Standing Out

You’ve probably been there. You’re checking your email and see something from a client and you’re sooooo tempted to open it. You tell yourself that you’ll open it, but whatever the need is can wait until you’re “working” again. So you open it, but the request is so simple, right? It’ll just take a second.

So you do it. And instantly, you’re working. Even though it’s 10 PM. On Saturday.

Seriously. Does this sound like you? If so, it’s because you (and I) need to set email answering hours and actually keep them. Not just working hours. Email “answering” hours. Because more often than not, if you answer your email, you’re working. Even just thinking about a client request can technically be classified as working.

In the B2B world, setting email answering hours and informing your client of them should not set off any alarms. In fact, chances are that your client either already has established this practice or deep down, really wants to, so it won’t be a shocker.

So give yourself a break and get organized. Say, yes, I work at home (or on the road with my Blackberry or whatever), but, I answer client email from X AM to Y PM and stick to that. Say to your client, if it’s urgent, give me a call. That way, you’re still accessible in case of an emergency, but you’ve got work boundaries that you would probably have if you worked in an office away from your home, right?

I have a client that actually has an auto-responder that informs you of his email answering hours. I don’t need to adopt that method, but his principle is right on. In order to stay organized and manage your time more effectively, not to mention keeping your sanity, do yourself a favor and set some email hours and stick to them. Do this for two weeks and if it doesn’t work and you don’t feel better, come back and say I told you so!

–Tia

It started out as a “sick” Sunday. I know that tonsillitis is coming on (I’ve had it many times before) so I stayed home from church to rest. That’s how it started out. My baby son and I stayed in bed until a ridiculous hour of the morning which I will not confess out loud, and then decided to have a go at the day.

We did the usual - eat, play, sing, chill out, etc. Then I caught some time to myself as he took a snooze. That’s when Marketing Mania Day began its onset.

It started out when I decided to build out my new Linkshare program (Join B2B LinkShare Now!) which I actually found when browsing a competitor’s website (you can find really interesting things while browsing competitor’s websites…). I was creating links to add to my page and found a really great one for Vertical Response. Well, I decided that not only did I want to promote them on my website and earn money, I wanted to use them, too.

VR offers some really cool tools for direct marketing and e-mail marketing. I had already decided that I wanted to send out a launch e-mail to my “circle of influence”. VR’s tools just made it way easier. Instead of having to send a huge, mass e-mail from my webmail account that wouldn’t look so nice anyway since I can’t create cool-looking HTML e-mails with it, I was able to use VR’s e-mail marketing tool to make this amazing launch e-mail to send to my friends and family. I am so pleased with it! (If you want to find out more about it, click here.)

But anyway, the real point of this blog is to discuss circles of influence. I really had no idea that I had contact information for as many people as I do. At the end of the day, I had over 150 bonafide e-mail addresses of real family and friends to contact regarding my new business. That number will either seem small or large to you depending on how much you use and believe in circle of influence. If you had asked me how large my circle was prior to today, I would have guesstimated somewhere around 20 or 25. Obviously it is much larger than I thought. Why? Because I never looked! I never really looked into it until today.

How did I look into it? Well, this isn’t a how-to article but maybe one day I’ll write one. All I did was go to my contacts list in gmail and export it! I was shocked to see just how many “contacts” I actually had. After cleaning it up a bit and removing people I don’t consider part of my circle of influence, I ended up with somewhere in the 150s and that was darn good enough for a great launch.

Thus, I created a tres chic Pass-It-On campaign letter in which I simply asked those in my circle to pass on the news of my new business to someone in their circle who could use it. In effect, I was asking my friends and family to do me a favor by doing a favor for a small business owner that they knew, because I truly believe that my services can help small business owners. It was an earnest request that I know will have excellent results.

So I used my circle of influence today and I’m so proud of that. These are the types of activities that separate the small business wheat from the small business chaff. Seriously. I got a boost of self-confidence today from something so small - sending an email!

There you have it, folks. Everyday you can do something to take a step in the direction of increasing your small business’s value. Even on Sick Sunday!