June 2010

Member Event: Building Your OBM Brand

by Tina Forsyth on June 25, 2010

Date: Tuesday, July 20th at 10am pacific / 1pm eastern

Do you stand out from your competition? Do you have a unique branding and positioning platform that attracts prospects to you? Are you implementing PR and marketing strategies to build your brand and business? Or are you just “yet another” OBM business, that is lost in a sea of similar offerings, hoping clients will choose you? In this teleseminar you’ll learn branding, marketing and PR strategies to ramp your business and generate the revenue you desire.

In this info packed one-hour teleseminar you’ll learn:

  • What IS branding (and ISN’T)?
  • How to translate your brand to all the written, verbal, and visual communication you develop
  • What are the key components of a good Press Release?
  • Where can you deploy your Press Release online?
  • How can you optimize your Press Release so it gets found in online searches?
  • How can you approach the media with specific topics to generate interview requests?
  • How often should you contact the media and what should you be saying to them?
  • How can you write articles, and where can you deploy them, to get more exposure for your brand?
  • What are some social media tips/strategies and useful resources you can use to generate clients and awareness for your business?

Lisa Orrell, The Promote U Guru: Lisa is an in-demand Branding Expert, Marketing Consultant and Business Coach, who works with small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, entertainers, speakers and authors. She has 20 years of experience and has received over 75 national and international awards for marketing excellence. Plus, Lisa is also the author of 3 books and a professional speaker. Based on her expertise, she has been interviewed by, or written for, (partial list): ABC, MSNBC, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, NY Times, TIME, BNET.com, WomenEntrepreneur.com, and countless others! To learn more about Lisa visit: www.PromoteUGuru.com. Follow her blog, and join her online (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) by visiting her main website!

IAOBM Members: You can access the recording for this call in the Member Area. If you are not an IAOBM member yet, find out more about IAOBM Membership Benefits by clicking here: http://www.obmconnect.com/membership-benefits

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The Stop Settling Manifesto – get your copy

by Tina Forsyth on June 15, 2010

Grab Your Copy Now:

In this short (I promise!) report I cover a few key things that you need to know in order to create the best virtual support team for you and your business, including:

  • the one thing that is hurting most business owners who are struggling with their team (and it’s not what you might think!)
  • the hiring approach that I see many business owners doing (and which is almost guaranteed to fail)
  • a formula for ensuring you create a successful team (just two simple things)
  • how being an ostrich or a control freak can stiffle your team (and subsequently your business success!)
  • the ONE question that you need to ask in order to know if you have the right team in place

Go ahead and grab your copy at the link above, and be sure to let me know what you think!

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How to Respond to RFPs so Clients Take Notice

by Tina Forsyth on June 15, 2010

Date: Tuesday, June 15th at 9:00am pacific / noon eastern

A Request for Proposal (RFP) comes in from what appears to be your perfect client.   You ARE the best candidate for the role.  You’re eager to capture their attention.

So how do you respond?  How much information do you include?  What details are a MUST to include?  Do you include your rates?  What about a resume?

We’ve seen our share of RFP responses and sadly, we’ve seen some responses from fantastic virtual professionals (like yourself) who are short-selling themselves for what could be a perfect opportunity.

Frankly, we’re tired of seeing you short-sell your talents and we want to help YOU demonstrate the expert you are to the business owners you want to work with.    That’s why we’ve decided to host this call – to share the do’s and don’ts of responding to RFPs.

In this call we’ll discuss:

  • Specifics to look for in an RFP (to help you determine whether it’s even worth responding to)
  • Top 5 details to include in your response to a RFP
  • What to NEVER include your RFP response
  • The #1 reason biz owners will immediately delete your RFP response without further consideration

Cindy Greenway is the author of Virtually Successful: 8 Simple Ways for Virtual Assistants to Find (and Keep) Clients and Co-founder and Lead Trainer of Hot Skills VA Training. Since the start of her VA business in 2003, she has worked with highly respected and successful online-based businesses and now focuses her time on training and mentoring virtual professionals as well as supporting the growth of the industry by educating the business community.

Audio Recording (60 mins) | Click Here for MP3

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Make Up your Own Mind Will Ya!

by Tina Forsyth on June 11, 2010



I said to my husband last night that if I’ve learned anything in the past few months of transition and growth in my business it’s this:

Everyone has an opinion AND I still have to make up my own mind

This actually hit me pretty strong over the past couple of weeks. I’ve been working on a project that is near and dear to my heart for some time now – and throughout the creative process of bringing this project to life there have of course been various decisions to make along the way. Everything from who it is for, what to include/not include, what to call it, how to launch it, etc.

At each stage along the way I found myself wondering “what is the right answer here?” or “what should I do?” And then I found myself getting stressed trying to answer questions from that perspective – trying to be “right” or doing what I “should” is alot to put on my shoulders! (and yes, wanting to be right is a thing of mine… that whole control freak thing ya know ;) .

If I’m trying to be right or do what I should I’m looking outside of myself for the answers… and that is a recipe for insanity for the simple fact that everyone has an opinion and all of them will be different. I’ve heard it said before “if you try to please everyone you please no one.”

And then it hit me about a week or so ago when I was trying to sort through a bunch of ideas, thoughts and recommendations from different people…

What did I WANT to do here?

As soon as I had this thought it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders… I had been ignoring what I actually wanted for me, my business and my clients. I was forgetting what I love to do, what I like and (more importantly) what I don’t like. I was trying to fit myself into a mold of what other people do vs. considering what I want to do!

And then it became fun – instead of trying to figure out the right/should thing I just approached it instead from “if this was totally up to me what would I do here?” (and of course it was totally up to me the whole time but i just forgot..) I felt like a kid in a candy store – I really like this, would LOVE to do that, not so interested in doing that part so let’s not bother, etc. And clicketly-click, a bunch of stuff that I had been stuck in came together beautifully and I was able to finally move forward on some stuff. Go figure.

Now it’s not to say that I don’t want to consider other people’s ideas and opinions… as I know there is always tonnes of value in what other people have done and been successful with. But I think for me I was ultimately trying to find ‘the one big answer’ out there and everything I was coming across didn’t fit 100% for me. So I had to take bits and pieces of what everyone was sharing and create something that works for me and I’m excited about.

And so I did… you’ll be finding out more about all that soon. ;)

Oh, and one last thought… don’t confuse being afraid to do something with it not being the best thing for you to do. There is a difference between something that truly doesn’t fit you and your business vs. something that you know in your gut you need to do but are afraid of doing. Avoiding those things won’t serve your business so you may just need to buck up and face it.

Comments, thoughts?

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It’s Finally Here! The Perfect SEO Copywriting Course for OBMs

by Tina Forsyth on June 10, 2010



Would you like to learn how to “Write a Site” – for you or your clients – in just 30 days?

My friend and colleague, Marketing Strategist Karri Flatla has created the SEO Copywriting Course and it starts June 22nd.

I’ve been bugging Karri to offer a course like this forever, and I guess she finally gave in <wink>. If you’ve always wanted to help your clients with their web copy, you really can’t afford to miss this one. Web copywriting skills are in HIGH demand; yet very few online support professionals are offering copywriting to their clients.

Now you can add “Copy Doctor” to your portfolio! And add another revenue stream for yourself in offering this skillset.

The great thing is that you don’t have to be a “great writer” to write a website that SELLS. In this webinar-based course, Karri is going to teach you how to write search engine optimized web copy easily and quickly.

In just one month you could have that website copywriting project FINISHED.

Click here to register for Karri’s SEO Copywriting Course. The first class is June 22nd.

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New Job Board for OBMs, VAs, etc… you are invited

by Tina Forsyth on June 7, 2010



This one has been brewing for a while now, something that is near and dear to my heart.

Check out the video here on this page:
http://www.thrivehiringsystem.com/hire/

We will be blasting this out to the world later this week, would love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to comment here or pop me an email at tina [at] onlinebusinessmanager.com … this one is a biggie. :)

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Lights, camera, action…

by Tina Forsyth on June 6, 2010



Here’s a snippet of the presentation I did for Andrea Lee’s Wealthy Thought Leader event this past March – my topic as the 5 W’s of Online Business Management.

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5 Points of Family & Biz Balance

by Tina Forsyth on June 2, 2010

article by Tiffany Johnson of Vasppro.com

Please enjoy this article I wrote while traveling on a family vacation last month. Just a simple reminder of how we can get a bit out of balance if we are not careful and intentional ~ Tiffany Johnson

Literally as I am writing this article I am in the car driving with my family to our vacation week in Florida! Few experiences are more amusing than locking yourself up in a car for 9 hours with a 9 yr old and a 12 yr old (hubby too, of course). Currently a very competitive game of I-spy is keeping the 3 of them entertained as I take a moment to share with you something I have recently been struggling with in my OBM business.

Of course, I am sure having just explained the reality of my surroundings you can guess my dilemma? If balance between family and biz was your first thought you were so RIGHT!

I love being a business owner; specifically, I love the service I offer as an online business manager. Unfortunately my passion and love for this industry and my services are beginning to wane due to what is starting to feel like choices of sacrifices I am really not willing to make.

As an OBM it is just in my nature to get things done, take care of the to do’s and make sure the balls are going in the direction they are supposed to be in… specifically, not ending up on the floor! But what do you do when you look around and realize the balls that are getting dropped aren’t the ones your clients have tossed in the air but instead the ones your kids, hubby, church, or friends are tossing around.

All of a sudden I look around and there is a mass of laundry desperately needing my attention, my daughter is talking about her new best friend (and the only name I remember is her ‘old’ best friend), and my son just wore the same pair of shorts to school 2 days in a role! Trust me when I say I am completely embarrassed to be sharing this with you… but at the same time feel I am not the only one, so I am hoping this can be an encouragement to other devoted business owners who have to make the hard choices!

(Daughter just asked hubby “what if we run into a tornado”… my husband replied “I would just outrun it!” The good news is if you are reading this article means all is well and we did not have to play chicken with a tornado!… sorry I just had to add that. ;-) )

Okay, where was I? Ah yes, devoted business owners have to make hard choices. So when is enough, enough? And too much, is simply too much? Well, to be honest I wish I had an answer to that… I believe each us have to determine those answers for ourselves. But I wanted to share with you my 5 point balancing commitment:

  1. Take time out daily to pray and meditate so that I can BE, with all of me in every moment. Full of purpose, passion and persistence! This is where I find the source hope for the to do’s of my day!
  2. Plan and work a manageable schedule that includes reasonable work hours, family quality time, and household chores (which admittedly I do not LOVE and tend to procrastinate!).
  3. Forgive myself for all the ways I wasn’t “Super OBM, Super Woman, Super Mom, Super Wife, well… just not super!”
  4. Take time in the evenings to lay out the next day’s activities – 15 minutes today will save an hour tomorrow (if you fail to plan you plan to fail ;-) ).
  5. Live with absolute gratitude for the blessings and favor I have in my life, my faith, my family, my biz and my health!

In closing I am challenging each of you to assess your priorities. Determine what is needed for the balance of your life and be faithful to the commitment you make to yourself to see it fulfilled. I believe in you! I believe in me and I know we will give an amazing industry greater service when we serve ourselves authentically this way.

Comments, thoughts?

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