Find the systems you need to grow your business
Welcome back to the series – an inside look at my team training videos! This one is very important to keeping our content marketing strong. As you see on our blog, we post twice a week and my involvement ends after the content is written or recorded.
Here’s our team training video of the blog posting process:
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I really should call this marketing tactic “the cereal box bonuses” because who doesn’t remember begging a parent for the most unhealthy box in the aisle because there was a toy that you wanted more than the cereal? And often times the cereal was ignored completely and the prize at the bottom of the box was a little underwhelming (or missing entirely!).
As a kid a bad bonus was disappointing. As an adult paying thousands of dollars, the bogus bonus marketing tactic is one that I hate.
Maybe you recognize this scenario: you’re on the fence about a program or product and while it sounds great, you’re not yet convinced it’s right for you. But you get caught up in the excitement and “limited time offer” or bonuses and buy. However, in the weeks or months after purchase those bonuses don’t show up, you have to hound the company or they’re pathetically lame.
Let me be clear: bonuses aren’t bad. But Continue Reading ￫
Welcome to our September video series! I get asked all the time how MY team manages our systems so this month I’m giving you a sneak peek inside some of our basic training videos. These are the actual videos I share with my assistants on how I like things done.
First up, a system which saves me 4-8 hours every week, especially as my business grows! It’s our She’s Got Systems Calendar system to manage the schedule.
Here’s the video below:
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Let’s just start with the premise that getting media attention for your company or writing for media is a valuable way to build your business. Now the question remains, how do you actually do that when you’re just starting out in business?
Here are 6 steps anyone can do right now (for free) to get more media for their business:
1. Begin by writing on your own blog
Often the editors will begin by checking out your current writing to get a feel for your style and subject matter. In this case your blog is your online portfolio that can be updated, personalized and shared with the world. Continue Reading ￫
Hi, I’m Kelly Azevedo, founder of She’s Got Systems, and welcome back to the series Services Business Systems.
I’m excited for this module particularly because I know how hard it is when you’re invoicing a client. You want to make sure it is accurate but at the same time there are so many minutes in the day and often, invoicing becomes a mess.
So there are two main concepts. First, as a service professional, you need to take your cues from the contract that you have in place. If you don’t have a contract, you shouldn’t be doing any work. The second thing is that when you have set hours it becomes much easier to invoice.
1. Contract: If you listen to video 3 about proposals, you know you’re going to spell out what kind of work you do and what you get paid for that. Sometimes in the contract you also want to specify how many hours you’re doing, minimum and maximum. Maybe you’re only doing up to 30 hours a week and anything beyond that you can’t invoice. It is also possible that they’re paying for a block of hours.
If they’re paying for a block of hours, you do want to track so if they’re going way under or way over that, you can adjust accordingly. The most important thing though is that you look at the proposal and look at the contract to figure out what you’ve promised so you know you’re delivering.
What if you’re not filling your hours? Sometimes you say you’re doing 30 and the work’s only taking you 20. Well, that’s great, now you can ask for more projects or negotiate for a higher rate for fewer hours (because you’re more efficient). It is possible that they’ve worked with too many people who drag their feet or didn’t do a good job that they low-balled you on the hourly, and now you can bump it up.
Even if you’re going to be paid a flat rate, I really encourage you to track your hours. There’s a lot of apps and a lot of ways to track them. I want you to pick one and just stick with it – it doesn’t matter which one, just be consistent because otherwise you’re going to be looking at 7 different places when it comes time to invoice.
Here are some suggestions for the best apps for tracking:
Excel
Pen and Paper
Freshbooks tracking
Rescue Time
LifeHacker has a great round up here, and Intuit has some additional suggestions here.
The second big thing is to follow through and make sure you set aside time. Once a week sit down and total all your hours, separate out by task if the client requires. This might take a little longer, but if you’ve been tracking it, you shouldn’t have to spend very long. Make sure you’ve got everything in place and you’re telling them exactly how you’ve spent your time and what you’ve been doing. Even if you’re invoicing monthly, I recommend to track this weekly! Otherwise, you’ll have to sit down and account for 30 days at once and that’s no fun.
2. Set your hours: The second overarching goal of invoicing is that you are your own business. As a service professional, you need boundaries around the hours you work. That means, I don’t want to hear “I answered a few emails at 11:00 at night but I was so tired I wasn’t paying attention, I think it was 15 minutes.”
You need to have boundaries in the hours you work, say 9-5 or afternoons 1-10. Whatever you set the hours and then enforce those boundaries. The easiest way to start feeling resentment is working outside your boundaries (which by the way YOU control) and instead of knowing how many hours you’ve worked, you’re guessing. So nobody wins in that situation. Whatever happens, it’s not accurate and it’s not in authenticity.
Sometimes this will mean not taking after hours phone calls, or assignments, or tasks unless it is a true emergency.
Remember, you’re not a full time employee – so you are responsible as a contractor for setting your hours. Set it in a way that serves your life. Even if you were an employee, it’s not best for you to work at 2am!
Assignment:
Write down the hours you’re actually working, what times you’re not working ,and stick to those boundaries!
It’s an age old question when it comes to blogging – or doing any writing at for your business – how do you keep readers interested and engaged?
First of all, STOP BEING SO BORING!
There’s so much content out there, Google results by the thousands… don’t rely on the same old topics in the same old format as everyone else. Sure, experts say 500-700 word blog posts are great for SEO. So? Go radical and write 3,000 words. Or 5.
Dare to embrace your own path.
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Hi this is Kelly Azevedo, founder of She’s Got Systems, and welcome back to our 4th video on service business systems.
If you have a service business, you know that it can be really hard to keep on top of everything that has to be done. One of the things that you absolutely have to get done is follow up with leads that you had conversations with or sent proposals to.
I personally get proposals left and right for things I need done around my house or in my business. And I’m appalled at how infrequently people follow up and there’s a few reasons for that.
Why follow up?
1. Everybody is busy but if you forget your client is busy too and sometimes they need a little nudge, you’ll likely lose the business.
http://shesgotsystems.evsuite.com/sgs-blog-service-biz-follow-up-optimized/
2. Sometimes people have questions but they don’t know how to approach you. Inviting them to ask you questions and letting them know that you’re happy to discuss things with them will make it a little less awkward for the potential client to get closer to working with you.
3. You provide a customized service. Maybe you just need to tweak the proposal to answer their objections or help them to say yes to you.
What comes next after you send out the proposal?
I have a two step process for you to make it really simple.
1. Set a calendar reminder or automate a follow up that verifies the proposal has been received. It is as simple as “I just wanted to make sure you got my proposal.” It is good to let people have an out – tell them you know that email gets crazy, or there was a holiday, or maybe it went to spam. All you’re doing here is checking into see if they received it on the off chance that they didn’t and they think you’re ignoring them.
2. The second step can happen a few days later. If you haven’t heard back, they don’t have questions, or they haven’t given you a clear yes or no, then offer a follow up. This can be very casual and simple – “I sent you the proposal and I hope you’ve had some time to look it over. I’d love to get on the phone and answer any questions that might have come up. What time is good for you?” You can also suggest a time if you know their schedule well enough or link them right to your calendar.
Even if they’re a no, it is still valuable to follow up and know why. It is important to know if you’re charging too much, or if your client isn’t ready yet – maybe they need a bit more time and want you to follow up in a month or two. Take your lead from the client and as you’re following up, stand up for the client. Make sure they understand that you’re here to support them and if things are hectic or busy and they’re overwhelmed, you can help with that!
But of course, you can’t have those conversations if you don’t follow up! So really simple, two step system: make sure they got the proposal and then suggest a time to talk and hear their concerns. If it is still right, move them closer to saying yes and getting started.
Next week we’re going to take a look at invoicing!
Launching a new program, product or service in your business takes a lot of work. There’s copy to write, videos to record, order forms to set up and so much more. Often I see entrepreneurs make the most of a free call to give valuable content and introduce the new offer. It’s a great strategy!
But one of the biggest mistakes I see is thinking that as soon as that free call is complete, the launch is over.
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Today’s video is for service providers and how to automate and systematize your proposal process.
Now every service provider I’ve ever worked with has a long arduous process of having a call and taking pages and pages of notes. Then going through those notes over several days and then putting together a custom package that stands out from the crowd for their service to get a new client.
I find there’s a big problem with that. When the person is most motivated to work with you is immediately when they get off the call. If you’ve demonstrated on the call that you are the person that they need to be working with, they don’t want a 12 page proposal coming in a week. They want something they can say yes to today.
So today I want to talk about service packages, so you can get your proposals out there quickly. This is a system you absolutely have to have so you can close business.
Take the last proposal that you sent and break it down. If you’re like most service providers, you probably have an introduction of some sort, a scope of what you will actually do, a section on what they’ll pay you, and then all the extra contract-type stuff (like confidentiality, work hours). Right now we’re just going to focus on the proposal.
Let’s break it down into three sections:
1. Welcome: This can be incorporated into the email that you send. So you don’t send a blank email but rather a warm email letting them know that you do want to work with them and that you think this will be a great thing.
2. Proposal: This can be broken into two sections: what you provide and what you will do. And what they will provide you in return.
Now, you can look at what you typically do. Maybe you’re a service provider that works by the hour. Look at your hourly rate for what tasks. Or maybe you do blocks of hours so they have to buy 10, 15 or 30 in a week or a month. You block off those hours for them and they pay you to compensate.
You do want to detail what you do, but it is a mistake to go line by line and detail everything that you talked about. You want to keep it high level and you also want to keep it a little bit broad. The reason for this is if you’re doing graphics and you had to list out every type of banner, every type of button, every graphic that I could possibly want you to create just so I know that you were listening during our conversation – it’s going to take you a week to get me those graphics. Instead, what you can do list out types of graphics – banners such as or buttons such as. Then, put any limitations on that.
So maybe you’re going to do badges and buttons but not infographics and videos. That’s fine if you want to put in any exclusions but you don’t have to list out everything individually. Listing out everything individually has the negative consequence that it starts to look like you’re a custom business and you do things one at a time. The problem with that is that clients can change things on you because you don’t have any standards, right? You made this up, just for them.
So you want to make it as standard as possible. Have your packages or have your hourly, and just give them the proposal about what that would look like. What they get and what they give.
Once they say yes to the proposal, that’s when you’re going to give them all the other language and all the other details in the contract. That you’re going to respect their privacy, that they’ll going to pay you on the 1st of month, that nobody is going to sue anyone, that you’ll go to arbitration if somebody gets mad – all of those details can happen in the contract.
But the proposal itself should be short, sweet and easy to read. At the point you get off that Getting Acquainted conversation or you’re done with the consultation call, you want to give them something that they can say yes to right away. And if they have to read all that legal jargon it’s going to take much longer.
So I hope that helps you automate the system of sending the proposal for your service business even if your service is going to vary widely from client to client. We also have some resources for you – the system and service that I use to send all my contracts electronically. I absolutely love it and it’s free to get started. It makes it so much simpler to get those contracts and proposals signed right away. It’s called EchoSign and you can check it out here.
I want to paint you a picture… it’s 11pm and, exhausted from a full 10 hour day of work and travel, you finally arrive at your destination for the evening. To the west you can hear waves crashing on the sand. Somewhere on the east is your B&B for the evening and… you can’t find it. Parking on the street is restricted, you can’t tell when you pull up if meters are 24/7 or day only. The buildings are not clearly marked and many house numbers are obscured in the dark of night. Winding pathways leading up to doors are hidden, overgrown with plants and can’t be navigated easily.
Worst of all, your host is MIA. In 72 hours since confirming the reservation there has been no communication or direction on locating and accessing your rented room. Calls go unanswered. Texts go unresponded to. Emails are ignored.
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