Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for the ‘outsourcing’ Category

Think of your business as a building. Perhaps you’re just starting out at the foundation level, or maybe you’ve climbed to the third storey. Wherever you are, when you want to add more storeys to your structure, you need to support the building.

Your support is like scaffolding. It’s the first thing that’s needed when a building is going up. And it’s the first thing you need to help you grow your business.

There are several different types of support structures that you can put in place. These are the things that will protect you and help you to focus on your business.  With these 5 support structures in place, you will be ready to grow your business to new heights.

1.  Set Boundaries… It can be very useful to set boundaries in your client relationships.

Do clients ring you whenever they like and expect you to drop everything for them? If that’s the case, you can’t have the time and energy you need to focus on working on your business. You need to have some boundaries in place, where you allot certain times for responding to clients’ calls.

2.  Manage Your Time On Your Terms … You can be so much more productive if you set definite times for when you are working and when you are not working.

For example, I work three days a week. Everyone in my house knows when I’m working, so they don’t interrupt me. People don’t ring me during those hours. If they do, I won’t answer the phone And when I’m in my time off, I’m not working. These are really clear structures that I adhere to.

3.  Work With A Schedule… This is be a great way to stay on track and focused on getting things done.

Put everything that you need to accomplish on your calendar. Make sure to block out enough time for the task, and stick to it. Whether it’s a meeting, a phone call, working on your blog – include it in your schedule. When you see that each item has its own set block of time, you will be able to focus more clearly. This is amazingly helpful in keeping from feeling overwhelmed.

4.  Build A Team… If you are mired down in day-to-day tasks that keep you from working on your business, consider hiring an administrative assistant or virtual assistant.

You may think of this as an expense that you can’t afford. Reverse that line of thought and consider it as an investment instead. By delegating the routine tasks to an assistant, you will free yourself to do the work that will bring in clients and grow your business.

5.  Get Emotional Support… Encouragement and support from the people in your personal life goes a long way toward keeping you motivated in your business.

Perhaps your partner is busy, or your family doesn’t understand what you are doing. If the people close to you don’t offer enough inspiration and support, you may begin to feel frustrated and become less productive.

Should this happen to you, look to other sources for the motivation and encouragement that you need. A mastermind group or other similar group of like-minded people will boost your confidence and help you in countless ways. In addition to emotional support, they can offer specific business knowledge and advice.

So consider all of the structures that can support you as your business grows. It’s critical to have these in place so that you can be productive and concentrate on your talents and expertise.

Do you remember the story of the Elves and the Shoemaker? The Shoemaker and his wife were very poor, until a pair of elves began making beautiful shoes for them overnight. The Shoemaker was able to sell the shoes for a lot of money, and became rich and famous.

I sometimes feel like I’m in a similar situation to the Shoemaker.

I first experienced the power of this a couple of years ago when I sent an email that was copied to two people, one in India and one in Australia. In this email I gave instructions for a specific project, the first part of which had to be completed by one person before being handed over to the second person for completion.

And from that single email, while I was sleeping, the project that needed to be completed and the webpage that needed to be uploaded just happened. So when I woke up the following morning, it was really like the elves had been working overnight and doing the work for me.

And it’s so easy for you to invite the same kind magic into your business. All you need to do is start outsourcing routine tasks.

So where should you start with outsourcing? First of all, ask yourself where you have profitability blocks in your business. To work this out, answer the following question:

“My business would make more money if I could do more of _______.”

You already know what the answer is. You can spend more time marketing. You can spend more time developing products and programs. You can spend more time writing your web copy. You can spend more time developing a newsletter.

Then ask yourself this question:

“I currently spend most of my time on ________.”

The answer to this will help show where you are putting your time that you don’t need to. This will likely be one of the first areas where you’ll going to get a quick return on outsourcing.

For example, when I first started out, I found that I was spending more time updating my webpage than I wanted to. It wasn’t part of my vision for my business, and I wanted to use my time in a way that would generate more income. So I found people who do that for me for less than £10 an hour. It was a no-brainer to pay someone else to do that and win back that time which was put towards growing my business. Now, I’m in the position of knowing that while I’m asleep my website is being updated for me.

And today I have seven people around the world working on different parts of my business, which is something I would never have anticipated when I started outsourcing.

One unexpected benefit of outsourcing for me was that I hired someone who was also working for another person whose business was at a more developed stage than mine. This person was a tremendous resource because she had insight into a business that was 18 months further down the road from mine. That’s just one area where a virtual assistant can really start to add value, because they’re bringing in outside knowledge and they’re exposing you to ideas or suggestions that you wouldn’t have got on your own.

You need to think about what you’re ready to turn over right now. You need to be both physically ready and emotionally ready to outsource. If you’re someone who in the past has tried to outsource and has experienced a big disappointment or has been let down, then understandably you’re going to be cautious about outsourcing again. You’re going to want to ease back into it gently, to build your confidence back up.

What you need to do is write out an initial job description or scope for the work you want done. Be specific about what results you want. You want this to be outcome oriented. You want to think about what you want done and in what timeframe. Start to think about the skill sets this person is going to need, and whether it’s reasonable to find these skills in just one person or if you’re going to need a team.

And while I don’t know where you are with your particular business, I still say that it’s never too soon to start outsourcing.

And the fact is that you’re already outsourcing lots of things. You’re outsourcing the legal aspects of your job. You’re outsourcing your website hosting. So, to be correct, the question is really about how much more you should be outsourcing.

Don’t you want to be able to go to sleep knowing that the magic elves will come in during the night and take care of your work for you?

Once your teleseminar is over, the income stops, right?  Wrong.

Whether you’ve chosen to conduct a free or paid teleseminar, it’s only the beginning of your earning potential.  One of the things you can do to keep the money rolling in is to have your teleseminar transformed into a product to sell.

Maybe your participants want to see what they’ve just heard, in writing.  Or, maybe the teleseminar wasn’t conducted at a time that was convenient for them, but they’d still like to learn about your topic.  Or, maybe they’re anxious to share what they’ve heard with their friends, in concrete form.

If you choose not to offer a transcript of your teleseminar, there’s no telling how much profit you could be losing.  Here are some guidance points for creating a transcript, and drumming up additional cash flow:

• Create a sales page for your transcript. Your teleseminar’s registration page’s text can serve as a basis for this.  You’ll simply need to add some graphics and fulfillments.  A standard webpage will never sell a transcript.  You’ll need real sales language…the kind you used to fill your teleseminar.

• Record your teleseminar. You can request that this be done through your phone service provider, who can send you an MP3 recording afterward, or you can purchase a recording device (like an Olympus WS-100) to record it on your own.  Then hire a transcriber to put it into writing.

• Hire someone to edit the transcribed text, so that it more closely resembles an article, with headings and sections, so that readers can easily access the information and sections that they’re most interested in.  Typically, transcriptionists will type text that runs on and on, from one subject to the next.  Segmenting the information, and removing conversational elements, will make the document more reader-friendly.

• Hire a graphic designer to design a document cover for the transcript. This image can also be used in the sales letter.

• Decide if you’d like to offer digital transcripts on PDFs, or if you’d like to ship out hard copies.  Whatever your preference, hire someone to handle distribution (like 1ShoppingCart for instant, digital copies, or a company that specializes in creating on-demand hard copies, as orders come in).

• If you’re planning to distribute paper copies of the transcript, don’t sink a boatload of money into stocking shelves with copies waiting to be sold. It’s more cost-effective to have copies created on-demand.  Even though it may cost a bit more per copy, you won’t run the risk of losing your money in unsold, warehoused copies.

• The price of your transcript should range from the same as the cost of the teleseminar, down to a 25 percent discount.  Don’t price the transcript higher than that of the original event, but at the same time, don’t devalue the information just because it’s not live.

• The selling of your transcript doesn’t have to end when you hang up the teleseminar phone.  To the contrary, future customers might be interested in owning transcripts from teleseminars that took place before they were onboard.  Run promotions occasionally, highlighting a transcript.  Or, insert a blurb in newsletter, directing readers to a particular transcript’s sales page (choose a transcript that’s relevant to a current event or some other topic outlined in your newsletter).

Your teleseminar is like a flower seed.  You plant it, care for it, and enjoy its benefits once it matures.  But once that flower withers, your enjoyment of its advantages doesn’t have to end.

Harvest the seeds from that flower.  Plant those seeds by mentioning the availability of transcripts as you close your teleseminar, create transcript sales pages, insert newsletter blurbs, and promote your transcripts as the profitable products that they are.  Continue with this practice, and soon, you’ll have an entire garden filled with a rainbow of limitless income.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Operating your own business requires an intensity and creative energy someone employed in a regular job can’t comprehend. Because that’s true, you may have reached a point when you need to start hiring people to help get things done. Here’s a strategy for hiring the right people for the tasks that get in the way of growing your business.

You may have been handling the details of your personal and professional lives on your own for so long that you don’t recognize when it’s time to start outsourcing. Let me give you an example of how outsourcing one routine task could free you to focus on building your business.

Let’s say your favorite dry cleaning firm is an hour round trip from your office. What could you be doing in that hour that creates more business, instead? When you multiply the time away from business tasks times your standard business fees, you begin to understand why delegating that kind of routine task can improve your bottom line.

Maybe your routine tasks are business related—answering phones, shuffling through email or making travel arrangements. Whatever it is that’s keeping you from actually focusing on finding new customers or creating products, it may be time to let someone else do it.

Your greatest need may be as simple as being able to rest once in awhile.  You maybe trapped in the cycle of working long hours, late into the night and every weekend. Wouldn’t it be more productive to work with a team and have them take over tasks that don’t require your personal attention, and actually balance work and rest?

Finding the right team to take over things that keep you distracted from work can make a huge difference. Decide what kind of help would do the most good right now. Do you need a personal assistant to handle dry cleaning pickup and delivery or a virtual assistant to schedule your newsletter?

For each business owner, it’s something different. But at some point, it isn’t optional if you want your business to grow. Insisting on doing everything yourself is a sure-fire way to keep your business small.

Finding skilled team members to lighten your load can surprise you in another way. You’re going to find there are things you simply aren’t suited for; for instance, you might slog through ironing your own clothes but why focus all that effort on something that can be outsourced to someone who does it well?

So consider where your team would do the most good. Decide what can be outsourced and then find people with the right skills, whether virtual or local. Remember, it doesn’t matter if the team member who posts articles to your website is in Australia or anywhere else in the world, so long as they do a great job and free you to do the things you need to do.

You want to outsource tasks to free up time, to grow your business or simply to get enough rest.  Start thinking about hiring a team to support you in your business. What kinds of things would make your life simpler, allow you to focus on your business or find some balance?

Once that’s clear in your mind, you’ll know who to look for and what kind of skills they need.  Then you’ll be on your way to building a great team. And that team will make all the difference in your life, your business and your peace of mind.

Consider all of the systems that surround you: traffic systems, media systems, religious systems, family systems, political systems.  All have enjoyed relative success, thanks to trial-and-error, careful planning, and dependence on a number of people.  Not one of these structures could exist if managed by one person.  That same principle applies to your profitable business.

In other articles, I’ve discussed ways to reach your ideal client abundance, including aligning your product with the market, targeting those prospects who have raised their hands with interest, and converting those raised hands to incoming cash.

Once you have mastered all of these principles, you’ll probably find the next step to be a welcome one.

Once the clients are rolling in, you might find yourself becoming haggard, stretched too thin, stressed, and wondering if you really wanted what you were wishing for.  This is not your signal to back off.  It’s your signal to systematize.

Systematizing involves delegation and outsourcing, but more importantly, it requires using your creative skills and resources to design a method for getting things done.  All aspects of your business should not be dependent on you.  If they are, something is certain to suffer.

I know the benefits of systemizing first hand.  I once wrote, formatted, and emailed my newsletter all on my own.  I didn’t enjoy it as much as other tasks necessary to my business, but I had to do it.  That’s what I had convinced myself, until…

I realized that I could be spending my time in different facets of my business – ones that I would enjoy more, and that would better showcase my personal talents.

When I decided to recruit other people to my team, to format the newsletter from archives and send it to my readers, I realized a new level of accomplishment.  I could write the personal newsletter introduction in ten minutes.  My new team members could then do the rest.  I found myself liberated from an aspect of my business that was holding me back from my true calling.  Because the newsletter was less dependent on me, I no longer felt that it was holding me back.

It’s rare that every aspect of a business aligns with the gifts of its proprietor.  Some people thrive as prudent business managers, other shine in public relations, and others revel in the creative process.  Success doesn’t involve developing the skills to be a one-man-band, but in pooling resources to get things accomplished more efficiently.

Here are a few points to keep in mind when systematizing your own business:

• Don’t rush to systematize. Work all the bugs out of your products, marketing, communications, and conversion processes first.  Shortcomings will not disappear inside of a system, but will poison the rest of the process.

• You might think you can do it all, but consider how much better your business could be if you concentrated on your strengths. When different people’s gifts are pooled together, the result is the dynamic sum of those talents.

• Choose an aspect of your business that you dislike. Find a person, or a team, who specializes in that task.  Results will improve, and you can concentrate on what you do best.

• Identify your strengths. Survey the aspects of your business that you can delegate so that you can allow more time to use your talents to their highest degree.

• Be creative about ways to automate your business. Focus on how to arrive at the highest quality result in the most efficient way.  Proven business models can help, but don’t forget your own freedom to innovate.

• Don’t sweat the small stuff. You can find people to do that for you.

As you become more successful, there will be a call for your business to become less dependent on you.  This conversion in thinking can seem difficult at first, but if you honestly examine your strengths and choose team members who share your vision (through differently-colored glasses), you’ll not only systematize your business, but you’ll maximize what that business can do for you.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

When looking to outsource, how do you know whether you should be delegating work to an individual or to a team of assistants?

Of course, there are pros and cons to both, and quite often it will depend on your personal preference, and on how you want your business to work.

When you’re starting to outsource don’t think that you should be able to hire one person who can do it all. Not only is this an unrealistic expectation, but you’ll be making yourself dependent on one person.  That is not a position from which your business can thrive.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t delegate some of your business to individuals. In fact there are some great opportunities in the virtual assistant market to hire self-employed people who have specialist skills in certain areas. You want to start thinking about activities and then match those up to the right individual or organisation to take over for you.

So when should you look for a team to assist you, and when should you look for an individual? Here are some advantages and disadvantages for you to consider:

Working With Teams: As working with virtual assistants becomes more and more popular, companies offering teams of people who could work on your behalf are starting to spring up. The immediate benefit of this is that you aren’t reliant on one person to get the work done. If the person who usually does your account is on holidays, someone else will get the work done for you.

Teams are great at handling routine tasks, such as data entry, transcription, or proof reading. It’s very clear what the outcome is, and it’s very obvious when it’s being done successfully. Your assistants don’t need specialised knowledge to get the job done, and you don’t need to spend as much time training them about your business systems. It’s often a case of handing over the task and waiting for it to be completed for you.

One of the downsides to working with teams is that sometimes you can end up paying slightly more. If a team has a manager and an office, they’ve got more overheads that need to be recouped and therefore they tend to charge more. In cases such as this, some of the benefits of outsourcing can be lost when you go down the team route. But this is certainly not the case with all teams.  You should definitely shop around before you make a decision about who to use.

Working With Individuals: While my business has lots of routine tasks, there are other activities that are more specialised or require more judgment or company knowledge. And for those, I prefer to work with an individual.

For example, one of my assistants has handled my customer service for sometime now. One of the things that I really like about working with her is that in the time that we’ve worked together she has built up an intuitive understanding of how we do things here at Client Magnets. I prefer to work with an individual who, over time, becomes more and more valuable to the business because they get to know your business better.

Just remember, it’s not a mutually exclusive situation. Many people outsource to both individuals and teams, and get enormous benefit from both.

As with everything else, the key is to know what suits your business best. After all, no one knows your business the way that you do.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, then sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Many people want to start outsourcing, but don’t know how to begin locating the right people for the job.

There are lots of different paths you can take to find the right people to help you. And it’s not always the most obvious route. A lot of people think that the best option available to them is advertising in the local classifieds. While this works for some people, it can also create a lot more work for you in the long run if you’re inundated with responses and you don’t know where to start.

One of the best things you can do is to make your search more targeted. Here are three ways to do that:

Online

You aren’t limited to only using assistants who are physically located close to your business. Especially if, like me, you work from home and don’t want to have people visiting you in your house, location isn’t an important criterion.

The Internet is such a valuable tool for connecting you with the right people, whether it’s a team of virtual assistants or expert individuals. The following websites are really useful resources for helping to meet your outsourcing needs:

www.Monster.com
www.Elance.com
www.RentACoder.com
www.WorkaholicsForHire.com
www.Guru.com
www.FreelanceWriting.com
www.SmarterWork.com
www.CareerBuilders.com
www.FreelanceWorkExchange.com
www.AssistU.com

On all of these websites, you can either post a job or you can look at biographies of people bidding for work. You can also post classified ads on many of these sites, saying exactly what you’re looking for in an assistant. You can specify how much you want to pay, or you can leave that undisclosed and ask people to make a bid for your work. Then you can sit back and can wait for people to approach you.

Students

Let’s say you wanted someone to research suitable websites that could be good linking partners to you or may provide you with opportunities for joint ventures. That’s a perfect project for a media or business studies student, who might also really appreciate the idea of working with a small business and getting some practical experience.

Your local university or college might have a careers centre or newspaper where you could advertise your projects. These students don’t necessarily have to be working from your office. Instead, you could arrange to meet them locally whenever you need to discuss the project face-to-face. And the great thing about students is that they normally either have their own computers or they’ve got access to them.

Personal Approach

Approaching people directly is one of the best ways to hire talent for your business. When I was first setting up my website, I had a basic idea of what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. I knew that I wanted to set up a website where I could sell digital products that customers could download immediately, but I didn’t know how to go about doing this. It was one of those examples of trying to hire someone to do something you don’t know how to do. I placed a local classified ad, and was inundated with responses. I really did not know where to start deciding who to hire.  In the end I decided to approach the webmaster of a website that I liked. I told him that I needed help with my project and asked if it was something he could help with.

For certain jobs I know what I’m looking for.  I’ll approach a company or individual that seems to be a good fit and I’ll ask them to bid on the job. This approach has actually worked out very well for me. I’ve had a surprising success rate with it. And it’s more time-efficient than just posting an ad and getting a load of inquiries that you have to sift through.

The key to finding the right people for you is to be clear on what you need done, how you want it to be done, and what you’re willing to pay. You’ll need to practise finding the right person, and you might use different approaches for different jobs.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

When planning how you’re going to outsource, it’s helpful to draw an analogy from personal relationships. If you’ve got a life partner, it’s unlikely that that life partner meets all of your social needs.

Perhaps your partner doesn’t have the same interest in art that you do, or prefers to stay indoors while you go hiking. You probably still have friends that you go to the cinema with, or to art galleries or the museum. It’s almost like you build up a team of friends to fulfil the different needs of your life.

Just as we have different people in our life that resonate with different parts of us, it’s the same with business. It’s unrealistic to expect that just one person will be able to fix everything. You’re going to get frustrated because you’ll end up with a person who is good at some things but weak in other areas.

When I started my business, I had a list of tasks that either I didn’t want to do, or that were not cost-effective for me to do. But one of the things that I did wrong was to try to find one person who could take over all of the tasks. Instead, what I should have focused on was to build a team of people around me who could assist my business.

You need to remember that business is a team sport. You should think about the tasks you want to outsource, and match them to the right people. You need to build up a team of assistants to look after the many aspects of your business. This is what I call my “virtual team”.

Outsourcing to teams allows me to be more flexible. I used to outsource transcription of my teleseminars to an individual, but whenever she got a backlog of work or whenever she was on holiday, I had a delay in getting transcripts back. I like to get transcripts of teleseminars up ideally within a week of the teleseminar, so I decided that would work better if I could hand it over to a team of assistants, rather than one person.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t have one person with whom you work more than any other, or who helps run your team of virtual assistants. You just need to make sure that they don’t become indispensible for your business.

Right now, I have a team of virtual assistants around the world who work for me without me having to do it myself. The beauty of it is that even if my key person were to leave, I wouldn’t be left high and dry. We have a manual that I can hand over to the next person that explains how my business operates.

The other important message is not to think that a “virtual team” only applies to a small business. Eben Pagan runs workshops around building virtual teams, and has built a large business around the idea. The interesting thing is that while he has a virtual team of 80 people and his turnover is $20 million, he doesn’t have a company office. So he has the benefit of 80 people working for him, but his business doesn’t have the huge overhead that comes with providing office space for them all.

Your ultimate goal should be creating a team around you that would allow you to action today’s ideas tomorrow.

So create your team and start scoring some goals!

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

If you’re serious about getting more things done, it’s time for a major mindshift. It’s time to stop being a “doer” and start being a “producer.”  Here are 3 tips to get you started on changing your mindset to accomplish more in your life.

1.  Change Your Mindset and View Yourself Differently
Before you can make a change in how you run your business, you must first see yourself differently. Rather than clinging to the idea that you have to do everything yourself, consider how Oprah Winfrey runs her show. Can you imagine Oprah sitting down and calling prospective guests to book them for future shows?

Of course not! She has producers to line up each show’s content. Those producers, in turn, break down what needs to be completed and assign it to other people. They understand that Oprah brings unique skills to the show and it would be a waste to have her booking talent. Surrounding herself with great teams of producers to get things done is one reason Oprah has become so successful.

2.  Visualize and Plan Your Team
Even before you hire some help, you need to visualize and plan your team.   Think about those big projects you don’t have time to start. Outline how you’d like them to be. Break down those projects into smaller bites and imagine what kind of person could take them over. Imagine how much more smoothly your business would run if you weren’t taking care of every detail.

That’s an important point to reach, you need to visualize and plan what you can delegate.   Let go of the idea you’re the only one who can do every little task. That change shifts you from being the doer to being the producer.

3. Start Delegating
Once you’ve visualized and planned your team, start making it your reality. Get serious about breaking down the work you’re doing now into individual tasks. Let go of the idea that you have to do it all. Choose a task that’s wasting your time, that you don’t enjoy doing and that someone else could do easily. Find a way you can afford to have someone else to do it.

Take another look at projects you’ve been putting off. Determine what’s keeping you from getting started. Decide which pieces someone else should be doing. Visualize the project from start to finish, the way a producer would do. And then find the help you need to get it done. That’s the only way your business, and your income, can expand to the next level.

Being in business for yourself can be overwhelming, especially when you’re stuck in “lone ranger” mode. Allow yourself to visualize what life would be like with a competent team helping to achieve your goals. Learn to look at your business the way a producer would, and you’ll finally experience the satisfaction of getting it all done.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Take a look at your calendar of appointments right now. If you’ve been applying the Client Magnets approach, you shouldn’t have much available space in that diary. Hopefully, you have a pipeline of prospective business that keeps your book filled.

So, getting clients isn’t a problem for you. That’s a nice situation to be in, isn’t it?

From the outside, it looks fine to be that busy. You may even be getting a decent daily rate for your time. The problem is, though, that while your client list continues to grow, the amount of time that you have to serve those clients does not.

Once you’ve gotten new clients to sign on, you’ve got to deliver results for them. And as your calendar fills up, it’s not uncommon to feel as if there isn’t enough of you to go around. You may find yourself thinking that there aren’t enough hours in the day to meet all of your clients’ needs. You may think the only solution is to do more work, to spend more time at it.

When you get to this point, you’re so busy trying to keep the wheels turning that the idea of having one more thing to do is unbearable. To prevent your business from reaching this unmanageable stage, act now to start building your information empire.

As more people approach you about your services and want to know more about what you can offer, the more important it becomes to figure out how to duplicate and leverage yourself in order to meet their needs.

I’ve heard too many people say, “I just want to focus on getting the clients in. When I’ve got enough clients, then I’ll start focusing on the products, or on automating the sales, or on setting up the ecommerce site.” But you don’t want to let your business get to that point. You want to act now.

You need to design a workable, customized roadmap, one that will get you from that situation to an information empire that will have you earning money in your sleep. A business in which you produce revenue without having to physically get up and see clients every day.

Think very carefully about your business offerings. Look closely at your products or services, and determine which ones can be repackaged to reach more clients simultaneously. Perhaps you’re planning a live event that can be recorded and sold as a CD on your website. Hire a virtual assistant to handle admin tasks so you can concentrate on the creative aspects of your work. Find the thing that you do best, and focus on that.

You have complete control over this. Your awareness, your decisions, and your creativity are the resources that will help you to deliver results that are not dependent on your time and how much you work.

Your willingness and ability to look at the situation differently will allow you to meet the needs and expectations of all of the clients who are anxiously awaiting your help.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com