Management. Effective. Adeea R. Rogers, The Trendy Socialite

Transcription

1 Effective Management In this wee-book, discover tips and techniques to help you effectively manage your inbox without it managing you! Adeea R. Rogers, The Trendy Socialite

2 Brand Your Auto Reply 4 Ways to Connect with Audience and Increase Web Traffic I am not a huge fan of auto reply messages when I send s to people. And it s for two primary reasons 1. It s stating the obvious (to me). I assume you re going to respond to me in a day or two 2. It s another I have to delete auto reply messages are designed to let people know if it s not business as usual. For instance, you should use an auto reply message if you re out of town or unavailable for a long period of time. Auto replies are also effective if because of the volume of s you receive, it may take longer than 48 hours for you to respond. However, if you are going to have an autoreply message for your business address, then use that message as an opportunity to get people to connect to your brand or to share more pertinent information. Here are some things you can use to connect people with your brand in your auto reply message. Invite people to sign up for your list Share links to your most popular blog posts, products or videos Share information on other ways they can connect with you Share other addresses that may need to contact instead (i.e., customerservice@ or info@ or sponsorships@) Small tweaks like this will capitalize on every touch point potential customers and clients have to connect on a deeper level with you and your brand.

3 4 Ways to Improve Your Management Manage your inbox in a friendly, yet effective way For those of us who conduct business online, is a necessary part of our daily lives. A lot of productivity gurus believe there are a lot of time wasters and distractions in our inbox which is true. But, for some of us, part of our income lies in our inbox. I think effective management is absolutely necessary and can be done in a way that is customer service friendly yet provides you with the freedom to actually WORK within our businesses. At the end of the year, I try to do a Operation Zero Inbox Initiative. I try to deal with an eliminate my s as close to zero as I can by the end of the year so that I begin the new year with a clean inbox it sounds really good in theory right (smile)? If you re not sure how to manage your inbox to get toward a zero inbox, try the 4 D s of Decision Making Model. In essence, you do one of the 4 things below with every in your inbox: Delete It. Which is probably what we can do with most of our s once they are read. If it s an from a listserv, the most important question to ask yourself is, Is this list adding value to my life or the life of my brand? If it s not, not only should you delete it, but you should remove yourself from the mailing list. If you spend every day, deleting that (especially without reading it) then you might as well delete your name from the list. Do It. If it can be done in under two minutes. Delegate It. If you have someone to delegate a task to, by all means, DELEGATE AWAY! Most of us that run businesses (or have side hustles) are a team of 2 or less, so this isn t always an option. But you can also look at it as a task that maybe you can outsource to someone else. There are several places online where you can find short term, or gig related people to do various tasks. Defer It. If it s something that needs to be done, but you can t do it right away, I would flag it for follow up and add it to your to-do list with a due date.

4 As you begin processing your s, notice any patterns that may develop. Are you answering the same types of questions repeatedly? Then it may be a worthwhile task to create some autoresponders or draft s that you can either automatically reply or copy and paste into an . Gmail has created a feature called, Canned Responses which is a close cousin to autoresponders. How it works is you can send a pre-written response to an with perhpas only minor tweaks for personalization. You can create the responses and save them as a canned response and give it a title. When you want to insert a canned response, all you have to do is go under More Options and Canned Responses and insert the response you d like to receive. This feature, should cut down your response time significantly! Another type of autoresponder to consider, is one to advise people as to when you will check s. Tim Ferris, author of the 4 Hour Workweek, is a huge fan of this! Here is an example you can use: Greetings, Friends [or Esteemed Colleagues], Due to high workload, I am currently checking and responding to twice daily at 12: 00 P.M. ET [or your time zone] and 4: 00 P.M. ET. If you require urgent assistance (please ensure it is urgent) that cannot wait until either 12: 00 P.M. or 4: 00 P.M., please contact me on my cell phone. Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness. It helps me accomplish more to serve you better. Sincerely, [Your name] It is up to you as to whether or not you give out your cell phone number (or your Google Voice number). For me, the only people that I really want calling me are the ones who already have my cell phone number or ones I gave it to in an . Also don t lose the chance to connect people more with your brand in your autoresponse. An even more advanced way to set up autoresponders is to set up an autoresponder to forms on your website. When you set up forms, you can give it a specific subject. You can set up a rule or filter on your client mangement side (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) to send back a certain response based on that subject. For instance, if someone completes a form requesting you to appear at an event, you can send back an with your media kit and link to a calendar to set up an appointment with you or someone from your team to discuss the event in further detail.

5 Keep Project Management and To-Do Lists Open while checking While I am checking , I keep programs like Asana and my To-do list open so that I can add necessary tasks to my to do list when necessary. If there is a task that I think of related to an I m reading, I will jot it down so I don t lose it. If I need to do a task and attach it to the , then I will either flag the for followup or save it in a place where I can retrieve it later. Use my Management System: Spend 2 days a week dealing with 30% of your inbox and another 4 days dealing with 10% each day. This may not always get you to a zero inbox, but it will keep your s at a manageable level. Set up a time to read non-business related s. I do not advocate never checking or reading non-business related s. We want to shop, laugh, read s from relevant listservs, catch up with others, etc. So set up a time daily that you can do that. It s ok, doing so does not make you less productive in my opinion. Honestly, I d rather read an in my inbox than go on someone s website to read it where I have the tendency to become even more distracted and click on random things that s how I tend to waste more time. But if it s a specific in my inbox, I can read it and move on to the next item.

6 BUILD YOUR LIST *In my Sophia from The Golden Girls voice Picture it December 30, 2013 around 11:30 PM I am sitting on the same sofa I ve been stuck to since 4 PM that same day working on initiatives related to igrind Naturally and my website. I was winding down when I decided to share some events I am planning with a well-known website that promotes events in my particular niche. After I submitted 3 of them, I close up shop for the evening. While checking my from my phone before turning in for the evening, I notice I received an from the site owner. I didn t think about it at first because I assumed it was an auto responder that my event had posted. When I opened the , fully expecting to delete it, it was actually an from the site owner asking for clarification on my event as she did not think it fit in the mission of her niche site. I did my best to explain how I felt my event served the people who submitted events to her site. I received an back that stated she was sorry but would not post my event to her site because it did not directly align with her vision for the site. I was obviously disappointed, so I did a little digging. There were two events listed on her site that did not directly align with the vision for her site. I pointed that out to her and stated that all I wanted was an equitable application of the mission to all events. But alas, my words did not sway her decision. I admit, at this point I was really frustrated. So I started thinking, What can I do? I felt helpless and a little discouraged (I feel pretty deeply sometimes smile). Then I was reminded of my recent coaching call with Montina Sparkwisdom Portis. There were MANY nuggets she gave me in the call, but the nugget that has forever changed my approach to my brand forever

7 Do You Want to Be Popular or Profitable? I always ask myself what I m supposed to learn from a particular experience especially one that involves disappointment. The lesson in this particular course of events are: Do not rely heavily on the audience of others to promote your events, products or platform: I am not advocating to not cross promote or ask others to help you promote your events to their networks. After all, this community is built on reciprocity. I often share or repost events planned by people in my network. But what this situation taught me was that avenues outside of my own community should not be my primary means of advertising. Build your list and thereby build your community and expand your platform! Heretofore, I have not always been strategic or deliberate in building my list. It was mostly an afterthought that I would do when I wanted something to post to Instagram (smile). Had I been more focused on building my list, I would have had an audience that could support and even share my content with others. My niche isn t everyone else s niche: Thanks to Jonna (@naturallyglam on IG and my guest at igrind Coffee Chat in Newport News, VA) for helping me see this as I was writing this post. I encourage others to be laser focused and that every customer isn t their customer. Well, I learned today that this particular type of events wasn t part of her niche. But my niche is and so is yours. When we build our list of people that WANT to be connected to us because of the connection and content we create, then I believe we will see a market increase in our engagement and conversion. So I have now become a believer! A convert! I have rededicated my efforts to BUILD MY LIST! And I want to push you to do the same.

8 When you build your list, you increase Your Community:My coach, Montina, many of the brands I follow and MANY other successful social media and information marketers rarely post their events or products on someone elses s site. Their own community is so large and loyal that not only will they respond to a CTA (call to action) but they will encourage their audience to do so as well (sometimes without provocation). That is because they have been deliberate about building an authentic and consistent connection with their audience. My challenge to you: plan to send at least one a week of VALUABLE CONTENT to your community. Valuable content is not an event advertisement or a product. I am challenging myself to this standard as much as I am challenging you (smile). Your Conversion: I ve learned a few things while planning the igrind Coffee Chats. 1) I have more of a reach outside of community than I do locally (one of my goals for 2014 is to connect more locally) 2) Because of the connections that I (and my special igring Coffee Chat guests) have with our communities, people respond relatively quickly to our CTAs. Had I had a larger list of followers (not just fans there is a difference) I m sure all the events would have filled up quickly. The ultimate goal of your list is to convert them from not just being readers of your s, but also doers. That doing does NOT always have to equate to direct sales. It could be sharing your post with others, watching a video, following you online or answering a question you pose at the end of a video or blog post. My challenge to you: For one month, add at least one CTA to your . On your social media platforms, add a CTA at least 3-4 times a week. Your Credibility: I have friends, subscribers and followers who seek me out when they have a question or need guidance on something. This ranges from natural hair products to the best books to read on leadership. That is because I have credibility in their eyes. I am never short on opinions (I bet some of you wish I was sometimes LOL) and use my platforms to share them. Does that mean I have education or training in everything I talk about? Not at all. But YouTube and the blogosphere are two PERFECT examples of how people have build their credibility, platforms and expertise and thereby their lists and audience without always being trained experts in their niche. I was talking to a person I mentor today and they stated that they were going to wait until they graduated to start sharing information they have learned. I told them that not having a diploma has never stopped some people (including me) on talking about subjects they are not trained in (smile). I shared with them that they would start to see some shift in their audience interaction and conversion (to sales in this case) as they began to share their expertise with their audience. They would begin to be viewed as not just a person that sells a product, but a trusted EXPERT on how to use that product in order to solve their issue (which is really what experts do solve problems and answer questions). My challenge to you: How can you begin to share your expertise with others? Find at least one way you can solve someone s problem or answer their question. When you re online, answer at least 3-4 questions a week that you see someone post. Or use those questions as inspiration for a blog post or a video. Ex: If you see someone post about natural hair dryness, it may be a good time to post (or repost) a blog or video with your moisture balance regimen.

9 BUILDING YOUR LIST The best practice when it comes to list building for most is to have some sort of opt-in offer. An opt-in offer answers the what s in it for me? most potential audience members will have about joining your list. I must admit I don t have an opt-in offer yet. I have struggled for weeks on what it could be, because I want it to be worth the person s while! In this scenario, I m going to ask that you do as I say, and not as I do (smile). So start thinking about creating some things you can offer to people ON your list and as an incentive to JOIN your list. Here are a couple of examples for you: A video (hair style, fashion, regimen, recipe, fitness tips, etc. that is NOT public on your channel) A tip sheet (Ex: Top 10 ingredients to have in your kitchen cabinet to cook almost any meal) A contest (They have to go to your website landing page and join your list) Product Discount (only available to those on your list) Early bird registration to an event (perhaps with a discount code) My challenge to you is to Increase your list 25% by June, 2014 Double your list by year end 2014 As Ed McMahon always said at the end of Star Search, Shoot for the moon. And even if you miss, you ll be among the stars! Thank you for reading!!! Let me know if you have any questions or comments: thetrendysocialite@gmail.com Connect with