4 Incredible Virtual Services for Your Business

Not everyone needs businesses premises with full-time employees. In fact, people with online businesses often don’t need any space. However, that doesn’t mean you can get by one your own, working out of your basement. Sometimes you need some help, either to grow your business or make it look more legitimate. In this situation, you could benefit from a number of virtual services. For example, a virtual receptionist can answer your calls and take messages for you. These virtual services provide you with a way to run a full business on a budget. You don’t need a large office space because everyone works remotely. Try these options to expand your business.

Photo by Jason Howie

Virtual Social Media Management

Any social selling business needs to have excellent control over their social media. However, not all business owners have time to do it on their own. If you require help, you don’t need the funds for a full-time or even part-time employee. A virtual social media manager or assistant can be just what you need to make things easier. Social media management is just one of the many tasks a virtual assistant can handle for you. You can give them as much or as little control as you want. You might ask them to post certain things at particular times. You might leave some aspects of social media to them and do some of it yourself.

Photo by Steven Burt

Virtual Office

If you want your business to look professional, using your home address won’t cut it. People don’t want to look you up and find you work out of your garage. What’s more, you’re sure to want to separate your work and home lives. So your best bet is to use a virtual office to make your business look more professional. They can offer a range of services to help you. For example, at Level Office, you get to use their address and have them receive and even forward your mail. For a slightly higher price, you can use their meeting spaces for a few hours a month too. These services are extremely useful if you don’t have a proper office you can use.

Photo by Petras Gagilas

Virtual Receptionist

Who answers your phones when your customers call? If it’s you, it might be getting a bit too much for you. It’s time-consuming to have to speak to people all the time. You have other things you need to do, and you can’t spend all day chatting. Plus, you don’t necessarily want people getting straight through to the head of the company. A virtual receptionist can be useful in this case. They can answer your calls, forward them, and take messages.

Photo by CWCS Managed Hosting

Virtual PA

A virtual personal assistant can do just about anything for you. However, you’re most likely to use them for secretarial and admin work. They might answer your calls or respond to emails. They can also do data entry, or perhaps make appointments for you. If you need someone who’s a multitasker with a range of skills, hiring a virtual PA is an excellent idea.

Virtual services can be a huge benefit to small businesses. Consider using them if you want to grow your brand on a budget.

Category: Business, Social Media | No Comments »

Profound Implications for The Individual Economy & [Infographic]

The individual-centered economy is already here. The newest digital technologies – among them social media, mobility, analytics and cloud – keep changing how people, businesses and governments interact. The transformation that is already underway will soon intensify, resulting in a paradigm shift from customer-centricity toward an everyone-to-everyone (E2E) economy. The implication for value creation and allocation will be profound.

New research shows that many organizations are still not ready to navigate the E2E environment. The Digital Reinvention Exec report can be read HERE

Here are some highlights from the report and infographic to share:

55 percent of 4,183 C-suite executives report that consumers have the most influence on business strategy <ClickToTweet>

58 percent of 1,100 executives surveyed in the Digital Reinvention Study expect new technologies to reduce barriers to entry <ClickToTweet>

There is a paradigm shift from customer-centricity toward an everyone-to-everyone (E2E) economy. Are you prepared? <ClickToTweet>

Digitization is rapidly changing the nature of how individuals and organizations interact <ClickToTweet>

“Social” has become revenue-generating, evolving from a dot-com trend to a sharing platform and business model <ClickToTweet>

Everyone-to-Everyone Economy

The Digital Reinvention Exec Report can be found on SlideShare and can also be seen below

Category: IBM, Retail, Sales, Smarter Business, Social Media, Technology | No Comments »

Ten Helpful Points in Using Twitter for Business

I came across these great points in a recent article from inBlurbs.com. Take a look as the infographic they have is very good, demonstrating the impact social media is having on business’s.

As the use of social networking tools rocket you are missing a huge trick if you are not already engaging with your clients in this space.

Take a look at these steps to consider, what else would you add?

1st Register with Twitter and complete your profile and customize it.
2nd Start to observe the conversation related to your industry. To do this you should download and install HootSuite or TweetDeck. Set your brand name and look if it is mentioned. If mentioned, respond in real time if necessary.
3rd Go to Google Alerts and set Alerts for your name, your company brand, your products, your best customers and your top ten competitors. These alert will be delivered directly to you email box as news appear. This keeps you updated and by the way you monitor your brand name mentions, which offer you the opportunity to respond in real time if necessary.
4th Lookout for your competition and invite their followers to your Twitter.
5th Connect with your audience on Twitter and start the conversation.
6th Share interesting and helpful content. Not only yours but other content from other sources as well.
7th When you publish your own content include a call to action which directs your reader to dedicated landing pages.
8th Do Twitter exclusive specific promotions for your Twitter followers. Direct them to landing pages for lead generation.
9th Promote your Press Release on Twitter. To learn how take a look at HubSpot how they have published a PR on Twitter with its 140 characters.
10th Incorporate effective landing page for lead generation. This will ensure a steady flow of fresh business leads for your sales team.

Incorporate the above for your Twitter marketing, test, measure and refine and then test, measure and refine. Repeat

Full article here

Category: Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

Using LinkedIn for Business

The question I ask many sellers is, do you research your client before making contact? Most of the time they do: “I like to understand where they have worked before, what groups they are interested in, and sometimes it gives me an insight into their interests outside of work. Which is great to sometimes break the ice with.

Then I ask, do you think your clients do the same to you? If you think they don’t, you are very much mistaken.

When was the last time you looked at your profile? Is it looking tired and frayed at the edges?

Is you headline title one of acronyms that needs a cypher to decode?

Could a potential client understand how you can add value to his or her company?

So first, before you start building your valued network, and requesting your clients to connect with you, let’s consider your personal brand, LinkedIn is your chance to demonstrate the value you can offer.

Let’s start with your photo. Do you use the same image across all your networks? Keep it professional and consistent; it’s always beneficial to know that the same person I was speaking to on one site is the same person I am speaking to on another. A huge eighty percent of professionals have indicated they would not generally connect to someone with no photo. We like to know whom we are talking to.

Next, is your professional headline. By default, LinkedIn populates this with your job tile. Take mine several years ago “ICR LSE at IBM” – I can’t imagine why clients had no idea what I did. So take advantage of the 160 characters available and answer the question “What do you do?”

As a result of doing these tasks, you can now address what I believe, are four important things. As a result of a search on LinkedIn, a potential client is presented with only four answers: your name, your headline tag, and how many connections and how many recommendations you have.

Are you going to stand shoulders above the rest? Would you click on you?

So now they have clicked on your name and are now staring at your profile. Have you written a summary using all 2000 characters available? It is not important to do so, but why waste? Aim to make your profile an interesting read – long enough to cover the essentials but short enough to still be interesting. Never start it with “In my role as” or “I’m here to make money.”

Why are you here on LinkedIn? Take a moment to summarize from your work experience – what value have you brought to other clients? What results did you get? How can you provide value to your next client?

The summary is also subject to search engine optimization (SEO) and is used by the likes of Google and others. So, consider using key words that reflect the industry and skill set you have. Same goes for specialties.

You’re almost there. Under your work experiences, make sure that you have highlighted your one to three accomplishments within each role. Clients like to see progression; it provides them with credibility and helps reduce the trust gap.

Now you’re ready to start approaching new prospects, and they will be willing to connect with you because now they can clearly see the value you could potentially bring to them.

Next question: If, every Friday, I supplied you details about your customer, such as who has been promoted, and who are new joiners and even leavers, would you find that of value? Of course you would.

Follow the companies you are aligned to or are of interest to you. LinkedIn will then send you this information. What better way to introduce yourself by saying congratulations on your new job, promotion, and such.

The people who have left, in my opinion, are the most valuable. Ask them for help – as a species we are geared to do so. For example, “I’m trying to get through to xxx, can you help me?”

If you don’t have companies, you can take advantage of the superb search function for lines of business. You can use Boolean search strings within LinkedIn. For example “Chief Information Officer” OR cio will search for the exact phrase in quotation marks (” “) and also the word CIO. You can search in a geographic area using a postal code and you can save this search. Guess what? Every time a new CIO appears in this area you will receive a notification.

Last but not least, keep your network updated with what you and your company are doing. Don’t send too many marketing type messages; try to keep them of value and informative. It will bring great results.

With a bit of polishing your profile can be rich and demonstrate the value on offer to a potential client

Category: LinkedIn, Social Media | Comments Off

IBM Watson to add Citi Bank to its CV

So here I am watching I,Robot and doing my banking, which I do online because lets be honest, banking customer service is often lacking.

I then recall a colleague mentioning Watson, the IBM SuperComputer, was entering into the financial industry. It’s first job looks like it will be with Citi Bank, one of the largest institutions. With Watsons huge data crunching capabilities, you should be able to ask question such as: “How much money do I need to retire?” or “Should I reshuffle my investments given the volatility of the world markets?” And then imagine getting an expert, personalized response in just a few seconds time.

Citigroup, is the first to tap Watson’s enormous data-crunching capabilities and is planning on using the supercomputer to “analyze customer needs and process financial, economic and client data to advance and personalize digital banking.”

(I am are not sure what it says about the state of banking that it takes a robot to make it personal.)

‘Watson’ already has started working in health care. IBM formed a board on Friday that will explore how ‘Watson’ can help the health care industry. ‘Watson’ started working for WellPoint, one of the largest health insurers, in September.

Smarter Planet Blog – Financial Services

Category: Smarter Banking, Smarter Planet | No Comments »

☞ The Tech Wrap by Ben Martin☜

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IBM Watson to add Citi Bank to its CV