connection with a celebrity or an influencer. In that case, that can also garnish attention to your brand. Make sure you offer newsworthy information and then follow up with media outlets to make sure they are publicizing your information.

BCC Business Consulting can show you how to put together press releases that work!

Hive | Eight Soft Skills for Leaders to Cultivate in a Company

Posted on by Amanda Bedell

When you want to grow and scale your business, one of the key factors to making sure your growth goes off without too many hitches is to have a team with the right soft skills. Because job skills can be taught, those skills, although a necessity, can be learned by the person you hire for your team. Soft skills such as working with a team, organization, and the ability to grow your emotional intelligence, are all workplace skills that are innate to a person and are much harder to instill. Therefore, you’ll need to find team members who already come with the soft skills your company needs to grow.

But which soft skills should you look for when vetting and hiring new team members? Take note of these specific soft skills to determine which ones matter the most to your company if you’re looking to fast-track growth and significant results for your business.

 

Emotional Intelligence for Relationship Building on Your Team

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, be empathetic with, and manage emotions for yourself and to be conscious of the emotional welfare of the people on your team. A key relationship-building skill in the workplace, having emotional intelligence is essential for your team members if you’re looking for rapid company growth.

Emotional intelligence, or EQ, can help your team stay mindful of rising anxiety levels during growth phases. This is vital for being aware of when to address elevated stress levels to keep morale, engagement, and productivity at an optimal balance. In addition, being mindful of your team’s morale is essential to retaining staff, especially when you’re on the path to company growth. 

Using your own EQ can also help you regulate your own emotions. As a leader, you need to understand when and how to keep your emotions in check. In addition, you’ll need to know when to leave your home stress at home and when and how to check your emotions at the door, so you can be there for your team.

 

Seeking Innovation and Growth Opportunities for Your Company 

Opportunity and innovation are at the forefront when looking to advance your company quickly. So keep an eye out for this crucial management skill for rapid growth. You’ll want your new team member to have the ability to notice gaps and use them to give your company an advantage, says Raven Waterman. “Leaders who can innovate by taking existing solutions and creating new or improved ones position their teams to proactively address their target market’s needs,” she says.

You’ll want to look into allocating and scheduling time to reflect and think critically about your team’s tasks and if the tasks they are doing will ultimately put your business on the path to hitting your yearly goals. “When leaders spot gaps, they can identify potential opportunities within their industry. However, they should avoid chasing every new idea and instead hone in on specific ones aligned with the team’s core values and mission.”

 

Cultivating Trust within Your Team

All leaders should be aware that their reports are looking for respect and an opportunity to learn and grow. When you cultivate trust with team members, they’ll give you their best work. So, when your team is at its best, you can do your job as CEO and focus on the bigger picture.

If team members are hired into a rapid growth company, they most likely have entrepreneurial skills and thrive on being a part of something bigger than themselves. Therefore, trusting the people you hire and fostering an environment where celebrating trying new things and ‘failing fast’ is essential to your team moving forward with considerable momentum. On the other hand, suppose trust isn’t a key component of your team. In that case, you’ll see a significant amount of time and resources wasted on meetings, micromanaging, checking up on tasks, and other “busy work” that leads to wasted time, money, and energy.

 

Tap into the Individual’s Strengths on Your Team

The most efficient teams know each other’s strengths and how to leverage them to accomplish team objectives quicker. To know and understand which strengths your team members have, the best place to start is to utilize CliftonStrengths, an hour-long assessment that helps you understand and make the most of your strengths in the workplace.

So get to know each of your team members and understand their unique strengths. Next, think of ways to combine each individual’s strengths in your team into collective wins. Finally, you can delegate the projects to the individual or group of people best suited for the task.

 

The Key Management Skill of Effective Delegation 

Speaking of which, effective delegation is a crucial management skill for scaling your business. And while wearing many hats is commonplace for a small business owner to sit, keeping that position in your company will not lead to the growth of your business – only to burnout. Growth means more work that needs to be accomplished on time, and managers need to have their mental energy in check. As a company CEO, you can focus on guiding your company’s growth and evaluating your progress to see how close you are to reaching your business goals. Understanding and implementing which tasks to assign to specific team members so they are accomplished correctly and in a timely manner allows you to be focused on the big picture rather than wasting time taking care of other tasks in your business that can easily be delegated to another team member.

 

The Ability to Create SMART Goals for Your Business

Smart goal-setting goes hand in hand with delegation. And as one of the most critical soft skills for leaders, using those SMART goals gives you a path to success. Once you have your SMART goals in place (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound), you can break down your big goal into smaller, more tangible steps that team members can work toward. Looking at the smaller steps that will lead to the outcome you want to achieve in a timely manner is crucial for scaling operations.”

 

Why Strong Communication Skills are Essential for Your Team

Add strong communication skills to your list of essential team-management skills because you’ll need them to navigate fast-paced growth. When you can communicate changes to your team, your team will work with less stress and anxiety. The result will allow development without damaging the company culture and the mental health of your employees.

Leaders need to understand their team’s readiness and ability to navigate change. If a leader sees growth and change as a positive aspect of the company, the team will follow suit. For your team to share your vision as a leader, you’ll want to share your vision and anticipate and respond to your team’s concerns as a continued, regular part of the growth process of your company.

In addition, you’ll want to have clearly defined expectations and communicate those expectations to your team. In a high-growth environment, it’s vital for leaders to clearly define where their job ends and the team picks up.

There’s a tendency to act quickly and step on toes in an early-stage, high-growth company. Instead, make sure to formulate and have detailed, clear roles and responsibilities and clear communication, which are all key elements for efficient and productive growth in your company.

 

Listening to the Concerns of Your Team

When you want someone to know how much you care, let them know you care about them! Listening to your team’s concerns, even if you can’t remedy them right away, is one of the most effective soft skills a leader can consistently implement in the work environment. 

Because listening skills are an underrated aspect of effective communication, you’ll want to make these a priority on your list and be aware of how much you’re listening to your team. Having good listening skills is vital if you want to drive rapid growth because you can find valuable information that can change your growth trajectory by being a good listener. Innovation and crucial information come from the front lines of your team, and listening to them is the best way to find out what needs to be done to move your team forward.

Give people the time and space to give feedback on how their jobs are done. Allow the freedom to experiment with different ways of implementing tasks, even if these new activities or processes take more time. Because the next thing you know, you’ll have an aha moment that leads to a game-changing innovation for your team. You could also solve a problem that was holding your growth back for your company!

Three Key Elements to Turn Prospects into Long Term Customers

Posted on by Amanda Bedell

Your prospects may come from many different sources, such as your website, Google My Business reviews, or email newsletter. You’ll want to have several ways to gather prospects and leads; however, if your leads don’t turn into clients, your money on acquiring that prospect can burn up quickly.

Once you have a customer, you’ll want to retain them in your business. The best ROI on the money you’ve invested in your prospect is to continue to sell your product or services with them over a period of time. If you want to turn prospects into long-term customers and retain them for future marketing, you’ll need to know the three key elements to draw them in and seal the deal. 

 

To Obtain Prospects, You Want to Be Inviting

People like friendly faces, so be sure to smile and address your prospect’s pain points. Make sure to listen to their concerns, and don’t sell them on a service or product that doesn’t fix their issues or problems. 

You’ll want to be perceptive, look at their body language, pick up on visual cues, and talk through their challenges. Ease them in your conversation, so they feel welcomed and comfortable talking to you. 

 

Educate Your Prospects and Be Informative

The biggest fear of most new customers is the dreaded buyer’s remorse. Often, buyers have remorse because they weren’t sure exactly what they purchased or what services they were buying in a package. 

If you educate your prospects and give them time to ask you questions, you can avoid buyer’s remorse from your clients. Make sure that you offer a quality product or service that delivers on the marketing claims.

In addition to educating prospective clients on the details of what they will be getting when they work with you, you can also offer them guarantees to sweeten the deal! First, you can offer a refund in a specific period if they don’t see results and have completed all the work necessary for them to have results. Second, you can offer them a bonus they can keep even if they return the product they purchased from your company. These money-back offers to a prospect can build trust in your client relationship, just for offering these options on your services.

 

Show Your Prospects You’re Enjoyable to Work With 

The third and most crucial element is to be enjoyable! Have a positive attitude, and when your client comes upon a challenge that they can’t overcome on their own, make sure to offer support. When your client sees that you care about them, they will be your client forever! 

You can use these elements and other ideas to find what works the best for your business and target market. Then, by making your product or service inviting, easy, informative, inspiring, and their experience enjoyable, you’ll loft your company above your competition.

 

Need help with figuring out the best strategy for converting prospects into customers? 

How to Hire and Work with a Virtual Assistant for Your Business

Posted on by Amanda Bedell

So many entrepreneurs wear the 18 hats necessary for running their solo entrepreneurship. And while that’s fine at the start of your business, at some point, you’ll want to hire someone before you burn out and your new company goes down in a pile of flaming mess!

 

Hire a VA to Become More Profitable

I hired a virtual assistant, or VA, for BCC Business Consulting when I started to feel more like Chief Inbox Email Excavator. Instead of swimming in profits, getting new leads, and great reviews, I felt like I was drowning in emails. Like many business owners, I wanted to focus on the type of work that inspired me to begin my consulting career. Instead, however, I found myself on a never-ending hamster wheel of administrative tasks. Without changing my day-to-day operations, I knew that I’d never experience the exponential growth I envisioned for my business.                            

Even though I had devised proven systems in my business, I was hesitant to add another person to the mix. However, when I found the Linq Consulting Solutions Virtual Assistant Matchmaking program, I realized this would be the solution to finding and hiring a qualified VA match for my business.

I signed up for a consultation. Together with Riah and the Linq team, I created a list of goals that a potential VA would enable me to achieve. Within weeks of our initial conversation, the Linq team had screened and passed along a catalog of impressive, skilled women ready to help out with the work I needed to be done so I could move into my CEO position.                 

Riah and her team take all the stress out of finding the perfect match quickly and easily. I wish I could have hired every candidate I interviewed. They were qualified and eager to grow my company. The highlight of my experience was definitely how quick the process was! It was fantastic to have a qualified candidate hired in under a month.        

 

Hiring a VA as the Start to Building a Company Team                                          

Linq’s work didn’t stop once I selected my VA match. Helen, my new VA, was more than happy to spend the time needed to review my goals, find out what I needed her to accomplish, and the method of communication to create a harmonious workflow.

I felt supported when I onboarded an out-of-country employee and set expectations on what I should offload. Plus, my assistant takes tasks and runs with them! I don’t have to teach her – she just does it!     

The Linq VA Matchmaking System is solid. My VA Helen is professional, friendly, and flexible. I appreciate her experience with a larger company because she’s helping me build systems that will allow us to scale. She’s helping me build this company from the ground up.                              

With the help of my new virtual assistant, Helen, I can escape my inbox. In addition, I now have time to automate other time-consuming processes such as lead generation. Finally, with so much time freed up by my VA, I can commit to the most essential part of my business – working on my business to scale and grow to become more profitable!

How to Find Leads for Your Small Business

Posted on by Amanda Bedell

We all know that if we want to gain more profits and keep our company moving forward and growing, we need to acquire new leads. But, unfortunately, as much as we work to keep our current clients, there’s always attrition. So, to keep the money flowing and to be able to build our business, we have to have a strategy on how to acquire new leads.

 

Find Leads through the Creation of Educational Ads

Most successful businesses use a series of information-based ads that build emotion and include a call to action. These are much more effective than standard company branding advertisements because they educate your potential client on the services you provide, what the consumer should look for in a product, and shows your lead that you are an expert in the field. 

Educating your leads can be in many forms. For example, some companies have a YouTube channel that features videos that inform the consumer on a specific subject or vertical. You can also create weekly or bi-weekly blog posts to show leads and people who visit your website that you understand the business that you have chosen. 

Another way to educate new leads is through the ever-growing popularity of a podcast. Podcasts give you an advantage over other types of education because, with a podcast, people are hearing your voice, and that builds trust. Once you build trust, it’s easy to sell your product or service to your lead.

 

Create an Effective Ad Campaign to Generate Leads for Your Business

If you think that you’ll have to create an expensive and extensive ad campaign – think again! An effective ad campaign doesn’t have to have a considerable budget to succeed. It does, however, have to address the pain points of your leads and have a well-thought-out advertising process or sales funnel to move your prospect from lead to customer. 

Here are five ideas you can implement today to execute a professional, effective ad campaign.

 

Idea #1 The Prospect Report

Put together a short report that you’ll automatically send to prospects when they contact you. This can include a brief description of your business, what you specialize in, and what sets you apart from your competition. Information that you can consist of is case studies, samples, or other proof of your success, such as data or client testimonials.

 

Idea #2 Create an Email Newsletter

Consider newsletters to educate and inform customers about your industry and the services offered. For example, you can feature team members, your most recent blog post, or an educational video in your email. Video email marketing is a highly effective way to tell your message to your followers!

 

Idea #3 Offer a Free Webinar

Offer a free seminar, webinar, or other lecture to build awareness of your business, but make sure you make the information pertinent to your target market and find respected and known speakers in the industry. In addition, create public clinics for the general public to come along and discuss what they need that’s free and approachable. 

You can also organize seminars your customers and clients can pay to attend by putting together a high-perception value package. In addition, you can approach large companies and offer to give seminars to their employees, investors, or management. You can then talk to the firm manager who may need your services and negotiate a deal to be their exclusive expert in your field.

Develop a weekend or destination seminar for customers and clients so they can invite their friends, who are your new prospects. This gives you an action-packed weekend with the most important people. Still, it also gives them a tax-deductible business adventure.

Lastly, once you have a seminar or webinar, you can take your seminar, speech, or webinar and turn it into written, video, or audio from an online course, member site program, audio, or video program.

 

Idea #4 Incentivize Your Product or Service

Make offers to target markets or target market businesses to pay them for referrals or shared databases. Create incentives such as frequent purchasing benefits, loyalty programs, and referral programs to those who bring you new leads and prospects. For example, you can create an affiliate program and give a specific dollar amount, gift, or percentage of the money you make from the candidate to the person who brought you the lead.

 

Idea #5 Networking and Building Relationships

When you network and build relationships, you build trust among the business owners of your community. There are many different networking opportunities that you can take advantage of today.

Get involved in your community or donate to local charitable events. Join your local Chamber of Commerce and attend the networking and events throughout the year. Find out about local, state, or regional professional associations for even more networking opportunities.

There are many ways to get your name out there in a way that feels personal to your potential customers and clients. Choose one of the ways mentioned above that feels comfortable to you, and start with that activity. Always test different versions of your ads and activities to find the avenue that brings in the most leads and clients for the best ROI.

And while effective advertising must be used to get your name out to the public. If your name is not familiar to people, they will not come to you.

 

If you’re hitting a wall with your marketing strategy, take a look at the Profit Jolt Workbook to gain clarity in your storm >> Profit Jolt Workbook

Kick start your marketing

Posted on by Amanda Bedell

In Reid Hoffman’s podcast Masters of Scale, he interviewed Brian Chesky from Airbnb and they talked about something that has stuck with me since I heard the segment in 2017, “If you want your company to truly scale, you have to do things that don’t scale.”

Today, I’d like to share three things I did to get (and keep) my first customers.

  1. Meet your customers in person: You must meet with customers/clients in person whenever possible. I understand that is challenging but remember the potential connections in-person meetings cultivate, otherwise, there’s always Zoom or Skype. You will learn so many valuable insights from this person’s attention that will carry you and your company to the future.
  2. Follow-up letter: When was the last time you got a piece of mail that was unexpectedly delightful? It’s been a minute for me (read: never). Your first customers want to feel valued and respected. Consider taking a moment to send a follow-up letter personalized with what you talked about and to thank them for taking the time to meet with you.
  3. Phone call: I hear you! No one calls anyone anymore. But, use the phone to share an article or something that triggered you to think of them, and that customer will be loyal forever.

A word of caution: None of these tactics will work if you don’t have a quality product or service to back you up.

Here are the key steps for putting together your start-up marketing tools:

  • Research potential customers, buyers, competitors, and their preferred methods of distribution.
  • Talk to potential customers! Surveys, polls, prototypes – take a hard look at your product from a customer’s perspective and see what it needs to be successful.
  • Follow up with your 3-step process from above.
  • Develop systems for contact follow-through, quality control standards, and customer service.
  • Keep lines of communication open with customers and build on your current relationship, possibly increasing future purchases.

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” — Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company.

I hope this lesson helps you put together a start-up marketing plan that can sustain and grow your business far into the future. The tools offered in our free training videos offer more of these strategies.