Entrepreneurs - 12 Days of Christmas Extravaganza - Tara Dubois & Kelly Poelker

The 12 Days of Christmas – The Great Holiday Networking Extravaganza, hosted by Jill Hart and Diana Ennen, is an unprecedented opportunity to learn from some of the best entrepreneurs, best-selling authors, and small businesses who share tips for success and secrets to how to have a profitable business. Daily interviews go behind the scenes to share not only success tips but also how these entrepreneurs are reaching goal after goal.

INTERVIEW with TARA DUBOIS

Tara DuBois dreamed of living a life unbound – free from the structures of the conventional corporate world. Now that she has found independence as an entrepreneur, she wants others to experience joy in what they do as well. Tara helps relieve her clients of the burden of website maintenance tasks so they can get back to growing your business and doing what they love. Learn more about Tara and her company Unbound Virtual Administrators at www.unboundva.com and find out how she can help you live a life unbound.

Contacting Tara:
http://unboundva.com
tdubois@unboundva.com
http://facebook.com/unboundva
https://www.facebook.com/UnboundVirtAdmin
http://www.twitter.com/unboundva
http://unboundva.com/blog-2

Tell us a little about your business?
Unbound supports entrepreneurs by relieving them of the burden of website maintenance tasks so they can get back to growing their businesses and doing what they love. Unbound is blossoming and in the beginning of 2014 will launch a program to guide upcoming and motivated entrepreneurs who genuinely enjoy helping others in developing their own service-based businesses.

What are some of your top tips for success?
From my experience, I have learned that if you are going to succeed, it needs to come from within:

Courage to step out of your comfort zone and continually challenge yourself to exceed expectation.
Confidence in yourself and willing to learn from your mistakes instead of dwell on them.
Connect with like-minded entrepreneurs and you will not only grow your business from a place of authenticity, but your niche will become more defined as you build relationships and align yourself with your target market. I have done this organically and it takes time, but the relationships I have formed have built a strong foundation.
Continuous learning to stay on top of your specialty. This is where I began to discover my niche, every 6 months, when I would review, reflect, and reinvigorate energy into the business. I kept my focus heading toward the area I enjoyed working in the most and developed my knowledge and learning in that area. For me it was websites and sharing the value of living simply and choosing a life by design.

Can you share with us two of top ways you market?
I started out where my most successful marketing was in person networking groups, but as I have connected with more people my BIGGEST way of marketing is offering quality service and this has resulted in long-term retainer clients as well as multiple referrals.

I keep a blog and send a newsletter as well to stay in touch with those subscribed to my list.

My marketing has been organic and very low key and I just enjoy having conversations through social media and getting to know people in private online groups. This is the style that I have found works for me. I try not to rely too much on what everyone else is doing and focus on what works for me…otherwise I would drive myself MAD comparing what I’m doing to others. I have learned patience for my style as far as selling myself.

I have worked with colleagues who have different styles and very much enjoy radio interviews, create engaging memberships, speak regularly, creating affiliate programs, and doing a lot of in-person and public speaking. This can be a very successful method as well. The key is to do what is most comfortable and works with your style and business model.

Are you planning any special holiday promotions?
Unbound just published their first book Living Life Unbound: The Passions that Drive Female Entrepreneurs available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle! All profit from the book will be donated to Kiva.org to support their miro-loan program and support women designing sustainable lives around the world.

What goals do you have for the new year?
In the process of designing a program to guide upcoming and motivated entrepreneurs who genuinely enjoy helping others in developing their own service-based businesses.

How do you normally obtain those goals?
Usually about every 6 months I reflect on the business and first look at what is working and what I’m enjoying and then what isn’t working. From here, I develop attainable yet challenging goals, break it down into manageable steps, and conquer!

How do you make your business unique & profitable?
Honestly, I feel like I am doing this every day. I am always learning more about myself and my target market/ideal clients and so I just continue refining my services and sharing my growth as the business progresses. Unique, for me I offer quality service and the uniqueness I have found comes down to the personality behind the business. If you can begin to understand this for your business, profit will follow.

Any additional tips…come on give us a few secrets to your success!
Patience, confidence, don’t give up, and don’t be hard on yourself when you have the freakout days…because they will come. Let it out, pick yourself back up, and prove to the world what you’re made of!

Have any comical stories you’d like to share about your time in business?
I don’t know about comical, but the hours leading up to my first presentation to my networking group I was a complete mess, huddled in the fetal position, and was in anxiety mode. But, like I said above, I let it out, picked myself back up, and went on to present and had an engaging conversation and left feeling energized. Now I look back and can laugh.

Tell us a little about your holidays and how you spend them.
I have a very relaxing holidays. I live in a beautiful little spot on the Oregon coast so during the winter we take ocean drives, will probably check out some Christmas lights on the ships in the bay, find our tree at a local tree farm, and check out the listings for the local holiday play. My family and I created a list of 25 movies we wanted to watch leading up to Christmas and so we will try to conquer this list in 25 days. Christmas Eve is my favorite…the energy, excitement, anticipation of the next day is such a wonderful feeling. Plus, it’s the one night I can get my kids to bed at a good time!

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INTERVIEW with KELLY POELKER
Long time VA industry leader, Kelly Poelker, is the President of Another 8 Hours. She’s the co-author of bestselling “Virtual Assistant – The Series” books on becoming a VA as well as “I Now Pronounce You… Client and Service Provider,” which is available exclusively on Amazon Kindle. In addition to writing, Kelly also coaches VAs, publishes books, and hosts a monthly chat with co-author Diana Ennen on becoming a virtual assistant.