This can be a difficult place to break through, particularly if you come from the corporate world, but it is so important to keep tabs on where your mindset is regarding your business.

Even when you do start working with clients, as a coach, speaker or consultant, you are taking a support role, and at times, boundaries can start to get crossed and sometimes you may get treated like a colleague or even a friend. It can be a difficult thing to manage your mindset at these times, to be sure that you remain a business owner working with another business owner.

Here are a few tips to help you integrate your strategy and business plan with a positive and strong mindset:

Treat your business like a business. When you set up your business, be sure that you treat it as such. You should have regular business hours, you should have an up to date ‘shingle’ (your website), and you should plan to make money to provide your services. If you constantly give away your services for free, you will not get ahead and that can lead to resentment. See the value in your own services and go out there and find people who want to work with you! When you treat your business like a business, clients will see it that way also.

Make your own business decisions and stick to them. While it’s great to ask around for advice, once you decide to do something in your business, don’t waver on it. Make a decision and stick to it. If you decide to change the way you do something because it isn’t working for you, that’s fine, but always be sure to have a plan of action that is yours. Hold yourself accountable to work through it. If you have boundaries set up, honor them. If you have policies in place, adhere to them. Clients will understand as long as the rules are always clear.

Develop strategies and procedures in all areas of your business. Set up a strategy for everything you plan to do – service offerings, networking, bookkeeping, sales calls, follow up, conflict resolution and so on. The more you have written down the more you will have to refer to. By developing strategies and procedures, you will be more prepared to deal with every situation that can arise. Really think everything through! Nothing speaks louder to a client than having the answer for them when they ask.

Analyze results in each area of your business. Sometimes our best business plans don’t work out the way we expected them to do. It’s important to analyze the results of each area to see if they are working for you. If they are not, revise and then analyze the next set of results. Analysis will help you to identify weak areas in your marketing or business plans and it can help you tweak your business to keep it on the path to success. If this means letting go of a long-time client, then so be it! When you find the strategies that work well for you, repeat!

Strive to stay in integrity to your business and in your business. Your business will always be an extension of yourself. By being in integrity you will be able to give more of yourself to your clients, which is who they are ‘buying’! Be honest and open with your business practices, pay your bills on time and deal with conflict as it arises (or before it does!). Be authentic, be you, and just get out there! Your clients and potential clients will find you when you are!

Stay positive! Remaining positive when things go wrong, or don’t go exactly according to plan, is probably the most difficult thing to manage about your mindset. Maybe you have a client who hasn’t paid on time. Maybe you have had hardware or software problems. Maybe you are finding it difficult to sign clients. There are challenges in owning a business, and you will get through them faster by maintaining a positive attitude. Seek help when you need it. Fix what gets broken. Steer your ship when it starts to go off course. You can do it!

How are you managing your business mindset? I’d love to know how – send me an email traceydaviero@rogers.com.

It’s such a simple fix and I never really knew it existed until this fellow pointed it out. In your profile section, you can list up to three websites that you can connect your profile to. You probably have this already set up.

When I first joined LinkedIn, you had the option of putting in links for My Website, My Blog and My Company. Well I did not know they had updated this so that you can actually edit the top text for these links so they can say whatever you want them to say.

So now my labels say, ‘Tracey D’Aviero, VA, Your VA Mentor and Your VA Mentor Blog – which is much clearer than the generic labels that were there before.

It only takes a moment to change, but I really think it makes a big difference in how you profile looks. Here’s how to update them: http://linkedintelligence.com/making-the-most-of-website-links-on-your-linkedin-profile/.

I’ll be on the lookout for other cool tools to share with you! (If you haven’t updated your profile in a while, there are some neat new applications you could be taking advantage of!)

At first he was concerned that I would log in to my client’s LI profiles to post their information, which he pointed out is a violation of the Terms of Use Agreement that everyone agrees to when they sign up. No problem, I only post things to their profiles by connecting them to a feed system using an application that LI allows. I don’t even write the material that I post, my clients do. I simply do the data entry portion for the application, and the system does the rest. Check.

Then he pointed out that my own profile was not in compliance with the TOU from LinkedIn. WHAT? How could that be? I did everything right … at least I thought I did. He pointed out that I had my email address listed in an area that was not a designated field. That was true. I did. He mentioned that this violated section 10B4 of the TOU agreement … “Include information in your profile or elsewhere, except in designated fields, that reveals your identity or sensitive personal information such as an email address, phone number or address or is confidential in nature”
I had read that to mean that my privacy would not be protected if I posted my email address outside of a designated area. I was fine with this so I left it where it was. It seems that this error could breach my TOU with LinkedIn. Interesting! I removed it and I feel better already! (I am sooo not a rule-breaker!)

This made my connection discussion start to ease up a bit. He was impressed that I cared enough to make the change. It wasn’t that I was trying to break the rules, I had only misunderstood the jargon. Anyway from there we became friends again *haha* and he actually gave me another great tip to make my profile look more professional.

Stay tuned – I’ll let you know what that tip is next time … so you can do it to your profile too!

Decide who will do what. It’s important to determine who will be taking care of which tasks, and when they will be taken care of. If you don’t use some type of collaborative software, at least keep a simple checklist that everyone can work with. There is nothing worse than missing a deadline simply because someone wasn’t sure that it was their task to complete.

Schedule regular check-ins. Although it can be tempting to pick up the phone every time you have a question, it’s easier to schedule regular check-ins to cover updates for more than one task at a time. Email is such a distraction, but a good way to ensure that everyone is communicating is to simply reply to an email when someone sends you one. A simple ‘yes I got it’, or ‘I will send it to you this afternoon’ can save so much worry, especially when you don’t have a regular communication routine going yet.

Ask questions. Be sure that the tasks set up are clear, and that the steps to complete them are also clear. Just because someone has used the same service as you to send a newsletter before, doesn’t mean they will do things the way you want them done. When a task is completed, be sure to discuss whether it was completed properly, and work out any issues before the next time.

Build standard operating procedures. The best time to build your standard operating procedures is when you first start working together. Write everything down as you get it done the first time, and be sure that the procedure is right for the next time. Keep your procedures up to date once you begin!

Get to know each other! It is much easier (and more fun!) to build a strong working relationship when you find out a little bit about each other. Ask about family, hobbies and things like that. You don’t have to have long drawn-out conversations about what you watched on television the night before, but little tidbits of information can help to break the ice when you are just starting to get to know each other.

Bonus Tip: Be honest and open minded. It’s important to be honest with each other as much as possible. If something isn’t going exactly the way you planned, be sure to speak up. Likewise, if your new partner gives you some constructive criticism, try not to take it to heart, but work with it so that it benefits both of you. Not everyone works the same way, so compromise will be key to keep everyone happy. By working together, you will form a solid lasting relationship more quickly!

We laugh so much in our house, in our everyday lives, that it is so difficult to pick a moment (or sometimes remember it!)

Day 29 – Ha ha – I remove wine cork from bottle (it makes that great sound!) and Owen yells ‘Opa!’

Day 30 – Checking out the hall with our friends Ivan and Dar (they are having a big party in a couple of months). Many laughs, but probably the most fun was me suggesting that we serve venison on the buffet. Ivan almost jumped out of his chair (he hates it!). Soooo funny!

Day 31 – watched Old Dogs … Robin Williams and John Travolta. I actually laughed out loud several times!

Thanks for playing!

Day 22 – Dave came to breakfast! It was his birthday after all. Our server Kendra got my laugh today when she said, ‘They talk about different stuff when you’re not here!’

Day 23 – Dinner at the inlaws – just us. How nice! Donut stopover at Mom’s and the Tony show was on.

Day 24 – Mike’s campaign launch at Liam’s. Laughs with mom Sadie … she was trying to figure out whether to have white or red wine, and I suggested since she already had a ginger ale and a water that she should have white so she wasn’t hung over the next day by mixing.

Day 25 – Dinner at Dan and Steph’s. Heavens. Well, Tony got a little full … ahem … and rolled around on the floor with Gracie and Tyson. We have pictures. Yikes. A week’s worth of laughs this day, for sure.

Day 26 – Boondock Saints two. Again. You look like you might have seen one up close.

Day 27 – Dinner out with Mom (big dinner week!), and plenty of laughs as she related her conversation with Richard, an old friend of Dad’s. 

Day 28 – much late night fun with Martine, who is probably going to slap me next time she sees me because I am not a big fan of the lobster roll. Ah whaddaya do?

Day 15 – Sunday morning breakfast with Mom and the sibs. Discussing a family friend who is on an executive committee for my ball tournament, and is also getting into broadcasting with my sister Lynne at Rogers. Sister Lynne gives him some great advice and tells him to bring the idea back to my committee. I say, ‘I’m going to tell him that’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard … who gave you that idea?’ hehe. Lynne laughed so hard she almost spit out her coffee!

Day 16 – Father in law has surgery to replace battery in his pacemaker. We go over for dinner to see how he is feeling. Neighbour walks in with a AA and hands it to him and says, ‘I brought you a battery so you can replace it yourself next time!’ Good one, Glen!

Day 17 – Oh did we laugh tonight – dinner and Mom’s and Lynne was telling us a story about a child she met at work who had a wish fulfilled by the Children’s Wish Foundation – he went to Walt Disney World and got the royal treatment (which was great) and she was listing all the things he got to do, and instead of saying Chip and Dale tucked him into bed, she said Chippendale’s … oops! No, it was definitely Chip and Dale!

Day 18 – Called our pest control company when we woke up to a scratching noise in the furnace … we soon realized it was our pet hamster, Carl, who had escaped from his cage and toured in previously uncharted territory. Had to call the company back and cancel the appointment when Carl surfaced in a bedroom vent! Man!

Day 19 – Driving Owen to Ultimate Camp for 8 am and Tony sees a guy standing beside his SUV with his arms in the air in front of him and announces, ‘What the ..? Is that guy a mime?’ and we get a little closer and realize he is actually fixing the line on the end of his fishing rod … not a mime at all!

Day 20 – Had the Blanchfield Road Blanchfields over for drinks and Tony was definitely on his game … telling the story of going to Helen’s Place and talking to Helen’s sister, all the while thinking it was Helen, and wondering why she didn’t seem to recognize him … and then Helen came out of the kitchen, and he figured it out!

Day 21 – still laughing at Kelly walking through our front door at 11:30 at night … just to locate her family! And a great phone call with Natalie too – she told me a story about some annoying locals who sat too close to them on their recent trip to Martha’s Vineyard, and then proceeded to complain that it wasn’t as great a vacation as Spain was (the names have been changed to protect the identity of the annoying tourists!)

This reminded me of working with my clients, and how it’s important to continue to offer them the little things they grow accustomed to through working with you. It made me think about the little things that I could be doing for them, to let them know that they are still very important to me.

When you start working with a client and your relationship is in the honeymoon phase, you may go that little extra mile and do something special for them – whether it’s providing an extra report or staying five more minutes on the phone with them. As time moves on, and the relationship is not so new, sometimes it’s possible to take them for granted more often, and maybe you let those little extras slip. Maybe you are now only giving those little extras to your new clients.

It’s a great reminder of how nice it feels to get those little things back if they have gone by the wayside. And I plan to implement my own advice too – the little extras are what make me a proactive Virtual Assistant for my clients, and a great mentor for my students.

Think about what you can do for your clients to make them feel just a bit more special – send them a card, schedule a phone call with them as a strategy session, put together a new report for them – there are all kinds of things you can do to make them feel special and to let them know that you value them.

Sometimes the little things can even count more than the big ones! Try it, I guarantee you’ll get a good reaction and you will make your client’s day too!

When you run your own business, it can be easy to fall into the trap of ‘doing it all’ yourself. But remember that by outsourcing those tasks that you don’t do well, or that you don’t want to do, you will be freeing up your time to do the things that you are an expert at doing.

Actually there are only 2 things you should be doing in your business : you should be working with clients (the thing you are an expert at!), or you should be doing specific marketing tasks to grow or manage your business (meeting and getting to know prospective clients!). All the rest should be outsourced to appropriate people.

In my networking circles, I am always talking about the merits of finding a VA who is a good fit for you … but up until last month I didn’t follow my own advice! I just hired my own VA last month and am already realizing how much more organized I am … how much more time I actually have to ‘be’ in my business.

It is amazing when you get those little things off your plate that you really shouldn’t be doing anyway, how much more organized you can be and how you can actually save money by spending money – by freeing up your time to do client work, networking or marketing.

So if you haven’t started working with a VA yet, what are you waiting for? I can honestly say I wish I did this a long time ago (and you will too!)

Your list is the key to selling your services or products, because it is a list of people who has already expressed an interest in what you have to offer.

It is easy to set up a mailing list, but then you have to promote it in order to grow it. It is not enough to just put an opt in box on your website and wait. There are so many ways that you can promote it, but here are three that are sure to get you some success:

1. Provide them with an incentive. If you have an opt in box on your website and you are not getting very many new leads signed up for your newsletter, it’s probably because people (in general) want free stuff in exchange for giving you their email address. If you write a report about something you know about that is interesting or important to them, that is an incentive for them to sign up for your list. At the same time, they are opting in for your newsletter, so once you have them on board, you will be able to market to them. A free offering has to be valuable to them, but it doesn’t have to be so detailed that they don’t need your services anymore. For instance: 3 Easy Ways to Build Your Mailing List could easily be turned into a free report! I could format it nicely, call it a report or an ebook, and then ask people to opt in for it. Be sure to use your social networks to direct people to your free report and you will see your mailing list start to grow.

2. Put your opt in box everywhere! If you only have your opt in box on one page of your website, then you are not giving it enough real estate. Your opt in should be on every page of your site, in a conspicuous spot – like the top right or the top left, so no one can miss it. You never know which page of your website someone is going to land on in a Google search, so it is important to put the opportunity in front of them on all of your pages. You should also have your opt in box on your social network profiles. If you have a profile on Facebook or one of the other countless social networking sites, be sure to add your opt in code to your profile page. You never know where your ideal client is going to find you! By giving your opt in box the real estate it deserves, it will work harder for you every day!

3. Take part in a joint venture. A joint venture (JV) is a project two or more people undertake for the success of their own goals. One JV idea is an Amazon book launch, which uses a marketing strategy to have a lot of people buy a new book from Amazon on the same day, pushing the book up the bestseller list. To do this, people ‘JV’ with as many people as they can, so that the joint venture partners (JVPs) will promote the book launch to their lists and encourage them to buy the book that day. In exchange, the JVPs provide a bonus gift for the launch that anyone who buys the book will receive. This means that by providing a bonus gift, I can potentially grow my list because of the amount of traffic going to the book launch – if they pick up my bonus gift, I now have them on my list (without even looking for them!) It’s a joint venture because everyone benefits: the book launch person gets their bestseller status, the JVPs get more prospects on their lists, and the people who purchase the book get all kinds of amazing bonus gifts without spending an extra dime. It’s win-win-win, and a great strategy to build your list (give away that free product you made in #2 above and get involved in a JV!)

There are many more ways you can build your list quickly, but these three ways are guaranteed winners! See what they can do for you!