The savings made by removing travel and accommodation expenditure, together with venue costs will obviously make a vast difference to your costs and expenses associated with a virtual event as compared to a physical one.

ON24, a virtual event company, their research shows that between 20% and 95% savings are achieved when the event is a virtual one. When you realise it doesn’t just stop at savings made by attendees and all the travel and accommodation costs, the people who are arranging the event also gain from the ease and speed of arranging a virtual event, together with additional benefits of spending less time on the project.

In creating a virtual event you have produced a permanent record for future use, whether in a learning base, or for repeating at a future date to another audience or to re-purpose the information to use outside of the event.

A virtual event generates excitement, meaning extra customers and more leads. ON24 research reports that 4 to 5 times more leads are generated from a virtual event than from a physical one.

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Engaging your audience is a large part of staging a virtual event.

Let your audience determine your content. Make your content interesting and cover popular topics. Find out what your audience likes to do both on and off line. Produce your event so that the content is familiar and comfortable to them.

Promotion

Once everything is in place, event planned, sponsors on board, your twelve week time line gives you plenty of time to publicise your event.

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There are many online business owners who have valuable solutions they could provide given the right Internet marketing. With ineffective Internet marketing in place their ideas simply fade away, leaving them wondering where they went wrong, when the web names they admire have made the big time. Entering the market in the beginning, the webpreneurs that we know and admire, had it all their own way by being first in the market. Now, the webpreneurs of today, need strategies in place to help them find their niche and to market to their target audience.

Without a business plan, how can you, or any one else involved with your business, judge where you are? You can have the best business coach in the world, be motivated and have a fantastic idea but a plan makes the difference between disappearing into the darkness or becoming a shining light in your niche. With business plan in hand, you and others involved with your business can time-line and measure your progress. You can tell when you are ahead in your game or dreadfully out of alignment and therefore need to alter your website to regain your audience and customers.

Business plan:
There are several different ways to create a marketing plan to promote your online presence. Your local Chamber of Commerce may offer free or discounted business planning and development resources to members and non-members or you can try the do-it-yourself way with Marketing Plan Pro by John Jantsch ,powered by Duct Tape Marketing.( It is a simple, practical marketing plan software that makes it easy to plan and carry out the marketing activities you need to grow your business.) Another approach is to find a coach or consultant that specialises in creating marketing plans.

Marketing:
With a business plan in place, now is the time to activate your marketing. If you find yourself without the resources to put the plan into action, use Duct Tape Marketing principles to get things moving until you can hire additional resources. A virtual assistant or online business manager may be an alternative. Paying per hour reduces the costs but gains you experienced help for putting your business plan into action. With a business plan in place, all those involved in moving your business forward are aware of your goals.

Steady as you go:
Now you have a plan in place, you have identified the resources to implement; now it’s time to set off. If you have limited resources, aim for a slow, steady approach and find a rhythm that works with your available resources.

Measure:
The results of your marketing plan and strategies need to be measured and assessed for effectiveness on a regular basis. Do you have an e-newsletter or e-mail signup on your site? How many are subscribed? Or unsubscribe? Aweber and other e-mail/e-newsletter programs generally have reports so you can tell how well different campaigns have worked. Google analytics tracks site visits, page visits and time spent on your site so you can analyse how well each page is working. In the beginning, don’t try and track everything but be aware that the information is there when you are ready. With your reports and knowledge gained from these, you can develop consistency in your marketing to build and grow your business.

Bookkeeping doesn’t have to be completely awful. It can be easy. Yes, trust us… it really can! First of all you need to use a good and easy system to maintain your business accounts. After a lot of research and testing we recommend all our clients to switch to either KashFlow or Xero and use those systems to do the bookkeeping online.

Secondly, it’s all about the process and self-discipline. Keep your books up to date and avoid piles of receipts and invoices stacking up in the corner. Tackling books a little and often would reduce your fear and overwhelm when dealing with it. You can also employ an accountant to keep an eye on your records. This will be much cheaper than getting them to do it all for you, but you won’t have to fear making a mistake and being fined by the “tax people”.

Finally, realise why you are doing it. Bookkeeping is a wonderful practice helping you as a business owner understand where you need to reduce the expenses and how you can gain more profit. Bookkeeping is a core area of your business, it’s the blood pressure measurements of your cash flow lifeblood. If you don’t do it regularly you may miss the warning signals of your business running out of cash. As a solopreneur coach or consultant you would really want to avoid that at all costs!

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