How often do you find yourself overwhelmed by your daily to-do list? As a small business owner, I know how quickly a to-do list can balloon to impossible lengths. There are always so many things to get done and only so much time to do them. When you run a small business, countless small tasks are on your shoulders as you must likely wear several different hats. In larger organizations, these tasks would be the responsibility of dedicated employees, but you likely can’t accord a full-time worker to take care of your social media, for example. While hiring a virtual…
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What is the secret to finding and working with a virtual assistant team? Simple: you need to connect with the right people. Trust me, I know this from personal experience! Years ago, I was a “lone wolf” virtual assistant. If my clients needed social media written, blogs edited, sales funnels designed, or email newsletters sent, it would be me behind the computer. While my business was thriving, I certainly wasn’t. The stress was starting to get to me. And even worse, because I was doing EVERYTHING myself, I was limiting my business’s growth. I couldn’t take on new clients because…
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Sometimes, I wonder how I manage to get through my daily to-do list in my business. Not to brag, but believe me, my to-do list can get a little crazy at times. I’m working with dozens of different clients who work in several industries. It takes a lot to keep everything straight (which is why I live by my project management system), I use Teamwork and it is my lifeline! I couldn’t work without it! It helps me keep every project organized and ensures that I never miss a detail or a deadline. So keeping things organized is the easy…
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Wouldn’t it be great to have an assistant at your beck and call? All you’d need to do is hit the intercom on your desk, and like a flash, they appear! Unfortunately, that’s beyond the means of most small business owners. Many of them work out of their home. Unless they draft their kids into the role, (take it from me, this isn’t a great idea! haha!) having an assistant might seem like it simply isn’t possible. Or is it? The Internet Created Countless Jobs The internet has created countless brand-new types of jobs over the last twenty years, including…
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Have you ever heard the phrase, “Aging gracefully?” While I personally think that aging gracefully is a virtue, I can tell you one place where age really does matter: your website. After just a few years, even the most cutting-edge, beautiful, and well-designed website starts to look a little dated, or even worse, doesn’t function properly anymore! In fact, many websites look like they’ve gone without any updates for over a decade! Although, to be 100% honest, there are far fewer of them than there used to be. Over the last few months, COVID-19 has pivoted millions of small businesses…
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The Dangers of Relying on Social Media One thing that I say to my clients over and over again is how important it is for them to be building up their own email list. And countless clients come back to me with, “Jennie, I don’t need an email list. I have thousands of followers on Facebook!” So many people focus solely on building their social media following. They end up forgetting that they don’t actually OWN their followers. You’re at the mercy of Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram. If something happens, you’re out of luck. That is exactly what happened…
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Are you on social media? Of course you are! Who isn’t! Do you remember your very first exposure to social media? Oh my gosh, for me it was Classmates.com! Haha. But for many of you, it may have been MySpace! Do you remember what it felt like to, for the very first time, have unlimited reach? You could make friends and connect with anyone in the entire world. Communication was the way of the future. That was the promise of social media in the late 90s. But no one could have predicted what it would become in the 2010s! Facebook,…
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2020 has been quite a year! I mean it’s already September! How did that happen? Since the new year is right around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about my marketing strategy and where I want to see my business in the new year. So with that being said, my first stop is always my website. Several times a year, I take a good look at my website, the services offered, the messaging, design, and everything else that makes for an excellent user experience. If things have broken, I need to get them fixed. If some copy doesn’t flow…
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When it comes to food, my family are big believers in having as little waste as possible. Jayson, my husband, LOVES to cook (and I love LETTING him cook). We love to pull inspiration from the Native American idea of using EVERY part of the animal. So, when he is making mashed potatoes, he saves the skin peels to make delicious, crispy potato skin chips in the oven. When we eat chicken, he always saves the bones and tiny bits of meat and boils it down to make a tasty chicken noodle soup. It doesn’t just make economic sense; it’s…
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Want to know an online business secret? Content equals growth! It’s true! Content creation has been the core of everything I’ve done with my businesses for the past 20 years. However, when I took my content creation to the next level that is when my business really took off. Take my green lifestyle blog, Sweet Greens. Haha! Are you thinking, What? She has a green lifestyle blog too? Sweet Greens was born of my passion for environmental causes and green products. It started as a simple blog (I thought it would be a fun way to document the fun eco-friendly…
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