Date: May 27, 2009

Why is it that success comes so easily for some businesses and is such an uphill battle for others? Those who are making it know the secret - the money is in the system! Find out how you can find the money, free time and prestige hiding in your’s client’s business.

All successful businesses have one thing in common; they have business practices in place that:

• reduce errors
• bring in business
• save money

Good business processes and systems aren’t just for the Fortune 500 companies. Small businesses must also have business systems in place to effectively grow and stay focused on what matters – INCREASING PROFITS! Yet, so many small businesses skip over the crucial step of creating systems and processes (and suffer for it).

This is where the Online Business Manager comes in, helping to build and implement the processes our clients need to make more money, save time, and free up resources to focus on continued business growth.

Our guest expert for this Member-Only call was Beth Schneider, President and CEO of Process Prodigy. Beth is a highly sought after, internationally known systems expert. She works with small business owners, showing them how to streamline their business so they can work less, make more money and create Outrageously Effective Systems in their own business. Her client list reads like a who’s who of the small business world because of the results produced. Her clients have seen remarkable growth, increasing productivity by as much as 600% and revenues by as much as 250%.

Audio Recording (60 mins) | Click Here for MP3

Want  some ‘ready to use’ systems? Check out the Outrageously Effective Systems Club and get instant access to 3 key systems plus a new system each month - systems made easy, love that. Go to: www.obmconnect.com/processprodigy

I just had to ditto this post by Seth Godin last week - A clean sheet of paper. It’s a must read… go ahead, read it now.

This is so very very true! I’ve seen it time and again… business owners struggling and complaining that they aren’t getting what they want. When in reality, they haven’t defined the parameters of what they want in the first place.

One of my favorite questions when a coaching client tells me that they want a new website is to ask them:

“Great - what action do you want people to take when they visit your site?”

Seems like such an obvious question, and yet many times they have no clue what the answer is. And so we work together to figure that out first before they get anywhere near hiring a web designer to start on the site. Otherwise it can be REALLY easy to go down the road of spending loads of money to get something that isn’t going to serve their business.

And I can tell you from the perspective of someone who has worked as an online support professional for years now… it can be really frustrating to not get clear direction up front. Nine times out of ten the client will end up dissatisfied or even upset! So for all of us on the ‘providing services’ side of the coin - if you aren’t clear on what someone wants dig a bit deeper, insist that they get specific and if they can’t that suggests to me that they aren’t yet ready to hire you (or anyone) at this point.

Don’t assume that the business owner ‘knows what they want’ because they might not. Don’t assume that they want what ‘you have to offer’ as it may be way off track. And don’t be afraid to turn down business and suggest that they figure it out before you can start working with them - less headaches for all concerned and really, that is part of being a professional imo.

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Company: My Creative Assistant Website: www.mycreativeassistant.com Phone #: 705-422-1032 Location: Wasaga Beach, ON Canada Time Zone: Eastern

My Experience, I am an: Experienced OBM - currently working in this capacity for 1 or more clients

My Client Intake status is: Full - not taking new clients at this time

Ive been working online since: Since 2001, My Creative Assistant has been offering services to help professionals better concentrate on the work they love and do best. We are a professional organization which quickly integrates to become part of your team. We are delighted in sharing in your successes and are fast to assist in the event of a crunch.

Bottom line, we care about our clients and wish to help them excel in their pursuits.

Our ideal clients are business coaches, authors, speakers and internet marketers who:

are committed to success.

- are not afraid of change and new systems.
- are collaborative in nature.
- are motivated.
- are willing to try new things and let go of old systems that are ineffective.
- are able to trust the expert. Micro-managing is just plain ineffective.
- have already found success and enjoy a financially healthy business.

We provide marketing, technical, design and back end support services, as well as strategic consulting.

A sure sign of being a geek is when finding a new system just makes you want to sing out loud in glee! I will admit that I am a geek, and have recently ’sung out loud’ about the (relatively) new membership management system Wishlist Member.

We’ve been using Wordpress to manage our membership sites for years now - basically just piecing together some stuff in the blog to make it work. Well Wishlist Member takes a regular Wordpress blogsite and turns it into a full fledged membership system. Tres cool!

What makes it so great? Let me share a few of my favorite things…

• As per any great membership system, it allows you to setup separate login accounts for each member vs. doing the ‘one login for all’. So you can give/remove access for people as they come and go in your membership. REALLY important.
• It connects to the 1ShoppingCart system - so people can automatically get access to your membership site when they join the membership vs. having to load them manually. And it will also remove access for people who fall behind on payments.
• You can email members direct from this system - which I love! It’s super quick and easy to send messages to members vs. sending through the cart (which can be slow at times).
• You can have more than one level of membership setup in the same Wordpress blog. So people will get access only to the stuff that applies to them, and not those areas that they aren’t a member of. This really opens up some pretty cool opps for expanding membership offerings!
• It’s really easy to add a nice ‘login’ box in the sidebar of the blog. Makes the site looks so professional and is of course easy for folks to know how to login to the site (which can be surprisingly hard to find on some sites.)

Want to see a sample of Wishlist Member in action? We recently implemented Wishlist for the Thomas Leonard Success Strategies program - click here to check it out. Unless you are a member you won’t be able to access the material of course, but you can see the overall flow/layout of this membership site.

There are many other cool features in this system beyond my favs, go to the Wishlist Member site to learn more.

Want to learn how to use Wishlist? Or get someone on your team up to speed?

 We are offering a brand new course for VAs and online support professionals on how to manage memberships using Wishlist Member. Be sure to check it out - early bird registration is in effect until May 29th ($100 savings).

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My Experience, I am an: Aspiring OBM - just getting started

My Client Intake status is: Full - not taking new clients at this time

Ive been working online since: I established my virtual assistant practice, Coast2Coast Business Support Solutions, after 15 years of working with people, helping them use computers to be more productive in their day-to-day work.

Most virtual assistant businesses are born in the home office, out of a computer, knowledge of a particular market, and a burning desire to help that market while working from home. People are sometimes surprised to hear that I really enjoyed my career as an information technology specialist, and my children were very happy going to their daycare center for stories, arts and crafts and playtime. I had no intention of leaving my job to work at home.

No, instead something happened that happens to most military families; in July 2005, we got orders to move. I am originally from Southern California, where I had lived my entire life, when my husband received orders to North Carolina. My research quickly revealed that even though I had 20 years of office experience, a Microsoft certification, there simply were no well-suited jobs for me.

That summer, the movie "Robots" came out; a cute family movie about Rodney Copperbottom, an idealistic robot inventor. To foil the plans of an evil inventor, Rodney applies the philosophy of "find a need and fill a need," and succeeds in bringing his robot friends together to save Robot City.

More than being one of the basic principles of business, this phrase goes right to the heart of what a virtual assistant does and how I came to be one. Before my career as an information technology specialist, I was a secretary and a word processor. While most of my colleagues lived and breathed computers, my passion and expertise for paperwork, data entry, and report formatting brought in excellent money and rewards. Rather than doing what everyone else did, I carved out a specialty and filled that need.

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