Tricks of the Trade…Product...

[Chrysilla Lewies]

Great Question.

One thing I have learned is to funnel everything to one place: If you use any platform, make sure it directs your clients to your website etc.

[beLoved_julia beLoved_julia]

@Angie_Dollar I’ve just finished taking Marie Forleo’s B-School so I have all kinds of education and resources around this! If you know for sure you want to create programs online, then consider going straight to Kajabi, this is reportedly a great platform for running online programs and I believe also membership or subscriptions sites.

There are an absolute ton of resources out there for free that you can start with, however, if you aren’t ready to build the video platforms. I am personally using Squarespace for my site which integrates nicely with Mailchimp (also using their free level of service and enjoying it – this is for my email newsletter). Squarespace also integrates with an online scheduler, Acuity, so I can have clients schedule a call with me directly from my website.

I am a discerining internet user and had hoped to start moving everything over to more secure platforms when it comes to email, like Protonmail. The disadvantage, however, is that it doesn’t integrate with the other sites I was using. So now I’m back to Google. That said, as dirty as Google’s business model is, everything integrates easily and of course Google Drive is a helpful tool to have. Also Google Calendar is shareable and another feature I use regularly.

And of course what Chrysilla said above: everything needs to funnel into one place. Whatever you do has to drive traffic to your site, period the end. Consider looking beyond Facebook and Instagram as marketing tools however – they are always changing algorithms (and believe me, they don’t care AT ALL about their users or whether their users make business. So your ads may get seen, may not. Don’t be fooled by its popularity).

Hope this helps?! 🙂

[Angie Dollar]

Thanks for the comments. I’ll list
whatever I can think of that I use for the technology side, etc. Maybe someone has
more ideas or better ideas, which would be great:

-Zoom (Skype isn’t as reliable
in my opinion). I just use the same link now, & tell clients to disregard
the time. You don’t have to create a new link for each client. Why take the time
if you don’t have to?

-Acuity Scheduling: I have
this linked on my website so clients can actually self-schedule. If they do pay
then ask about scheduling instead of self-schedule, which most of them do, I
just send the scheduling link. I tell them if they don’t see a time that fits
to let me know. I want them to know they are special and know I can work with
different time zones. I was using the calendar in my website. But it wasn’t
converting for time zones. Acuity does convert. But you have to set it up to
convert. The good thing about the upgrading version of Acuity is that I have a
new client form that goes to them automatically. And I get it back
automatically. They can’t schedule until they fill out the form. I also
included a disclaimer with the form. It’s a simple check here if you agree.

-Doc-u-Sign: I had this until
I figured out I could have a disclaimer included on Acuity. With Acuity, I’m
trying to save time.

godaddy Go Central Website Builder: I bought my first domain name through godaddy
when I was sitting around chatting with a couple friends who own
businesses.

Email Funneling: This is
something I haven’t set up yet. I’m reaching out to current and past clients on
a regular basis. I find my energy clients want to generally sign up for 3
sessions. Some sign up for another 3. So, they are my ongoing people that I get
to know pretty well.

Referrals: I’m getting referrals
from some of my clients. I’m thinking of offering incentives, but haven’t done
that.

To me, I’m all about working
to make the process as automatic as possible so I can spend less time on tech
stuff that can run on it’s own, and more time with clients. I have a part-time
assistant now. I’m wanting to turn all this over to her and just be on the
client end. I do offer her a good bonus for referrals she has sent.

Non-Tech stuff I’m doing: I feel that you never know where you will meet
someone that can help you or you help them. I’ve got two friends who own businesses.
One of them I met in a book group 4 years ago. We meet before the book group
starts about 1-2 times a month to talk about our success and struggles in life
and business. The other friend I met while taking partner dance classes about 8
years ago. I see him about 3-4 times a month for coffee and the same kind of
talk-life and business. These business owners are good for referrals also.

Meetups: I’ve been in and out of
some meet-ups. It becomes a matter of just finding the time to go back to
meet-ups. My target for the right 2 meet-up for me are: 1. A meet-up that has people
open to this kind of work who I can be myself around and/or they are potential
clients. 2. A meet-up for business owners preferably online business owners.

[Roos (Malka) Ahern]

B”H

A note with Acuity. There are additional settings which they have available but are not seen. If there’s something that isn’t working well for you take the time to ask for what you need.

Acuity can be used to schedule one on one meetings and classes/groups plus their email confirmations and reminders are great

Acuity also integrates with Zoom meetings and will automatically generate the links which can be set up to go out in the Acuity email confirmations and reminders.

The problem that I’ve found with using the same Zoom link for multiple appointments is that sometimes the client will sign on early or just be trying things out and it will cause issues with the client you have scheduled. I found that it is better to set Zoom for not allowing the client to join before the host and use a fresh link for each meeting.

Also sometimes people will just use your link for their own purposes. It sounds strange but it happened to me a few times. This is another reason why generating fresh links for each meeting is advisable.

I set Zoom to automatically record each meeting to the cloud, so
that if the connection drops on my end, which does happen from time to
time due to internet bandwidth issues, the recording keeps on going and
doesn’t have to be restarted.

You’ll need to download the recording and send it to trash right away so that you don’t need to pay for extra storage space on Zoom, (which is relatively expensive). But trash holds items for 30 days so you can recover the file if needed.

Zoom does have share links so that you can send the link for your client to download an audio or video recording of their session. But clients don’t necessarily download them right away or just watch it online and then get confused later when they can no longer access the recording. WeSendIt.com is a free program which will upload your recording to their cloud and send your client a link to download it. The link is only usable for 7 days and you receive a notice when the file is downloaded.

Wix is another easy template website builder. It is theme based so you choose a template based on one of their themes, i.e. nature, sports, yoga, business, etc. and then just swap out the pictures and text. They also suggest matching colors, have lots of free images, have many helpful apps which you don’t have to worry about compatibility and is very flexible with lots of room for you to do your own thing. Wix has free and paid versions. Never pay full price for it. There is always another sale just around the corner, usually 50% off. Take the monthly option till the next sale. Like most of these systems, Wix integrates with Acuity, Mail Chimp, YouTube, etc.

A note about recording…

I’ve started asking clients to buy headset which hold the mic in front of or right next to their mouth. The ones with the mic in the wire can sound muffled when the client is lying down with the mic on the chest behind the mouthand speaking softly in a trance.

I’m still looking for super easy programs to do audio and video clips for PCs.

Blessings

[Heather Holm]

For in-person sessions, people often forget or don’t have a USB key (thumb drive) to put their recordings on, which I do on the spot. So I ordered some in bulk from Vistaprint with my name, website and logo printed on them, and sell them at cost, which is $10 Canadian dollars (about $7.50 US dollars).

[Margaret C Quednau]

To: Heather_Holm, You can get the 500 KB or 1GB thumb drives on eBay for a couple dollars. There are some small clear Avery labels #8667 (1/2″ x 1-3/4″) (I paid $19.98 US for a pk of 2,000 a number of years ago.) Avery probably has a template you could download but I use Word to make my labels.

Don’t start your recorder until after the induction. Unless your recorder comes with a program to cut out any unwanted parts, there is a free program called Audacity where you are supposed to be able to edit your recording. There are tutorials on youtube as to how to use it. However, if the recording is just for the client and you are not publishing it online why would you want to take anything out? If the client wants to keep parts private from anyone, let him deal with it.
These are just suggestions I hope you are not offended. I am always trying to help people save money.
Can you tell me how to post my photo? I have no idea how to do it since I didn’t do it originally.
Love and Light to you!
Margaret_Quednau in southern Michigan