Archives for February 2016
What is a Virtual Team? A Quick Go to Reference to Virtual Teams
In todayâs fast paced world, companies are on the hunt for ways to do more business and to do it more efficiently. Sometimes this means hiring outside their primary location. This option presents different challenges for businesses, especially financially. We all know âtime is moneyâ and there is valuable time lost moving that new employee to your location, also overhead expenses such as office space, and materials. Luckily, along with this fast paced world comes rapid and constant advances in technology, such changes that help to support the decision to explore virtual team options. However, before actually making the decision to have a virtual team, it is important to know what a virtual team is and how it may vary organization to organization. Therefore, the remainder of this post will briefly explore a question that many solo-entrepreneurs and small business owners may have about âWhat is a virtual team?â.
At the head of Viral Solutions are Thomas von Ahn and Christine Kelly, two small business marketing experts with decades of experience in the trenches. Tom and Christine help to give their clients a fresh new outlook on how they can run their business, thanks to the insight they gained in the trenches of the business world themselves. They arenât your standard tech geeks; rather than forcing technology to be a solution to every problem, they apply their outstanding knowledge and sales processes to the technology thatâs available to them. This makes for much more effective, streamlined marketing campaigns. Today, Viral Solutionsâ mission is to provide its clients with the assistance needed to experience bursts of growth in their operations, and a big part of that is through the use of technology. When business owners feel overwhelmed, burnt out or unmotivated, Viral Solutions steps in to give them the tools they need to achieve new levels of success.
What is a Virtual Team? Well a Virtual Team, also known as a Geographically Dispersed Team is a collective of employees that are not working at the same physical location. Many virtual team members may not even live in the same geographic area (across the country or world). The virtual nature consists of the dynamics of technologies and capabilities to connect individuals and teams throughout the world through a variety communication platforms and organizational infrastructures. Although the virtual team is not physically in the same location, the team works remotely to achieve specific individual, team, department, and organizational goals.
How does technology help the Virtual Team? Technology is critical to the success of virtual teams. It is heart of the virtual team. Deciding on whether or not a virtual team works for you, re-quires evaluating the technology resources already available and if any additional technologies are needed. For examples, Virtual Teams use a great deal of internal and external tools to communicate, input, organize, and share information. This work can be done using organizational Intranets or external applications, such as cloud applications.
Communication doesnât have to be a challenge. Since most Virtual Team members are spread out in great distances and different time zones they donât get many chances to meet in person, if at all. This is where technology comes in to play. In business just like anything else in life, whether it be sports, relationships, etc. communication is key. One great form of communication is video chat, such as Skype or FaceTime. Web-conferencing tools such as Zoom, GotoMeeting.com, and AdobeConference help to bring virtual teams together in virtual meeting rooms. These tools are cheap and allow you to have all the team members together visually or review recordings of meetings. Since everyone can see each other it makes it easier to share information through graphs or charts and get a sense of how the team members are feeling about the ideas that are being shared. There is also instant messaging for those times when you have something short, but im-portant to say. Another great tool is the e-mail. E-mail is great for keeping team members in the loop when there is no time for a video conference. Specific groups can be created to stream-line email communications between virtual teams. It is also good for passing along documents for peer review or other critical information, however, cloud applications are making the transfer, re-view, and collaboration process much more intuitive and efficient.
As your business grows there will be different ways in which you can choose to expand. Depending on the type of business, a Virtual Team Model may be an effective route of aligning talent needs with the budget and goals of the company. If technology is struggle and you rely heavily on F2F communication on all of your business settings, it may not be the route for you, but if you feel confident with technology or have the desire to gain those skills, it could be an effective option. Luckily for you, technology is constantly improving it will no doubt be easier to keep in touch with members of your team and in turn reach your goals. As with any new endeavor, it will take time, resources and effective management to make it successful. Stay tuned for more articles to help you gain insight about Virtual Teams.
Copyright 2016 Viral Solutions LLC
by Rob Carpen
Rob is a content writer and editor, specializing in a variety of fields. He helps B2B and B2C clients with blogs, social media, press releases and web content that create more value for their marketing campaigns. He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Biology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He played Club Rugby at IUP for four years. He loves Rugby and recently attended the Rugby World Cup in Newcastle, England – New Zealand All Blacks v. Tonga Match. Rob is passionate about craft beer. He is transitioning his eight years of home brewing to earn his professional brewer certificate.
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.
Strategies to Update Your Brand Image
Is your brand image worn out? Are you just beginning to launch your brand? Or have you recently realized that your current brand (or lack thereof) is ineffective? Itâs not just an adage that image is everything — in todayâs marketing economy, it is. Itâs important to use a critical eye when examining your brand. Instead of viewing your brand from your perspective, take the view of a potential customer looking at it alongside a competitor and be honest: how do you stack up?
Remember, your brand is what you stand for, the authority figure you are and how the public perceives the value of your content and your core offer(s). Below, we outline a few strategies for creating a relevant brand.
Teach, Train, Mentor, Lead, Develop, Implement and bring Results. Our small business experts can consult or coach on a wide variety of important business topics, including sales optimization and management, sales training, automated relationship marketing, eMarketing, strategic planning and much more. Our thought process is very simple. First we seek to understand, before we seek to be understood. When the team at Viral Solutions brings their minds to your business, you are getting all of our collective experiences. We will not sugar coat the reasons behind our input. We will not withhold our best solutions. We will not limit our implementation strategies. We will tell you exactly how we see it. The results you experience will be the sum of your strategy, your defined target audience, your commitment to serve your customer and our process of delivery. That means we are an integral part of your team!
Decide what you stand for and stick to it
Establish the core values of your brand. Often this is similar to a mission statement that outlines how your business runs and what is most important to you. This applies to your staff, too — your expectations of them will be clear and easy to manage from the start. It is important to stay consistent with these values and execute them in even the smallest ways, such as how your staff dress and interact with clients. Give your consumer a reliable experience so they know what to expect.
Your Aesthetics – Own them!
Looking good physically is incredibly important. Whatâs even more important is looking good at delivering a quality product or service. Determine what your customer desires most from you, and build on that. Your image should mirror your customer in many aspects. It should speak to what they are seeking. For example, someone seeking a new car isnât just looking for a vehicle, they are seeking reliability and style.
Figure out how to emulate these feelings in your brand image so that everything aligns. Do certain colors, logos, fonts evoke the aesthetic you are going for? Pay attention to those elements and then commit. Shifting between drastically different branding (fonts, logos, colors) can come across as instability, so stick to a brand once youâve established it.
Have a clear message
Be economical with your words. Remember that speaking in jargon can alienate customers, so be careful with your word choice. This message should align with the aesthetic youâve built in the previous section, so make a statement that summarizes those ideas. A good strategy is to come up with a single line that captures the result your product or service has for the customer. For example, selling cars isnât just about selling a vehicle — itâs more about selling freedom and luxury. This kind of message leaves a memorable brand image with your customer.
Work with Viral Solutions to maintain a high-quality brand image and send the right messages to your customers!
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.
Digital Marketing Trends to Be Aware Of
Companies without a digital online marketing presence are essentially unheard of — in large part because businesses not on the web donât exist to an enormous (and growing) number of consumers. Digital marketing trends change by the minute, but below we examine a few that are particularly useful to know about.
Viral Solutions has significant experience in the areas of sales, sales management and small to medium business management consulting. Our experience is spread across a wide variety of industries. This breadth of experience gives us the ability to adapt our services to fit the specific needs of your business, rather than forcing you to adapt to the services that we provide. We arenât âtechy-coder-geeksâ. While we offer the services of custom scripts and integration's through API, it is not what built our reputation. If this is the top attribute you seek in a partnership, we are not your best choice. We are the best choice for those that seek a systems expert with a great business mind â the one that cares about and understands your business almost as much as you do.
- Devices. It may seem super tech-y at the moment, but it is worthwhile to keep an eye on the âInternet of things,â or wearable technology. From Appleâs smartwatch to fitness-tracking bracelets, this technology has yet to tap its full marketing potential. These devices connect users to a specific network, the sales power of which is yet to be tested. Users often have something in common — running, for example — and could be used as fertile ground for niche marketing (in this example, athletic companies) to plan seed in. More typical mobile devices, like tablets and smartphones, are responsible for more than 50% of Internet traffic today. Having a responsive website design (one that conforms to the size of the screen on which it is being viewed) is no longer optional, especially as Google now drops non-mobile-friendly sites in its rankings.
- Hook âem and keep âem. A polished, relatable brand image is key to a successful digital marketing campaign. This includes more obvious elements, like your logo, font and design, and less obvious ones, like customer interactions across several platforms. An appealing image draws customers in, but another crucial aspect is keeping them engaged. The Internet never sleeps, which means that consumers expect that their online customer service doesnât, either. Walking with a customer even after they purchase your product is key to retaining their loyalty. Show consumers you are engaged by actively communicating with them on as many platforms as possible. This often means doing a little research to find where they are most active — Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Snapchat? Commit to engaging with your consumer. It makes a difference.
- Video streams. Millennials are a generation gobbling up dynamic media. Video streams are key for this demographic. Video combines the best aspects of both print and image by creating visually interesting and engaging product capsules that are quick and easy to ingest. Auto-play feeds on social media sites are ripe for this trend, as well as the recent popularity of live streaming platforms like Periscope and Twitch. Customers love seeing behind-the-scenes, so why not give them a personal glimpse on a more interactive medium?
5. What is found offline is ordered online. This is huge! Traditional brick and mortar retailers are selling nearly 30% of their goods online from within a store. If the customer finds something out-of-stock or the in-store sales associate knows an item can be special ordered in some unique variable – the order is being made from the web site from within the store more and more. Furthermore, the highly successful online only stores are opening offline physical locations where the consumer loves to touch and feel their product. What was old becomes new again? Not quite. It is actually, the huge online only retailers respecting retail history and learning from it.
What are some other digital marketing trends youâve seen in your industry?
Copyright 2016 Viral Solutions LLC
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.
Easy Ways to Improve Your Web Design
While SEO and quality content are important tools to managing an effective website, if you canât get a user to sit on your site long enough to see what you have to offer, they may not matter much.
Aesthetics are important! We have outlined some tips for that high-conversion, low-bounce rate your web design can put into practice.
1. Keep it simple. Less is more, particularly in terms of web design. An excess of graphics can distract a visitor from what they came to your site for in the first place. In the same vein, make sure your copy is concise. Paragraph stacked upon paragraph clutters your site, making it less likely that a user will wade through it for the information they want.
2. Master the art of white space. If there isnât enough white space between images and words, you strangle the efficacy of your site. It is much easier for a user to ingest words and pictures when there is a good amount of space to breathe between them.
3. Show yourself. Your logo should be clean, crisp and concise. Always place it in the upper-left hand corner of your screen, and make sure it links back to your home page, so that your site is easy to navigate. Never use a poor-quality resolution of your logo. Nothing looks less professional than a grainy logo atop an otherwise clean site.
4. Just say no to Comic Sans. This is a jest, but truly, your font choice is important. Keep in mind that your site will be viewed on many different platforms and devices, so a font that looks great on your desktop monitor may not look as great on a mobile device. Speaking of mobile: make sure your site is responsive! A responsive design fits itself to the device a site is being viewed on — whether it is a tablet, phone, laptop, or PC.
5. It pays to stand out. Professional photographs can have a tremendous effect on a visitorâs impression of your site. Good photos create a polished aesthetic for your company, which creates a greater likelihood that a viewer will connect and engage with your brand. Adding a human element to your photos can go a long way towards that all-important conversion rate.
Contact us today at Viral Solutions to learn how you can improve your web design.
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.
Key Performance Indicators You Should Keep an Eye On
As a sales manager, it can be frustrating to determine the most useful and effective ways to measure your team. Not only that, but you also want to know exactly what you should be measuring. You want to make sure your analysis supports your overall goal — making sales! These Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) shouldnât be viewed as a hunt for the worst, but the best ways to measure what your team can improve upon to make your company successful.
Below, we discuss a few key performance indicators worth paying attention to.
1. Contacts and leads. Doesnât it all start here? Pay attention to where new leads come from in addition to how many you
â Where performance is measured, performance improves. Where performance is reported,
performance improves dramatically. Where performance is reported publicly, performance improves exponentially.â ~ Clate Mask , CEO of Infusionsoft.
In small business, a strategic game plan can help you do more than just survive. You can thriveâ and win. Learn How!
see total. Are certain areas more successful than others? Use the information here to inform your decisions in the future. It may not be that you need more salespeople, but a better quality of leads.
2. Conversion/acquisition. This statistic determines at what rate a lead becomes a customer, based on the amount of new customers divided by the number of leads. This is a good way to measure the efficacy of your methods, too. Comparing cold calls to in-person interactions can be useful information.
3. Opportunities. Pay attention to the opportunities where someone on your team reaches out to a client with a specific proposal based on the clientâs need. These qualified opportunities come with a dollar amount, so be sure to measure that, too.
4. Lead response. How quickly are your leads being responded to? The quicker you can see a response to an inquiry, the greater your chances of conversion.
5. Customer retention. How well are clients being followed up with? Compare the number of clients who purchase multiple times against the number of clients who are not repeat customers. This speaks to how effective a sales team member may be.
6. Utilizing marketing. How are your team members using the resources available to them? Directing customers to your marketing collateral can provide leverage for a sale. Tracking how your team uses your marketing materials can be useful to see how many conversions are made from those interactions.
Which of these KPIs do you need to pay more attention to?
Copyright 2016 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.