I recently had the honor of participating in a project with The Paralegal Mentor, Vicki Voisin. Vicki is also the Co-Host of The Paralegal Voice with Lynne DeVenny of the blog Practical Paralegalism (and guest poster here).

The very comprehensive interview I did with her is now part of an amazing information product for virtual paralegals and those interested in becoming virtual paralegals.  It’s called the Virtual Paralegal Interview Series, a one of a kind 4 CD set that includes not just my interview, but also the interviews of 5 other experts in the virtual paralegal industry.
I think of this series could be considered a virtual paralegal ‘expo’ of sorts.  It’s like heading off to some location in order to get a chance to listen to 6 virtual professionals and get inside information on what they do and how and why they do it.

Except you don’t have travel anywhere, pay for hotel accommodations or meals. Cool huh?

I often find myself talking to people about what I do.  When I mention helping businesses with their internet presence, blogs and active websites it usually grabs their attention. When I talk about the mistakes that many businesses make with their websites and the steps they could be taking to increase visibility and attract clients they listen intently.

So you’d think that when I ask them if their own sites are working for them, they’d jump at the chance to make changes right?   Wrong.
The most common response I get are excuses. Tons and tons of excuses.

I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I’m ready for changes.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

I dislike excuses.  Because as long as people are using excuses, they are closing the door on possibilities.
The possibility of making a name for themselves in their industry, drawing clients to them rather than having to hunt for clients, and becoming a trusted resource that potential clients are going to think of first when they need what they offer.  And ultimately, the possibility of being more successful.

In an effort to get rid of excuses, I’m running a contest. The Excuse Buster Contest.

I’m giving away a  personalized blogsite built on Wordpress and the Headway theme and free blog maintence until the end of the year, worth over $900.

Really. That’s just how much I dislike excuses.

What do you need to do?

• First, you’ll need to have  or be willing to purchase your own domain name and hosting that supports Wordpress.
• Second, just fill in the form below, giving me your excuse to bust.

The winner will be chosen at random next Tuesday, November 10, 2009.

Do you already have a Wordpress blog/blogsite?  Great! You get to choose between transferring your site to Headway or 10 months of Blog Maintenance as your prize.

Hurry and sign up for your chance to win today. Let your friends know. Tweet it, Share it on Facebook, let the whole world know.

No excuses!

You may or may not know that I’m a huge football fan. Being from New England originally, the New England Patriots were ‘my’ team before the winning seasons and Super Bowl rings.

Last month, there was a lot of hoopla about the return of Tom Brady from his injury last season when they appeared on Monday Night Football. But my focus was on Wes Welker. Why Wes Welker? After all isn’t Randy Moss the star wide receiver? Maybe to some, but I’ll take the less high profile guy. You want to know why? Because he’s the guy who’s heart beats football, who’s eyes scream intensity on the field.

He may not be making spectacular one handed catches, but he digs in for the short passes over and over again.

Not only does Tom Brady trust that Wes can get the job done, so do the fans. We’ve come to depend upon his solid reliability and intense passion for the game. And in those odd circumstances where he may miss those passes and drop the ball? Well, you’ll see him come back to make a play happen every time.

So what does this have to do with business?

Everything.

As service providers we should strive for that same reaction from our clients. The absolute highest accolade that I can receive is their faith in me to get the job done and get it done right. Although some businesses may strive for the flash and celebrity status of a Brady or Moss, I’d prefer to be known for my ability to deliver quality results over and over again. I want my clients to know that even if I ‘drop the ball’ in some way, that I’m going to work my hardest to set it right.

What about you? Who would you rather be?

In our businesses, oftentimes we know that we need to make changes in order to become more successful but find ourselves missing the opportunity because we don’t take action quickly enough.
I was reading a great article at Strategic Profits about becoming paralyzed by information overload. We have access to more information than one can imagine, piped directly to us via the Internet, smart phones and netbooks. One no longer has to hope that the local library hasn’t already checked out that book we need, we can just Google what we want to know and we’re given thousands, if not millions of sources where we can learn about our chosen subject.

The problem is, there is so much information that its hard to determine which information we need and what we don’t. There’s no teacher to tell us, ” Remember this, or learn the meaning of that.” .
And like the television commercials for the new Bing search engine, we end up overloaded with information we don’t even need and find ourselves paralyzed and unable to move forward.

Somehow, when we become entrepreneurs, we forget this[do I really need to know this?] survival mechanism from our past. Rather than getting very clear about what we already know and what we still need to know to do well (like we did when we were students), we chase scattered information from everywhere – considering all sources we think might have something useful to share. The net effect is we waste our time, our resources, and our intellectual capital in pursuit of new discoveries. And within the blink of an eye, we become victims of information overload.- Rich Schefren-Strategic Profits

So what’s the secret to get moving again?

What are the keys we need to avoid getting paralyzed and keep it from hurting our businesses?  What is the cure for information overload?
It’s knowing and being confident in two things:

1. What you know.   Spend a little time thinking about those things you already know and are familiar with.  Don’t second guess your knowledge. Have confidence in those thing that you’ve learned.  Remember, most experts don’t necessarily “feel’ like experts at home.   At home they’re  Honey, Dad, Mom, Son or Daughter; just like the rest of us. Heck, some of the ‘experts’ don’t even feel like experts at work.  Keep the following definition of expert in mind:  expert [ek-spurt]- A person with extensive knowledge or ability in a given subject. Notice the definition doesn’t state that an expert knows ‘everything’ about a subject.  Remember that.
2. What you need to know. Now that you understand what you already know it’s time to determine what you need to know in order to make the necessary changes to your business.  The secret here is to be specific. First be specific about what change you are looking to make in your business and then be just as specific as to what you need to learn to get it accomplished.

These two things will allow you to focus on your goal and not get sidetracked along the way.  When you find yourself clicking a link you can stop and ask yourself “Is this something I already know?” or “Is this something I must know to accomplish my goal?”

But what if you don’t have a clue as to what you need to know?

That’s when finding a consultant, coach or tutor is a wise business decision. The same way your teacher used to point out what things you should be paying particular attention to for an upcoming test, a consultant points out the things you need to know in order to make your changes successful.  They weed out the ‘information noise’ and either provide or show you where to find what you need.  Sort of like a GPS for your business project, they can keep you from making as many wrong turns in order to get to your desired destination quicker and easier.

Of course, there are situations where what you want to do doesn’t fall anywhere near your area of expertise.  In this case, you need to decide if it’s something you feel is worth taking the time to learn. In many cases, you’d have to learn something you may never use again. In these type of situations the smartest thing you can do is find someone else who can either help you to do it or do it for you.  Remember, often times doing it yourself comes with a higher price tag than you realize in terms of your time and the possibility of doing things the wrong way.

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Many of my clients have taken advantage of personalized consulting (or  ‘tutoring’) in regard to increasing their web presence and making their blogs work for them more effectively.  Since it has been such a popular part of my client services, I’ve decided to offer them to others that feel they need help in those areas.  I currently have a limited number of hours available, so if you’re interested contact me today to learn more and get your personalized tutoring session or sessions.

I recently saw a commercial for Intuit quick and easy websites. Their sales pitch was perfect, promising that anyone could use their templates to build a great professional looking website in no time. They even offered a free trial for 30 days. After the 30 days you’d be charged $4.99 a month. Still, $60 a year doesn’t sound bad for a website does it? Wait. Have any of you listened to what I’ve had to say about a ’static’ website?

The secret behind the ease of building a website with Intuit (or any other template based website service or application) is the fact that you choose a template.

tem?plate [tem-plit]

1. a pattern, mold, or the like serving as a gauge or guide

2. anything that determines or serves as a pattern; a model:

The word in this definition of template that jumps out at me like a big red flag is ‘mold‘. It brings to mind a production line of perfectly identical items.

Some of them are painted different colors or different patterns but underneath it it all each one is exactly the same as the others.

Now that businesses are discovering the necessity of having an online presence, it’s becoming more and more important for your website to be unique and stand out from the rest of the crowd.

And that’s not the only drawback to using a templated website. Because of the nature of templates, there are limitations as to what you can add, adjust and do with your website.

For example, recently a local magazine decided they wanted a blog added to their website. They wanted a blog that not only featured a new post each week, but that readers could add to as well. Unfortunately, their business site was built on a template service very similar to the Intuit one I saw on tv. After speaking with the support department they received the following options. They could make a ‘forum’ where they could post a new topic each week and allow reader interaction in the ‘thread’, or they could link to a blog hosted somewhere else. They had no ‘blog’ template. In fact, for me, someone used to working in a blog framework, adding anything to the website was downright cumbersome. Even just adding copy and formatting the text was like slogging through molasses compared to what I was used to.

My immediate thought is why would anyone choose a template website for their business when they could choose a blogsite? Are they under the misconception that they must maintain an active blog on a blogsite?

Not true.

I think a business blog is the single most effective online marketing step you can take.

But, if you truly aren’t ready or don’t want a business blog, you don’t have to. With the ability to create pages and not just posts gives the user the ability to not only have individual webpages for your site, but to create them quickly and easily.

Besides the ease of use, another benefit many business owners see in using a templated site is the cost. Compared to the cost of having a web designer build a business website for you at anywhere from $1.200 to $6,000 or more depending on the level of customization, a mere $4.99 a month sounds great!

But think about just what that $60 a year is getting you. A website that just sits there on the web and pretty much does nothing. The dreaded static website. Sure, it may show up in search engine results like they say, but does it keep those visitors coming back? Or better yet, turn them into clients?

If you’re a little bit tech savvy you can build a blogsite yourself and using a ‘theme’ personalize it with your own logo, graphics, etc. You can use plugins and/or sidebar widgets to do just about anything you might want.

Sound a bit too technical for you? No problem, you can still have a great, easy to update blogsite built for you for much, much less than the thousands of dollars a traditional website might cost you.

And remember, no matter how ‘easy’ they claim building a website is, it’s going to take time and a good deal of thought to build an effective website.

Halloween.

It’s the time of year when horror stories are embraced and being scared is fun. But when you’re talking about using a virtual assistant to help you with your business, horror stories are enough to scare you off completely.

Like a lot of scary stories, they start out based on fact.

There really are people out there who have had bad experiences working with virtual assistants.

For some the horror began with a language barrier due to looking for a bargain with offshore assistance. For others it was the terror of a breakdown in communication with their VA.  And then there are the tales from the cryptic who simply state that virtual assistance just didn’t work for them.

Of course, like any good horror story, these tales have grown and been embellished until many an overworked business person has been frightened away from the prospect of outsourcing their work overload to a virtual assistant.

But in reality there isn’t anything to fear.

To begin with the stories stemming from trying to get away with dirt cheap assistance sort of speaks for itself.  When is the last time you bought anything of real quality at the dollar store?

And yes, of course it’s possible to find  people out there giving virtual assistants a bad name and falling off the face of the earth with a client’s projects still incomplete.  That certainly shouldn’t leave you believing that all virtual assistant’s will do the same thing.  I’m sure there have been plenty of situations where employee’s have up and quit with work still undone too.
Did that stop people from hiring someone else?

Of course not.

Many people find themselves overwhelmed with work and rush to find the first virtual assistant they come across who says they can do the work at the lowest possible price.  And then they wonder why it doesn’t work for them.

The truth is, you need to prepare yourself and your business to work with a VA before you ever go on a search for one.  If you haven’t assessed your workload how can you determine what you really need done?  Or what is truly taking up the majority of your time?  If you haven’t examined the things you need done, how are you going to effectively communicate those things to a virtual assistant?

It’s kind of like those idiots in scary movies. You know the ones.  They open doors that clearly shouldn’t be opened.  Walk alone into dark empty houses or pull over on a lonely stretch of highway for that poor person in the breakdown lane.  Yeah, those ones.

Well people who think they can just hire a virtual assistant and ‘poof‘ their administrative woes are going to be magically taken care of are just as silly.  Working with a virtual professional is a business partnership.  You have to approach it realistically and prepare for the collaboration.

So don’t let the horror stories scare you off.  For every tale of terror there is also a story of success.

(in other words, Let’s Get Critical)

I’m going to apply this post to the virtual assistant industry, because that’s my profession. I think upon reading this post, you could probably apply this to other professions as well, so bear with me.

Virtual assistants are proud of the fact that we’re a helpful lot. If you spend any time at all on virtual assistant forums, you’ll find a really great atmosphere. We tend to be really nice to one another and you’ll rarely find the trolling and bickering that you do elsewhere.  I’m a huge proponent of the forums and can honestly say that I found a lot of great information there when I was starting my business.

Yet, lately I’m starting to wonder if we are so busy trying to be nice that we’re failing to be be truly helpful.  A couple of posts on separate forums got me thinking and of course, it lead to this post.

Both forum posts were in regard to finding clients, a major hurdle for any small business, but even more so for an industry that is seen by many as ‘newfangled’ and ‘experimental’.

One such inquiry asked if they were doomed to fail since they refused to take part in social media.
Of course, everyone rushed to assure them that lack of social media skills would not doom their business. Sweet, caring, but in my opinion not exactly helpful.

Let’s look at the situation.

This person is bemoaning the fact that they aren’t getting clients, they want desperately to find a way to reach clients, yet they are refusing to learn something out of fear brought on by lack of knowledge.

It’s all well and good to try to make someone feel better, but down the road when social media has become the primary marketing tool for everyone, this person is going to not only regret not learning it, but if their business is still alive and kicking, they are going to wonder why no one explained that sometimes we have to step outside of our comfort zone when we run our own business.

Need another example that we’re not helping by being too nice?

Ok, take the VA looking for ideas for marketing her business.  One very brave, experienced VA had the guts to mention that this person’s website needed work. Oh My! How could they be so mean?  No one had asked for a website review!  And who said a polished, professional website was needed anyway?

Excuse me?

I’m not sure what business planet these other virtual assistants come from, but in the business world I reside in, a polished, professional website is critical.  And the brave VA who spoke up was actually going above and beyond to try to really help.

Why is it we can’t feel free to offer the same marketing advice to fellow VA’s that we do to our clients?

When I have a client dragging their feet about social media I encourage them to learn more about it and explain why I feel it is so important for businesses today and in the future.  If a client has a website that could be costing them clients, I make suggestions.  I’d be failing them if I didn’t.

So aren’t we failing new and struggling VA’s by trying to be too nice?

I’m not saying we should be super critical, overly picky or truly mean. But constructive criticism is not being cruel. It is a method of trying to help. If you are in business for yourself, you should welcome those people into your inner circle. Because honestly, these are the ones that are serious about really helping. They are willing to share their experience, at the risk of being thought too harsh, to point others in the right direction.
I think virtual assistants should stop worrying about being nice and start thinking about how they can really help one another.

What do you think?  Do you think this happens in more than just the virtual assistant industry? Am I a ‘mean girl’ for even writing this post?  Let me have it in the comments section.

Are you curious about what’s different and what’s the same about the Headway and Thesis Wordpress themes?

I’ve had plenty of people ask me about both Thesis and Headway.

They know that I’ve used both for various blogsites, including this one.  So instead of answering one person at a time, I decided it might be time to write a special report.

My report gives a basic comparison of each when it comes to pricing, installation, updates, customization and support.

The cost of the report is less than the cost of a Venti coffee at your local Starbucks and it could help you decide which theme might work best for you.

For those of you that aren’t quite sure you want to shell out $2 bucks for the report, you can get the Venn diagram comparing the two themes for free.

And don’t worry, there will be a free update when the new versions of Thesis and Headway are released to the public for anyone that purchases the report now!

Click Here to get the Comparison Venn Diagram for FREE!

Click Here to Purchase The Complete Report for only $2.

In light of my recent post at Blog for Profit entitled, Wordpress Wisdom; What You Can Learn from Robert Scoble’s Hacking,I took some time to think how I could use the information to help my clients and others.

I found myself thinking that if someone like Robert Scoble, who is definitely considered a ‘blog expert’ could overlook simple security measures, what about people like my clients?  My clients and potential clients are busy practicing law or teaching classes or coaching. They are seeking my services because their time to do administrative and techie tasks is severely limited.

In some cases, the time it might take them to learn how to do those simple backups and updates just isn’t there.  It isn’t that they don’t understand the need to perform these maintenance tasks, it’s just that at the end of each day they somehow haven’t been able to fit it in.

It seemed a natural conclusion to create a Blog Maintenance Service Package. So that’s what I’ve done.   The package consists of weekly blog backups, updates to plug-ins and Wordpress as needed, an SEO & broken link check-up and assistance with up to 5 blog/blogsite ‘issues’ per month ( requiring up to two hours of skilled assistance).  I’m offering this service package for what would normally only cover the 2 hours of skilled service alone.

Now there isn’t an excuse for procrastinating and possibly paying the price of lost content. If you don’t have the time to do necessary blog maintenance yourself, you have the option of having someone else do it for you. You can check one more thing off your to-do list and breath a little easier knowing you’ve taken precautions to keep your blog content safe.

If a Blog Maintenance Service Package sounds like the just the thing you need, contact me soon.  I expect this to become a very popular package.

I’d also like to announce that I’ve been added as a contributing editor at Blog for Profit, so be sure to check out all of the great blog tips, hints and advice there too!

I’m surprised at the number of business people who have admitted to no longer adding content to their blog because they are now on Twitter. I’m not sure where or why these folks got the impression that Twitter is a substitute for blogging.  Perhaps it has something to do with the following 5 reasons to abandon your blog for Twitter?

1. You don’t care about sharing quality content. 140 characters does not allow for adequate sharing of important information. Sure, you can share links to other people’s quality content, but what is that saying about you and your business? That you’re not unique, that you aren’t an expert in your field yourself?
2. You aren’t interested in getting new clients or staying in touch with your current ones. Chances are your target market/clients/ customers are not following you on Twitter. Although Twitter is gaining in popularity, there is still an huge segment of the population who isn’t buying in. A portion of that segment does however read blogs and visit websites.
3. You could care less about adding value to your customers experience. Twitter streams don’t equal the added value to clients/customers that blog posts do.
4. You want your website to stay hidden from search engines. Three letters..SEO. Your Twitter stream isn’t going to increase your website SEO, fresh content is.
5. You have no interest in ever compiling blog posts into an information product. Think of a blog as a depository of useful information. Since it’s your information, you can choose to re-purpose it the way you choose. Older blog posts can become articles, special reports , e-books and more. Try doing that with your 140 character tweets.

By now you’ve figured out that the title for this blog post was rather sarcastic. If you’ve read my previous post, you already know that I consider a blog to be one of  the most important tools for growing your business. And if you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you also know I’m a fan of Twitter as well. As useful as Twitter is, it’s not a blog. Heck, it couldn’t even play one on TV.