Archive for February, 2010

My town is pimp…yesterday I was at the DQ with my family and I was reading the paper (lol-I’m old ok) and I found out that OMG–a couple, Lora and Layton Ellis, from MY town Midland, TX won Most Inspiring to Follow 2009 Award from Mashable—YES the Social Media giant!!!  They won for their daily YouTube diary about FAMILY. Ever since Lora found out she had a bun in the oven, she has been documenting the journey of  life with her camera and posting the videos to the couple’s YouTube channel.

“As the winner of the ‘Most Inspiring to Follow’ category in the Open Web Awards, loraandlayton has been voted among the best of the Web in 2009,” Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore said in a press release.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Midland, TX–we are most infamously known for being where the Presidential Bush family hails from, where Baby Jessica fell in the well, and well… “wells”. We love our oil here!! Truth be told, the majority of people still sit around and watch the local 6 o” clock news and wouldn’t know a Tweet if it bit them   

 It blows my mind that a Midland, TX couple won an award from the un-arguable LEADER in the social media revolution Mashable.com! Go, Tall City, Go!

Read more on MyWestTexas.com

As a business owner, your main goal is to get paid by positively impacting your target audience. That is what it boils down to. You have a message, an idea, a product, or a service to offer and you are in constant pursuit of ways to share it faster, further and for the most profit.

No doubt in your businesses’ early stages, you learned that you can’t be Ms. All Knowing and All Doing! This may be, SHOULD be, a point of initial relief. Reaching out to a web designer, a marketing company, a copywriter, a shipping company, a virtual assistant will help you achieve more impressive results, in less time. (YAY!)
However, as they contribute to the success of your business, you become stymied in the day-to-day operations of being the only one to manage your team.

• You spend huge chunks of your energy delegating.
• You oversee the progression of tasks and projects.
• You must determine what goes where, to whom, and when.
• You are thwarted by a MIA team member and must desperately search for a replacement and (GASP!), re-teach her on the way you like things done.
• You’re alone in keeping your ship sailing.

This is the time that you need a business manager, someone to oversee the company’s procedures, operations and team so that you can once again focus on growth.
Yes, your online business manager keeps the business bus moving! Your Online Business Manger not only understands the sum of all tasks, we are responsible for the results.

• My job is to proactively take operations off your plate and to streamline the journey to completion.
• I am committed to seeing the owners’ business hit higher profit margins by possessing a “marketing mindset”.
• I make decisions to make the clients life easier.
• I coordinate the team’s efforts in achieving the business owner’s goals.
• I make sure there is a Standard Operating Procedure Manual in place so that everyone understands the process of tasks.
• I establish an online system where projects are easily managed, therefore making sure all files, tasks and communications are kept in a centralized location.
• I seek the answer to the question, “Is there a better way to do this?” when looking at your business procedures.

Knowing that an Online Business Manger will take over the day-to-day operations and allow you to continue growing your business, is no doubt a relief.  But handing over the reins to your company can seem scary, if not impossible, for you to do. It Is OK! When searching for your OBM, I suggest looking for someone that will compliment your best qualities while balancing your sub-par aptitudes.
When you do find someone that seems to be a good fit for managing your business, do a trial-run before committing! Tina Forsyth, the CEO of OnlineBusinessManager.com (and my trainer), says, “You’ll never know if it’s a match until you get into a working relationship…” 

• Do you want to launch a new product?
• Do you need to create an effective social profile for your brand?
• Are you needing to set-up a shopping cart that can effectively handle your internet marketing dilemas? 
•  Is your business desperate for some organization?
• Maybe you just need an overhaul of your current customer relations procedures?

 These are all great initial projects for your Online Business Manger to take on! I would love to hear about your next move as a business owner, please contact me so we can arrange a chat.

I am transitioning from a Virtual Assistant to Online Business Manager. I have been working in this role since the fall of last year, I just was too busy to realize it. Far gone are the days where a client simply sends me a “to-do”.  Nowadays, I plan and implement with my clients. I oversee their entire online business. I take their business success and their loss as my own.

The first time I heard the word ‘Online Business Manager’ was when I applied for Heike Miller’s, PA Excellence team. She needed multiple Virtual Assistants to help her take care of her clients tasks. I submitted a proposal for her shopping cart needs, but my mind wondered, “Is this the only task that I would be doing for a client!?”

As an Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant, I was- and still am-used to taking care of all my clients’ needs. Yes, it got hairy when they all were launching, yes there were elements I was more comfortable with then others, but I thought that was just the way it was. I trained and learned a multitude of different tasks and enjoyed growing into a comfortable relationship with each of my fabulous clients.

However, I must admit, there was times I could have used an extra set of hands, or a well deserved nap for that matter! I haven’t had a full day off since I started as a VA in 2008! There simply was no one that knew my clients business like I did. In short, I had built my business so that I could be the only person to satisfy my clients. My clients often state, “I don’t know what I would do without you Raven.”

Even though I was only responsible for the shopping cart part of the PA Excellence’s clients needs, I am a “big picture” person and so, I asked Heike to allow me to sit in on her new client consults. WOW! Talk about an eye-opening experience. I listened to Heike and her client discuss every last detail of the clients business, the goals they wanted to accomplish and the strategies that we would implement to reach our clients goals. Most importantly, Heike explained, which member of her team would oversee each tool we needed to get the job done! One- by-one Heike ticked off our clients’ needs into smaller sections and delivered them to the team! Talk about done and done!

The system worked, even with so much to do, there was so many EXPERT hands in which to get it done. As time went on, I enjoyed playing “sit-in” for Heike when she was away on vacation. Oh how I was envious. Things were still getting done, the client’s needs were being met, all while Heike enjoyed some R&R.

At the start of this year, Heike asked me to become her Project Online Business Manager. I didn’t hesitate. I wanted to do it because Heike lives in New Zealand and so, at times, she can’t be readily available to her clients. I also had just learned Tina Forsyth’s Online Business Manager certification course would be starting in February. This was the course that Heike completed in order to build her PA Excellence business.

The price tag of the certification is mind boggling, but it’s an investment in mine and my clients’ future success.

However, before I committed to it, I bought Tina’s book: Becoming an Online Business Manager and laughed out loud. I felt like she was writing about me. Most of the requirements that she stated a Online Business Manager needed to be comfortable doing, I was already doing or wish I had the “ok” to do. I was operating as an Online Business Manager, I just hadn’t made it official. Now I am. With my enrollment, I state firmly, I am serious about mine and my clients business.

So how is my business changing and how is it staying the same?

•  As I step into this larger role for my current and future clients, I do it with the notion that I am going to be the driving force for the business. We will discuss their strategy and what it will take to accomplish their business goals.
•  No longer will my client have the headache of finding all the hands to complete their puzzle, I will oversee that. I will gather together the contractors and sub-contractors my clients needs to get the job done efficiently and effectively.
•  No longer will my client have to wait their turn, while I focus on another clients’ needs. By having a team readily available, we will be able to deliver more work, in less time.
•  I will have the ability to do the tasks that I do best and share the load with trusted associates to take care of the tasks that they are best at accomplishing.Stepping into the role as an Online Business Manager is a “win-win” for me and for all of Virtual Raven Marketing clients. Certification training starts in a mere 2 weeks, I look forward to embracing my role as an Online Business Manager and can’t wait to see what the future holds.