H.Y.V.A. and Save Time™

At a certain stage in your business, you are going to have to raise capital. It might be the case that you need to get funded now or you are working on an idea that you know you will not be able to get off the ground except you are able to secure the necessary investors to buy into your plans. To cut a long story short, sooner or later as an entrepreneur, you will need money to get stuff done hence you will have to roll up your sleeves and get to work raising capital.

This is the reason I invited Stephen Silver to come on my show to share his insights on the topic. He is an expert in raising venture capital for small business owners and also the founder of MAVN Funding Advisors; a company that brings clarity to entrepreneurs by guiding startups through the treacherous waters of the venture space.

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There are many things that large businesses have that a small business can do without for a while. However, a telephone and voicemail system is not one of them. Even in the age of e-mail and social networking, the number one way, short of walking to your door, that most customers or clients will contact you is through a telephone call. In addition, the business owners who makes use of virtual assistants will occasionally find it necessary to actually talk to their VA’s.

This doesn’t mean that your telephone system has to be the same old ones that businesses used 10 years ago, though. The dawning of the Internet and of cloud-based computing has brought with it telephony options that are cheaper for you than standard landlines, and which make it easy and convenient to receive calls, even if you can’t hire an on-site receptionist. Let’s take a look at some of the options available to you.

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“How do I train my virtual assistant to get things done just the way I like it?” is one question I always get asked all the time by small business owners. The answer is simply that you need to have a well outlined systems and processes map that explains what, why, how and when you need your tasks done. You also need to explain the standards for how the results provided to you by the virtual assistant will be measured. When the person is there with you at the same location, you can literally show them the ropes. But how do you do that when the person lives in a different location—maybe even a different city, state, or possibly even a different country?

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Building an online community around my business, products and services is something that is very important to me because I have realized that the very successful brands and companies have been able to stay successful by creating and maintaining a following of loyal fans. Today, consumers are demanding that companies provide value to them even before becoming clients; hence they are requiring business owners to become Resources before becoming Vendors. If you choose to ignore this fact and attempt to keep to your old ways marketing, sooner or later you will be ignored by those whom you seek to turn into clients.

Knowing that there is a need for small business owners to properly learn how to build online communities for their businesses, I invited Kevin Dwinnell, director of product and marketing for Brand Thunder; a company that creates a communication channel between brands and their online audience through customized browsers to come on the show to share his insights on what you need to know in order to properly build an online community of loyal and adoring fans of your business.

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It’s easy to understand how the new or inexperienced or lazy virtual assistant would leave the clients who hire them frustrated. But what about the good ones? Few things are as puzzling as the person who has great references, excellent work samples, and a wonderful attitude, and yet who does not manage to mesh with the company for whom she is working.

After studying this phenomenon for some time, I’ve come to a conclusion: When this happens, it’s almost always because there was not a true meeting of the minds. Blame it on the client if you want, blame it on the virtual assistant, whatever. But almost without exception, the business owner did not manage to communicate clearly what it was he expected to be done, and how he expected it to be accomplished.

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