Your Virtual Success: Finding Profitability in an Online World

by Alan Blume

Overview

The more virtual your business, the more flexible the hours, the lower the overhead, and the greater the profit potential. Your Virtual Success will help a cash-poor entrepreneur, a small business scrambling for expansion capital, an existing business seeking to improve profits, or an independent professional in any service business.

Alan Blume's virtual model has resulted in large six-figure deals with people he's never met face to face—and never will— and small sales that would never be profitable in a traditional business environment. In Your Virtual Success, he demystifies the cost-effective, leading-edge, Internet-based tools that are available to almost everyone, as long as you know what questions to ask and where to look.

Your Virtual Success shows any entrepreneur, sole proprietor, partnership, or existing business how to:

Leverage new Internet tools to grow your business faster and more profitably.

Utilize free or low-cost online resources to hire, manage and expand your business.

Rapidly create a new, work-from-home virtual business while minimizing the risks of a traditional startup.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781601631015
Publisher:	Red Wheel/Weiser
Publication date:	06/20/2010
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Alan Blume is a successful sales and marketing entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of StartUpSelling, Inc. a virtual sales, lead-generation, and marketing services organization. It is a privately held, debt-free, self-funded virtual company that conducts business transactions remotely, rarely meeting prospects, clients, or contractors in person. During his 25-year career, Blume has worked for both boot strapped firms and cash-rich, venture-backed firms. His methods have always yielded the same significant sales growth results in relatively modest time frames. Blume received a BS from Northeastern University and was awarded a Northeastern University Fellowship to pursue a masters degree.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Tale of Two Nephews 9

Chapter 1 I Brushed the Sand off My Suit 11

Chapter 2 Would You Hire Yourself for a Virtual Company? 23

Chapter 3 Business Basics for Your Virtual Company 37

Chapter 4 How to Create a Virtual Business in 72 Hours 59

Chapter 5 A Virtual Boutique: Branding and Image for Your Virtual Operation 79

Chapter 6 Virtual Selling: Identify and Qualify 97

Chapter 7 Virtual Selling: Present and Close 115

Chapter 8 Virtual Marketing 133

Chapter 9 Virtual Hiring and Virtual People Management 163

Chapter 10 Expanding Your Virtual Business 183

Chapter 11 A Virtual Conclusion 199

Appendix A 217

Appendix B 225

Notes 227

Resources and Suggested Reading 229

Index 233

About the Author 239

Editorial Reviews

"Alan runs our marketing department professionally, proactively and 100-percent virtually."
—Ron Cooperman, CEO, KCI Insurance Agency

Reviews

"Alan runs our marketing department professionally, proactively and 100-percent virtually."
—Ron Cooperman, CEO, KCI Insurance Agency

From the Publisher