"Keynote: What’s Stopping You From Getting Clients… and What To Do About It" - C.J. Hayden
What are the barriers that prevent talented entrepreneurs from building a thriving business? You can overcome these challenges and attract more clients with less effort by making a few simple changes. Learn how you may be sabotaging your own marketing, the three most reliable ways to build your business quickly, when Internet marketing is a useful tool and when it won’t help you, and how to build a system to make marketing simple and effortless.
"ABC’s of Rockin’ Membership Sites" – Rebekah Zobel Jones
Are your clients begging for a Membership Site that rocks? Join Rebekah Zobel Jones and discover the pieces needed to create a Rockin’ Membership Site quickly and easily! You’ll gain some in-depth understanding about Membership Sites and come away with tips and tricks to add that special sparkle that will wow your clients. Discover best practices, pitfalls to avoid and plenty of plugins that will add tons of functionality to your site!
"Are You Connected? LinkedIn 101 – 201" – Sue Kramer Harrawood
Are you searching for clients in all the wrong places?! If your target market is traditional professional service and products providers, chances are they are on LinkedIn – not Twitter or Facebook.
Sadly many VAs do not incorporate LinkedIn in their social media plan. Depending on who your clients are and where they go for information this could be a mistake. Many established businesses don’t understand the why’s of social media. They think Twitter is silly and time consuming (they won’t or don’t want to hire someone to manage their social media) and feel Facebook is too personal (some haven’t even heard of it). However, these business owners (who can afford a top-tier VA) and their peers are on LinkedIn.
Join Sue Kramer Harrawood in the offline world’s sandbox of LinkedIn. You’ll find out just how important it is to have a LinkedIn presence if you desire to seek out the ‘not so comfortable with online’ business owner. Hint, just because they aren’t online or social media savvy, doesn’t mean they don’t ‘get’ the VA industry. Join Sue and many VAs who are getting quality referrals and clients by building a professional presence on LinkedIn.
"Avoid Overload – Project Management for Your VA Business" – Christine Morris
Avoid Overload – Project Management for your VA Business will give you the tips and tools you need to stay focused and productive in your VA Business. This session will include an overview of popular project management tools and what to look for in a project management system. We will also cover additional tools and tips to enhance your productivity, including how to use your project management system for team and operations management.
"Digital Media Makes Marketing Efficient" – Carla Wilson
Yes, it’s true. Did you know there are many fast and economical ways to create digital audio and video? And did you realize that you can re-use this digital media to make your marketing efforts less effort? That’s the power of efficiency (and understanding re-purposing).
In this presentation, Carla Wilson will help you understand the efficiency and flexibility of using digital media marketing efforts to save time and money!
Points we will cover in this session: Digital vs. Analog media; digital media marketing strategies; fast and economical ways to create audio and video; and faster ways to create additional content.
Join us during this breakout session to learn how you can save time and money in your marketing efforts with digital media!
"Evernote for Keeping Track of Everything" – Terri Orlowski
Evernote’s tagline is "Remember Everything," and it can help you do just that. As Virtual Assistants, we can all struggle with finding a way to stay organized, effectively track projects tasks and keep track of resources and articles for later reference. In this presentation, you’ll learn about how Evernote can help you with the above and then some.
Despite the inherent usefulness of any tool, many times is the method of data entry required that turns potential users away. Evernote does almost the opposite – with a plethora of ways to communicate with Evernote, it attracts more than it turns away. Learn how to use Evernote to keep track of your own business, personal life, and client responsibilities without really doing anything differently than you are already comfortable with doing.
"Increase Your Bottom Line – and Your Credibility – Through Extreme Client Care™" – Sandra Martini
In these days of internet searches, ebay and intense price competition, the strongest small businesses know that it’s about providing Extreme Client Care™ — a customer experience so positive that your customers wouldn’t dream of going to anyone else…and they tell their friends and family that.
- Discover how to get, and stay, "top of mind" with your clients in a smartphone, Google-based world
- Why most customers and clients leave and what you can do to stop it from happening to you,
- How providing Extreme Client Care™ creates raving fans while ADDING to your bottom line,
- What to do when a customer or client decides to leave to increase the odds of her returning.
Sandy is known for her highly practical, results-focused strategies and will be sharing lots of "implement today" how-tos designed to increase your bottom line – and your reputation – through Extreme Client Care™.
"Infusionsoft vs. 1ShoppingCart" – Sharon Broughton
In this session, Sharon will review her favorite tools for eCommerce (1SC and Infusionsoft) and why one is better than the other depending on the client. You will learn time-saving tips for automating all your email marketing and customer service needs with Infusionsoft and how it stacks up against 1ShoppingCart.
At the end of this session you will have a better understanding of Infusionsoft and 1ShoppingCart and the advantages and benefits of each system.
"The Keep It Simple Business Plan" – Jeannine Clontz
Have a business plan? Whether you’re just starting out, or been around for a while, having a business plan is one of those things many small and home-based businesses forego.
How can you plan your business and have a clear vision of where you want to go, without some sort of plan – even if it’s just to keep yourself accountable to your goals? Learn why this simple document is vital to your business success by participating in this workshop! Join long-time IVAA member, author, speaker and VA Coach, Jeannine Clontz, as she walks you step-by-step through the process of creating a simple business plan to help you develop and plan the evolution and growth of your VA practice.
BONUS segment includes a simple method to setup a marketing plan to take your business plan to the next level! Don’t miss this opportunity to leave the Summit with your plan in place by investing in this interactive session.
"Learn the Value-Based Model – Stop Trading Hours for Dollars" – Donna Toothaker
Are you nervous to raise your rates? Are you tired of tracking every minute of client work? Most importantly, are you tired of trading hours for dollars, and not getting paid for your true value and worth? Learn how (and why!) to create service and support packages for clients. Moving to the "package model" in your business will allow you to charge what you’re worth, service clients in a bigger and better way, and create a client list of raving fans. Learn the strategies and tools to create packages that make sense for your business… and for your clients! You’ll learn the different types of packages, what to include in your packages, how to overcome any possible client/prospect objections and you’ll learn the strategies that you can implement immediately to begin moving out of the hourly model and into the package model. You’ll learn all the tips, tricks and techniques for creating a successful and "value based" business. Stop selling your time and learn how to sell your true value, worth and outcome that working with you has for your clients. This is a not-to-miss session!
"Making Google Work for You and Your Business" – Doreen DeJesus
Are you overwhelmed by all that Google has to offer and what can and cannot be integrated with it? Looking for a one stop cloud application that will help you grow your business while keeping everything streamlined? This workshop will quickly run through the basic Google Business Applications with a strong emphasis on third party applications and the Google Market Place.
"PR Magic – What You Need to Rock Your Marketing Efforts" – Diana Ennen
We all know you need to do marketing to grow your business, but so many just don’t know how to do it right. That’s where we come in. From writing effective press releases and articles, to developing a PR campaign that works, we will help you master your PR efforts. Plus, we will show you those valuable shortcuts and PR tools to help you get more done, in the least amount of time. Best yet, we will give you those secrets to PR success that will enable you to get those clients and also show the best side of your business. Whether you need help understanding PR in general or want to add publicity as a niche for your VA business, we will walk you step-by-step through all you need to know (and so much more!).
"Rates – Retainers and Packages…Oh My!" – Jeannine Clontz
Do you hesitate increasing your rates because of the down economy? Scared that in increasing your rates you’ll lose business? Are you limiting your client options by only offering retainers? Have you embraced the latest option to not having to quote rates or track time… packages?
Whether you’ve been in business for 10-days or 10-years, pricing services will probably always be one of your biggest challenges in growing a profitable VA practice.
Join longtime IVAA member and Virtual Assistant Coach, Jeannine Clontz, as she helps us to understand all our options, determine what will work best for our type of practice, and how to create the right option to build a profitable business that will generate the income we need to keep our businesses strong.
"S.O.P. is Not a Swear Word!" – Kristi Pavlik
S.O.P – stands for Standard Operating Procedures and every VA Business should have one. Why? Ask yourself this…Do I want to take on more ideal clients? Do I want to automate as much of my business as possible – ensuring it runs even if I am not present? Do I want to make sure my business is running at its optimal efficiently level? Do I want to either bring on a team, or manage the one I already have better? Your S.O.P is the hub, the key system, the bible if you will to running your business. All of your systems come together to create your S.O.P.
In this session, you will not only learn more about why every business needs to have a S.O.P. in place, but also what goes into creating one, how to get started, and even get a sneak peek at what The Systems Chick’s S.O.P looks like. You will walk away with as much of your own S.O.P created as we can muster within the time allotted, and then a game plan for how to finish it once you get back to your offices.
