Have you purchased Ontraport for your business?
This software is an amazing tool and you can get started for free! It can help you to get to next-level results, however, in order to do so, you need to be optimizing how you use it! For many business owners, this is another task in a rather large pile.
A common story among business owners who come to us is that they are using maybe 10% of the capability of Ontraport.
They’re frozen in time, doing nothing much with it, and getting frustrated. Sometimes they even run back to whatever their old system was, or worse, they move to a new system which, through a racier sales pitch, seems to sound easier. It never is!
So, what happens next? The business owner has now wasted a lot of time, money and energy, and is only feeling more frustrated for the experience. Consequently, there are significant delays in getting a business strategy together and in achieving growth.
The truth is, any new system takes some work to set up and optimize properly for your business, and Ontraport is an amazing, feature-rich option once properly implemented. You can either throw your hands up and remain status-quo, or you can follow a few tips to avoid the all-too-common traps that business owners face, and make the most of your investment instead.
You can click on these links below to jump on a specific tip:
- Educate Yourself With Ontraport
- Learn To Process Map
- Embrace Automation With Ontraport Integrations
- Look for New Ways To “Take Out the Human”
- Hire a VA Who Can Also Help You Utilize Ontraport and Ontraport Integrations
Educate Yourself With Ontraport
How does the whole system work? What does it take to set it up optimally? So many people struggle because they get the system and think that the mere ownership of the system will be the thing to create freedom ... think again. It is worth investing the time and energy to learn the Ontraport system for yourself.
This does not mean that you need to be the one to implement everything yourself (more on that later), however, it’s wise to have that overall understanding of how it works, and therefore what is possible. You will at least have some idea of whether or not what you are suggesting to anyone who implements for you is reasonable.
Some people want to take it to the other extreme - knowing nothing and expecting other people to run it for them. This might be feasible in larger businesses with more resources, but in smaller businesses, it means you need a dedicated Marketing Manager or someone who is an Ontraport Certified Consultant, and therefore knows what they are doing. In your small business, this can leave you feeling vulnerable, like you don’t know what’s going on, especially if you encounter any problems.
An objection that many people have to learn more about the system is the old classic, “I don’t have time.” Being short on time is common among business owners, but honestly, when it’s a system that can be so fundamental to the growth of your business if applied well, we would suggest you find the time.
Ontraport provides you with several options, which you can explore in their training centre. You could choose to work through self-paced modules, read through the Ontraport Knowledge Base, attend their three-day bootcamp, or even take it further and become a Certified Consultant, with deep knowledge of the platform (as our founder, Barbara, has done). In any case, make sure you have a real understanding of the software before looking to hand it off to someone else to manage.
Learn To Process Map
How do systems and processes work in your business? So many people have loose strategies in their heads but this gets messy quickly, particularly as you grow. Soon, you can’t remember which piece leads to which thing and who is doing what.
While you’re relatively new, it might work to “wing it” or keep processes stored in your head. But once you go beyond a couple of small campaigns, you’ll need clear process maps for everything in your Ontraport account.
Here’s an example of how we map an Ontraport process here at The Virtual Hub:
Embrace Automation With Ontraport Integrations
Ontraport is obviously an amazing tool for marketing strategy and content marketing automation sequences, but it’s also so much more. At its very core, it’s about business automation as a whole, enabled by many different app integration options. Using Ontraport, you can determine how it triggers actions and search, create or update contact information.
There are probably a number of other tools that you use which operate independently of Ontraport, however, the data which they produce would be valuable incorporated into Ontraport. Sometimes people spend a lot of their time manually inputting data that they’ve gathered elsewhere. This is what Ontraport integrations are all about.
Integrations allow you to link Ontraport with other vital functions of your business. For example, some of the most popular integrations include membership sites, payment gateways, webinar apps, accounting, and promotional platforms such as Facebook.
Where there isn’t a direct integration between Ontraport and another platform, there is often a workaround using Zapier to create the link. In fact, there are more than 1,000 integrations that are possible by connecting Zapier and Ontraport. Some popular “zaps” include updating Ontraport contacts from new responses to Facebook Lead Ads, adding Eventbrite attendees as contacts, adding SurveyMonkey responses as contacts, or adding Amazon Seller Central orders as contacts.
The key point? Optimizing your use of Ontraport means embracing automation and creating sequences that reduce manual handling. Which is how Ontraport integrations come in.
Look for New Ways To “Take Out the Human”
Here’s another key to exploding your results from your Ontraport experience - you need to constantly review. Ask yourself, how can I remove the human from this process?
Most businesses update their processes with some regularity and might find that they’re including extra steps. At the same time, there are new features put into software that you use - what are you doing that currently requires human intervention?
Sometimes you’ll find that there are tasks where it is no longer necessary for a human to be involved. We like the “Focus Funnel” concept, which suggests that multipliers - people who truly make the most of their time - ask themselves the following questions:
- Can I eliminate this task? (Do we really need it?)
- Can I automate the task?
- Can I delegate the task?
If none of these things is possible, then the task falls out of the bottom of the “focus funnel” and the business owner knows that it’s something they must do themselves. Honestly, there tend to be very few tasks that survive this review process and absolutely must be done by the business owner.
Most of the time we find an “automate first” policy works out well, then we can delegate the bits that are left. You can even work with your VA to figure out the automation and the delegation.
Hire a VA Who Can Also Help You Utilize Ontraport and Ontraport Integrations
Here’s our final hack for getting better results using Ontraport: once you’ve completed the other four steps and have the knowledge yourself, hire a VA who can help you navigate the software and implement your instructions.
Having that help means staying focused on strategy and sales while they do the implementation - the heavy lifting that gets your processes built out for you. Without that help, you can find yourself spending far too much time on building those processes, and that can be tedious. It takes you away from the key tasks of a leader and business owner, such as strategy and growth.
Now, with VA help for implementation, you can be spending time on the next stages and levelling-up your business. Really, that’s what tools such as Ontraport are all about - maximizing your own time and focusing on the important things rather than the minutiae.
And if you're looking to learn about more ways that a virtual assistant can help you with, you can read our Ultimate Guide to Virtual Assistants. This guide will run you through all the ins and outs of having a virtual assistant along with describing all the processes that you need to learn about like how you can hire one and how you can manage one effectively.
Get Ready for Growth With Ontraport Integrations…
Ultimately, Ontraport is a great tool for enabling growth in your business, but like any tool, it’s as good as its operator. This means that you have to put the time into understanding it so that you can maximize its potential.
You might need to spend some time initially ensuring you’ve got the right knowledge and processes in place. This quote from Southwestern Consulting sums it up nicely:
“Multipliers give themselves the emotional permission to spend time on things today that create more time tomorrow.”