Your Presenter:  Maria Marsala, Elevating Your Business INSTANT REPLAY WITH NOTES NOW AVAILABLE! Are you ready to meet with prospects and clients virtually?  Let me help you discover easy online strategies that can help your business thrive, even in these disruptive times.  Learn how to take the best of what you've been doing offline and add online tools and strategies to give you and your clients options on how you can work together and attract more of your ideal clients.   You'll also see how easy it is to get appointments booked and reminders sent out without you doing anything! We are all facing an unprecedented situation as the coronavirus causes chaos, fear, and worry for everyone on the globe. Here at Elevating Your Business, I help financial businesses grow and scale. During times of crisis, there are ways to communicate with prospects and be there for clients who need your help. We have surely withstood many times of uncertainty in the past. Together, by doing business a bit differently, we will get through this too! Join me for an important, FREE 45-minute Q and A webinar where I'll answer your questions about "going virtual", how to continue marketing your business safely, and working with clients in safe ways during this global crisis. When:  March 24, 2020.  Replay now Available with notes. Register below. Time: 1 PM (EST) (1 hour) Cost: FREE Register here: NOTE: There will be NO offer or sales pitch, of any sort, at

In 1998, while living in North Carolina, I presented a marketing program to 40 business development offices.  Nothing strange there, but the program presented was taught virtually.  I saw no students in person. The concept of conducting a talk virtually was alien to me as well as pretty much everyone in the offices.  And I have to say, with the headset and other technology on and around me, I felt like a Martian! Webinars were so new then, and mine was 20 minutes late due to some towns not being able to connect.  As far as I know, the state of NC was the first place I knew of to create a platform.  They wanted business owners in rural NC to get the same resources (speakers) as the business development centers in large cities. Fast forward 21 years and much has changed about webinars, especially what the technology costs! Considering that we're currently being told to limit contact with other humans, video conferencing or audio conferences are a great way to meet with clients and prospects. The technology can help keep all of us just a bit safer. So, what are your options? I see two options, and both involve technology.  The system you use depends on you and your comfort level with technology, but more importantly, it depends on YOUR CLIENTS' technical experience. If you are an advisor, it also depends on what compliance will allow.  So please contact compliance for what you can use and

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Your website serves as the first impression of your business online. Potential clients use it to compare your firm to your competitors’ firms. Therefore, it's a best practice to review your website for errors, inconsistencies, and other required changes each year. Below are a few common places to start shaping up your website.   Check for Broken Links on Your Website Broken links can occur on any website page. You’ll know a link is broken when you click on it and an “error” page shows up instead of the page you originally linked to. This happens because the page you linked to was either moved or has been deleted. A link can also be broken because it was originally mistyped. Broken links are annoying to your site’s visitors and weaken your website credibility! How do you solve this problem? Well, you can click on every link on your site (which is tedious and you’ll probably miss a few) or you can run a link checker app that scans your site and gives you a report of all your broken links. If you have NEVER checked your website’s links, I highly recommend that you run the link checker on your home page first. Why? It will check both the links within the page and the navigation links that appear at the top of every page. Once you fix the home page links, problematic navigation links won’t continue to show

Create technology boundaries. Don't allow technology to get in the way of family time or be the cause of customer disservice. Clearly share technology boundaries with others. Here's a good example: The coaching industry has performed virtually since its inception in the 1980's. We meet with clients via online session calls. Our marketing started with us teaching using audio conferences.   We marketed online by posting articles to our websites, even before blogs came into existence, and online books or eBooks. As a coach, it was customary for me to ask clients to call me at their scheduled session time. After all, I would be in my home office, but my client could be sitting on the beach during our session!  That model, taught to me at CoachU, where I was trained, worked very well for about 5 years. Every few months I ask clients what I could be doing better or differently.  “Barbara’s” response was to ask why she must call me.  Why can't I call her? I hadn't thought about calling her.  I was using the model I had learned. Right then and there I realized that something must change.  Today, I give clients the option.  Of course, Barbara was very happy, too! Improving productivity by using technology is great, but not when it’s done at the loss of customer service. Here are a few ways to create technology boundaries: Check your phone system.  No one should be forced to listen to which of the 5

Chances are that you're paying for virus protection twice. If you are a person, business, or non-profit who has an internet connection, check your bills! Today, I was reminded to update this article and send it out again.  I was helping my church fix and update their computers.  One had current virus protection, the other one's protection ended over a year ago.  The one without virus protection had 377 indications of malware! The church was paying $97 for a year's worth of virus protection directly to a virus protection company.   PLUS they were paying $9.49 a month to their internet provider for, you guessed it, virus protection.  It's been that way for years. Of course, I recommended they cancel the yearly $97 payment. And over the years, I'm guessing that I've helped more than 100 people realize that they're paying twice.   Just today, someone else learned that they were paying twice!   Learn if You're Paying Twice I learn if my clients are paying for virus protection twice when they send me their personal spending plan (budget) and business budget (their detailed P/L).  I scrutinize both to "find the leaks" --  additional places I think they can save money or get better services for what they're paying.   Having done this for 20 years, I've helped most lower their expenses, the amount of which has been $50 a month to $75,000 a year. I scrutinize every item.  But two areas automatically raise red flags --