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Back by popular demand: 23 tips for Quality Podcasting [Pt. 2]

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You asked for it. We heard you.

In Part 1, we explained how the most competitive entrepreneurs of small businesses can easily produce high-quality podcasts & content. Their social media presence is managed at a full-time capacity.

As requested, we’re continuing our tips to help you outshine competitors. (Also stay tuned…next week we’re dropping a BIG podcast strategy resource.)

Here are our top 23 tips for launching a quality podcast.

Virtual Assistants are up to 70% less than the cost of a traditional employee and will work for you on a full-time basis. Virtual Assistants are the powerhouse behind quality podcasts, webinars, Youtube videos, Tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram photos, and Linkedin articles.

If you want to launch a high-quality podcast, but need to protect your valued time … you can launch your podcast and upgrade your online presence with a MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant

 

Top talent Virtual Assistants bring you a huge return on investment.
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𝗘𝗮𝘀𝘆 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 for Strategic Business Success & understand the CARES Act: 

 

 

1) Quality matters

There are too many shows out there today for mediocre work to stand out. Maintain high quality with a dedicated production process, combined with the rest of the following tips!

 

2) Give your podcast a format

Like watching any morning live show or night show (like The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon), there are patterns and regular “segments.” People need this stuff, they need the structure.

 

3) Energy REALLY matters

Experiment by not talking like you would normally talk … rather you have to be a caricature of yourself. Build a marketable voice and persona, otherwise, you’ll sound like NPR announcing Mozart’s 3rd Symphony (not that there’s anything wrong with that). A profitable podcast needs a profitable voice)

 

Check out the MyOutDesk’s ‘Scale The Podcast’

 

4) Commit to doing a regular show

minimum of 1x per week. Never miss a release ever. People need rhythm in their life

 

5) Plan on doing this for a year with no listeners

To set expectations, it takes quality – AND- quantity to gain traction and credibility. Low viewership is common, but it starts to build slowly but surely as you build more episodes. When your content is piquing interest and utilizes optimal tags and search terms, you will start gaining more traction

 

6) Don’t “wander” around the interview, looking for buried gold in the guests’ story

Instead, discover the gold ahead of time in a pre-interview, then “uncover it” during the convo. It’s common to do pre-interviews and also to ask for “tickler” questions so that both parties are amply prepared during the recording session.

 

7) Get an amazing cover art

Don’t do it yourself. Graphic design and marketing professionals are 70% the cost of a traditional employee and ready for interviewing from MyOutdesk Virtual Assistants.

 

8) It’s not about you, it’s about the audience!

Always remember — the audience doesn’t care about you. All they care about is themselves. Always angle the content around what matters to them, or else you won’t have any listeners. Everything about them!

 

 

9) Be part of the traveling troupe

Plan and arrange to appear regularly on lots of other shows to get people to listen to yours.

 

10) Don’t be boring

Provide not only substance but entertainment. People aren’t looking to be spoken at, but rather engaged to find a deeper understanding of a certain interest. You need to hold their hand in a fun way to learn and ultimately a sale.

 

11) see number 10

It’s that important.

 

12) Don’t do long intro music

No one likes it. Short and upbeat. This is not a TV show, but a digestible podcast. If you lose their interest, they will press skip.

 

13) Ask for ratings and reviews, quickly, every single episode

In your segment transition or outro, when you know that the listener’s appetite is full and content. Ask quickly for their rating. Explain that reviews help keep high-quality content running.

 

14) Look for authors who are about to release books

When authors have something to promote, that’s the best time to gain big guests. The same goes for any professional prompting a big project (actors, politicians, etc.).

 

15) Launch big.

A big launch can carry you far. Have a few episodes published for the launch. You can also create a “pilot” clip that is a short intro episode that teases the first few shows.

 

16) Don’t talk too much if you’re interviewing

People want to know the guest’s story, not your opinion. As a podcaster, we see this mistake a lot (and probably make this mistake too much).

 

17) Never read a script

Don’t read anything. It’ll never sound natural. Talking points are fine, not sentences to recite.

 

18) Use Zoom to record interviews

Zoom is a great platform to record both audio and visual content. You’ll be able to purpose one interview into a live webinar, podcast, any noteworthy screenshot, video clips, and audio clips.

 

 

19) Record video and put it out on YouTube

There’s no reason not to. You’re recording anyway, so it’s no extra work.

 

20) Consider recording videos with your phone instead of your webcam

For those on a budget, a smartphone camera may have a better quality video than your laptop’s webcam. So use your phone’s camera for the editing, while using your laptop camera for broadcasting to your interviewee. Then, mix the video with the recorded audio on Zoom. The results reveal a big difference, but it is a lot of work, so this is totally optional.

 

Even better, use a DSLR camera (but now you’re talking about a pretty advanced operation).

 

21) Don’t use Zoom’s green screen backgrounds

The rendered picture makes it too cheesy. Instead, buy a cool paper canvas background on Amazon for $50. It’s simpler, and looks way better!

 

22) Good lighting

Lighting matters if you are expecting to publish your video. Get a good-size ring light (easily found on Amazon) or some other good lighting.

 

23) Edit out the boring stuff

People will turn off the episode and will never listen to another one again. Take this as a fair warning: edit out the clutter and the crud.

 

24) Turn quotes into image cards for FB & IG

During the editing process, allow the production team to note any highlights and pull those quotes into nice, marketable visuals.

 

25) Have fun!

Last but not least. :) High quality comes with a great mood.

Top talent Virtual Assistants bring you a huge return on investment.
Claim a free business strategy consultation today!

 

Thrive with MyOutDesk, your partner in the remote workplace serving 6,000 clients. Last year, we saved our clients $55 million as the highest-rated virtual assistant company with more than 500 verified 5-star business reviews.

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12 Types of Prospects You Can Win in 12 Days with a Virtual Assistant

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Let’s talk prospecting: the vital job that every salesperson loves to hate. You might try passive lead generation, or even buying leads to get around it — but you’ve still got to call them, so you’re still making tons of calls.

This is where this article can help. Prospecting can become more productive when you equip yourself with understanding how identity more opportunities in your prospecting. If you concentrate on one of these 12 types of prospects per day, you will take your business to greater heights!

If you can’t find the time to do the prospecting & keep your revenue up, hire a full-time experienced Prospecting Virtual Assistant. MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs.

Book a free Business Strategy Call right now & learn out how you can grow your business and gain more leverage!

 

 

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1. The Deal Seeker

This prospect knows what you are offering, and they will respond when they know “the deal.” This is where you can offer a small promotion to entice them, and then add one more to stack on top during your call to reel them in!

2. Knows Your Product

This prospect knows what you are selling, but they aren’t sure if it’s right for them. Offer them strategies, industry knowledge, numbers, facts, and figures. The more stay can relate to your product, the closer you are to the sale.

3. Knows Their Solution

Your prospect is aware of the result that they want, but not aware that your product can provide their intended solution. Envision this result with them, and backtrack on the steps it takes to get there. Let them visualize how they need your product.

4. Knows Their Problem

This prospect is aware that they have a problem but doesn’t know that there’s a solution. Understand this persona, and it’ll be easy to research who matches the profile. Prepare a personable script to introduce to them the solution that they did know that they NEEDED. Offer to be their strategic problem-solver.

5. Completely Unaware

This prospect has no knowledge of their problems, solutions, or product. These types of businesses can be often labeled as old-fashioned, and all it takes is to have a conversation on their level. Perhaps let them reminisce the glory days, and show them how it isn’t too late to find the same comfort in your product.

6. Long-time Lead

Look, most people are working from home and are looking for a connection in these times. We all know leads need to be nurtured. Make a list of all that you’ve nurtured so far, but have not yet made the purchase. You can even back-track to as soon as yesterday’s list. Now is a great time to engage them in conversation.

 

Free Thrive Guide + Strategy Consultation

7. The Warm & Familiar

These are the friends and acquaintances who you know and they know you by name. Call them up and ask they can use your product or service at this time. A simple casual conversation. Even if they say no, you can always ask if they know of anybody who might be interested.

8. Re-Engaged Customers

From a spreadsheet or CRM, you can find every customer that your company has sold to in the past. You can also add to the list by asking yourself and colleagues of any persons or businesses they had a good customer relationship with during a previous role.

9. Your Current Clients, Vendors & Customers

Reflect on every person that you do business with. Make a list and have a conversation with all of them. Even if the nature of the relationship is not one for doing sales, opportunities still exist in all conversations. Check-in with them, ask how they’re doing, let them know how your business is doing, and seek opportunities. Maybe they’re a new collaboration project, a referral, or a new sell from an existing connection! 

10. Professional Networks

Have you identified all the industries and sub-sectors that you serve? Think about all your happy clients who are able to put a good word in for you as you tap into their professional networks. Look for new contacts and names in those networks and build a testimonial portfolio of all your previous relatable success stories.

11. Family Orbit

Reflect on those tied to your family, close friends, and past relationships. This can be a relative you haven’t seen in years or their best friends. You need to make a list of those within your family and close friend orbit. These are already warm calls and, at the same time, it’s great to stay connected with your community. Continue down the list to friends from church, old sports teams, and even your old classmates.

And lastly (12): The Competition & Their Customers

Nowadays, it’s easy to find out who your competitors’ customers are. Look into who has engaged with your competitions’ Facebook, Linkedin, and other social media pages.

First, reach out to your competitor and ask if there are any industry-related issues that you can potentially support. (It’s also an excellent time to buy companies out and take over market share!) 

Next, double down on promoting your services to those comfortably in your competitors’ seats. If you know your value, it’s a great opportunity to show it off. Think about all the cell phone service companies that constantly tempt you to switch services! Friendly competition is the nature of business. 

 

If you need help, or want to explore some ideas, book a schedule a free Business Strategy Call today.  

 

MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & Thrive Guide

Survive and Thrive

We are here only for your success. That’s why we are offering zero-obligation strategy calls with free access to our guides and books.

Schedule your free business strategy call today. We’ll map out a plan for attaining:

  • The CEO Mindset. Lead by example, double down, and gain market share.
  • Refreshed value. Understand what people want and need now, and how your business can respond to these demands.
  • Becoming an exceptional force – all while reducing operational costs. Reduce operational costs with virtual assistants, a forgivable expense through the SBA. Restructure to a remote workspace and create new plans with a CEO’s mindset.

MyOutDesk brings you 13 years of recession-tackling knowledge. We are committed to supporting your continued drive to champion a thriving business and support your local community during the COVID-19 health crisis. Schedule a free strategy call today.

 

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Hiring Essentials You Absolutely Need to Know for 2020!

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Competition in today’s digital marketplace is at an all-time high – and it means investing in new tools, techniques & technologies to stay competitive. But, it also means that you need to take today’s trends & changing market when putting together a hiring structure.

If you are a business owner or decision-maker, you absolutely must stay on top of the trends and remain open to the possibility of new roles & positions in your organization – and remember: whatever role you need to fill, odds are a talented MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant can fill for you. So book a Double My Business Strategy Session today to find out how!

  1. You might need to hire a Social Media Maven. Yes, social media is an amazing way to get your name out there for free. However, it’s free for everybody else and every other business as well. You need to stand out, and to do this, you need someone savvy on tricks and trends to help your business’s social media marketing fresh and engaging. If you already have a marketing person on your team, you may want to invest in their knowledge of the most effective strategies to ensure that your social media platforms are utilized and bringing in as much business as possible. In addition, it would help if you found someone who understands how to tell a good story and who has a good grasp of the needs of your target demographic.
  2. You will need to adjust hiring strategies to withstand the existing skills gap. According to experts, employers face a global skills gap estimated to cost $8.5 trillion in unrealized economic output. Therefore, many factors must be considered to find high potential candidates who are closely but exactly suited to the position you are filling. This leads us to our next point.
  3. It would be best if you were open to flexible options. The location has been a huge challenge for many employers and businesses. Many times, hires end up being one of convenience rather than finding the right fit. As a result, employees are constantly looking for opportunities that allow flexibility, such as remote work and the like. In fact, according to the International Workplace Group’s 2019 annual survey, 50%of employees worldwide are already working outside of the so-called mother-ship, at least 2.5 days a week. Another 80% shared if they were deciding between two new gigs, and one had more laid-back rules with being in office, they’d go for it. While this type of work environment may not be new for 2020, this may very well be the year it becomes more of a norm. This gives businesses the freedom to fill positions that do not require a physical presence in the office more easily and eliminate the geographical restrictions that prohibit them from finding the perfect match.
  4. Your company culture matters. In 2019, companies started putting culture first, and in 2020, they’ll only become more focused on this part of working. How come? It’s estimated 77% of people rate culture as ‘extremely important, and 64% of employees admitted they are less likely to stay at a job after a negative onboarding experience. Businesses know that a strong culture is a key to retention, so making sure the candidates being interviewed have the right skills and feel at home in the organization will be a focus for hiring managers this year.

2020 holds many fears, such as recession and the like. However hiring, hiring the right people will be essential in ensuring that your business continues to thrive regardless of the economic outlook. Outsourcing has been a viable option for years. It is even more so now that many options are available, whether you own a small homegrown business or a big multi-million dollar organization. Find out how a rock star MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant can be a valuable member of your team by booking a Double My Business Strategy Session today!

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Effective VoIP Communications Tools For Your Virtual Professional

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When you have virtual staff, communication is crucial to your success, and the platform you use is essential to clear communication. Hiring a virtual assistant can be most beneficial for your business, but let’s be honest, for this to work, you need to have systems and processes in place to foster the arrangement. These systems and processes also need to be optimized. There are many great systems out there, ranging from free services to affordable and more high-end functions. All you need is to narrow down what fits your business.

The best part of having a VoIP system is integrating it into your other operations aside from communication with your Virtual Assistant. Over the years, we have gathered data from our clients and virtual assistants about the systems they use for communication, and we are sharing them with you.

Stay connected with a highly talented MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant. Schedule a Double My Business Strategy Session today to find out how.

VoIP transforms outgoing or incoming calls into a digital signal and sends it through the internet, converting it to a standard telephone signal to reach a non-VoIP number. Through VoIP, you can place outgoing calls or receive incoming calls directly from a computer, a VoIP phone, or a regular phone that’s hooked up to a VoIP adapter, as well as wirelessly through mobile hotspots.

Here are some of the VoIP providers we love:

Paid

1. RingCentral–  When your business communications are bundled, you don’t have to try and make separate products work together, and you’re not paying several vendors for a series of different services. In addition, their easy-to-use cloud-based solution is much less expensive to operate than typical on-premises phone systems. RingCentral’s features are great for any team and make collaboration streamlined and convenient.

2. Grasshopper– Grasshopper’s VoIP service is great for more mobile businesses. They give you the flexibility a small business needs – call and text from anywhere with an internet connection! Get a business phone number plus all of the features of a robust phone system without the expense of additional devices. That way, your personal number stays private, and you always know when business is calling.

3. Nextiva– Nextiva offers affordable VoIP services, great for communication with your Virtual Assistant. The Nextiva App gives you the power to collaborate and manage with the same versatility as your desk phone. Nextiva also offers a single powerful platform with phone, email, chat, and SMS that captures and analyzes all data for every interaction.

Free (with subscription options for more features.)

1. Skype– Skype is a telecommunications application specializing in providing video chat and voice calls between computers, tablets, mobile devices, the Xbox One console, and smartwatches via the Internet. Skype also provides instant messaging services. In addition, users may transmit text, video, audio, and images. For the most part, Skype is a free service but has subscription plans that allow for more features that can be useful for team collaboration.

2. Google Voice–  Google Voice is a telephone service that provides call forwarding and voicemail services, voice and text messaging, as well as the U.S. and international call termination for Google Account customers. Google Voice provides a U.S. telephone number chosen by the user from available numbers in selected area codes, free of charge to each user account. Calls to this number are forwarded to telephone numbers that each user must configure in the account web portal. Multiple destinations may be specified that ring simultaneously for incoming calls. Google also has chat features and, coupled with google voice, can be a handy place to communicate easily with your team.

3. Zoom – Zoom is more than just a VoIP. But its free services can be used as a meeting and chat platform for your team, with awesome features such as breakout rooms, text chat, etc. Zoom can be great for managing communication with your team and, if explored further, offers many other great features that might be useful to you and your business.

 

Mobile/Desktop compatible Apps

1. Messenger– Many of our active clients on their social media use Facebook’s Messenger app. its seamless use amongst different devices makes it convenient and easy to access.

2. WhatsApp–  Whatsapp is free to download the app built with the small business owner in mind. Create a catalog to showcase your products and services. Connect with your customers easily by using tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages. WhatsApp can also help medium and large businesses provide customer support and deliver important notifications to customers.

3. Viber– Viber is a calling and messaging app that connects people–no matter who they are or where they’re from. With a free and secure connection, over 1 billion users worldwide communicate with their loved ones through high-quality audio and video calls, messaging, and much more. In addition, all Viber calls and chats are protected by built-in end-to-end encryption, so you can be sure that your conversations are always secure.

Aside from using these VoIP options, you should consider other supplemental platforms such as project management systems like Monday, Trello, Zoho, or Basecamp, to keep tabs on who is in charge of each project and what specific tasks they are in charge of, you will also be able to see progress on each part of a project and communicate details specific to them. You may also want to look into online file databases such as google docs or dropbox to ensure that all your documentation, files, images, etc., are easily accessible for your entire team.

These days, communication does not have to be difficult. With all the communication software and constant innovations, it’s all about doing your research and figuring out what will work best for your business and your Virtual Assistant.

When it comes to systems and everything you need for a seamless relationship with your Virtual Assistant, MyOutDesk provides support every step of the way. So make sure you schedule your Double My Business Strategy Session today!

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2020 Real Estate: What You Absolutely Must Know To Succeed!

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Real Estate had a tumultuous year in 2019- interest rates fell, housing prices have been rising, and while a lot of commercial Real Estate saw huge peaks, many legacy big-box stores closed their doors permanently, creating vacancies in malls across America. In addition, many Americans found it increasingly difficult to find affordable housing, whereas housing continues to be rewarding for many investors. With all the juxtaposition on the same field, one can’t help but wonder what 2020 has in store. Will we see more of the same, or will the trends continue to shift and change?

Make 2020 another successful year with a MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant! So book your Double My Business Strategy Session today and hit the ground running this New Year.

What are some predictions for Real Estate in 2020?

  • Retail closures will continue to be a problem for landlords.
  • Rent control will spread more widely, eating into investor interest in higher-cost markets.
  • Mortgage rates will fall to record lows.
  • Homebuilders will keep focusing on starter homes.
  • Venture capital will fund new real estate models in 2020.
  • The private sector will bring new solutions to the affordable housing crisis.
  • Investor appetite for Opportunity Zones is going to weaken after a 2019 rush.
  • Clashes over multifamily housing developments will increase and get more heated.
  • Millennials will keep up their home buying streak, while Boomers hold up inventory.

 

Another major prediction is that the industry will continue to digitize. The mortgage and real estate spheres have been moving away from their manual, paper-laden processes in recent years, and 2020 will only see that trend expand further—especially as more tech-savvy Millennials enter the market. Thus, in 2020, we’ll continue to see Millennials growing their share of the mortgage market, which in turn will catalyze lenders to continue to rapidly innovate their technology offerings to meet the expectations of an audience more accustomed to an Amazon, Venmo-like experience.

Furthermore, with so many big box stores closing and all that commercial space freeing up, co-working spaces and the like are most likely to pop up all over.

That being said, online work, working from home, and virtual staff will make sense now more than ever. More than being cost-efficient, hiring virtually has opened many possibilities for businesses that have embraced them and have given many a business more than a little boost. Eliminating the need for physical brick and mortar workspaces and providing a mutually beneficial working partnership for employees and business owners, Virtual Assistants have made global the new local as the industry continues to digitize, so have those that work in it.

Our industry is bound for so many, many more changes, both good and bad. Are you prepared to thrive and not just survive? Don’t forget to schedule your Double My Business Strategy Session today and find out how a MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant can be a valuable member of your team!

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The 3Rs: Building A Sales Organization

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Another mnemonic I’d like you to remember that will help you and your team stay firmly in the dollar-productive zone is the 3Rs: Referral Strategies, Recommendations, and Reviews. Why is this important? Recently we began to ask our clients via text and email this question: “What is the one reason you choose to do business with MyOutDesk?”

We received several different responses. So we next asked everyone to choose one from the top three responses we’d received. Overwhelmingly, our clients reported that they choose us because of the quality of talent we provide (which allows them to scale). The two runner-up reasons were that we are the price leaders in our industry and that they know and trust MyOutDesk because of our ten-year history and client track record.

How do we know this? Because MyOutDesk cares, and so we asked our clients. Because we listen to our clients. Because of this strategy: the 3Rs!

Referral Strategies

We have already discussed the importance of referrals in scaling your business to the seven-figure level. It’s about building relationships personally, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be systematized. A referral strategy is something that many substages one, two, or three business owners have never considered before, but it is such a crucial aspect of the 7-Figure Business Roadmap. Our team has systemwide automated referral reminders built into the client portal. We also have specific virtual professional and client touchpoints that remind them how much we value referrals. We expect our clients and virtual professionals to refer three people to MyOutDesk within the first ninety days of doing business. This expectation is set from the start of the sales process.

Recommendations

Having a system around recommendations is a powerful scaling tool in our internet-driven world. You can use testimonial-style recommendations on your website and social media pages to bolster your company’s public image. It would help if you always were nurturing your online presence, and the great news is virtual professionals can do much of this work for you. MyOutDesk has an automated touchpoint that generates recommendations. It regularly surveys our clients and virtual professionals for net promoter scores (a management tool that can be used to gauge customer relationships), produces client/virtual professional video testimonials, and creates focus groups as part of our Because We Listen and Deliver pro-gram. We have a robust reporting structure around the 3Rs and can use it as a predictable statistical data set.

Reviews

Reviews are vital to just about any business today. Reviews drive so much business, and you must have a process surrounding how yours will be systematically gathered for you and posted online. Your VPs can be pursuing reviews in their communications with clients. There are also automated email tools that can ask for reviews with a quick “Hey, give me a couple of sentences. Tell me what you think.” Your VPs can help you manage to share those reviews. Once you generate great reviews, they have lasting value; they are viewed repeatedly by potential customers, driving revenue back to your business.

We have a process in place so that when someone says that our VPs amaze them, we point that person to an area to do an online review. There will be specific sites you will want to be well represented on. These days, you can pick up your iPhone and ask Siri, “Who’s the best real estate agent in Yorba Linda, California?” or “Where is the best restaurant near me?” Siri and other search tools gather that information from sites like Yelp and Google, so you have to make sure you have a presence on those tools to the best possible degree.

We Are a Sales Organization

The 3Rs and 4Ps are so important that to take the next step on the 7-Figure Business Roadmap, every employee you have must somehow be involved in the identification, attraction, and retention of customers. That is the path to growth and scaling. We do at MyOutDesk isn’t just selling the services of virtual professionals; we are selling you the ability to close more business in a year. We are selling an opportunity to fast-track the growth of your company and scale.

Even though taking on virtual professionals may seem like an increase in overhead at first, every dollar you spend on virtual professionals will add at least three dollars to your bottom line (some of our clients have said the return is as much as eight times each dollar spent). Once your team is in place, you should ensure that what is paramount to every employee is to get and keep customers, with no exceptions directly. If you allow your team to focus too much on all the little details and take their eyes off getting and keep- ing customers, that is precisely what you will get: everything but customers.

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Presenting

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If I were to ask you what presenting involves, what would you say? Your answer would probably be something like, “I start by telling them about my product or service, point out why they should choose me and not someone else, and tell them how customers think my company is stellar in its niche.” And there is nothing wrong with that. But what I want you to remember is that presenting should also involve focusing on what is in it for them, the clients. What is their best outcome? We often ask our clients, “If you could have one win out of this call, what would it be? If you could walk away with one thing of value, what is it?” In other words, we help them focus on determining what would be a win for them.

We train our virtual professionals to focus on this. In fact, one of our core values is having a servant’s heart. We want to serve our clients and vendors we are in business with. Our perspective is that when you add value to people, it will be reciprocated. So focus your presentation on the end users, make sure they are your focus, and help them with their dreams and goals.

Scale Framework: A company mission (what you do), vision (where you are going), values (the standards you collectively hold), value proposition (why clients choose you), and positioning (how your company is different or better) are required when you reach the We Do It stage and can be folded into story mode while presenting and prospecting to a potential client.

myoutdesk sales development virtual assistant

SDR Examples: Using Sales Development Reps

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About 50 percent of the virtual professionals we place with clients are fulfilling clients’ sales development outcomes. That means about two thousand five hundred of the five thousand virtual professionals we have introduced to clients have been working in sales. Through that experience, we have garnered a lot of evidence about how best to prepare virtual professionals for sales—and we have created a concrete system to ensure that you have success with yours too.

Virtual professionals can help you and your business enormously when it comes to generating and converting leads, that is, taking a potential customer who may have an interest in your business or even may never have heard of your business and turning that lead into a warm opportunity. Of course, that warm opportunity would include a sales meeting, and if all goes well, a sales quote. Preparing virtual professionals to succeed with this outcome is one of my favorite things to do because the path to having your investment in sales development reps (SDR) pay off in terms of revenue is clear-cut and highly measurable from an outcome basis.

When I say pay off, I’m not speaking merely of an increase in sales. In business, I like a three-to-one return. If I’m spending $5,000 to put someone in place, I want to see a $15,000 return. Your top concern about onboarding a virtual sales team will probably be, “How do I do this?” Well, you could just put someone in a seat and say, “OK, now go sell for me,” and ask that individual to be accountable for some metrics you have made up in your head. In fact, as an entrepreneur, your go-to mode is probably that you jump right in first and worry about the how later. That is classic entrepreneur behavior, and in general, it’s a great attribute. In this instance, however, I’d like you to resist that and reframe your thinking.

This is a situation in which having a concrete plan will pay off in real dollars. Think about onboarding an SDR as if you are running a relay race and you have a baton in your hand. You’re fully committed, and you’re killing it at Usain Bolt speed. As you approach runner number two, she holds out her hand expectantly to receive the baton. But instead of passing it to her, you throw it to her. Unfortunately, it misses its mark, striking her in the head, and she stumbles. Not smart, right? You have just set up your talented teammate to fail. And that is the biggest mistake people make when they hire VPs: They chuck the baton rather than smoothly hand it off. So, all you need is a recipe for a smooth handoff.

Have Bulletproof Scripts

Scripts are in the virtual professional’s arsenal. Here are the elements you should painstakingly document in written form for your new sales team members. Of course, the content will vary depending on the type of business you are in, but for the moment, I will give you examples based on what we use at MyOutDesk.

A Clear Elevator Pitch

Know your elevator pitch. The base formula for a good elevator pitch is “I serve [who] to do [what], so they [get this result].” Ours is: “We instantly scale growing companies with virtual professionals.” That is what we do at MyOutDesk, in a nutshell. The elevator pitch is such an important piece for you to craft and for your VPs to absorb. You all need to be on the same page as you communicate your company’s value. Once you have articulated this clearly and documented it transparently, your VPs will be able to advance that message. They will communicate it exactly the way you would.

Know Your Value Proposition

This might seem a bit obvious, but many business owners think their value proposition is just that—obvious—and they fail to document it concretely for their virtual sales reps. Please give them the information they need to be clear in their conversations about why your clients choose you. What is the benefit they see? We repeatedly hear from our clients that they are overwhelmed, and alleviating that overwhelm is where we add massive value. They are so busy, and we are the “easy button” for finding talent to help them. There is no way they could find five people to interview in forty-eight hours…but we can. We have already vetted them. The MyOutDesk value proposition: “We provide indispensable VPs to growing businesses.” If you can articulate your value proposition clearly to your virtual professionals and have that in written form somewhere, they can refer to it. You are hitting one out of the park from the outset.

Have a Process for Handling Objections

When you give your virtual professionals your value proposition, you are giving them the ideal outcome. But you also have to prepare them for the challenges they’ll encounter. Document all the objections that a potential customer might have for your product or service, and your virtual professionals will wear it like armor in their conversations with leads. They will be ready to answer potential customers’ objections in a friendly way. Why might a customer say no? What answer could your virtual professionals give that might turn that into a yes? Could you help them to anticipate these issues?

Have a Positioning Document

A positioning document expresses how your product or service fills a need that competitors don’t, so this is a critical piece for a sales development rep to know. For example, at MyOutDesk, our positioning document has expressions along these lines:

  1. We have helped over five thousand clients grow their businesses.
  2. We make sure that every virtual professional you interview is exceptional and MOD-certified because of our thorough vetting process.
  3. We have been in this business for twelve years and built an industry around serving medium and small businesses.
  4. We provide Market Force™ personality profiles to match talent accurately.
  5. We provide medical benefits, microloans, vacations, and conferences for our virtual professionals.
  6. MyTimeIn is our proprietary software that helps track outcomes and provides daily task oversight.
  7. We have a Chief People Office in the United States that personally vets our virtual professionals.
  8. Your partnership with us benefits our Charity Impact Movement (503c). We give away thousands of dollars every year to impoverished communities.

These are points on which none of our competitors can compare. Anyone who tries to stack up against that will have a huge challenge, and the only way they can win is through offering a lower price and lower quality. MyOutDesk is the price leader and has the highest quality available, so this is exactly where I want our competitors to be (a lower-priced alternative). If they offer lower prices, we can say, “Look at all the value we have to help your business scale. If you are looking for the cheapest, that’s not us. If you are looking to scale effectively while ensuring a great end product that gives value to your customers, we know how to do that.”

Have a System for Measuring Results

You and your sales virtual professionals will know you are scaling the business when you have clearly defined processes for measuring the following:

  1. Leads received: This is the number one thing you must track. How many leads are coming into your business every single day, week, and month?
  2. The number of calls: How many calls did your virtual professionals make to those leads?
  3. Leads converted: How many of those calls went from being just a lead to an actual opportunity to sell?
  4. Speed to lead: This is a metric that really matters. How much time elapses between when the lead comes into when the call goes out and converts successfully? For example, a lead might come in at 1:00, and they get a call five minutes later.
  5. New clients/sales: How many new clients resulted from this process? This is the bottom line. Have a system in place that tracks all these things in a way that is easy for everyone to understand.

Avoid These Failure Points

What I have described so far are the things you need to do to succeed in scaling with your virtual SDRs. Based on my vast experience, I’d also like to give you some common pitfalls to avoid.

  1. You don’t have enough leads: I like to have five hundred new leads a month, but your number will depend on what industry you are in and what your sales cycle looks like. I always like to have three to five salespeople behind our virtual SDRs. An SDR’s job is to convert a lead into an opportunity. And the salesperson’s job is to turn that opportunity into a client. It is important for the SDR to feel like they are on the same team as the salesperson and vice versa. Having enough leads and enough salespeople allows you to test who is closing and who is not. We once had a client come to us because he was upset his team wasn’t converting enough leads. It turned out that the salesperson wasn’t immediately calling the leads once they got converted into an opportunity instead of letting them go for two or three days before calling. So you must have enough people and measurement for speed to lead for both the VP and the salesperson here in the United States.
  2. You aren’t doing daily and weekly meetings: I like a daily morning meeting with a little music and a little coffee so that everyone can talk about the wins. Everyone is talking about where their energy is and how they are feeling, and we are putting positivity out early in the morning so that feeling can be conveyed through the phones. Weekly meetings are for making commitments to sales and conversion goals.
  3. You aren’t tracking conversations: Someone who has forty or fifty conversations per day will have a different result than someone who is having ten. You want to set concrete goals for the number of conversations and share those in your daily and weekly meetings.
  4. You don’t have activity-level measurements: Your system for measuring results should include everyone on your team. For example, how many calls did each person make? How many times did each person try? How fast did each person handle the opportunities in front of them, and how often convert? These are important metrics to have for each individual.
  5. You aren’t going after the 3Rs: As I mentioned in chapter 11, referrals, recommendations, and reviews are critical to your business. It is astounding how many businesses fail to harness the power of these three things. We chase them ruthlessly at MyOutDesk. In fact, we get referrals all the time from people who have never even done business with us. There is a woman in Texas who has sent us three or four clients. I had only one conversation with her five years ago, and she hasn’t bought from us, but she keeps sending us people because I had a great conversation with her. If you aren’t pursuing the 3Rs with your team, you are missing out. As you can see, my prevailing message about how to set up your virtual SDRs for success is to communicate, communicate, communicate. Assume nothing, and document everything.

SDR Example Calls

Here are a few snippets from a call being made to a seller lead:

 

Here are a few snippets from a call being made by one of our Real Estate ISA VAs to a Buyer Lead:

 

Here are a few snippets of a call being made to an Expired Listing Lead:

road leading up to the sky turning into an arrow

The 7 Figure Business Roadmap

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Business and sports provide very similar experiences for people who want to be champions and win. There’s a coach and per- haps a couple of assistant coaches in any high school sport, a workout discipline, a required practice schedule, and matches to test your team’s ability against the competition’s. In business, the same systems exist. You can have a coach, a workout discipline, and daily practice routines, and then you get to be in front of clients fighting for the business.

The 7-Figure Business Roadmap describes, for business owners, what is equivalent to the differences among competing in high school, college, and the pros. It’s a clear articulation of the player’s landscape: the challenges, key drivers, and team member rosters. In addition, the Business Roadmap will help you focus on the things that matter at different revenue and team size levels. So if you dream about playing in your industry’s version of the NFL, get the 7-Figure Business Roadmap, so while you’re in college or even high school, you can practice like you’re going pro.

The “I” Do It Stage

There is a lot of excitement in the I Do It stage. I Do It entrepreneurs are new to an industry and have a hunger for learning. Their business is indeed their baby, and they think, “I built it, and it works for me.” Which is fine in the beginning. Most of the time, they are solopreneurs, meaning they do the work themselves. They are also often learning how to solve a problem and be compensated based on how big that problem is (the market) and how well they solve it (the value proposition). They are really in the process of “becoming.”

The upside for I Do It is their overhead is low, and most of the revenue the business makes goes right to them. At this stage, there are no or few employees to provide for. I Do Its need to learn how to get a deeper understanding of their industry, generate revenue, who their clients are, and what their value proposition is out on the market.

The “WE” Do It Stage

At MyOutDesk, we help many businesses scale through the “We Do It” stage because the We Do It has begun to focus on hiring people and creating efficient systems and processes, which is our forte. If your business is at this stage, you have already hired an assistant and perhaps another salesperson or whoever is a producer in your world. You are also trying to pinpoint how you’ve become successful, extract that from your mind, and put a system or process around it so that others can duplicate that success.

At the We Do It stage, there are a lot of small and tight-knit teams. You might rent an office at this stage and start building a name for your- self. You might become a little bit of a local celebrity along the way. You are networking a lot and have begun to impact your local community at a higher stage.

I tell people that becoming an I Do It entrepreneur is like getting a four-year degree in terms of difficulty. Moving to the We Do It stage is more like getting a master’s degree and a Ph.D. all at the same time. It’s not easy, but you are truly building business value and a future asset worth selling on the open market once you do it.

The “They Do It” Do It Stage

As you scale, your business will shift to the “They Do It” stage. It is an exciting place to be. The big difference between the We Do It stage and the They Do It stage is that at the They Do It stage, the company’s production is no longer reliant on only you, the owner. Freedom is born here. A They Do It entrepreneur can take a day or two off (or a whole month), and the business continues to sell and move forward with the systems in place.

This is not to say that you are no longer selling at this stage. You are still selling, but at this point, you are focusing on only the most major, game-changing deals. You’re creating a channel of sales opportunities and strategic partnerships, and your employees are handling the day-to-day, transactional business.

Another big difference at this stage is that you are no longer chasing business. You have created a name for yourself and may even be well-known in your community, and that recognition for your name and company draws business into you.

What sets the We Do It, and the They Do It’s apart is not just the size of the company or the number of employees but rather the creation of independent company culture. You will have given your employees a feeling that they are doing more than simply putting money in your bank account by working for you. Your employees will believe in your mission and vision, including giving back to your community and the world.

Download The 7-Figure Business Roadmap Here.»

video camera recording a teacher in a classroom

Play, Pause, Do: Your Virtual Documentation

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The process of documenting your procedures virtually is something we call Play, Pause, Do. This is where you take a written standard operating procedure and record a screen share that shows you actually doing the activity. Now not only are you seen doing the activity, but you can talk to your employees about it and answer questions about why you are doing it.

Play, Pause, Do requires a video associated with the written documentation for every standard operating procedure. Play, Pause, Do allows an employee who may have gone through two weeks of training several months ago to go back to the procedures and complete tasks more successfully.

The great thing is that once you have a video recording of something, it lives forever. You have crafted it, and it can be set on a Vimeo or YouTube account and played back as much as is needed. In addition, these accounts can be set to “private” so that only people with company email addresses, for example, can access them.

Why is all this documentation so important? So little human communication is fully understood in a single iteration. For example, only 55 percent of face-to-face communication is fully understood. That means that 45 percent of the time, people don’t correctly understand you, even if you are standing right in front of them! Moreover, only 37 percent of nonvisual verbal communication and 17 percent of written communication are fully understood. Isn’t that astounding? Quite literally, 83 percent of the time, you can expect your emails to be misunderstood. It is a natural human failing that can be overcome only by repetition and clarification.

Accept that because going throughout the world thinking, “Well, I told them,” will not help you scale. The onus is on you, the business owner and chief communicator, to clarify if you want to be successful.

One of the hardest pills I had to swallow was understanding that my adult learners need to hear something, on average, seven times before they fully can appreciate and implement a new change inside of a business. You might be thinking, “Well, I don’t hire average, Daniel,” and perhaps that’s true, but even if you get someone twice as adapt and intelligent, you’ll need to make sure there are several reminders, perhaps three to four reinforcements, of a new concept. So, to be perfectly frank, while this book is to help our clients learn best practices, it also serves a purpose for our internal team here at MyOutDesk.

It is a reinforcement point in our understanding of our company’s vision and mission.

When you are a business owner in the weeds, so to speak, it may not seem like a good use of your time to document all this training. You might be thinking, “This is a lot of work!” But trust me when I say you will be glad you followed the process to the letter. Once it is done, it can be replicated a thousand times. And it might not even take up as much time as you think. You can record yourself as you go about doing the tasks you want to delegate, like making sales calls, for example. Rather than spending three hours concocting a dummy training scenario, record a video of a real call. Then it doesn’t become a lot of work for you and, overall, is less burdensome.

Real Estate Virtual Assistants

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