Picking, Choosing & Investing In the Best Resources For Your Business

So the groundhog didn’t see his shadow and they’re claiming we’re in for an early spring.  I’m all for that after we in the northeast have been slammed since December with lots of snow.  Thank goodness this week the temperatures are getting warmer and all that snow is finally starting to melt.  So I thought this was the perfect time to get an early start on some spring cleaning of sorts.

The word for this week is “Resources.”  I speak to a lot of my clients about how to pick, choose and invest in the best resources that fit their business.  The one thing that I have a lot of and one thing everyone should have many of— are resources.  First, what do I mean by resources?  I put resources in two categories:

1 – Information I Pay for to learn and grow each month, or one time purchases like: Books, products, tapes, CD’s, memberships, newsletters, teleseminars, webinars – anything that I belong to or that I have bought, either a one time information purchase, or a monthly membership.

2 – People/Vendors/Software/Programs  who help me run my business: People I outsource to for services like posting my blogs, loading and sending my email auto responder emails, printing and mailing my newsletter, writing copy, managing my projects, sites like basecamp, dropbox, 1 shopping cart, Godaddy, Hostgator, survey monkey, Camtasia, Snagit, Norton Anti-virus, etc.

So this month for me, it’s important to evaluate all my resources that are currently at my fingertips. I would encourage you to take some time out to evaluate where your time and money are going each month.  What’s bringing you the most value? The least value?

A big thing to do is to know and have your plan for the year.  Let’s say one of your goals is improving your skills on copywriting.  When evaluating your resources, see how much money you have going towards increasing your copywriting skills this year. This is a terrific way to re-evaluate your spending this year and help you make your money work harder for you so you don’t have to.

Some other examples: What membership sites do you currently belong to? Are you an active member or are you wasting your monthly membership fees? Are you using Facebook and Twitter to promote your business? What list building system do you use to collect information from your clients and prospects? Is it still effective? Do you regularly connect with your list? How? Email, newsletter, blog?

Here are some of the best basic resources entrepreneurs ought to have:

1. Email Auto Responder & Shopping Cart – I personally use 1shoppingcart, but this is essential. You really need a versatile system that will not only capture your clients and prospects emails but offer you various ways to organize your list and send broadcast emails. I also love iContact as an email autoresponder.

2. Virtual Assistant – Let’s face it we can’t do everything by ourselves if we want to have a life. So delegate already—know when to have someone else do things for you so your time can be spent more effectively.  Check out my favorite people www.YourNewRockstar.com I love them because they know information and Internet marketing, NO learning curve, they get it!

3. Hosting Company – This is where your website is hosted, whether you have html pages, or use WordPress, or outsource like I do to a web master expert… I personally use both Bluehost and Hostgator and both are terrific for my needs.

4. Webmaster – I have several people I’ve used over the years and all are terrific.  My favorite person is Lisa and you can find her here – http://helpmelisa.com/.

5. Merchant Account – This is so you can collect money online and hook this into your shopping cart. Here’s my favorite Practicepaymentsolutions.com, and this one Powerpay.com .

6. Online Survey System –  My favorites are www.SurveyMonkey.com , www.SurveyGizmo.com , and www.Zoomerang.com. Every entrepreneur ought to be sending out surveys to their list at least quarterly. You need to know the pulse of what’s happening in your market place.  For more information on how you can capitalize and increase your profits in your business, check out this site— www.CreateAmazingSurveys.com/Replay.html.com.

It’s totally important to evaluate all of your resources in order to make plans and move forward. This is a great way to organize yourself and help your business run more efficiently and in turn more productively!

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