A Cool Payment Processor

I was recently introduced to a new payment processor for those who are using 1Shoppingcart. It is now an easy option under the gateway setup that I have to encourage everyone to use. It is works with more than just those 1Shoppingcart users – it even works with those using WOO Commerce, WP Commerce and more.

This payment processor is called Simplify Commerce – and it is so cool. There are no monthly fees, no minimums, no setup fees, and super low rates. And, you have your money deposited in just two business days. No more monthly fees, statement fees and expensive rates! AND it accepts all credit card brands – even cooler 🙂

Learn more about it here and let us know what you think! https://www.simplify.com/commerce/

P.S. It has an open API so we are also looking into this for our Infusionsoft users.

Why Is It So Hard To Delegate? — By Donna Moyer

Delegate
As business owners, we know that to grow our companies and to have a life outside of our businesses, we need others do some of the work for us. We have all heard how important it is to delegate. Volumes have been written on how to do this. How to decide what to delegate. How to find the right people to delegate to. How to manage our teams. With so much information available to us, why is it still so hard to delegate?

Here’s a familiar scenario. Sally, an overworked business owner, decides she needs an assistant. She hires Jean, a very experienced, highly recommended young woman. She assigns Jean a few tasks. Late one evening she is reviewing the ezine Jean has prepared to be sent out tomorrow. “Ugh, this just isn’t right,” she exclaims. “This needs to go out tomorrow, so I’ll have to fix it myself. It would have been easier for me to just do it myself!”

Sound familiar? I hear things like this over and over again from my clients and colleagues. In fact, I have lived them myself. I’ve spent weeks finding just the right person. Highly recommended. Motivated. And then my results are less than stellar. What’s a business owner to do?

Here’s the good news. We can all learn to delegate. I believe there are 3 essential components to delegating successfully. I am going to share those with you today and, of course, give you a few tech tools to make things go even more smoothly. Don’t worry – many of these tools are things that you should already have. And some are nice to haves that you may want to purchase to speed things along.

Component #1: Crystal Clear Processes

You know how to do things in your business. If you didn’t, you would not have a business. But all of those things are in your head. And you are so familiar with them, trying to communicate them verbally to someone else doesn’t work. I know. I’ve tried.

I know. I know….Writing processes takes time. But it is time well-spent. You may think that you are being clear. I always think that I am. In my head it sounds great. To everyone else not so much In fact, my life partner Chris often notes that when I start talking to him about something he feels like he walked into the middle of a conversation. Writing things down shows where the holes are. You will see many of them right up front. Then let someone who has no knowledge of your business read the process and ask questions. More holes will show up. And soon you will have a process that you can hand to anyone to do. And what I found was that by writing the process down and following it myself when I did not have anyone else to do the work, I saved time. So much, in fact, that I was able to take a few afternoons a week off!!! That is the power of having processes in your business.

The key is to just start. Done is better than done perfect. Adjust as you go. Here are a few tech tools to help you get started:

  • Create a document that is a list of steps using a word processor like Word or Pages.
  • Create a flowchart documenting your process in pictures using Word or Excel
  • Use Sweet Process (www.sweetprocess.com), an on-line tool, designed to help you create and share your processes

Component #2 Effective Communications

When we trying to do something new or do something in a new way, it can feel so difficult. It seems to take us twice as long. Doing it the old way would be so much easier. Make no mistake – things will feel this way as you try to delegate. If you are used to working by yourself, you can do things on your own timeline. When you involve others the rules change. No more flying by the seat of our pants. No more waiting til the last minute. No more writing copy on a Friday for a Monday launch. You’ll need to plan ahead. And you will need to clearly communicate what needs to be done and when.

This communication can start with two very simple tech tools – first a shared calendar. You can use Google calendar for this and share the calendar with your team. Plan launches and deadlines well ahead. For example, I had a copywriter working for me a few years back. She polished the copy for my monthly newsletter and put it into Constant Contact for me. I was always late getting the copy to her. Mainly because I would get writers block. And therefore the newsletter did not go out consistently. She and I had a meeting and I determined that I wanted the newsletter to go out on the first Thursday of every month. From there I had her tell me what date she would need the copy by in order to meet that deadline. We determined that I needed to have the copy to her by the last Thursday of the previous month. Those deadlines went on a shared calendar. We both knew what was expected of us and the commitment that we made.

Next use your email to assign and communicate tasks. I am as guilty as anyone about telling someone via phone call or a quick stop by their office what needs to be done. What I have learned is that I need to follow up those conversations with email. People are very busy and distracted. Writing things down (just we did with processes) can help to serve as a reminder to both you and your team member of what was discussed and what is expected.

As your team grows, project management software becomes a must. The advantages of using a project management package is that tasks can be assigned with deadlines, notes and questions about each task can be tracked with this software, and documents and calendars can all be shared in one interface, thus allowing all team members one place to effectively communicate.

Component #3 Smart Tracking

We go into the process of delegating expecting miracles. “Ahhh I finally have help!” What a relief to be able to say “Here — you do it!” Then we move on to our next 25 tasks on our own task list. And then the realization sets in that things either not getting done or are not getting done the way that we want. I like to call this ‘dump and run’. Once again, I am just as guilty as anyone of this. A few years back, I hired a bookkeeper. I would send her my Quickbooks files and scanned copies of my bank statements and she was to balance my accounts. Pretty easy task for a bookkeeper ( or so you would think). After all, I had done it myself for years. I paid her to do this for about 8 months. And then came the end of the year. Tax time. And I realized that my accounts were off –significantly. I ended up going back and reconciling all of the accounts for the entire time she had worked for me. I could have caught this earlier if I had checked her work for the first few months. And I could have saved myself a lot of money by letting her go sooner.

When you delegate, you need to ask yourself the question “How will I know?” How will you know if something is going to be completed on time? How will you know that things are being completed correctly? How will you know what team members are working on each day?

Reporting or tracking is the most important key to the success of delegating.

For software like Quickbooks there are reconciliation reports that I could have run. If you decide to use project management software, take into consideration what kind of reports can you run on tasks completed or outstanding tasks before making your software choice.

A lower tech solution is the 5-15 report. I use this in my company. I created an Excel spreadsheet where employees are to track daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. The report takes them about 15 minutes to fill out and me 5 minutes to read.

Remember to keep asking yourself “How will I know?” as the final step to delegating any task.

It’s time to make an iron-clad commitment to delegating even a few hours worth of work per month and not go back to doing things yourself.

Commitment to getting the essential components right. Commitment to finding the right team members. Will it take more time at first?

Absolutely! But the growth of your business, the ability for you to serve more people and the freedom to live the life you want demands it!

Preventing WordPress Hacks

It seems like a day does not go by where I have not read a headline that involves a website being hacked. The ones that make the headlines are big hacking situations. I had to change my own debit cards after shopping at Target not too long ago. Some other memorable hacks include Citibank, NASA, and Sony, which included the PlayStation3.

However, often hackers simply hack for the fun of it, and they hack anything and everything, including small to medium websites. In my 17 years as a web developer, I have had five clients report damage to their websites from hackers, and I want to provide you the same tips I have provided them to keep their sites safe.
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Infusionsoft Tip For The Week – Campaign Goal Icons

Did you know that when setting up a campaign, the icons under the “Goals” section all do the EXACT same goals. It is simply a visual preference to match your particular sequence.

So if you are creating an optin form, visually you may want to choose the icon for “sign up for newsletter” or “request information” but all of the icons (yes, even “download a file”) will offer you the same goal actions.

Cool huh?

Latest Praise

“Amber is a rockstar. Not only does she have years of experience as a VA and knows more than many others in our industry, she also has something that can’t be taught – dedication. Once Amber commits to something she is in 100% and will do whatever it takes to deliver. I highly recommend Amber and her team for the brilliance and knowledge.”

– Tina Forsyth
www.onlinebusinessmanager.com

A Decade For The Divas!

10 years ago today, I decided to stop being afraid and take a leap of faith…

Afraid of what others thought of my business ideas.
Afraid of what others might say if I “quit my cushy corporate job”.
Afraid of could I really be my own boss?
Afraid of – well, being afraid of my dreams.

For years, I wanted to start my own business where I could take my passion for technology and love for systems and bring them to those who also shared my dream to be their own boss.

I quit my corporate job 4 times in 2 years. Yes, 4 times! Each time I was asked to stay, for more pay, for more time off, for more, well whatever. And each time my head said yes, but heart said no. I tried working part-time the first year of my business, until I realized yet again, I was being “afraid” to completely step into it and I was NEVER going to find my purpose if I didn’t “go for it”. (more…)

Why it’s Important to Maintain Your Website

I’m not going to pretend like maintaining your WordPress website is fun, it’s just like any other chore, it’s work and can often be the last thing you want to do. But, it really is extremely important because if you don’t ; it’s possible you will come up with something like the image in this article.

The potential that your website could be hacked is only one of the potential risks of not maintaining your WordPress site. Here is a small list of items that maintenance assists with:

  • Slow Website: WordPress websites run off a platform called PHP. In order for WordPress to run, the server that it is hosted on also must run PHP. As new versions of PHP come out, eventually older versions are phased out.Server’s upgrade to the newest version and remove older versions. If you don’t keep up on your maintenance – your PHP version may not run on your server anymore. This could cause considerable down time while updates are performed and in some cases I have found that the clients theme no longer is maintained and it takes considerable time to get the site back up and looking great again.

 

  • Hijacked Website: It is sad, but there are people, even companies out there that search for sites that they can find a security breach in, through a plug-in not updated or through a theme that someone found an open door in. They hide scripts within the file structure that they have made access into. You don’t see the script by looking at the website, but behind the scenes they are sending emails out using your IP address. Eventually you’re hosting company or google see’s massive traffic. Your email addresses can be blacklisted, your site can be marked as a warning by google not to visit the site, and you can lose a lot of visitors while the issue is worked out and the scripts are found. Typically this is at minimal at 72 hour downtime, sometimes more.

 

  • Broken Website Functionality: Your host makes a server upgrade, you notice that your contact form has been a little slow, or actually maybe more than a little slow. You go review your contact form only to see an error after submitting! You go back to your host or your web developer and find out that because of the server upgrade, your contact form hasn’t worked for two weeks. How many clients could you potentially lose in two weeks?

 

  • Data Loss: WordPress websites run off of a database. I have reviewed many hosting plans, many offer backups, but in the small print, it tells you that you are the responsible party for your data. They cannot and will not guarantee that a backup is in existence and sometimes that back-up might be weeks or months old. Think about the work that has been done on your website in the last 30 days. How many man hours would it take to reproduce the work if the only backup available was 30 days old? Even worse, what if the backup didn’t exist?

 

These are just a few of the items that website maintained can prevent! Your maintenance list can be divided out into Daily, Weekly and Monthly Checklists to make it easier. Smart to Finish also offers maintenance programs for you, just let us know if you would like to be added to our maintenance calendar.

In my next article we will discuss the daily, weekly, and monthly checklist along with important preparation steps. If your site has not had maintenance performed, please consider it now. The benefits could save you hours of headaches and once your site is updated to the latest versions, maintenance could take as little as 10 minutes per week.

3 Tips to Create a Successful Marketing Campaign

Today I am happy to share with you a guest post from someone you definitely need to know…and WATCH! She knows her stuff (plus we share a love for automation and Infusionsoft!) Take it away Michelle…

We know that Infusionsoft makes marketing easy. From segmenting your list to automating nurture sequences, you have a streamlined way to interact with your market and build relationships with prospects.

But the success of every marketing campaign begins with its content. In order to convert, your campaigns must strike a chord within your target market and invoke a desire to act—and quickly.

Develop a marketing campaign that pays off—these campaign tips hit the mark every time:

Research Your Target Audience

The target market for your products or services is the target audience for your marketing campaign. To sell to this group of people, you need to know them inside and out by understanding their hopes, desires, fears, and needs. Audience research should include…

  • Surveys, which you can give through emails, on social media, or as part of your sales process. Be sure to up the odds that clients will complete your surveys!
  • Direct questions, which you can ask in person (at events or places your audience frequents), on social media, on blogs, or through email. Spend time making sure your questions are clear and will elicit useful answers.
  • Conversations. In person, through social media, or otherwise, take time to interact with your audience. Listen what they have to say. Get off topic. You’ll discover valuable information you may never have thought to look for.

Develop Your Message

Once you understand the very soul of your target audience, you need to develop a marketing message that speaks to its hopes, desires, fears, and needs—or some combination of these. This process may take a little time, but nailing your message is worth the effort—your audience will respond when you hit the right nerves.

Once you decide what you want to say about your products or services and how you want to say it, it’s time to get the message out there. Depending on how you can best reach your target audience, you may want to consider…

  • Pitching story ideas (related to your offerings) to various publications that your target audience reads.
  • Buying ad space (online, on the radio, in the newspaper—wherever your research points you).
  • Designing emails and newsletters that get the word out.
  • Setting up a booth at an event where members of your target audience will be present.
  • Spreading the word through affiliate marketing.

The right message in the right place will connect with members of your target audience—getting to this point, though, will take some time!

Master the Art of Timing

You don’t want to launch your perfect wrapping paper campaign the day after Christmas. Timing, of course, plays a major role in whether or not your message and location are appropriate.

The good news is that if you’ve done your target audience research well, you should be in touch with seasonal fluctuations on your target audience’s wants and needs. And in the 24-hour marketing world of the Internet, you can even tap into the subtle ways time of day might impacts them!

Put It All Together

Hitting these three notes just right takes more time and energy than substituting some guesswork. But if your goal is a bigger return on your marketing dollars, precision is the way to go.

For more valuable marketing advice, check out Michelle Salater’s no-cost content marketing training series.

About Michelle: Michelle Salater is the CEO of Sūmèr, a full-service copywriting firm and an award-winning writer and content expert featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, MyBusiness Magazine, M.O. Online, and Entreprenista, among others. She also connects with a worldwide audience and shares her expert advice via her radio show, Business Confessional Talk Radio.

Infusionsoft Training Starts Monday!

It’s that time of year again! I have partnered again with Tina Forsyth as we introduce 2 Newly Updated Infusionsoft Trainings for 2012 starting Monday May 21st! Are you joining us?

You see, here’s the deal… It’s no longer just about “shopping carts and sending ezines”… it’s about having an automated system that will build your business with minimal effort.  The thing is – you need to know how to use it!

Infusionsoft is an amazing “all in one” tool that has more features than any other system that I have worked with or supported – making it a powerful business building system BUT also making it harder to learn.

I truly love this program and have seen what it can do for my clients. This training is setup to guide you and give you the confidence to get going and either using your Infusionsoft account or giving you the training you need to support clients who are using Infusionsoft.

Topics covered include:

  • What Infusionsoft settings are necessary when starting out with Infusinosoft or transitioning someone over to Infusionsoft.
  • Learn the difference between email templates and follow up sequences, and when to use each one.
  • When to use infusionsoft order forms and when to use Infusionsoft shopping cart
  • How to setup your Infusionsoft system to automatically allow affiliates to register for your program.
  • How to use the new Social Media features in Infusionsoft (very cool!)
  • and much more!

Will I see you in class?

Learn more and register here:

http://www.automateyourgrowth.com/infusionsoft/

I hope to be able to save you some time in this learning curve that comes from using Infusionsoft!