authority Tag

How To Book Clients With Your First Live Event

  |   Business Tips, Classy Marketing   |   24 Comments

So you've been wanting to host your first live workshop or event, but you're not even sure where to start -- or how to convert it into actual paying clients and customers? These proven tips from a pro event planner are gold!

Guest post by Lauren Caselli, savvy event planner + gutsy boss lady

Remember that goal that you set for yourself to “finally start speaking” in 2016?

Or the time that you told yourself you’d host a live workshop FOR REAL this year?

Or how you’ve always toyed with the idea of possibly teaching to a roomful of your dream clients, buuuutttt you weren’t actually sure how you’re going to pull it off?

And now it’s almost the end of the first quarter and you’ve made no progress toward that goal?

Yea, girl. I feel you.

Back in January of 2015, I was frustrated and really overwhelmed with the whole “building a business” thing. I had a few copywriting clients (which is what I did before I moved over the planning events for digital entrepreneurs and tech companies), I had booked my very first live event client (a women’s retreat in Asheville), but the daily grind of focusing on blogging and social media and marketing -- it started to wear me out.

I was posting -- but no one was reading.

I was delivering SERIOUS content -- but no one was subscribing.

And all the while, I saw people totally blowing up in front of me. Snatching clients out of thin air. Marketing themselves so effortlessly in Facebook groups.

And I got so frustrated.

So, I decided I needed to do something different. I needed to create a community who had my back. Not necessarily for any sort of monetary gain, but because I needed the support of business people who “got it."
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Winning Trust: 50 Proven Ways to Make Your Business Look Professional Online

  |   Blogging Tips, Business Tips, Classy Marketing, Customer Service   |   40 Comments

Use this heroic list of 50 proven ways to make your business look professional online to boost your brand cred and be more successful. The tips here will help you be a trusted, respected authority online, meaning you get the followers you want and the clients + customers you need.

You've figured it out by now.

If you want to be successful (read: get followers + make money to pay your bills) in business online, it's not enough to simply have a website.

It's not enough to simply put up some services or products.

It's not enough to simply post on some social media accounts.

You can have ALL those things -- and still barely get noticed. 

And while you no doubt get that, it's still frustrating. That's because while you know that it does take more, chances are that you're simply not sure what that "more" is.

Does it take gobs of money? Friends in high places? A whiz partner helping in the background?! Or maybe $20,000 worth of e-courses + masterminds?!?!

Let's all take a collective cleansing breath, because I'm happy to tell you that NO: it does not require a single one of the above.

(If I can be a little bit personal with you guys here, I'll tell you that I myself had none of those things that I just listed when I started Olyvia.co. The truth is, I had just left my destructive marriage, was living alone and on food stamps + Medicaid with three young children I had to care for full-time, had absolutely ZERO business connections because I had been a stay-at-home-mom for the past seven years [blogging + doing mostly free freelancing in my spare time], and could not afford to buy a single e-course or mastermind "opportunity.")

What it takes, more than anything, is to make the right impression.

In part 1 of the #heroicbrand series, I taught you all about making an impression through relationships. In part 2, you learned to build a reputation for yourself via the quality of content you put out into the world. Today, in part 3, we're going to take it a step further:   You're going to learn the 50 exact...

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Earning An Audience: How To Be Irresistible + Grow Your Brand Online

  |   Blogging Tips, Business Tips, Classy Marketing, Customer Service   |   79 Comments

How to earn your audience: the actions that REALLY make you noticeable + irresistible as a small business and brand online. Get 13 beginner community-building tips + 4 advanced strategies with examples and questions to help you improve.

The best way I know how to share what I'm about to share with you about building a business on the interwebs is to start off with a little story-slash-confession. I promise, pinkie-swear, and cross my heart not to be boring.

Before I launched the Olyvia brand, I spent my time reading.

By my estimations, I read about 157 gazillion articles on business marketing strategies on a daily freaking basis in the months leading up to my website going live.

You see, even though I had experience in growing communities online -- launching + promoting around a half dozen blogs over the previous 10 years, advising non-profits on social media marketing, informally assisting my friends who owned small businesses, and other rather unremarkable things -- the truth is this:

I was certain that anything I knew would prove to be woefully, shamefully inadequate. Oh yeah: and I would fail.

In my mind there simply had to be the Holy Grail of marketing strategies out there that would guarantee my entrance into biz blogging heaven. I just needed to find it behind some internet guru's squeeze page.

(Don't even ask how many newsletters I signed up for in my quest for marketing enlightenment. #likewhoa)

But sales pitch after sales pitch errr, I mean webinar after webinar, all I found at the end of the rainbow were $2000 courses I couldn't afford -- and didn't trust enough to buy even if I could.

So, alas, the day came when I finally could do nothing more than push Olyvia.co into being. I hoped (and ohhh it was a desperate hope, I might add) that what I knew from my past online experiences -- in point of fact, what I had built my entire brand around -- would be enough to get me started.

What was my so-called strategy?

Only this: ...

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The Epic 21 Day Brand Impressions Detox for Digital Business Owners

  |   Blogging Tips, Business Tips, Reputation, Resources   |   53 Comments

Making an A+ first impression online is so important as a small business owner, freelancer, or entrepreneur! This free email course is out of this world helpful in improving your website + social media accounts so that you look credible + professional to potential clients and customers.

Hello again, friends. :) Since absence makes the heart grow fonder, I just know that right about now you consider me your greatest online love.

This month marks the Olyvia.co 1 year birthday -- wild, right?! -- and to celebrate with you I wanted to create something cool + helpful you could use to refresh your blog + social media accounts + brand reputation (and look 10x more pro online).

So, for the last 2.5 weeks I've been buried in InDesign + Illustrator + Mailchimp working (fun, but I missed you!) -- and what I came up with is this:

A 21 day free detox for your brand's online spaces.

(Henceforth known as "The 21 Day Brand Impressions Detox" -- because I like to make things sound all official like that.)

It's for new and intermediate level bloggers, freelancers, creative business owners, coaches & consultants, solopreneurs, and anyone with a personal brand online who wants to:

1. Make certain that their online presence screams "modern" and "professional" -- not "dated" or "amateur"

2. Do a serious, effective cleaning of their digital spaces so things look bright + clean, not dull or junky

3. Get a (virtual) kick in the derrière to take their brand up a notch, and have some laughs along the way (totally at my expense, I assure you)

Here's how to get started:
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A Guide To Getting Noticed On Pinterest With the Smart Feed + Promoted Pins

  |   Business Tips, Classy Marketing, Olyvia TV, Social Media Marketing   |   43 Comments

How to get noticed on Pinterest: the 411 on the smart feed + promoted pins, and what to put in place to help your blog + business.

We've always considered Pinterest a pretty reliable social network as far as what it takes to get our Pins seen, right?

If you have a good image, write a description with a few keywords + sprinkle of enthusiasm, and post it within a few hours of the mad after-dinner onslaught of your followers coming online while their hubbies turn on EveryNight Football, you're set.

Well, most of the time anyhow!

So, I suspect this is why the recent change in Pinterest's home feed is unsettling to a lot of people.

Oh don't think I haven't heard you grumbling on Twitter. :)

What happened is that -- in a nutshell -- Pinterest decided, "Hey, we think that when people spend time looking at their feed, they want to see the best Pins + the Pins that are most interesting to them! Not just the 62 Pins of beanie hats and miniature porcelain dogs one of their followers put up last night."

You have to admit. They had a point.

And that's why they switched up a whole bunch of things and called it something new: The Smart Feed.

Pinterest's announcement of it was, shall we say, a bit cerebral. (Still love you, Pinterest!) So in today's video I'll lay out the details for you in simple terms. Plus I'm going to show you exactly how you'll need to Pin going forward.

You'll also learn about Promoted Pins and how they can be an added boost to your blog -- and even build your email list! -- all for literally just a few cents.

(Hint: if most of your traffic comes from Pinterest, I think you're really going to lovvvve this part.)

The "official" Table of Contents:

#1 - The new Pinterest Smart Feed and how it affects who sees your pins

#2 - How you should start writing your Pinterest descriptions

#3 - What you need to stop doing with hashtags!

#4 - A full insider’s walkthrough on how to set up a Promoted Pin

WATCH NOW:


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How Do I Get Noticed On Twitter?

  |   Branding, Business Tips, Classy Marketing, Olyvia TV, Social Media Marketing   |   18 Comments

How to set up Twitter to get your blog + business noticed and get followers.

Here we are again, friends. It's video numero two in our sleaze-free series helping you get your business -- or blog -- noticed online!

This week I have a brief training for you on growing your following and engagement on Twitter.

Now, before I show it to you, I have an admission to make.

I used to get really stressed out about Twitter when I first made a personal account.

I had NO idea what I was doing, and to be honest it felt downright creepy to be posting things when I had, like, 4 followers.

Looking back, though, I realize I made wayyy too much fuss over it. I was Googling "top secret" strategies that could help me stand out when the reality was that all I had to do was use Twitter in the way it was intended:

To talk to people + share some new thoughts/content.

It doesn't have to be any harder than that, and that's the truth.

But, like with all social media sites, within that framework there are some guidelines. And there are definitely better ways to present yourself on Twitter than others. ;)

The video today should help you with the most essential FYIs.

In it I talk about:

#1 - The importance of a balanced, compelling profile description

#2 - Why your tweets need to have variety

#3 - What mistakes many people are making with hashtags

BONUS: I also may or may not gush over Russell Crowe and confess my affection for Leonardo DiCaprio. (Just sayin'.)

Now that you're sure to watch (hahaha), go ahead:
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