Virtual Assistance Business Briefs » Marketing Tips

Five Affordable Ways to Create Video Marketing Content

Jeannine Clontz — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:17:49 +0000

There are many ways to create video marketing content that will make you stand out without access to a production studio or require spending thousands of dollars. Take a look at some of my five easy, affordable steps you can take to show your viewers you’re worth their time and money:

1. Create a Video Yourself

This is, of course, the most obvious option. You don’t need professional equipment. You can easily start out with a computer webcam, mobile phone, or any video recorder that you have access to. What matters the most is not the technology you use but your concept and how well you present it to viewers.

2. Outsource Your Video Creation

You may already be familiar with the process of outsourcing other aspects of your business like web design or writing and editing services. Video creation is no different and is often extremely well produced at very affordable prices. Check into outsourcing portals like IVAA.org or VANetwork.com, post a job listing, and check out the freelancers that contact you. Keep in mind that outsourcing video production will be easier if you already have an idea in mind before you seek support. In your job postings, detail exactly what you need the service provider to do for you and choose the provider that you feel will give you the best results.

3. Utilize User-Generated Content or Testimonials

This one is especially great if your online business already has a loyal following. Simply contact one of your previous clients and tell them that you’d like them to participate in a short video testimonial. You will most likely have more success if you sweeten the deal by offering them a discount on their next purchase, offer to include a link to their website or some other kind of reward. After proposing the idea to several of your past clients or customers, you will not only have excellent video content, but you will have also strengthened your relationship with your existing customers – and that discount or reward could potentially net you a few extra sales as well!

4. Use Public Domain Footage Already Available

There are literally hundreds of video clips in the public domain, and many are readily available for download online. Take a look at a few and use them to create your own video content. Don’t forget that there is plenty of music in the public domain, too. With these public domain assets, you can easily put together your own online video for the purpose of marketing your brand, your products, or your services.

5. Purchase Pre-made or Stock Video Content

Slightly different than outsourcing, there are various marketplaces online where you can find high quality, pre-made video content for sale. You may have experience in buying website templates or graphics, and this is no different. You can buy what you need to create an entire video, or just get the footage you need to add on to your current creation and make it fit your specific need.

These are just a few of the most popular ways to develop low-budget yet effective video marketing content. You can choose one or a combination of all of these options. What matters is, through any of these five ways, you can develop content that is unique to your business without breaking the bank and create video content that will help promote and grow your business.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan request her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: http://www.accbizsvcs.com, or contact her at info@accbizsvcs.com

Five Affordable Ways to Create Video Marketing Content is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Four SEO Tips for Your WordPress Blog!

Jeannine Clontz — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:12:48 +0000

WordPress has become the most popular self-hosted blogging platform around, with over ten million different users utilizing the platform as their blog back-end of choice. Offering a huge range of features, customization options, plug-ins and controls, it is no wonder the platform has achieved such immense popularity amongst bloggers, web developers, and serious Internet professionals.

Marketers are especially fond of WordPress, for a number of reasons. WordPress is easily customizable, giving marketers the power to create text-heavy sales pages, multimedia website intros, and call-to-action service pages on a single platform. Alongside the customization is another powerful marketing aspect, its incredible SEO benefits.

As blogging platforms go, WordPress is the reigning champion of SEO. From extended page URLs to pingback links and header tags, these four SEO tips can help you turn your WordPress blog into a powerful SEO resource.

1) Use keyword-heavy titles.

Keyword density was once thought of as the ultimate measure of a website’s search potential. Marketers would stuff their content with keywords, often until the point where it resembled machine-style nonsense.

Now, most marketers know that keyword density is not the ultimate measure of SEO value. Websites that rank typically do not use keyword-heavy content, but keyword-heavy post titles. Whenever you are writing a blog post, research keywords first to get an idea of what your market is searching for.

2) Use the All-in-One WordPress SEO plug-in.

Simply put, no other WordPress plug-in is as valuable to online marketers as the All-in-One SEO Pack. Offering a buffet of SEO options for marketers, this plug-in allows its users to optimize their post URLs and categories for maximum SEO power, override default meta and title tags, and even highlight potential keywords to target. Simple, quick, and powerful — this plug-in is a must for internet marketers using WordPress.

3) Enable comments.

Comments add great things to your website: fresh content, and outbound links. The first is a godsend in the eyes of search engines. While other marketers slave to produce fresh content for their websites manually, a relatively popular WordPress blog can live off the SEO-friendly content produced by the comments it receives.

4) Be visible.

Sometimes the most basic mistakes are also the most devastating. Almost all modern versions of WordPress include a range of visibility options. Users can select to make their blog visible to all, block it from any viewing, or simply block search engines from indexing the content.

Of course, no marketer would want to block their blog from search engines. However, some automated WordPress installers — particularly Fantastico and cPanel installers — block WordPress from search engines by default. To reverse this, simply use your WordPress dashboard to change privacy options back to "visible by anyone".

Try these four SEO tips on your WordPress blog and watch your analytics to see how well you’ve done. What other challenges are you facing with your blog platform? Leave your comments and/or questions below!

Four SEO Tips for Your WordPress Blog! is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Tags: blog SEO tips, search engine optimization tips, SEO tips, wordpress blog, Worpress Blog SEO tips

3 Tactics for Responding to Social Media Criticism

Jeannine Clontz — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:16:25 +0000

As social media continues to evolve so do those who participate, and how they respond is changing, too. Responding to social media criticism is difficult at best – creating a short, punchy response can make you look too aggressive, while a reasoned response is often lost on someone out for blood. The process of analyzing feedback has become more important to major organizations, so much so that the U.S. Air Force has created a process for responding to bloggers, encouraging PR experts to only respond to comments in certain situations.

These three tactics can assist you with a social media criticism problem, particularly one that stands to damage your organization’s reputation. If you’ve spent the last day staring at an angry blog post, a snarky column, or a rude comment, apply these tactics and judge its negative value before you submit a reply.

1) Ignorance is bliss, at least in the eyes of Google.

As tempting as it may be to put a biased blogger in their place, doing so many cause more damage than good. Blog posts, like other dynamic pages, tend to gain Page Rank and search visibility through the work of their readers. Inbound links, comments, and activity can all contribute to high search placements, often for terms that you’d rather not see attached to your company’s name.

2) Some people just aren’t rational or ethical. Resist the temptation to use reason.

A reasoned response should be enough, right? Often it’s not, particularly on blogs that generate (and capitalize on) controversy. If you’re being picked on by a blogger or questionable online publisher, leave the event to die out on its own. A response, however reasoned and valuable, might just provide more fuel for the hungry critics.

3) Think in terms of value. Will a response help your business?

Some marketers think that more is always better. They’re wrong, especially when it comes to content that’s steeped in controversy. You should only respond to public criticism when it could change your business, especially for the worst. If the audience appears to have made up their minds without any input from your business, leave them be and focus on developing value elsewhere.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan with her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: http://www.accbizsvcs.com, or contact her at info@accbizsvcscom

3 Tactics for Responding to Social Media Criticism is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Tags: managing social media criticism, social media criticism, social media marketing, social media marketing tips

Three Tips for Crafting an Effective, Tweetable Message

Jeannine Clontz — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:24:47 +0000

Few social networks sum up public discourse more effectively than Twitter. Thanks to its short-form nature and enormous audience, a single topic of discussion can often evolve into a completely natural case study for marketers. Be it immense disapproval or the immense success of a single principle, Twitter offers a unique look into conversation.

But how can you make that conversation happen? While it’s very difficult to create conversation out of nothing, particularly for a product or service that’s just uninteresting, it’s very easy to optimize a discussion so that it spreads throughout the social media landscape like wildfire.

Apply these three tactics to your next Twitter promotion, and learn what a bit of creative copywriting can do to your social media ROI.

1) Learn to love the ‘…’

Add an ellipsis to the end of your tweets and you stand to experience a twenty percent increase in click-through traffic. This timeless tweak has been used by performance marketers for decades, both online and off.

2) Use numbers, instructions, and summaries.

Numbers catch the eye. Instructions can increase involvement. Summaries attract users looking for information, particularly those that want to understand more about a particular topic. These Twitter tricks were all mastered by copywriters years ago, and they’re still just as effective as ever. Use them and you’ll see an increase in traffic.

3) Get people scared, even if there’s nothing to be afraid of.

In order to increase the amount of time that readers spend thinking about your product, it’s important to project a situation in which it isn’t present. If you want to increase sales of your pest removal product, remind readers about the dangers of bed bugs – all at 11:30PM.

Got an investment to pitch? Scare people by reminding them that others could get ahead of them if they choose not to leap at the opportunity. People respond to fear, even if it’s minute and fairly inconsequential. Use ‘fear words’ in your tweets to draw in readers, and use your additional content to make them familiar with your brand, your company, and your product’s advantages.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan with her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: http://www.accbizsvcs.com, or contact her at info@accbizsvsc.com

Three Tips for Crafting an Effective, Tweetable Message is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Tags: Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing Tips, twitter for business, Twitter tips

Facebook Marketing Fun: Spreading the Word Without Annoying Users

Jeannine Clontz — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:18:03 +0000

When it comes to viral marketing, Twitter is very much the flavor of the month. This popular service has all the signs of a promotion-friendly medium – it’s public, easy to use, and boasts one of the largest userbases of any social media platform. A single tweet can easily swell into a thousand-strong meme, with users flooding the website and generating huge amounts of instant notoriety.

But is that really what your business wants and needs? A flood of traffic that, if not for a thin connection, most likely wouldn’t be interested in your product or service. Each of Twitter’s promotional strong points has one or more disadvantages too – public promotions can often hurt a brand, memes can occasionally lead to subsequent marketing disappearances, and messages can be misinterpreted as spam.

It’s for that reason – or anti-reason, if you prefer – that thousands of marketers are using Facebook in place of Twitter for their promotional efforts. The service is, in many ways, less than ideal, some profiles are private, others are inactive, and most belong to groups that are rarely, if ever, updated regularly.

But that’s not all bad. With privacy comes a greater level of information sharing, and an even more valuable level of participation. The website’s grouping system can help small businesses find exposure in the ‘like’ list of popular users. In short, Facebook’s rather private and network-based nature can make it a greater tool for viral growth than its ‘open’ rivals.

I’m not at all saying you should discontinue utilizing Twitter or LinkedIn for that matter, as a part of your overall social media presence, but instead, make a more focused use of Facebook, while still using the others as secondary marketing opportunities.

Finally, it’s Facebook’s relatively more private nature that makes it the perfect service for optimizing and promoting your brand, all without fear of being labeled a ‘spammer’. Twitter’s public nature has made it a haven for automation and link spam – an annoyance that’s hurt hundreds of real marketers in the process.

With privacy comes a level of trust that’s otherwise missing. Design a Facebook promotion and you could find your company’s message between updates from close friends. If that doesn’t sound more appealing than a mass produced tweet, then it may be worth trying out a different social marketing strategy altogether.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan with her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: http://www.accbizsvcs.com, or contact her at info@accbizsvsc.com

Facebook Marketing Fun: Spreading the Word Without Annoying Users is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Tags: Facebook Tips, marketing with Facebook, twitter, twitter for business, Twitter tips

Two Ways to Optimize Social Media for Maximum Sales

Jeannine Clontz — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:48:56 +0000

There are hundreds of case studies highlighting social media’s strength as a traffic generating platform. There are hundreds more touting its ability to increase participation and inspire users to complete specific actions. What the industry is missing is a case study on one of the most important success metrics out there: its value for sales-driven businesses.

Sure, there are pieces of information out there, maybe even a rough outline or two. What’s missing isn’t the potential for sales to happen – any social media marketer knows how worthwhile the medium is as a sales tool – but a scientific look at the improvements that can help it increase the bottom line of small, independent, everyday businesses.

These two tips can help you do just that, whether for your own independent operation or as part of a larger organization. Don’t worry – none require technical wizardry or complex coding skills – just a basic understanding of social media and enough time to carry out some basic A/B testing.

1) Exclude more people from your community.

At its heart, social media is about community. Seth Godin highlighted the value of a leader-guided online community in Tribes, explaining that a dedicated and enthusiastic online group can create more than the sum of its parts with the right leadership. But that group can’t thrive without a goal that’s shared, and sometimes creating that common goal requires eliminating some members.

Don’t fence off your group after you’ve spent years building it – instead, set up some light rules for participation before you make it public. Excluding people based on their membership or customer status may not seem particularly social, but it can lead to a community experience that’s often lost on larger social networking groups and open forums.

2) Add sales-driven elements to all of your social media presences, and start testing.

For marketers, social media is about both community and commerce. There’s little value in web traffic that simply isn’t interested in buying. Adding sales-driven elements into your social media pages may scare away a collection of uninterested users, but it comes with a surge in the proportion of sales-friendly users.

By guiding your users through sales-driven actions, collecting data, and generating test sales, you can quickly and easily grow to understand the commercial makeup of your audience. Some users may be the buying type, interested in quick results, while others may show an interest in products, services, and offers that you previously never expected to discover.

Work on developing a sales-driven community and test the results to enjoy the maximum sales possible through your social media efforts.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan with her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: http://www.accbizsvcs.com, or contact her at info@accbizsvsc.com

Two Ways to Optimize Social Media for Maximum Sales is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Tags: get sales from social media, social media community, social media marketing, social media marketing tips

5 Online Business Optimization Strategies

Jeannine Clontz — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 20:10:48 +0000

Running an online business gives entrepreneurs an incredible chance to expand and scale their operations. While offline business requires a physical presence — offices, retail outlets, and kiosks in every location — an online business can operate virtually and via digital real estate. Expanding is simple, and scaling businesses can be achieved without the need for expensive physical locations.

Still, there are some major errors that newbie online entrepreneurs tend to make when they scale their businesses. The road to running an online business is paved with lots of potholes, from expanding too quickly to moving in all the wrong directions. These five strategies are designed to help you achieve worthwhile business optimization, and take your business to new heights without endless setbacks.

1. Stick to the 80/20 Rule.

Pareto’s Principle — known as the 80/20 rule — dictates that 80% of your returns — in this case, business profits — will come from just 20% of your actions. Your goal in running an internet business is not to do as much as you can, but to achieve as much as you can. Focus on the ultra-profitable 20% that contributes to your business, and eliminate as much of the fluff as you possibly can.

2. Whenever possible, add products to service businesses.

Service businesses are a good short-term model, but as a long-term earning option alone, they are not. The main issue with service businesses is the lack of scalability and long-term earnings potential. By running a service business, you are essentially tying a value to your time and working to that alone. It would be an effective use of your time to create a product to enhance your sales.

3. Package and sell your information.

Informational products are extremely popular, especially in the online world. From guides on mastering online business to simple how-to sets for learning a new skill, informational products make up a huge percentage of online sales. If you have got skills that would otherwise only be valuable in a service business, consider turning them into an information product that you can sell online?

4. Focus on marketing before you start your business.

One of the major things my clients need and the make-or-break component of any online business is marketing. The internet is crowded, and there is no chance to survive without a large customer or client base that knows how to find you. The world’s most profitable companies invested in marketing before they expanded their businesses. You should too.

5. Set a value for your time, and don’t waste it.

You have set up your online business, invested in some manual and paid marketing options, and have started to earn over $100 a day. The only problem is that it is taking almost 12 hours to do it. There will be times, especially when running an online business, that you will rack up a reasonably impressive daily earnings total. Ignore it. Daily totals are deceiving and are not an accurate metric for judging online business success.

What is much more valuable is the amount of time that goes into that income. Set a minimum value for your time, and create an online business that gives you options on where to spend it. Sometimes services might be worthwhile, other times product-based work might be the best solution. Either way, set a minimum cost for an hour of your time, and design a business that allows you to earn above it.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan with her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: http://www.accbizsvcs.com, or contact her at info@accbizsvsc.com

5 Online Business Optimization Strategies is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Tags: Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing Tips, online business tips

Four Biggest Social Network Marketing Blunders

Jeannine Clontz — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:10:39 +0000

Unlike other forms of online marketing, social media marketing has no stone-set right and wrong behaviors; no cost-per-user statistics, and there is, by no means, a code of conduct or behavioral plan that must be adhered to. While pay-per-click advertisers and SEO experts are inundated with information on what is and is not effective, social media marketers are left without dedicated and accurate information.

That certainly does not mean that social media is not governed by some form of assumptions and expectations. It is social, and is controlled by collective opinion and user discussions. These four social media faux pas are unlikely to get you thrown off social media websites or banned from the discussion altogether, but they are best avoided for social media marketing success.

Using deceptive affiliate tactics.

Back in 2004, MySpace was the king of the social media stratosphere and spam was out of control. Hidden comments, fake "friend me" requests, and endless blog posts all led to shady affiliate offers and utterly deceptive advertising banners.

There has since been a transformation within social media, one that has fought back against these tactics. The new social media environment accepts promotion and commercial influence, but dislikes being aggressively marketed to. As long as you keep your social media marketing tactics soft, value-filled, and useful, you will be rewarded with success. If you end up using an outdated and selfish strategy, you are likely to be rejected.

Pay-per-post marketing.

Blogs are part of the social media realm and are held to the same standards of behavior as any other service. They are treated as an outlet, yet at the same time neglected by users that could contribute. More than anything else, blogs are abandoned when they offer nothing beyond commercial use. Remember that, while your blog can be a money-maker, it may mean significantly more to your audience than it does yourself.

Thin, fake, and generic conversation.

Marketing expert Seth Godin has often asked his readers whether it’s truly worth engaging in social media if your message is dry and generic. Many have seen the light, realizing that his suggestion was not to give up social media entirely, but to change their approach to become more unique and influential.

Social media communities can and will ignore you when you have nothing interesting to say. Join the conversation, but do not treat it as something you can’t change. Offer information and value beyond what is currently available and you will be embraced, appreciated, and financially rewarded; share the same old information and you will quickly fall out of favor.

The "friend everyone" approach.

The "friend everyone" approach is normally seen much like the affiliate strategy used by thousands of marketers in an attempt to reach a large audience in little time. It is a classic spam tactic, and it is one that is rarely successful for social media marketers.

The top Twitter users are not necessarily those with the most followers, just like the most popular Facebook pages are not those with the most fans. Build real relationships and you will be rewarded with loyalty; friend everyone that comes your way and you will end up with weak and utterly worthless online connections.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan with her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: http://www.accbizsvcs.com, or contact her at info@accbizsvsc.com

Four Biggest Social Network Marketing Blunders is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Tags: marketing blunders, marketing mistakes, social media marketing, social network marketing, social network marketing tips, Social Networking

Brand, Sales, and Balance: Are You Including Social Media with Other Online Marketing?

Jeannine Clontz — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:33:37 +0000

The 1980s are remembered for their developments in business and technology, particularly computing. The 1990s for their advances in technology, particularly the growth of the internet and online business opportunities. If the 2000s are to be remembered for anything (although it may still be too early to tell), it will be their developments in communications and online communities, particularly the incredible power of social media.

Social media gives major brands and companies as well as small business, some seriously big power, but it is rarely used as it should be. Commitments to quality are sometimes overlooked, and opportunities for branding, direct sales, or indirect marketing are often passed over. These missing opportunities do cost businesses.

Social Media for Branding:

A dollar unearned is a dollar lost. Businesses are often questioning the value of social media for their branding efforts, but few take action when they should. Billions of dollars are being left on the table, particularly as major brands move onto social media services, and the value of a social media-friendly brand still is not being recognized.

An experiment is always worth more than not even trying. Discussion on social media’s branding abilities will only take companies so far. With the low cost of social media efforts, an experiment with social media branding can generate huge returns, all with a relatively minimal level of risk. Develop a simple plan and test your ability to grow and expand your brand.

Social Media for SEO:

SEO consultancy (and in-house efforts) were once the domain of spammy content and low quality link generation efforts. Poorly planned information was setup on low-cost websites, and marketers shot out as many links as were possible. Despite being somewhat effective, the old world of SEO is packed with inefficient models and outright unethical business models.

However, social media has given SEO new life. The old "SEO is spam" cliche is no more thanks to the development of social media. Each new social media asset is another opportunity for high quality outbound and inbound linking, and every social media conversation is another opportunity to spread links that actually add value.

With Twitter tweets and Youtube videos now regularly appearing in Google’s standard search results, the divide between search and social media is likely to become even smaller. Marketers accustomed to spam-style SEO tactics are in for a new surprise, while businesses that embrace social media receive a well-deserved SEO boost.

Social Media for Sales:

Social media is not a good sales platform, but it is a good resource for generating future sales. Social media’s ability to generate prospects is one of the most important aspect to the sales process. Marketers that were once dependent on direct lead generation have a new platform available to them, particularly in open social media platforms like Twitter or Myspace.

The greatest news is that social media is still in its infancy. Businesses that are built on lead-based sales have good things to look forward to. As social media develops further, sales models will be refined, micro-networks offering great sales potential will grow greater, and marketers can look forward to a platform that is refined, sales-friendly, and willing to be marketed to.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan with her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: http://www.accbizsvcs.com, or contact her at info@accbizsvsc.com

Brand, Sales, and Balance: Are You Including Social Media with Other Online Marketing? is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Tags: brand, branding, branding tips, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing Tips, sales, sales tips, social media, social media marketin tips, social media marketing, social media tips

Five Reasons to Give Up On Your Goals

Jeannine Clontz — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:22:58 +0000

Giving up sounds so negative. But can you make room for the possibility that you can release your goals without being a failure? Yes, you can! Sometimes the goals themselves are unreachable, for reasons outside your control. There are times to let your goal go – or at least set it aside for a while. Here are five of those times:

Not motivated to achieve the goal.

Have you ever made plans to go to a movie with a friend or attend a party, but when it came time to get ready to go, you just couldn’t get moving? Maybe you decided you didn’t really want to see that show, or you’re having a grand old time just sitting on the couch in your sweats with your significant other. Whatever the reason, the motivation is just not there.

If you’ve tried all the suggestions in my previous posts, and you keep missing deadlines, or taking the next step, or simply not acting on your goal, it may be time to let that goal go, at least for now.

Sometimes it’s a disconnect you haven’t been able to pinpoint, or sometimes the timing’s just not right. It’s okay to just set the goal aside and move on to something more attractive. No one’s keeping score – I promise.

You don’t know what’s next.

If you are lost, unsure which direction to go in next, which path to take, or what you really want, it may be time to stop hitting that wall. Instead of feeling like you HAVE to have a goal, take some time to reflect and figure out what you’re really trying to achieve with your business or your life.

Though I’m all in favor of action, I think it’s much smarter to make sure you’re choosing the right goal and the right strategies to achieve them, rather than just acting for the sake of acting. You can’t get where you want to go until you know where it is you want to go! Simple enough.

You are exhausted.

Type-A, ultra-motivated goal-setters can burn themselves out pretty quickly. It’s hard to stay motivated if you don’t have any recovery time, instead bouncing from one huge project to the next. It won’t matter how successful you are if you don’t have the energy, or give yourself the time, to enjoy your achievements.

If you’re bordering on burnout, give yourself a break. Set all your goals aside for a while and just relax. It’ll pay off in the long run.

You don’t feel as positive about the goal any longer.

Contrary to popular belief, it is okay to change your mind. You may be halfway to a goal, or even closer, and decide it’s a bad idea or it’s just not a goal that you long for anymore. That’s okay. Really.

If you think you’ve changed your mind about a goal, take time to ask yourself “why.” Is it a higher-level objective issue? A strategy issue? Or are you just not sure? Figure out how you feel about your goal before you decide to let it go. If after you’ve explored your “why” and your feelings about your goal, you decide letting go of your goal is the right thing for you right now, release it and move on. No regrets – just lessons learned.

As a final thought on this topic, I can’t resist putting in this quote for obvious reasons:

“The only thing you live to regret are the risks you didn’t take.”

~Anonymous~

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, provides marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs. For information about finding a VA, download her FREE 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or to learn why Social Media should be an important part of your marketing plan with her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, visit: http://www.accbizsvcs.com, or contact her at info@accbizsvsc.com

Five Reasons to Give Up On Your Goals is a post from: Virtual Assistance Business Briefs

Tags: achieve your goals, attainable goals, goal setting, goal setting tips, Goals