Independent Thinking » CW Bulletin

Expand Your Team with Virtual Help

Daria Steigman — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:47:12 +0000

Many independent consultants and small business owners are notoriously bad at delegating, whether it’s because they don’t want to spend the money or they don’t know where to start. Yet building a successful business means focusing on those tasks that make the most sense and delegating or eliminating those that will distract you or eat up valuable time.

One solution: a virtual assistant. The right virtual assistant can be invaluable.

My latest IABC CW Bulletin column is out, and the topic is how to expand your team with virtual help. The article looks at the varied ways that virtual assistants can help and offers some tips on finding the right one for you. It also features two people, Gloria Bell and Zane Safrit, with great insights on the topic.

Read the complete column here.

Photo by ShellyS. Flickr Creative Commons license.

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Blogging for Business Value

Daria Steigman — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:55:03 +0000

Have you ever wondered why a growing number of small businesses are investing time and resources into starting and maintaining a blog?

My latest column for CW Bulletin is out, and the topic is blogging for business value. While there is no magic formula for business success, a well-written, well-focused blog can be an effective way of promoting yourself by adding value for your multiple stakeholders.

The column looks at three key reasons why, if you don’t have one, you might want to consider starting a business blog:

content
thought leadership
street cred

Plus it features insights from Marc Meyer and A.J. Leon, both of whom know a little something about successful business blogging.

Read the column here, then come back and let’s talk about why you are (or aren’t) blogging for your business.

Five Reasons Small Business Will Weather the Downturn

Daria Steigman — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:08:38 +0000

My new column is out. The Small Business Edge: Why Solopreneurs and Small Businesses Will Weather the Downturn, looks at why I believe that small business has a big edge in this economy. Five quick reasons:

Innovation
Networks
Competition
Nimbleness
Flexibility

You can read the full column here. Then please come back and let’s talk in the comments about what you think. Do solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and small businesses have an edge? And what have you done to weather the downturn?

PR Time Capsule

Daria Steigman — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:00:14 +0000

I just skimmed through several years of IABC’s Communications World and CW Bulletin archives, and was struck by what communicators have found fundamental, relevant, or cutting-edge year from year. It was like rummaging through a time capsule.

The fundamentals of good communications strategy may not have changed, but the tools we’re using to achieve our goals certainly have evolved. A few years ago we were focused on e-mail marketing, Intranets, and teleconferencing, and we seemed to spend a lot of time strategizing how to push out information.

Now the conversation is about conversation: dialogue, collaboration, social networking. Instead of telling people what we want them to know about our brand, our product, or ourselves, we’re engaging them in shaping who we are and how we present ourselves. It’s a far more interesting place.