I regularly survey small business owners to find out what their biggest marketing struggles are. One of the most common is not having enough time to do marketing.Frankly, that’s a tough one for most entrepreneurs. Figuring out what to do and how to do it is time consuming enough. Let alone making time to actually get it done. Plus, if you’re like me, you’ve learned that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. The only problem with that is, as your business grows you’re likely to find that if you want something else done at all, you’re going to have to get someone else to do it for you. Why? Because there’s only so many hours in a day. And you need to spend your time on things that directly impact revenues…Like developing new products and services, planning your sales and marketing, and working with clients. Besides, you can’t keep doing it all yourself if you ever want to have a life. Trust me on this one because I’ve tried it both ways. Doing it all myself resulted in me throwing out my back, getting really sick, and ending up depressed because I had no time for friends, family or exercise. Ugggh! But that has all changed big time! Thanks to my Virtual Assistants (VA’s), I actually grew my business by more than 40% last year while taking about 6 weeks of vacation (not counting long weekends and national holidays). I skied more than 80 times, and got in about 40 days each of mountain biking and kayaking. Plus the hubby and I took swing dance lessons and I got back into modern dance. It’s so nice to be able to go out of town, or work on business planning, and know that things are still happening in my business! And it’s even nicer not having a to-do list 10 miles long weighing on me all the time. Even if you have a tiny little business, or don’t see how you could possibly afford to hire someone else, I promise you CAN afford to hire a Virtual Assistant. The reality is, if you want your business to grow, you can’t afford not to. I now have two teams of VAs that work for me, and I manage a handful of others for my clients. In fact, I’m so convinced that a VA is critical to any small business’ success I recommend all my clients hire one too. Here’s a list of 10 things a VA could be doing for you… 1. Online article submissions 2. Press release submissions 3. Triaging email and responding to some so you don’t have to deal with a tiem-sucking email mountain all the time 4. Setting up and managing your online shopping cart and email autoresponder 5. Formatting and sending out regular newsletters via email or print (some can even write your newsletters for you!) 6. basic graphic design 7. Sending out holiday cards and gifts 8. Creating and updating social networking profiles so you can finally get on Facebook or make the most of Biznik or LinkedIn 9. Building your blog and uploading your blog posts 10. Creating online marketing plans And the list goes on and on. I’m always discovering new things they can take care of for me. Love that! The bottom line is…When I tried to do even a quarter of this stuff on my own it simply didn’t happen. Heck, I remember spending a year and half trying to figure out how to submit articles online before I finally hired a VA to do it for me. And these days, with the economy going down the tubes like a greased pig down a chute, you can’t afford to hesitate when it comes to marketing. Now, more than ever, you need to keep your name out there and use every possible tool to attract more clients and customers. So, if you never get seem to have time to get your marketing done… Or you’re overwhelmed when it comes to figuring out the technology side of leveraging the low-cost marketing power Internet… I highly recommend you hire a Virtual Assistant team too! Even if you don’t think you have the money to hire an employee, you CAN afford to have a pre-trained VA working for you!! I didn’t think I had the budget to hire someone in the beginning, but most VA’s don’t make you commit to a minimum number of hours. Plus, they bill by the minute so you don’t pay for them checking their own email or surfing the web. And they come pre-trained, which saves you a ton of time and hassle. Best of all, my business grew so quickly after I hired my first team of VA’s (because I had time to focus on things that bring in more business and make me money) I was able to afford using them more and more. The key is knowing how to find the right VA team for you (and trust me, all VAs are NOT created equal), then learning how best to work with them from afar. Now that I’ve learned these lessons the hard way, I want to share them with you so you can make sure your business comes out on top at the end of the recession. And so you can stop working yourself to the bone and live a happier, more balanced life. So I’ve put together a special, one-time only, 2 & 1/2 hour teleclass for the end of January… “Recession be Damned...Learn How to Ramp Up Your Online Marketing Efforts and Make More While Working Less in '09 with the Help of Your Own Team of Virtual Assistants!” You’ll discover exactly what a VA can do for you, how to hire the right one, and tips, tricks and secrets for making the virtual work process smooth and easy. Helpful handouts and live Q & A are part of the deal to make sure you have everything you need to get a top-notch VA team growing your business for you. This teleclass is open to just 25 people, so zip over to this Webpage and reserve your spot right away! I promise that if you follow my advice it will make a world of difference in your business…And in your life. http://www.success-stream.com/OutsourcingSecrets.htm Here’s to your future success! Stacy [tags] Small Business Online Marketing Secret Virtual Assistants VA Grow [/tags]

Practical Marketing Expert Stacy Karacostas of http://www.success-stream.com takes a break while cross country skiing to share a small business marketing tip on how to make your marketing more effective. [tags] Small Business Marketing Tip on Skis - Make Your Marketing More Video, small business marketing tip, Stacy Karacostas, make your marketing more [/tags]