What can I do for you…
Or How we’ve helped a client and the things we’ve done…
“Hmmm… I get it - there is so much that I do that I probably shouldn’t do, but what’s a good task to pass over to a Juggling Octopus?”
Without a doubt this is one of the most common questions that I get asked. Busy business owners often appreciate the offer of help, but how to help them isn’t always as clear! I thought I’d share what a typical month has looked like for one of our clients. They are a larger company looking for about 20-25 hours of support a week, but it serves to give you an idea of what we can do.
The work that we do
Firstly, it’s good to point out that all of the work that we do falls into one of two categories; either admin support - taking away tasks to free up time that could, and probably should, be spent on other things. Alternatively, we support from a sales and marketing perspective - using years of expertise to help grow the business and to build pipelines.
For the client in question - the focus is on juggling a number of projects to build a pipeline.
The work that we did for them - Repeat Business
We pulled together a list of previous projects that have been completed over the last few years. The data was all there, but not necessarily in one place in one format. Taking the time to firstly understand the data, and then to go through it has enabled us to provide a definitive list of what was done, who it was done for and when it was done.
Once collated we sat down with the client and reviewed the people that were involved to remove those in regular contact, and ended up with a list of people that the client has worked with but not spoken to in a while. With the client having built a good relationship previously, we have emailed out to them as an extension of the client’s team - just a polite “hello” to see if we can set up a meeting to learn about what they are up to and whether they need any support now or in the upcoming months.
We will also get from this a list of people who have moved on - hopefully we can use this to make contact with them in their new roles, but also to introduce the client to their successor at the old company.
Referrals
Knowing that our client has an amazing product that their own clients love, we agreed that a key area that Juggling Octopus could support them with was with getting more consistent referrals - making sure that they are asked for after each and every project.
Talking to members across the client team we’ve understood what is currently in place and realised that there was an opportunity to take this a bit further. Having discussed this with the client first, what we have now created is an “End of Project Process” that firstly ensures that everything is finished in the right way, but that then facilitates feedback, provides material for case studies and testimonials AND asks for referrals in the right way at the right time!
Content writing - Blogs
We helped the client to take ideas for blogs through to fruition; taking their expertise and thoughts and having the time to make them into something complete, along with the necessary research and links to external sources that can really add value.
Working closely with the team has meant that a consistent flow of blogs is now being published - both on the website and across social media - and that there is a whole list of potential blogs to write in the future that we can support with.
Writing posts for LinkedIn is a key way to help a business be seen, and we have helped our client by creating a content overview calendar. With this in place we can have an idea of what we propose to do each week that they can review and comment on ahead of time. This collaboration means that the posts are written in the right way, that the client is happy with the content and that we are learning more all the time about their industry and what it entails.
We also support the client by adding to their LinkedIn contacts - looking at those people with whom they would like to be connected and sending a number of personalised connection messages each week.
Getting the right content out there consistently is important, but it’s equally important to create the right network of people to see it.
Email Marketing campaign
This is the fun one - the one that I really enjoy doing for clients, and one that we know can make a real difference!
Working with the client we focused on a specific product that they wanted to sell and the audience that they wanted to sell it to. We helped them to create collateral - a blog that could go on the website and on social media, and posts to support the campaign to help answer questions prospects might have if they wanted to have a look around.
We then sourced a list of 100 ideal organisations within this audience, and people within these organisations who would / could / should be interested in the product in question. Getting in touch with multiple people in an organisation not only gives a better chance of success, but also helps to increase brand awareness of the client in general. Each of these people then received an email; brief and to the point, personalised to them and giving them a reason to have a conversation. Any responses are followed up, and opportunities are grasped and shared with the client immediately so that appointments to talk can be put in the diary.
It’s a slightly longer process than this, but you get the idea!
We support the client and we help them to start conversations with the right people that build a pipeline for future sales.
There’s more that we could do, but we find that projects build and evolve over time. This is a client that we love to support and is a great example of some of ways in which we add value for them.
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Juggling Octopus is a virtual assistant agency based in Derby, UK and is run by Sarah Moore. Always happy to talk about all things Octopus and outsourcing and to learn more about other businesses, get in touch if you’d like to chat.
