And imagine if these assistants could work at lightning speed and never needed to take a sick day.

Does this sound impossible? AI Agents have made it a reality. They are set to revolutionise productivity, empowering small businesses to deliver at the levels of major global brands.

Take a look at what this emerging technology can help your business achieve:

What are AI Agents?

AI Agents give you the capability to ‘clone’ yourself (or others) and create new team members that live exclusively in the digital realm. These virtual operators are artificially intelligent and have capabilities that include complex reasoning, contextual memory, and the power to execute tasks. They can have ‘natural’ conversations and learn from experience.

Your business can create AI Agents to fulfil specific roles such as data analyst or video script writer. These agents can be set up without the need for code and given specific functions to perform. They’re available to you 24/7 and they can produce results in a matter of seconds.

Think of all the key operators in your business as coaches of a basketball team; with AI Agents they can select the specific players that they need to ‘win’.

What’s more, these virtual players can work together, even when their ‘coach’ isn’t around. They won’t need you to continually enter specific prompts the way an AI platform like ChatGPT does.

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Creating custom workflows with AI Agents

What’s more, these virtual players can work together, even when their ‘coach’ isn’t around. Give them a job to do and they can pass it between each other to get it done.

For example, you can create a ‘Researcher’ AI Agent, who will send out requests for quotes. Then your ‘Procurement Expert’ can review them and create a shortlist of providers. Simply set a predefined goal and clarify where the resources need to come from. Your agents can intelligently collect information and understand the context of the task as well as the task itself.

With AI Agents, you’re getting an autonomous team that can interact and learn from each other while leveraging information from within your business and elsewhere. Once these agents are established, your team will be able to chat with them via text or voice, and feel like they’re having a discussion with an employee.

All of a sudden, six hour-long tasks can be completed in three minutes. Of course, the information your Agents come up with will require some input and review from a human, but the repetitive heavy lifting tasks will be done in seconds.

AI Agent use cases include:

• Customer enquiry and support chatbots
• Competitor analysis
• Cybersecurity monitoring and alerts
• Marketing and content creation
• Tracking and analysing big data
• Warning of changes in sales, website traffic, financial outcomes, etc
• Optimising supply chains

Embrace the future

If you can’t think of ten or more ways AI Agents can help you expand your productivity, your team probably can. The opportunity to shrink their to-do lists and expand their output opens up the potential to devise and implement creative new ways to grow the business.

AI Agents give your small business ways to:

• Exponentially increase efficiency
• Scale without having to commit huge funds to additional headcount
• Leverage data-driven insights
• Improve workflows and optimise operations
• Serve and satisfy more customers

Here’s the heads-up about this technology:

If you don’t take action to embrace AI and integrate it into your business, your competitors will. Using this technology doesn’t mean letting people go from their jobs; it means empowering the individuals within your organisation to be coaches, not players. They’ll be able to guide their own virtual team to massively expand on the results you are already achieving.

The best thing you can do right now is learn and understand. Then you can make a plan to transform and scale your business at a faster rate than ever before.

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Want a sneak peek at the incredible AI Agents platform? Check it out here.

Want to know more (heaps more) about growing your business? Visit www.businessblueprint.com.

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In May, Google and OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) held major events to unveil the latest versions of their artificial intelligence technology.

These updates will take things to a whole new level, giving you the potential to grow your business but putting your company at risk if you fail to understand just how much AI has to offer.

The buzzword for the latest changes and announcements is ‘multimodal’. AI is getting smarter and more capable. It’s going to change the way the entire world works.

What’s most exciting about this news is the opportunity to create a business that produces so much more for your clients, in so much less time and for a fraction of the cost.

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Take a look at the updates from this month:

May ChatGPT updates: GPT-4o

First, OpenAI has now formally launched GPT-4o, its latest AI model. Where ChatGPT follows written instructions and prompts and where Apple’s voice assistant Siri can feel slow (and let’s face it, frustrating), this version opens GPT up to voice control and lets you have a conversation that feels completely natural.

Speak to GPT-4o (that’s four-o, not the number 40, the ‘o’ stands for omni) and responses will basically be instant. You’ll even be able to interrupt and change the direction of the discussion. It’s like having a speaking encyclopaedia, advisor, therapist, teacher and strategist, all in the palm of your hand.

Think Siri, but on steroids.

What’s more, this upgraded tool now has ‘eyes’. You can show it something like a written maths problem and it will take a look and solve it while having a conversation with you.

The demo video below gives you a sense of what this upgrade is capable of:

If you already subscribe to ChatGPT, you might notice GPT-4o is already available on the website and app. The company has said it’s gradually rolling out the voice chat feature and other changes.

Even if you use the free version of ChatGPT, OpenAI has boosted its reasoning, processing and natural language capabilities so you will get better results from your prompts and requests.

In addition to the new multimodal features, OpenAI has upgraded the search functionality in ChatGPT, so you can upload more file formats including video and audio, and use them to create content that is more specific to your business.

Being able to converse with ChatGPT, interrupt it and even tell it to speak in a different tone of voice (check out this video) isn’t just a novelty; it’s a potential new way for customers to interact with your business. Using this incredible technology, you can automate responses to enquiries and your customers will experience a seamless conversation.

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Google AI updates

Google shared its own AI updates at the Google I/O 2024 event in May.

Check out the following:

Google’s AI platform Gemini has had an upgrade to become Gemini 1.5 Flash. The highlights of this are:

Long context: Upload a 15000 page pdf and you won’t overwhelm the system. Google is boasting the “longest context window in the world”, with capacity for up to one million pieces of data like words, phrases or numbers (these are referred to as ‘tokens’)

Multimodal capacity and reasoning: Gemini will be able to interact with sight, sound and spoken language. Hold your phone up to something and it can tell you what you’re looking at. You can even ask it to search your phone for specific images.

Search Generative Experience: Google will start to display what it calls AI Overviews in its search results, giving you a full answer instead of a link to a website.

Veo: Google’s text to video tool can generate high-quality 1080p resolution videos beyond a minute long, in a wide range of cinematic and visual styles. This is in response to OpenAI’s Sora, which was launched earlier this year.

Imagen 3: Google says its AI image generator understands prompts written in natural, everyday language, making it easier to get the output you want without complex prompt engineering.

Gems for Gemini: This is Google’s version of OpenAI’s Custom GPTs, which will allow you to create personalised AI chatbots that can speak on behalf of your business.

Impressed? Take a look at the video below to see some of this technology in action.

Integrating the latest AI technology into your business

It’s a lot to take in and it’s hard to know exactly how these updates will change things. One thing is for sure; this technology is here to stay.

As a business owner, the sooner you can adapt and integrate these amazing tools, the sooner you will give yourself an edge over the competition.

The most important things to do are:

Be aware of what’s going on and stay up to date with changes (keep an eye on our blog for more updates)

Learn the ways to implement AI tools to grow your business

Create a roadmap to introduce new technology and integrate it (it doesn’t have to happen overnight)

It’s hard to believe, but these changes are just the tip of the AI iceberg. Register for our upcoming event to find out exactly how you can apply them to grow your business.

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If you are ready to use AI to benefit you and your business today and beyond, register for the greatest AI event of the year – Reimagine Your Business! Check out event details here and register for FREE: https://businessblueprint.com/event.

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Understanding and leveraging AI can be the key to staying competitive and achieving sustainable growth in the rapidly changing times of business growth.

In this blog, you will get to learn what AI can do for your business:

• The shift to voice commerce from e-commerce
• Mindblowing AI integration in handheld devices
• Robotics is now a part of the workforce
• Using brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to grow your business
• Developing AI-powered digital assistantsà

But what exactly does this mean and how can you leverage AI technologies to create further opportunities and growth…..

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Opportunity #1 – The shift to voice commerce from e-commerce

One of the most exciting developments in AI is the rise of Voice Commerce or V-commerce. V-commerce will grow with an increasing number of consumers who will be using voice-enabled devices.

What can vcommerce do for your business?

• V-commerce uses your consumers’ natural and daily language, meaning your system can better understand how product names or even language can vary from region to region
• Customers can effortlessly make payments, all without having to touch a screen or type on a keyboard
• Offers a competitive edge in the market since you can cater to your customers faster

In the coming years, by integrating v-commerce into your business strategy, you can tap into this growing market and enhance the shopping experience for your customers before any other business in your industry. This will skyrocket your sales in the shortest time possible and make you a leading business for excellent customer service!

Opportunity #2 – Mindblowing AI integration in handheld devices

Another area where AI is making waves is in hardware integration. Innovations such as smart glasses equipped with AI-powered cameras, microphones and speakers are revolutionising how businesses interact with customers.

What can AI in handheld devices do for your business?

• AI can be integrated into various devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to provide personalised and context-aware customer experiences
• Customers can take a picture of an item and find similar products in your store
• AI can analyse customer data to predict future trends and customer behaviour

With these existing developments, it’s time to invest in exciting hardware that can improve operational efficiency and customer engagement. It will truly give you a competitive edge because you will be an early adopter of this technology!

Opportunity# 3 – Robotics is now a part of the workforce

AI-powered robots are not a thing of the future anymore! Right now, some businesses are already transforming industries, particularly manufacturing and logistics. With robotics, you will position your business for long-term success because economically, it is cost-effective with less costs in machinery and hiring more employees.

What can robotics technology do for your business?

• The robotics technology will automate repetitive tasks
• Improve safety in the workplace
• Reduce costs and increase output

Remember, though, that you will still need to hand over tasks to human employees that will require creative and analytical thinking, but, robotics can streamline processes that will save your employees more time and focus on other tasks!

Opportunity #4 – The Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technology

While still in its early stages, brain-computer interface (BCI) technology has the potential to revolutionise businesses. In case you didn’t know, the brain–machine interface or smart-brain, is a direct communication pathway between the brain’s electrical activity and an external device.

How can BCI technology help in your business growth?

• Enable hands-free operation of machinery and equipment
• Enhance data security through biometric authentication
• Increase productivity with seamless interaction between humans and computers

With companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink pioneering this technology, the possibilities are endless! Embracing BCI technology can propel your business further ahead and open up new opportunities, some of which we are only just beginning to see.

Opportunity #5 – Building Custom AI for Businesses

One of these exciting developments is building an AI-powered digital assistant that will help you and your employees streamline processes and ease heavy-duty tasks in the workflow. Investing in custom AI solutions can lead to increased efficiency, productivity and profitability. While this digital assistant can not replace human assistants, it does help improve accurate data tracking and ensure that reminders are followed through.

You will get to experience the following if you build an AI-powered digital assistant:

• Automate routine tasks
• Gain valuable insights from accurate data
• Improve customer service through prompt response and automated follow-up reminders

In integrating this technology, AI assistants allow human assistants to focus on other major tasks that require critical thinking or free up some time to help them accomplish other tasks that require attention. This will surely improve your employees’ well-being and at the same time, they can support you in developing other key areas in your business.

Practical steps for the future – Investing in AI technology as early as now!

Implementing AI technology can drive success and achieve sustainable growth! By embracing AI-powered solutions, business owners can stay ahead of the game. As the AI revolution continues to unfold, now is the time for businesses to adapt, innovate and thrive in the digital age.

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If you are ready to ride the great AI wave that will benefit you and your business today and beyond then it’s time for you to learn valuable information about it by attending our greatest AI event of the year – Reimagine Your Business! Check out event details here and register for FREE: https://businessblueprint.com/event

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With an array of AI tools readily available, businesses no longer view AI as a futuristic concept but as a present-day necessity. So, here are tips that you can do to bring AI to your business.

1. AI-Assisted Customer Enquiries

Dale shared that AI will revolutionise the way businesses manage customer enquiries and interactions. “AI can manage interactions seamlessly with customers’ enquiries, thereby, not dumping so many enquiries that your customer support team can handle.”

AI can enhance customer interactions through:

• Engaging with customers right away
• Answering common queries
• Escalating complex issues to human support when necessary

When you leverage the amazing capabilities of AI, it will not only ensure a smoother and more efficient experience for both customers and support teams alike but also will elevate your customer experience.

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2. Utilising AI for Sales Calls

Dale recognised that with AI technology, businesses can now optimise their sales efforts through automated sales calls. “AI can now handle inbound sales calls, thereby enhancing sales efforts and customer engagement.”

AI can elevate sales calls through:

• Personalising interactions based on customer data and preferences
• Analysing customer responses to tailor future interactions
• Managing follow-up communications efficiently

Ultimately, AI can create a more seamless and satisfying customer support process that will increase customer retention and foster loyalty – bringing your business to long-term success.

3. Improving Customer Onboarding

Ready to enhance your overall customer experience? According to Dale, implementing an AI Support system is a surefire way to take your customer support to the next level. “By leveraging AI for customer service and sales, businesses can provide faster responses, increase sales and improve overall customer satisfaction.”

AI can significantly boost customer support experience through:

• Anticipating customer needs
• Offering personalised solutions
• Boosting customer satisfaction by providing recommendations

When you implement AI, you will implement a comprehensive approach that ensures a seamless and gratifying customer support journey, thereby fostering a long-term positive relationship with your clients.

4. Making It Easier to Onboard New Staff

Dale discussed how AI can play a key role in streamlining the onboarding process for new employees. “AI can assist in onboarding new staff by providing training materials, answering questions and guiding them through various processes and tasks.”

AI can efficiently onboard new staff through:

• Saving time and resources in training new staff
• Helping new employees become productive more quickly
• training materials in an efficient and accessible manner

With AI, your staff can boost their productivity, elevate their performance and create consistency in their performance. At the same time, your newly hired employees can be seamlessly onboarded and integrated – diving into their work and achieving results right away!

5. AI-Powered Marketing Assistant

Dale included marketing as another area where AI tools can make a significant impact. “AI can aid in marketing efforts by designing campaigns, creating ads and recommending strategies based on brand guidelines and customer data.”

AI tools can optimise marketing through:

• Assisting your marketing team in brainstorming ideas
• Helping your marketing team in creating a structure for content marketing
• Aiding your team in creating design assets
• Automating campaigns across different platforms

AI tools can optimise marketing efforts, making your campaigns more efficient and effective across platforms, thereby, achieving your marketing goals faster and accelerating business growth in no time!

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Ride the AI wave for business success

AI is here and it will further provide businesses with boundless possibilities. Dale shared that it will not be an automatic transformation – with careful planning and implementation, leveraging the power of AI will allow businesses to double their productivity & profits!

“The journey towards AI integration is a marathon, not a sprint; it requires patience, experimentation and a willingness to learn.”

Do you want to stay ahead of the curve and unlock new opportunities for your business? If YES then it’s time to embrace the power of AI!

Get ready to bring the wonders of AI into your business by attending our greatest AI event of 2024 – Reimagine Your Business! Check out event details here and register for FREE: https://businessblueprint.com/event

The post 5 Key Lessons shared by Dale Beaumont on How to Take Your Business to the Next Level with AI! appeared first on Business Blueprint.

However, creating content for your products and services takes a great deal of time and effort. With businesses constantly evolving to meet the needs and wants of the market, it’s crucial that we use the right tools to streamline business operations, such as creating content.

So what’s the solution to this? ChatGPT is considered to be a revolutionary tool that can significantly cut down on time and effort needed to write copies and content. But right before you scroll further down the page, here’s an important presentation that discusses in detail what makes chatGPT a revolutionary tool. Since this is time-sensitive topic, we urge you to take some time in watching this informative presentation to get an all-around idea on chatGPT.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI-powered conversational chatbot that is built using the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture. It is a language model developed by OpenAI that can process and generate human-like text. ChatGPT is designed to understand natural language inputs and generate responses that are relevant to the user’s queries.

This tool has been trained on a massive dataset of text, which includes various forms of online content such as books, articles, websites, and social media posts. This training has enabled ChatGPT to learn the patterns and nuances of human language and generate responses that are contextually relevant and conversational.

ChatGPT can be used in a wide range of applications, including customer service, support, e-commerce, education, and healthcare. It can be integrated with various messaging platforms such as Slack, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, making it easy for users to interact with the system using simple text inputs.

Overall, this revolutionary application is a powerful tool that enables businesses to improve user engagement, reduce support costs, and provide fast and accurate responses to user queries.

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The Benefits of using ChatGPT

There are various benefits to using ChatGPT. Not only will this free up your time to do more important tasks, but it’s also known for having the follow benefits:

• Fast and Efficient: ChatGPT is designed to be fast and efficient, providing real-time responses to users. It can process large volumes of data quickly, allowing it to provide fast and accurate responses to user inquiries.
• Large Vocabulary: ChatGPT has been trained on a massive corpus of data, giving it a broad knowledge base and a large vocabulary. It can understand and respond to a wide range of user queries and questions.
• Natural Language Understanding: ChatGPT is designed to understand natural language and can interpret and respond to user queries in a conversational manner. This makes it easier for users to interact with the system, reducing the need for technical knowledge or jargon.
• Easy to Use: ChatGPT is easy to use and can be integrated into a wide range of applications and platforms, including websites, messaging apps, and social media platforms. Users can interact with ChatGPT using simple text inputs, making it accessible to a wide range of users.
• Personalized Responses: ChatGPT can learn from user interactions and provide personalized responses to users based on their history and preferences. This can help to create a more engaging and personalized experience for users.
• 24/7 Availability: ChatGPT is available 24/7, making it easy for users to get answers to their questions and queries at any time. This can help to improve user satisfaction and reduce the need for human support staff.

Overall, ChatGPT provides a range of benefits that can help to improve user engagement, reduce support costs, and provide fast and accurate responses to user queries.

How Can This Help Your Business?

Now that you know the various benefits of using ChatGPT for your business and content marketing campaigns, you may be asking yourself “But, how will this affect my business?” Well, it’s important to keep in mind that there are many businesses that are constantly adapting to fit the needs of their market. ChatGPT can give you a significant advantage against competitors that are not using the tool.

​​So if you want to discover more tech tools and breakthrough strategies for your business, check out our events and more details in our website.

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Together with our members, along with their families and virtual assistants, we ran a 2-day training for 170 staff learning about each other’s culture and values.

Plus, a Business Blueprint event is not complete without an epic party! So for our final day, we had a beach party overlooking the ocean.

There have been so many highlights, it is almost impossible to list them all. So we made a video showing our favourite moments.

The Offshore Accelerator was not just about learning and growing business but also about building a stronger connection with our international team. Now, if you want to know how to tap into the incredible talent that is now available to you too, I highly recommend you attend our last free business growth workshop in a city near you.

To learn more about this workshop and reserve your seat, visit our New Rules of Business page. As you will soon see, this event has the power to transform your business in the most positive way imaginable. See you there!

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Below Dale shares with you his top five reasons why you need to build a virtual team. Click the play button to watch the full video now.

 
Here’s a breakdown of some benefits of hiring a virtual team:

1. Unprecedented Skills Shortages

Australia is experiencing unprecedented skills shortages across all industries and all professions. So if you live in Australia or New Zealand, and you’re running a business, you may be having a tough time finding staff right now. But in the Philippines, there’s an abundance of talent.

The Philippines is a country with over 100 million people and there are literally hundreds of thousands of people graduating from university every year. People that are young, speak great English, are highly skilled, and highly educated. In addition, many of them have degrees or double degrees, and they’re eager to work for Australian and Kiwi businesses.

So if you want to be able to find and hire great staff that can help you in your business right now, then the Philippines is a great place to start.

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2. Increased Staff Retention

Are you experiencing a high employee turnover among your staff in Australia or New Zealand? A high employee turnover rate, the rate at which employees leave a business, creates a lot of inconsistency since you’ll need to rehire and retrain new people all the time. This may also affect the bottom line of your business.

To address this issue, you can hire a remote staff from the Philippines. Filipinos are loyal, especially if you’ll look after them and treat them well. At Business Blueprint, we have Filipino team members that have been with us for almost 10 years.

If you understand how to hire, recruit and manage really good virtual team members, that will massively improve your overall retention, and also improve the retention of your local staff. The majority of the reason why so many people leave is that they are forced to do things that they don’t want to do anymore, that are not exciting and interesting. So what you can do is create a system for those tasks and delegate it to your virtual team. This way your local staff can focus on the tasks that they love and what they do best.

3. Speed of Implementation

Having a dedicated team that is available to you all the time means you can get stuff done fast. For instance, if you’re working with a graphic designer that is working with an agency, they’re not normally just sitting around waiting for your instructions so they can do a task for you. But it might be three days or a week or two weeks before that task is going to be done.

On the other hand, if you build your own international team, all your team members are available whenever you need them. So it means you can do business at the speed of thought, which is awesome. Whether you need a graphic designer, website developer, or customer care assistant, you can fill any position in your team from the Philippines.

4. Lower Cost of Staff

Many business owners ask how much does it cost in order to hire a virtual assistant? This will depend greatly on the person’s level of skills and experience and also it will depend on the type of tasks that you’re getting them to do and what professional qualifications may be required. It can be anywhere from, say 8 dollars an hour at a low point to anywhere up to 20 or 30 dollars per hour at the high end, for people that are professionals in their fields.

For example, people that are certified accountants or people that make drafts, or people that are high-end video editors, then you’ll be looking at paying more professional rates. But, it’s still around one-tenth, maybe, one-seventh of what it is for employing a local staff member, most likely in your country.

Now, the average that we’re going to use is around about 6 to 8 dollars an hour. If we just have that number in your head, then you’re going to be pretty safe for a general virtual assistant. If you’re going to be hiring someone full-time to work in your business, that’s around 40 hours a week, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, then you’re going to be looking at somewhere between about 600 dollars up to 1,000 dollars per month, depending on whether they’re working from home or they’re working from a serviced office.

5. Stop Things From Being Missed

As a business owner, you can only do so many things so when you get busy, a lot of stuff starts falling through the cracks. However, if you have a good virtual team, you can pass all of those tasks on to them. Having that extra capacity that is available to you on demand, just means that you are able to be a lot more productive and get more things done. Delegating these tasks also frees you up to devote yourself to bringing in more business or providing the specialist service which generates money for your business.

It’s also important to remember that once you have recruited your virtual assistant, it is important to provide them with the necessary training. By creating policies, procedures and systems, you will be able to show them once how to do something, share a document with the instructions and then hand over the responsibility.

Social Impact

Filipinos have very close family ties. When you employ someone here in the Philippines, generally they’re supporting anywhere from three to sometimes up to five other family members. And so by you growing your team here, you’re making a really positive impact on a country like the Philippines by providing Filipinos more employment and creating more wealth for themselves and their families.

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There you have it! Six reasons why you want to start thinking about building your own international team. One of the best things I ever did was building my international team and now we’ve helped hundreds of other business owners to do the same and we’d love to help you too. We have some amazing training that goes through and shows you how to do this step by step. Simply visit our Training page here.

If you’re the type that prefers attending in-person events, you can come along to our New Rules of Business workshop where I discuss in detail how to find, hire and manage your virtual team. Claim your free tickets here.

The post 5 Solid Reasons Why You Need To Build An International Team appeared first on Business Blueprint.

But before we share those things with you, here’s a video that we recorded during our most recent conference, so you can see what it was like and experience the magic that happened during all 4 days.

1. Stay positive

Whenever there’s a crisis, it’s easy to let fear and negative thoughts creep in. But despite all the challenges, it’s really important to make sure that you stay positive. Constantly thinking about worst-case scenarios won’t help you to navigate challenging situations and move forward.

As the saying goes, “Negativity is the enemy of creativity.” If you want your business to thrive in times of crisis, it’s important to maintain a positive outlook. If you’re filled with self-doubt and negativity, these thoughts occupy your mind and leave little room to think of ways to move your business forward. Keeping a positive mindset can help you to develop the resilience you need to handle tough situations and bounce back more rapidly.

As a community, we’ve gone through a lot of changes in the last couple of months. These changes have affected our team members and most especially our clients. But we constantly remind them that how we respond to the situation is what matters. So during COVID, we encouraged our team and our clients to keep a positive mindset and stay motivated.

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2. Look for opportunities

“When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.” – John F. Kennedy

Business owners respond differently when presented with sudden, drastic changes. Some carry on and run the business as usual, as if nothing happened. Meanwhile, others try to look beyond the crisis and take advantage of the situation, and this is exactly what we did.

Inside every crisis is danger, but there’s also the opportunity to innovate, create and grow your business. Instead of waiting for things to blow over, we looked for new ways to elevate the Business Blueprint program and help our clients survive the COVID crisis. We started by gathering the brightest business experts in Australia for a 1-day business workshop called ‘Conquer the Crisis’. It was one of our most successful online events ever. We had business owners all over the world attend this free training and gain insights from experts on how to navigate the new normal.

3. Communicate early and communicate often

During times of crisis, you want to be communicating as often as you can. The worst thing that can happen is businesses don’t communicate or under-communicate out of fear of upsetting their customers.

When there is a crisis of any kind, then you always want to be on the front foot. And even if you don’t know exactly what’s happening, tell people that you’re working on it. It gives people confidence that you are proactive, that you care and that you’re finding solutions to their problems.

Here at Business Blueprint, what we did is we doubled down on our communication efforts during COVID times. We were sending out messages every day to our clients with updates and information and useful things that they could be doing in their business. But now we dropped that back down to once a week. But during COVID, we over-communicated rather than under-communicated.

4. Add massive value

During challenging times, we want to make sure our clients know that there is help at hand. So we launched brand new project initiatives that added massive value to our clients. Prior to COVID, we ran one event every fortnight. Then we levelled up to running an event five days a week.

We had a crisis hotline that we called “Panic2Plan” where clients would get access to our coaches for one on one conversations to help them. Our founder and CEO Dale Beaumont even made himself available to personally coach clients one on one, which he’d never done before.

Plus, we invited experts for our clients dealing with mindset issues. We also did extra events in terms of life planning and business planning, and also how to deal with the emotional stress of the situation.

In short, we’ve found ways to more than almost double the value of our program without having to raise our membership price.

Fast forward to today, since we’ve now come out of COVID, we eased back on many of those deliverables. However, there has been a number that we have kept like our weekly workshops and coaching session with Dale. So out of this crisis have come some amazing opportunities which are now an integral part of the Business Blueprint program.

5. We moved online

When COVID happened, we were forced to move everything online, which was a major blessing. Not only did it mean that we could attract clients that we’d never been able to reach before, such as in the country, rural areas or overseas. But it also enabled us to deliver more events to our clients than ever before.

One of the many online events we ran was “The Ultimate 1-Day Marketing Bootcamp”. This breakthrough event was designed to help business owners create their own marketing plans and bring in hundreds or even thousands of new leads every month. We even produced a brand-new document called “The 5-Page Marketing Plan Template” exclusively for this workshop.

Plus, we launched not just one but five free on-demand trainings. These training videos were created to answer our clients’ biggest business struggles like sales, marketing, hiring and managing staff, systems and leadership. If you want to watch or learn more about our on-demand online training, visit our Training page here.

These online events then opened up lots of doors and opportunities for us to help business owners transform their businesses. Although we have moved back now to lots of in-person events, we’ve kept many of our online events so now we truly have the best of both worlds.

In fact, just recently we organized our biggest, most successful hybrid conference ever! Knowing some of our clients will be unable to come, we decided to give them the best of both worlds. We live streamed the four-day event which meant we had to set up three breakout rooms going at the same time and our clients were able to enjoy the conference either live or in person without having to miss anything.

Our most recent conference brought together more than 320 in-person attendees and over 100 virtual participants. Plus, we put together a stellar lineup of world-class speakers and mentors including Maz Farrelly, Siimon Reynolds, Joe Pane, Dan Gregory and Katrina McCarter.

As if that wasn’t enough, we organized an epic party with the theme of Monaco Millionaires. Everyone dress up in style and danced the night away! Watch the video above to see for yourself what’s it like at a Business Blueprint Conference.

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6. Build systems

After every winter, there is always spring, and we knew this spring would eventually come. And when it did we want to be ready so we thought what can we do during the winter?

With the new online events and initiatives we’ve implemented to enhance the program, we knew exactly what we need to do next — build more systems.

Some business owners tend to think of building systems as a “one and done” project. However, as your business continues to grow, you must refine your systems and work on them and take them to the next level.

So what we did is we assigned each team member to create five to 10 systems related to their work. So when we started to come out of COVID we had more than 150 new systems, which dramatically improved our efficiency.

7. We backed and supported each other

Amid the global pandemic, every single person on the team had struggles and times when they felt down. With all the lockdown and work-from-home set up, we knew that this new way of working was going to affect our team’s overall wellbeing and so we just rallied behind every team member that’s struggling and ask what can we do to help, what can we do to support and we did. We helped and supported each other. Then when that person bounced back, they were in a position to help other people as well.

As much as we want the pandemic to end, the effects of COVID will be with us for some time. There will be more disruption in the future and if you want your business to survive, you must adapt and find new ways to do business and add more value to your clients.

Here at Business Blueprint, we are so proud of our clients and team members for showing up with energy, passion, and commitment and constantly finding ways to transform their life and business despite going through the toughest time.

The post 7 Things We Did to Survive COVID and Run Our Most Successful Event Ever appeared first on Business Blueprint.

If you want to build a successful and profitable business, what every business owner must do is go outside of their comfort zones and ask others for feedback, and suggestions and ultimately learn from other people’s experiences. If you want to tap into other people’s experiences, then the thing that you need to do is you need to ask.

Of all the people to take advice from, your customers should be at the top of your list. Why? Because these are the people who know first-hand the strengths and weaknesses of your product or service, don’t you think it’s kind of important to listen to them?

Now you may be wondering, ‘how do I get advice from my customers?’

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Well, you ask questions of course. And we have discovered that the better the questions, the more potent the answers. Here are 10 favourite questions to ask every customer:

1. How did you find out about us?

This question is pretty obvious and simple, however, it’s really powerful. As a business owner, you should never miss asking this question to every customer you talk to.

When speaking to clients, one of the questions we always ask is, “What is your most profitable marketing method?” Some would respond, “I don’t know. I just do a bit of everything and thankfully people come through my door.” This is what we call the ‘let’s throw some mud at the wall and hope something sticks’ mentality.

This may work for a period of time, however as your business starts to grow, you are going to attract more competition. When this happens you can’t afford to be wasteful. Your survival is going to depend on your ability to know what marketing channels are effective. So from now on, ask every customer you talk to, “So how did you find out about us?”

Remember, this question is something that you really want to ask while it’s fresh in someone’s mind. So think about when is it going to be for you. During the initial phone call, a face-to-face conversation, or will you be automating this through a digital form that people will complete?

2. Why did you choose us?

This is one of the more simple questions that so many people don’t ask. When we ask business owners, “Why do your customers buy from you?” And all that stares back at us are blank faces. Then when asked again, they make up something like, “Because we are cheaper”. Generally, that’s not it.

When someone buys, you want to find out why they chose your product or service over all the other options that they had. So be sure to ask everyone from now on. You’ll be surprised how much value you’ll get from the language that people use to describe why they joined can be really powerful from a marketing point of view.

In fact, to fast-track things, you can even ask retrospectively. Spend a couple of hours, call fifty past customers – you’ll be amazed at what you learn. When one of our members did this, the number one reason they got was, “Because you always greet me with a smile and remember my name.” Imagine what it is really costing you when you hire an unfriendly person!

3. Why didn’t you buy?

If you don’t know why customers did not buy your product or service, then you would not know what to fix. This is why it’s essential to ask this question every time someone says no to your offer.

By asking this question, what you’ll find is either it had nothing to do with you or someone actually gives you a genuine reason that you could do something about it. The latter will help you to be better when it comes to putting together your product or service, or when it comes to selling or marketing what you do.

4a. Once you used our product or service, what benefits did you receive?

This question should not be asked when they’re a prospect. They have to be a customer to ask this question. Maybe it’s a month or two months or once they’ve experienced the value of your service.

With this one, it’s best to set up an automation so you won’t forget to ask for your customer’s feedback. Set up an email campaign that gets sent 30 days after someone buys your product or service. You could also set up a reminder for one of your team to call them.

4b. Once you used our product or service, what problems went away?

Most people buy products or services to solve problems. But some business owners don’t know the problems that their product or service solves. Not knowing this information makes it extremely difficult to be effective in your marketing.

So ask your customers, “Once you used our product/service what problems of yours were solved?” If they are unable to respond straight away, stay with this line of questioning. Keep asking the same question, but do so in different ways. Your job here is to dig deep and uncover the often subconscious reasons why people make decisions.

Then when you have this information, talk to your marketing team and they can turn these insights into great headlines, powerful images or even special promotions. Do this right and prospective customers will feel an instant connection.

5. When is your birthday?

This is a really easy one. All you do is add one extra field to your customer sign-up form – Date of Birth. Just add it in there after the email address and before the phone numbers. They’ll fill it out and won’t even give it a second thought. Then ensure that the date is entered into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.

At Business Blueprint, we programmed our CRM to email one of our team five days before a client’s birthday. When that email comes in they hand-write a card and pop it in with a little pressie to be mailed. When this happens, customers are amazed. They say things to us like, “Oh my God, how did you know?” Or, “My husband/kids don’t even remember my birthday.” Imagine the positive word of mouth this creates.

6. What did you think of our product or service?

This question is a tough one, but it has to be asked. So after a customer has had the chance to experience your service ask them, “What did you think of our service?” If they give you a flippant answer like, “Yeah, it was good,” ask again. “No, tell me honestly… what did you think of your experience?”

Now if you are squirming as you read this, you might have a problem, as you should be able to ask this question with confidence and without the fear that you are going to be opening a can of worms.

So again, work hard to close the gaps. Take the time to review your entire sales and service experience. Then look for ways that you can improve.

7. What’s one thing we could do better?

Further to the question above, this one is all about going deeper. Let’s say you’ve done a great job, you ask the question above and the person genuinely says, “I’ve loved your service, it’s great”. Rather than leaving it there ask, “Well if there was one thing we could do better, what would it be?”

The way this question is phrased forces people to come up with something. That one thing might have gone undetected and it may be the key to unlocking something very powerful about your business. So keep asking the question and if you continuously fix these issues, you’ll soon build an unstoppable business.

8. How would you feel about recommending us to others?

If you received a positive response to question six, then you can proceed to ask customers if they want to recommend your product or service. Basically, what you’re doing here is asking for a referral. Once customers give you referrals, make sure to take their email addresses and phone numbers so you can start getting in touch with them.

9. Do you know of any companies we should align with?

Next, you want to ask customers, “Do you know any companies we should align with?” By asking this question people start thinking and after a few moments they say, “Yes you need to speak to my ‘ABC’ company and you should also talk to ‘XYZ’.”

This is great business, as you can call on these companies and say, “One of our mutual customers John Smith suggested we talk. He sees an opportunity for us to work together so we can both benefit. Are you open to meeting for a coffee so we can discuss some ideas?”

And just like that, you are in.

10. What else would you like us to sell?

This question is a killer question and can seriously open the door to thousands or even millions of dollars in extra profits.

Now one word of warning, don’t ask this question during sign up or even during the delivery phase of your service. Only ask this question when you have gained a sufficient rapport with your customer and you are talking like friends.

When you think you are ready, ask them, “What else would you like us to sell?” Notice I didn’t say, “What else would you like to buy?” If you ask the buy question, people will normally say, “I’m fine right now.” Or they ask you, “Well what else can I buy?” This is a good conversation to have, however, the sell question will get you and your customer thinking about new products and services – ones that aren’t even on your radar yet.

You see, when you sell someone a product you solve a problem but you create another. And if you aren’t aware of the extra problems you create, your customers will go elsewhere to solve them.

For example, here at Business Blueprint, we help people increase their business profits, solving the problem of not having enough money. But we create the problem of what they are going to do now with their extra profits. So by asking our clients what else would they like us to offer, we have learnt that they like to know how to invest profits, build wealth and learn how to protect their income. So we have now started providing training about quality investment opportunities and business insurance.

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What to Do Next

If you have a team, this is only going to work if you get them involved. So run training on these questions and then every month have a meeting where staff can share what they’ve learnt. It’s a process but if you do it right, millions of dollars await you.

The post 10 Questions to Ask Every Customer You Talk To appeared first on Business Blueprint.

Getting testimonials is very exciting and we love getting them because they inspire our team to do better. But that’s not the only reason why testimonials are important for your business. One of the fastest and easiest ways to boost the conversion rate of any website or marketing piece is to use testimonials.

​​Nowadays, people are becoming more cautious when it comes to new businesses. They are more skeptical because they want to avoid risks. They will need some sort of proof that your service or product is worth it. To overcome potential customers’ doubts, you will need testimonials.

And you should also know that it’s even better if those testimonials are in video form.

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The Benefits of Video Testimonials

Having video testimonials will give your potential customers confidence in your product or service and entice them to purchase from you. Your testimonial about your own product doesn’t count because the true measure of a product or service is what other people say about it.

More believable vs written testimonials

Written testimonials enable people to provide a detailed review of your product or service, However, video testimonials show real faces and reactions of your customers, which makes it more authentic, credible and believable compared to posting a block of text on your website.

More engaging and relatable

Videos help you stand out in an increasingly noisy landscape. With the element of sound and movement present in every video, you can instantly capture the attention of potential customers. Plus, people are more likely to trust video testimonials than advertisements designed to promote your product or service. If people hear a story similar to their own, this increases the likelihood for people to buy from you.

Shareable across different channels

The more video testimonials you have from existing clients, the more credible your business. You can use them on your website and in all your marketing materials. This in turn, will entice more clients to purchase or subscribe to your service.

But how do you gather them quickly and easily without the typical fuss? In this article, we’ll show you how to use a new technology tool called Vouch to help you to gather hundreds of high-quality video testimonials fast.

What is Vouch

Vouch is a video collection tool that allows users to collect, edit and share videos with a single link. This tool can be used for video testimonials, feedback, team comms, sales team training, recruitment and more. All you need to do is create your personalised Vouch video, add questions that you would like to ask, and once done, send out your video requests in seconds. Then your recipients can record responses directly in any browser. If you want to learn why we love using Vouch, [click here].

How to Create a Vouch Video

If this is your first time using a video testimonial software, there’s no need to worry. Vouch is allows you to “capture authentic customer testimonials, feedback or team updates in a few clicks.”

To get started, you need to sign up for a free account at vouchfor.com. Once done, you can log in to your account and take their product tour. Or review and follow the steps below on how to create your very first Vouch request.

1. Login to your Vouch account.
2. Select Vouches from the top level menu.
3. Click on the New button to start the Vouch creation process.
4. On the Create New pop up screen, select the option Vouch.
5. Click on the drop down menu and select Create New Contact.
6. Once selected, you can now add the Name and Email Address of your contact.

After setting up a Vouch request, the next step is to add the Questions and then personalise. Add your own logo, colors and styling so your Vouch video reflects your branding across all touch points. To add questions, simply click on the + Add a Question button.
It’s important to ask the right questions to your customers and audience. To help Vouch created a question library that you can access anytime. After typing in your question one, click Save + Add another. Then add your cover message and cover video. Once your Vouch video is ready, share the URL via any method (Email, SMS, Direct Message) and start collecting testimonials from customers.

How to Edit and Share Your Vouch

After gathering high quality video testimonials from your customers, you’ll need to share it to the world. If needed, you can use Vouch’s trimming feature which you can access in the dashboard. There’s also an option to generate and add transcriptions to your video.

Once the editing process is done, it’s time to share your video. There are easy ways to share your video all with minimum effort. According to Vouch, these are five main ways to share your videos:

• Playlink – A dedicated webpage that hosts your content
• Embeds – The easiest way to add your Vouches to your website
• Downloads – Customize your files and get them ready to share
• QR Code – The best way to share videos at events or in store
• Social media – Download in the ratio you need, or share directly to Twitter

For more details on why we love using Vouch and to check out more tech tools, you can use for your business, visit our Tools We Love page.

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More Tech Tools

With so much disruption happening around the world, using technology in your business has never been more important. The right technology tool can increase your team’s productivity, improve collaboration, and save more time so you can focus on growing your business.

​​So if you want to discover more tech tools and breakthrough strategies for your business, join our one-day business growth workshop, New Rules of Business. For more details about the event and how to reserve a seat, visit our website here.

The post Here’s How to Gather High-Quality Video Testimonials appeared first on Business Blueprint.