You thought you were making a great decision hiring a Consultant - whether you went through a series of several interviews or you picked someone because you knew them in some respect, but now you have what seems like a hostage situation on your hands! What do you do!?!?! Go Savvy Social has had dealings with this particular situation so often it makes up 85% of our contract work. Do not end up in a non-transparent relationship with your current Consultant. 

5 things you should know about your business from a technology standpoint...

1. ALL of your passwords and logins!
2. What are you paying for?
3. Have platforms been changed and why?
4. A process that has been documented by your Consultant and shared with you, accessible to you at all times!
5. AND, that you are the sole owner of your products and services!

It is true that often to complete tasks in a timely fashion and to not have to be on your heels asking for things Consultants need administrative rights, however, those rights today can be granted easier with many platforms offering multiple user logins allowing you to keep the power in your hands. Ask for transparency from the beginning and make sure the contract states you own all rights to your content. 

In a hostage situation, at this point Go Savvy Social pretty much specializes in websites and technology access that has been held hostage. If you need assistance reclaiming what is yours - we would love to help. We design on platforms that can be managed by you! However, the rate of businesses that decide to do so after accepting our services is rare because they know they are in a safe transparent space. 

Oh the many ways we have found our crafty vendors have DIYed weighting tents against windy conditions - obviously some are some that wouldn't hold up and not all are endorsed by Go Savvy Social. 

Why hire under contract?

• It is highly likely you will save money overall. I know, I know it’s hard to wrap your mind around paying a larger hourly rate, retainer, or a larger contracted dollar amount, however, the expenses behind hiring can be much greater including; fees incurred by utilizing a staffing agency, benefits, taxes, unemployment compensation insurance, workers compensation insurance, additional office space, equipment and so on.

Evaluating the true cost of an employee hire:

Figures are estimated: $30,000 base salary. $5,000+ in benefits and PTO. $2,000+ Social Security and Medicare Taxes. $2,000 in Federal Unemployment Tax. $2,500 State Unemployment Tax.
ESTIMATED TOTAL: Approx. $41,500 (not including overhead) OUCH!

• Flexibility in allotted hours and work on demand. Each task can be completed as needed likely with a higher productivity. When the job is done the contract is completed, allowing for cost control.
• Greater efficiency. Contract workers come specialized in particular task sets hire within the range of skills offered to maximize your dollars. This is also a cost reduction for the hiring company as time is not needed to be spent on training of a new employee.  
• Continued relationship. Developing a long term relationship with your contract worker leads to your contract worker having a greater knowledge of your personal preferences, your business goals, anticipation of your needs, outside expertise, suggestions to increase your bottom line and creative solutions.

What a contractor can provide for your business:

1. Increased productivity.
2. Outside perspective – exploration of underlying needs.
3. Compiling of information.
4. Problem solving.
5. Implementation of solutions.
6. Defined processes for corrective actions.
7. Facilitation of educational material.

Successful business owners though they may start as lone entrepreneurs eventually find success in a team that supports them moving forward. The most successful businesses know that they cannot succeed by being a one man show, there are just too many hats. Name a business that made billions with one single workers hand in the mix. Delegation of tasks is not only a key to success in growing your business, but also a way to find a balance between work and day to day life. Delegation allows for productivity and an opportunity for an increase in growth where executives can spend their time on income production and expansion. 

Administrative services, marketing communications, and operational management can be a task set that can often be performed much more successfully by a Virtual Assistant "VA". Depending on the versatility of Assistant you choose you could potentially add much more value to maximizing your time elsewhere within your business.
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In researching duties of a VA you may notice a wide array of duties this role is willing to play in your business. VA's find themselves making recommendations on business decisions, standing in high profile roles for company executives, carrying out complex projects, coordinating major business activities and overall making a major contribution to the business goals as a whole.
A VA role will fall into becoming a dependable and valuable part of any team. Your success and the success of the business is a main priority. Maintaining a Virtual Assistant on your team will bring many different perspectives, 3rd party knowledge and skills into the mix. 

There is a flood content to learn marketing in social media. You can go to school for marketing which may give you a leg up on those of us that did not have a marketing focus in college or those of us that are self educated as far as a resume is concerned, but truth ends up being marketing is changing DAILY! I enjoy educating myself with many different sources from reading, webinars, researching competitors and so much more. All of these sources are great to find out tips and tricks others might be using that can be formatted to your initiatives. Getting the correct information straight from the source as far as social media guidelines is concerned is always best.  

What is the best way to stay up to date on social media trends? SIMPLE, each social network has their own stream of informational updates! Below you will find links to each of my primary networks. Others are easily found in a google search {your primary network} official blog or {your primary network} news. 
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• Facebook
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Youtube
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

You can streamline this process with RSS, however I enjoy actually visiting these sources because on occasion I leave with more information on other topics my RSS may not have picked up. Taking time to educate yourself on something new daily can lead to many exciting things. I encourage you to latch on to something that really sparks your interest as a mom and run with it. Taking notes from others is not above you. Everyone can learn something from someone. Take the time to note qualities in others that might help you be a better person. Not for envy, but for self growth. ​

​It has been a little more two and a half months now since making a transition from a full-time position to a freelance/contract role. I threw myself into what I will now call outer space by leaving a position that I absolutely loved, but could no longer be a part of due to an inability to work so directly with a personality completely opposite of my own on an everyday bases. I still work from an office, but it is my own. I do not have to share a revolving desk, I choose my projects, and I create my own fires, as well as, put them out. I find myself taking all the things I loved about my old position and continuing to move forward with my task set similar. That could be my undiagnosed OCD or just my will to do what I love.

I am still struggling to get my bearings. I often question the next step and how I will get there with 2 little ones at home and one on the way I know I cannot fail. My ability to move forward supersedes the average person in my position. Have I let go of the idea of moving into another full-time position? No. When I walk into an interview 30 weeks pregnant do the “interview nerves” get to me? Not a chance. I can tell you I have never interviewed for so many positions and not got the job. The light in all of this is no one, I mean not a single person has questioned my ability to perform in a short term contract position with my protruding belly. At this point I see a brighter future coming from this new role and I find an exciting ending to this story.

I am finding a glim curvy road turn straight and lit with the sun. A brisk fall breeze. The kind of road you start to slow down and watch the red, orange and yellow fall leaves turn. You take a deep breathe in with your jeans and long sleeve shirt on and know the world couldn’t get any better. In the real world this is when daycare calls and you are only a block away. You can run your little into the doctor and be back to work in only 30 minutes. You can thrive being the answer to each problem for anyone you’re doing work with – knowing you saved the day for someone each and every day.
In my role I am not tied to a computer all day, no. Majority of the day some days, yes. What I am finding is this work style is nothing ordinary. I can be shaking hands with someone that inspires me in a whole new way or training myself to be better at what I do. I have time in this role to invest in people. How exciting is that?

Finding my path hasn’t been easy. I have learned a lot in just a short amount of time. Most who know me, will tell you I am driven and nothing gets me down. I do have to say one of my favorite girls in the world and my amazing partner have been victim to several conversations that have approached negativity at its best. What am I doing here? I want to give up. If I could give up I would. Does this road lead anywhere? In all these trials and tribulations I have focused on;
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• Developing my capabilities. I have taken time to really focus and hone in on what I see coming from all of this. Start with listening and asking questions. Don’t talk, just listen. Show no reaction, just evaluate. Spend time reading. Spend time thinking. Really tap into your resources and connections. Do webinars. Find creditable sources that offer valid and up to date certifications. Learn what you don’t know. I am finding many times throughout the day I am writing stuff down to later research and develop my knowledge on.
• Finding a routine. I am accustomed to having a planned structured day so this is no hurdle or foreign task. This is one that truly comes easy to my personality type.
• Maintaining a working mindset. This again is a task that is easily done for me. I find myself overly influenced by ending the day in a position where I thought I could have maybe got further. I believe I have a great gauge for the tasks on my plate with the potential for distractions. In a “make your day happen” role I can see where the unstructured my flounder, but again this is one of my strong suits.
• Setting and meeting daily and weekly goals. I can say I used to be really great at this. I am struggling a bit to find out what this looks like now. In a previous sales position I had vision boards and motivational quotes written on mirrors in the house. I had sticky notes with what I was more closely working on day to day. “The Secret” type stuff. I can tell you in my previous role years ago, I knew the secret. I am trying to revisit and reinvent how this looks now. I am finding there are similarities, but with children the process behind this needs to be perfected as I spent a lot of time on the overall dream in the past. If you know about having kids, there seems to be a lot less time to dream and consistent change. A lot of time could be spent dreaming about something that will change tomorrow when the world is turned upside down by your child simply wanting to wear his shoes on the wrong feet.
• Getting out and meeting people. I had already had a strong connection in my local community developed from previous years. I had spent less time focusing on those since 2013. Many of those relationships need to be rekindled. There have been some new faces come into the community since my focus dwindled from so I think time will tell what the old relationships and nurturing can do for new community faces. Being present as much as possible at community functions I believe is key. I have started to establish new relationships with neighboring communities and plan to nurture relationships I have reached out to create there.  

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To sum this all up. I believe I said it earlier. This story doesn’t end here. This is the mere beginning to a new chapter. My drive to move this business forward is going to be bumpy, curvy and feel like a hot summer day with sweat pouring down my face wishing I hadn’t wore my heaviest sweater and long johns. Today, this is my life. Tomorrow gets so much better! Thanks for reading. 

It was just a few years ago that I stepped foot into learning about marketing from a diverse perspective. While these strategies toward new age marketing continue to evolve, I find myself devouring information from a wide variety of companies to be able to support the businesses I work with. Let’s be honest it is truly fascinating seeing XYZ company act as a reliable source for information when sources cited for content curation purposes are coming from unreliable web sources or even competitors as not enough research has been done on the piece to properly curate the material.
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Coming from a high school and college where it seems we were beaten with sticks on properly citing sources as to not create plagiarism. I initially found content curation for the benefit of marketing and educating your buyer as a laughable selling tactic. At first sight of the content curation process I continued to reflect back to the days of writing papers in high school and college. There it was red marks of despair with a less than desirable letter at the top of the paper. How could it be as simple as to hyperlink a word with a .com behind it and call that my source? How could I ever learn to live with myself with this simplicity? I still sometimes feel Mrs. Swanson staring over my shoulder shaking her head at this “content curation”.

Submerging myself into content curation I realized the simplicity given to the citing of a source is truly a blessing in disguise. Compelling material published online keeps your brand in the mind of your client and done effectively can significantly increase your ROI by building trust and establishing your brand as an expert in your industry. The time you take to make these content pieces count for your business giving you an authentic value prior to any sale contact. The value save here is your buyer has already picked you to buy their services from prior to the initial contact. You just saved yourself the price of another sales person beating the streets to sell whatever it is you sell. With that cost saved are you or is someone spending the time it takes to really do content curation accurately and bring marketing strategies around this full circle?

Creating a person behind your brand, a likeable or even lovable familiar voice is the first step in creating a bond with a client you have yet to even speak with. Let’s just say that was it; find credible sources, be lovable, and add commentary – easy peasy right? No. There is a reason citing your sources in a content marketing piece got so easy. Now add the rest of this to your plate; planning, creation, delivery, and management. WHAT?

This ends up being no simple task. These pieces all come together with a thought out process and a familiarity with the business you run. Key assets to this program include, but are not limited to; developing a calendar, determining a client persona, determining key messages that target your persona(s), developing a good mix of channels and mediums to spread your lovable voice; managing and tracking engagement metrics, creating styles that speak to your customer, metadata, managing your budget, integrations and so much more.
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My headline mentioned you’re to do list going hand in hand with content strategy. So, you have the strategy, but can you execute the do to list?