Archives for August 2015
Tips to Improve the Way You Interact with Other People
A big part of becoming a successful businessperson is developing relationships with other people. However, if any part of you is an introvert, this could be easier said than done. But itâs ok â you donât have to be the most outgoing person in the room to make genuine connections with others, and you donât have to follow a âfake it til you make itâ sort of strategy.
Here are a few tips you can become a better people person and make better connections with others:
⢠Be empathetic. Try to keep the focus on the other person with statements like âyou must be so proud of what youâve accomplished,â rather than saying âIâm so happy youâve found 
success!â You might think this would barely be noticeable in conversation, but the actual psychological effect is rather profound. Keeping the focus on âyouâ rather than âIâ or âmeâ alters the entire tone of a conversation and shows your interest in the way other people feel or think.
⢠Be personal. For example, everyone expects you to follow up the question of âhow are you?â with âgood, you?â Rather than using these sort of canned, robotic responses, try instead to actually make it personal. Say how you actually are, or give a quick recap of your day, and youâll find there are more opportunities to make a personal connection.
⢠Ask questions. As the old adage goes, people love to talk about themselves. The more you show your interest in others, the more theyâll be interested in you in return. Ask follow up questions based on things theyâve already told you as well, so they know youâve been listening.
⢠Listen. Donât interrupt the other person, and donât get distracted and turn away. Keep your focus on the person talking, nod your head and show youâre listening. Donât just be waiting to respond, either â youâll get to know people a lot better by listening to every detail.
⢠Be genuine. Donât feel like you have to play a part â youâll come across as being fake. This advice might seem trite, but just be yourself. Itâs the best way to come across as being genuine and itâs far easier than trying to be someone youâre not.
Looking for more tips on forging business relationships? Contact our team at Viral Solutions today!
by Christine Kelly
CEO and Queen Bee | Viral Solutions LLC
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC
Prior to joining Viral Solutions, Christine held executive leadership roles at some of the largest small business consulting firms in the USA. Her experience includes leading direct reports of over 130 remote sales agents who generated $38mm in annual revenue. She obtained her Marketing degree from British Columbia Institute of Technology. Bring her C-Suite experience to your small business. Although our company is virtual, and we can work with you wherever you are located, she is located in Denver, Colorado and owns a second home in Vancouver, BC Canada.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner and an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant.
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.
Why Should Your Company Try SMS Marketing?
Todayâs world is dominated by mobile devices. People are constantly connected through the internet and text messaging, which makes it an extremely powerful marketing platform.
So what are some of the biggest reasons that your company should consider giving SMS marketing a shot? Consider the following:
⢠It allows your customers to opt in. Rather than spamming your message out into the void, hoping that at least some people out of the thousands that receive your message will actually pay attention to it, SMS advertising allows you to create an opt-in system for your customers. Your targets must actually sign up to receive notifications about deals and promotions. This means that the people that are going to receive your message are the ones who are already the most interested in it, meaning that you have a much better chance of seeing conversions.
⢠Your message is almost guaranteed to be seen. Numerous studies have shown that the vast majority of text messages are read within the first two minutes after receipt. People can easily tune out email marketing messages, but texts automatically pop up on a phone and will be read almost as soon as they are delivered.
⢠Itâs quick and easy. Because your messages that you send out through SMS are so short, your customers are much more likely to read the entire message than they would in a full email or
direct mail piece. If you are short on time, it takes no more than a few seconds to type out a message to send to your interested customers and takes much less planning of the message.
⢠Itâs inexpensive. Depending on the kind of package you get, you have the ability to easily control the amount of service you get for low prices, making it a great option for businesses with a strict advertising budget.
⢠It presents opportunities for interaction. Using SMS marketing promotions as parts of polls or questionnaires gives your customers a new way to interact with your brand and voice their opinion. You can also create a toll-free reply option for customers to text back to your company.
- Marketing automation. From simple timed text message campaigns to highly advanced automated mobile campaigns that trigger internal staff actions or external application events, it can do it all with ease of a campaign builder dashboard in many systems. You can track engagement. From intelligent mobile web pages that track all page actions, button click events, video views and so much more.
- Integration with current services and systems. With tight integration to Infusionsoft, you can run your mobile SMS campaigns directly from Infusionsoft campaign builder. An HTTP Post service enables you to connect with other CRM and Marketing Systems so your mobile contacts, leads and information are right there in the one marketing system you use most.
- Rich professional pages like the big brands. Rich content mobile marketing is no longer out of reach for small business owners and marketers. Today's systems can easily and quickly create awesome mobile web pages for your text messaging campaigns and even use these for your social media adverting and other offline lead generation activities.
Need any more reasons why you should give SMS marketing a try?
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC
by Thomas von Ahn | Chief Elephant Slayer
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant, a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords and a Mobit Certified Partner.
These Statistics Show the Importance of Digital Marketing in Todayâs Business World
All signs point to digital marketing still being a growing field in 2015 and beyond. More companies in an increasingly large variety of industries are jumping aboard the digital marketing train, building and fine-tuning their websites and social media profiles to figure out the best way of engaging new customers online.
If you needed any more indication of just how important digital marketing is to todayâs business world, here are a few eye-opening statistics you might find interesting:
- In 2014, companies spent on average approximately 25 percent of their total marketing budgets on digital advertising. However, that number is expected to swell to approximately 75
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.
percent over the next five years.
- Approximately one third of all customer service interactions took place online in 2014, a number that is expected to grow to more than 53 percent by the end of this year.
- Approximately 80 percent of customers do a significant amount of online research before making a major purchase decision, and 46 percent use some form of social media to help guide their decision.
- Approximately 42 percent of all CMOs say skills with analytics will be a core competence in marketing within the next few years, but you can expect that number to continue to grow quickly.
- Total spending on online display advertising in the United States will reach about $23.6 billion by the end of this year.
- About half of all employed adults online said digital media has changed the way in which they work, including the amount of hours they work and the number of people they are regularly in contact with.
- About 38 percent of companies will increase their digital marketing staff within the next year, but about half of those new positions will be either temporary or contracted workers.
Itâs still anyoneâs guess as to the extent to which digital marketing will develop within the next few years. Many companies are still working hard to overcome the challenges of getting results in a largely digital-driven marketing environment. But what is clear is that digital marketing is quickly becoming the most important aspect of a companyâs advertising strategy.
For more information, contact our team at Viral Solutions today.
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC
by Thomas von Ahn | Chief Elephant Slayer
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant, a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords and a Mobit Certified Partner.
Whatâs Holding You Back from Being a Great Leader?
If you want to be a great business owner, then you need to be a great leader as well. But âwantingâ to be a great leader isnât enough â you need to be able to analyze your strengths and weaknesses, and figure out what it is about you thatâs holding you back from greatness. This type of introspection is difficult, as we donât really like spending much time thinking about our own flaws, but itâs necessary if youâre to get the best out of yourself.
Here are some of the most common factors or characteristics holding people back from becoming great leaders:
⢠A self-centered nature. Great leaders understand that getting others to follow them means focusing on improving the lives of other people, not just themselves. They need to be masters 
of interpersonal relationships and willing to put others before themselves. People will turn on you quickly (or refuse to follow you at all) if you come across as being self-centered.
⢠A fear of risks. Great leaders know itâs necessary to take a risk every now and then if they hope to have any chance of achieving success. This isnât to say you canât act in a calculated manner â you should still anticipate the outcome of these risks whenever possible. But sometimes you need to make business decisions that donât have a 100 percent chance of success.
⢠Tunnel vision. If you get overly attached to a single vision or process and tune out potential problems or great ideas offered by other people, you run the risk of losing support from your team and failing to achieve true success. If you want to be a great leader, you need to have an open mind and be willing to listen to other peopleâs suggestions
⢠Refusal to delegate. Youâre not going to have a complete understanding of every area of your company, and thatâs ok. If you arenât good with finance, for example, you can delegate your bookkeeping and accounting to someone who knows what theyâre doing. If you arenât good with marketing, find someone who can head up that area of your company. You canât do everything all at once and expect to do it well, especially if you donât have the necessary subject knowledge in particular areas.
⢠Unwillingness to work. Simply put, you need to be prepared to put in a lot of work and to lead by example. Who wants to follow a lazy leader?
Can you think of any other examples of personality traits or characteristics that can hold a person back from being a great leader?
by Christine Kelly
CEO and Queen Bee | Viral Solutions LLC
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC
Prior to joining Viral Solutions, Christine held executive leadership roles at some of the largest small business consulting firms in the USA. Her experience includes leading direct reports of over 130 remote sales agents who generated $38mm in annual revenue. She obtained her Marketing degree from British Columbia Institute of Technology. Bring her C-Suite experience to your small business. Although our company is virtual, and we can work with you wherever you are located, she is located in Denver, Colorado and owns a second home in Vancouver, BC Canada.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner and an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant.
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.