June 2022

Amy Richardson’s Got Your Back for Business

BY MITZI OXFORD, PHOTOS BY MELISSA GORDON

Are you the owner of one of the thousands of businesses in the CSRA? Do you have time for bookkeeping, IT, marketing, recruitment, project, or event management?

If not, maybe it’s time to call for backup. Amy Richardson created Richardson Professional Solutions to help solve the issues most business owners may not have time to address when their time can be better spent building a successful company. In other words, she has created a one-stop shop for all those backend jobs.

Her company provides a balance for business owners. Initially, she started it to create her own balance.

When her son was born in November 2019, she launched her company two months later.

“It started as a side hustle with a baby on my hip,” Richardson explained. “When COVID hit, we were bombarded. The company I started allowed me to work from home, focus on building the business and be a mom.”

The business has changed dramatically post-COVID. While some companies used to offer the ability to work from home as a perk, it has now become the norm for many businesses. By 2025, an estimated 70 percent of the workforce will be working remotely at least five days a month, according to Forbes.

Richardson has a head start in the remote workforce world. She and her team of seven, deliver a support system for more than 25 clients. Their services include everything from website design and management to employee scheduling and paying bills.

“Still, there is a stigma about working remotely but we are a legitimate business offering our team members health insurance, maternity leave, and a 401k,” Richardson said.

Richardson has a great support system in her professional and personal life. Her husband, Ben, who works remotely for a bank in Ohio, does double duty by providing IT support for Richardson Professional Solution clients and, of course, as husband and dad.

“Since I work from home, my lunch hour is spent with my toddler and if I see my work calendar is getting too fat, I put on the brakes,” she said.

The challenge of owning and running a business is real, especially for a woman.

“Women are the default caregivers,” Richardson said. “We automatically have to make sure everyone is covered.”

Even when she’s away from her home office engaging with the community, Richardson seems to be making the delicate balance of being a business owner, wife, and mom work.

Her clients describe her as smart, honest, energetic, thorough, and creative. Richardson attributes that to her core values, including integrity, being accountable, thinking outside the box, and being a lifelong learner.

At the heart of it all is compassion for her clients and her family.

“I was laying here after putting my toddler back to sleep, staring at his sweet, peaceful face, and I am reminded of a quote I heard some time ago about raising children: ‘The days are long, but the years are short,’” Richardson said. “I think of it often and it grounds me to realize how fast time is passing and that I won’t get these years back. I want to spend as much time as possible with him, and the rest of my family, while still being able to provide us with a beautiful life. My business gives me that freedom.”

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Increasing Engagement + Social Media

One of the perks of digital marketing is its ease of being shared. Video is a powerful tool to see its shared content. I want to tell you the benefits of having Video in your Digital Marketing Strategy and what metrics brands are tracking.

According to Hubspot, video boosts conversion rates. Including on a landing page, video can increase conversion by 80%. Search engines love video. They are searching for content that engages viewers. Nothing lures longer page views quite like a video. Video can help build trust among your customers. Sight plus sound plus motion equals an emotion. Videos make people feel connected with the brand. People love to share videos more than other content. Think back on the things you enjoy sharing on Facebook, what percent of the shared content is the video? Studies show that videos are shared 1200% more times than links and text combined. Video can also gain access to the C-Suite. It is a fantastic medium that will get your content in front of the eyes of real decision-makers. 75 percent of business executives watch work-related videos weekly. 59 percent of senior executives prefer to watch a video over reading text. And 54 percent of senior executives regularly share work-related video content with coworkers.

Earlier this year Hubspot also surveyed over 500 global video marketers to find out what metrics they think are the more important for measuring the success of a video. Engagement, conversion rate, and view count were the top three metrics tracked in a video marketing campaign.

Engagement with your content can increase customer loyalty, build deeper relationships, drive sales, and improve brand awareness. Engagement rates track how actively involved your audience is with your content through likes, comments, and sharing. Conversion rates are the percentage of viewers who clicked a post that led to your website to make a purchase, subscribe to your newsletter, or reach out via your contact page. Each conversion will vary depending on the goals of your company. View count is also known as impressions, which means the number of times a viewer has watched or engaged with your content. View counts can differ between each social platform, so make sure to be aware of the differences when collecting your metric data each month.

As you can tell video is a visually rich communication tool that can be tailored to suit any audience and share any message, no matter your end goal. Our team would be happy to connect, talk through things, and help you to decide if incorporating video into your digital marketing strategy is the best fit. Do you think we can help? If so, we would love to become an extension of your team and take that to-do off of your plate.

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Keeping You Safe

Social media has changed the way we view the world, especially businesses. It can also help us unwind after a long day, but social media isn’t always a safe place.  Cyber scammers and identity thieves are on social media. It’s extremely important to take precautions before stepping into the digital world. A big part of what we do in Social Media Marketing is to help keep you safe. Here are some 3 ways to steer clear of scammers and keep your company safe on social media.

  • Privacy Settings

You lock the doors to your house to keep out intruders, why not do the same for your social media. Check your business account settings to make sure your telephone number and email address are hidden from the public sight. Default settings aren’t always safe as they give strangers more knowledge about you and your business than you’d like. It might be time to dig a little deeper into each platform’s settings. New privacy settings are updated from time to time. If you’re not frequently checking, you may be missing the chance to lock down your digital security.

  • Knowledge is Power

With all the new technology, social media allows you to share your life with the people you care about… along with everyone else. Be sure to not post about travel plans when you are away from your business. It is easy to share information about where you live without typing anything. Your images and posts can be tagged with your location if you haven’t changed your privacy setting. Try to share as little as possible with the digital world. They don’t need to know personal addresses, phone numbers, or even your goldfish’s name.

  • Always Think Twice

Scammers love to impersonate, especially your closest friends. Be sure to avoid those duplicate friend requests. If it’s a friend you know, reach out to them, make them aware their social identity is being used, and then report the imposter. Be careful when adding new friends as well. Take some time to review their friend list to see if this is someone you might know. If someone sends you a message be hesitant to respond back. Take caution with each message and post, especially if it has links and doesn’t sound like something your friend would post.

By taking these steps to stay alert and adopting a few of these smart practices, you’ll be able to share your story with the world with a little more ease. One of the many services we provide is Social Media Marketing, which includes helping keep you safe from potential scammers.

At Richardson Professional Solutions (RPS), we help you make more time in your business by providing back-office solutions such as bookkeeping, marketing, or project management. This, in turn, provides small business owners the flexibility to do the things that matter most to them like building their business, continuing their education, traveling, or spending time with family.

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