Four Tips to Make Your Business Eco-friendly

As I mentioned in an earlier post I’m educating myself about whole foods and passing a tradition healthful lifestyle to my children. While thinking of eco-friendly habits we can incorporate into our lives, I realized that one of the great things about having a virtual businesses is that it helps the environment in a variety of ways:

1. Drive Your Car Less. Having to only “drive” down to your home office cuts down on  gas consumption as well as exhaust fumes. And make sure that when you do have to go out to meet a client that you make the most of the trip. Attend to other errands such as picking up the clothes from the dry cleaners, shopping, etc.
2. Healthy Food Choices. When you work from home you can make healthy food choices. By choosing organic, when possible, you not only benefit your body but help the organic farmers to continue providing superior produce.
3. Choose “green” office supplies. When choosing paper for your laser or inkjet printer,  look for the initials “PCW”. It stands for Post Consumer Waste and indicates that the paper was indeed recycled.  Also, looking for remanufactured ink and toner cartridges made by companies such as Nukote and Jetfill.
4. Accounting. Although we may need to save receipts for the tax man, many records can be stored electronically, thus reducing the amount of paper and ink wasted. There are many ways to do that including Quickbooks Online and Freshbooks (www.freshbooks.com).

For more information on how to keep your life as green as possible, you should check out Ecomii (www.ecomii.com) which has a daily ecological tip along with blogs, latest ecological endeavors and much more. And below are two eco-friendly company discounts that I got in my mailbox and thought that you might find interesting.

• Visit http://www.printresponsibly.com and check out their line of business cards, brochures, postcards, pocket folders and more - all produced in their FSC/SFI certified plants. Enter Promo Code: Haropromo to get 25% off any product purchased through PrintResponsibly.com.

Act by September 30th and receive 300 free business cards and an eco-friendly business card holder along with your order! The CEO (and HARO Family Member’s) commitment to sustainability is fundamental to their businesses and practiced at all levels of their organization. That’s the kind of HARO Family Member we love!

• Feeling underwhelmed by the slow and limited QuickBooks Online product? Need your accountant to be able to easily review your QuickBooks file without having to send huge files back and forth? Need to connect remotely? Mac and PC? Here’s the solution that CPAs, accountants and business owners across the country have chosen to save time and money. Swizznet makes it easy to connect with your accountant or remote employees and takes the hassle, time and expense out of business IT.

With Swizznet you get the convenience of secure online anytime, anywhere access to all your applications - including multi-user access to your full version of QuickBooks (Pro, Premier or Enterprise) as well as MS Office, Adobe Reader and unlimited data storage with continuous backup and seamless printing.

Sign up today at http://swizznet.com for your free 30-day trial and get a free document management premium package upgrade for six months (a $60 value) - just enter the promo code: HARO

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Two Tips to Make the Most of Your Autoresponders

One of the topics that we discussed in my virtual assistant class was about autoresponders. We’re all very familiar with autoresponders because nowadays you can’t sign up for a newsletter of anything else on the web without having to click on an autoresponder email.

One of our potential jobs as virtual assistant is to help our clients build their business. Since many of these businesses are online, knowing how to effectively use an autoresponder is very important. Why? If your clients aren’t using it correctly they’re losing business. And when they lose business we won’t be able to get that raise we richly deserve. J So here are three tips to keep in mind.

Don’t Use the “The List Technique.

“The List Technique”: Having a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about products and services. These prospects had already received an email by the time they requested more information, so you use the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

• The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
  
• List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
  
• List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. Using the List Technique we’re just writing news bulletins to everyone the client knows! What is really needed (and appreciated) by customers is a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.
  

DO Follow Up With Each Lead Individually

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

• First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!
  
• Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.
  
• The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!
  
• Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)
  

And Remember: Timing Counts

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

• Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!
  
• Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!
  
• Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.
  

Following up effectively seems complicated (I know it did for me at first), but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up - don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

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