By Laura Renner

In honor of Veterans Day, I wanted to take a moment to share my journey to becoming a small business owner. I grew up in the military as my father served in the Army. My mom even worked on post, so all I knew was the military way of life growing up. Shortly after turning 18, I entered the Air Force Academy where I went on to become a Public Affairs officer in the Air Force and served for 6 years.

I became attracted to the business world and the other side of American life. So after 6 years, I decided to attend business school in Chicago. One thing I had heard about veterans entering the business world is that they lacked business context and business contacts. My goal was to gain business context through business school. And I did. But when I graduated, the truth is I did not have the contacts as I had lived all over with no true roots.

By Laura Renner

Time and time again I have posted and blogged about Michael Hyatt’s 5 Levels of Delegation and how important they are to understand when working with a virtual assistant. Once you know theses 5 Levels, you will see your work and your team’s work in a much clearer light! Below I outline how I use the Levels in Freedom Makers, and then I outline the pitfalls of not fully understanding them through working with other small businesses.

To reiterate the 5 Levels of Delegation broken down look like this:

• Level 1: Do exactly what I said to do and how I said to do it
• Level 2: Research it and let me know what you find. I’ll give you further instructions after that.
• Level 3: Research it, summarize for me, and offer a solution. I’ll let you know what to do after that.
• Level 4: Figure it out. Keep me updated.
• Level 5: You have this.

By Laura Renner

When you think automation, do you think of super fancy things like robots making your bed, cooking your food, etc? Or maybe software that automatically sends emails based on preset criteria? Yes, those are both automation. But I would argue automation is even simpler than that.

Let’s redefine automation

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines automation as:
    A. largely or wholly involuntary
    B. acting or done spontaneously or unconsciously
    2. Having a self-acting or self-regulatory mechanism

My favorite of those is “done spontaneously or unconsciously.” A robot or software certainly takes care of tasks spontaneously or unconsciously (to you). I define automation as: one less decision or action you, the business owner. needs to take. Automation can be an app, software, or even another person that makes the task seem automatic to you. Basically, automation reduces decision fatigue because it’s being done spontaneously or unconsciously to you!
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By Laura Renner

Ever call customer service and their response made no sense but they couldn’t do anything about it? We’ve all heard those stories. Yes, you have to pay the fee and there’s nothing the agent can do to change it. We roll our eyes and complain about how Big Company X is horrible. To be honest, that’s probably why we’re entrepreneurs and small business owners. We create our own systems and know them intimately.  Though it might not always seem apparent, there is some advantage to those big business systems. The key to success in any business is striking a strong balance between people (small business approach) and systems (big business).
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By Jenny Boyles

Last month, Laura was featured on Smack Happy’s Videocast where she discussed figuring out what to delegate in a small business. And then once you have decided what needs to be delegated, she talked about creating a system to fulfill those tasks.  The full videocast can be found here.

By Laura Renner

There are a ton of resources out there for starting a business. What about growing your business? You have some traction and now need support to get to the next level. What do you do now?

One of my frustrations has been around all the workshops, accelerators, and incubators, that are out there. It is hard to know if the content is going to cover just the basics or be at a more “intermediate” or “advanced” level. Below are some general tips to help you figure out where to turn for assistance with growing your business.

By Laura Renner

As the founder of a completely virtual business, I’m often touting the benefits of working from home and of not being tethered to any one spot. While there are certainly many benefits to working at home, the one big downside is that it can get lonely.

Even for the ones who prefer to work alone, social interaction is critical to overall health. Further, community is so important to our general well-being. But how can you find community when you run a virtual business?

By Madelyn Mackie, Freedom Maker Client

This time-saving tip is for speakers, trainers, and other sharers of information from the stage! I love speaking! Fortunately, I get to do it 3-5 times per week, sharing my messages, stories, and expertise with appreciative audiences both large and small. However, one thing I dislike about speaking is the collecting of email addresses afterwards, entering the addresses into my email provider, and then sending post-event emails with the “FREEBIES”, “SPECIAL OFFERS” and “STAY IN TOUCH” messages. I could just skip this part, but then it would be a lost opportunity to engage a very warm and receptive audience. Many times after a speaking event, I am contacted about additional opportunities such as coaching, consulting, and even more speaking. 
 
Last month, I had the opportunity to speak to an audience of 600! There was no way that I was going to pass around the clipboards and then come home and try to enter each of those email addresses manually. The last time I did that with an audience of this size it took me weeks to get everything entered, and even then there were still typos and errors. To my great delight, I discovered Join By Text! Join By Text allows audience members to sign up for your “irresistible offer” by simply texting your special code to an assigned number, then they send their email addresses, which are automatically entered into your email provider, and after that they receive an email with links to the cool stuff you offered!