Networking is one of those words that can either make the social butterfly beam with excitement or the introverted feel more stressed and anxious. It’s not everyone’s favorite thing to do but if you’re a business owner it’s important to put yourself out there.

Making connections can help your business in so many ways. It enables you to meet influential people, gather info that may be beneficial to your business, and/or even just attain some biz support with like minded people.

Businesses are built around relationships. It’s truly who you know in many instances. So here are our 10 tips for networking when you hate networking.

You started your service-based business because you had dreams you wanted to achieve and goals to accomplish. Unfortunately, you just haven’t quite been able to get there yet.

It seems like you keep signing low-ticket clients and doing triple the work than you actually have time for. Your personal life? Virtually non-existent at this point because of how deep you’re buried in client work, yet you have little to no income or growth to show for it.

There’s no secret to making all the problems in your business disappear, and that’s because we don’t want to keep signature services a secret! Creating a signature service is what will enable you to open so many doors in your business that you’ve barely been able to crack thus far.

In this blog post, we’ll be covering how to create a signature service in 30 days or less, so keep reading as we break it down by four tangible weeks!

Not many people would say systems get them excited but at Boss Project we feel passionately that systems are THE THING that gets us excited. (yeah, you heard us right!) Systems are what give you more time and freedom, they give you the opportunity to step away, they run your business smoothly, and they provide your clients with an excellent experience.

We’ve heard many business owners say that systems and automations are overwhelming to tackle because it’s one more thing to think about. If that’s the case for you then you really NEED systems. With some up front work, you’ll actually have less things to think about and more time to do other things.

When talking about the customer experience, there’s one word in particular that should come to mind: feelings. After all, that’s what it revolves around– how you make your customers or clients feel before, during, and after working with you.

But because the experience is based around feelings, that raises a ton of questions. How can you track feelings as a measurable KPI? What parts of your process should you focus on to invoke those positive feelings? Why the heck is all of this so important to begin with?

Keep reading for the answers to all of your questions as it relates to the art of the customer or client experience!

We’ve noticed in our service-based community that there seems to be some confusion around CRMs vs. Project Management Systems. We get asked questions like “If I use Dubsado, will I still need to use Asana?” or “Is a CRM supposed to replace my Project Management System?” It’s understandable confusion, especially if you’re transitioning to using both but aren’t sure what their purposes are.

In this blog post, we’ll be answering your questions about CRMs versus Project Management Systems, which one you should use (or both), and hopefully making your life as a service provider a whole lot easier!

Have you ever felt like this? It’s a weekday morning, you know you need to get out of bed and work on your business but you just do NOT have the energy or the brain power. You’ve lost the gumption you had when you first started your business and now you’re just feeling burnt out, and in a Cycle of Doom™.

As a Virtual Assistant, likely one of the best ways to describe your services is “flexible.” Especially as a General VA, flexibility is one thing that seemingly allows you to keep growing your business. Because you probably don’t specialize in one specific area, you’re able to keep adjusting and bending to your clients’ needs and adding more skills to your bucket.

However, another common theme within the VA world is one that we believe can become detrimental: hourly pricing. As you become more efficient in your work and take less time to complete things, this comes back to bite you in the rear.

The solution? Honing into a signature service that you can offer at a package rate. In this blog post, we’ll be diving into what a signature service is and how you can create one for your Virtual Assistant business!

We’ve talked a lot about how to create a signature service here on the blog (like here, here, and also here). Creating a signature service is the best way to eliminate competition, stand out in your niche, and do exactly what you love for exactly who you love to work for. In fact, we help our clients refine their offer into a High-Touch Signature Service™ inside The Incubator. (Psst.. you can learn more and apply here.)

Before we dive into what this could look like for you, let’s get clear on what a signature service actually is!

By definition, a Subject Matter Expert (SME) is a person who is an authority in a particular area or topic. They’re knowledgeable about their topic, they focus on a very specific field, and they’re extremely sought after. If you’re a 1:1 service provider whose expertise lies in a specific niche, then you, our friend, are a Subject Matter Expert!

For example, a general Social Media Manager wouldn’t usually be classified as a SME, but an Instagram Strategy Consultant for veterinarians could be. You can fill in the blanks with your specific niche and ideal client. This isn’t to say one is better than the other, but we do want you to understand the difference between a generalist title versus a SME.

In this post, we’ll be covering 4 things that we think SMEs really need to be aware of about running a profitable business!