Successful Blog

Do this 5-step exercise today and enjoy your long weekend

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Today I’m proposing that we all take about 30 minutes and set ourselves up for a refreshing, guilt-free long 4th of July weekend. (For our friends outside the United States, please join us, this 5-step exercise is good for everyone).

Let’s clear the decks.

Physical objects laying around the workspace, catching dust, inhibit your productivity.

Mental objects can be clutter too. Those un-captured ideas, multiple to-do lists, and procrastinated tasks all weigh you down.

1. Physical Space

Set a timer for 10 minutes. File and put away everything that’s on your physical workspace or desk. Then dust it. Here’s a great office organizing video that might help:

2. To Do Lists

Choose a single, centralized spot for all tasks, and consolidate to that list (I see your sticky note on the side of the laptop screen…get rid of that right now). Throw away the random scraps of paper, delete the multiple Notes in your iPhone, and put all of your outstanding tasks in a single place. It could be a legal pad, an Evernote notebook, or an application like TeuxDeux, but you can only choose one.

3. Email In-box

Go to the oldest 3 emails in your in-box and deal with them. If dealing with them means deleting them, then so be it. Go hard core. And if you’re inspired to really get control over your technological life, check out WorkHacks, the super-useful new resource from the “digital girl” herself, Julia Roy.

4. Phone

Now pick up your phone. Do you have any nagging voicemails messages? If you have any phone calls you need to return, return them right now. If it’s an unsolicited call you’ve been hanging on to for no reason, delete it.

5. Planning for Success

Are you coming back to work on July 6? Take 10 minutes and plan your productive day. Assign a few tasks so that you don’t have to spin your wheels when you return.

Now commit to yourself that you will use the long weekend to unplug, decompress, and breathe some fresh air.

Play, laugh, grill, and give your family the gift of your undivided attention.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Is Your Office as Productive as It Should Be?

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There are a number of ways to improve your office productivity this year and beyond.

Take an objective look at your office operations to see if you or your team are guilty of any of these time wasters.

Dissecting a Problem to Death

In any group of people, there are the talkers and there are the doers.

If you’re not careful, the talkers will suck the life out of the doers until the problem has been discussed, dissected, considered, disseminated and dried up. At some point, you need to have a course of action, and the first step is to stop talking about it.

Sometimes any action is better than no action at all.

If your team is unsure what to do to solve a problem, pick one proposed solution and implement it. Eventually, you’ll land on a solution that works, and in the meantime, you’ll all learn what doesn’t work.

Over-referencing

Some office managers love to create cross-referencing systems.

They’ll have employees keep a binder or Excel sheet of data, check off work that’s done on the project in five places, and create summary project binders for “dashboard” views.

If you have an office manager like that, he or she will have created a team of paper-pushers just for you. People will be so busy making check marks and flipping through binder tabs that no real work will actually get done.

Of course a checks-and-balance system makes sense. But invest in a software system designed to do all the backend heavy lifting for you.

Online dashboards can be customized for your business where your staff has only to enter data once and it can be viewed in a variety of different ways by team members both local and on the road.

Meeting Madness

Meeting madness is when you and your staff attend so many meetings there’s nary a minute left in the work day to actually get to any of the work that was delegated during the meeting. If your 8-hour days are spent more in the meeting room than at your desk, you may be a victim of meeting madness.

It doesn’t take a 45-minute meeting to announce that you have a new client and discuss their needs.

Instead, use email, memos and company newsletters to get any information across that doesn’t actually require feedback from employees. If you’re just announcing something, or giving out general instructions to a team, skip the meeting.

As the following article looks at, here are 6 ways to take your office productivity into the next generation:

File Disorganization

Remember the old days when your office used filing cabinets and if an employee removed a file they had to leave a sign-out sheet in its place? Of course, everyone forgot to leave the sigh-out sheet at least once, leaving the next person wondering where in the office the file was.

File disorganization still happens today.

Even if your company is on a network, misnamed and misplaced electronic files on the “system” make it difficult for staff members to get work done.

Move on up to the cloud.

With a third-party cloud-based system, multiple employees can work on the same file at the same time.

Everyone can have their own log in and username authentication, and employees won’t be stepping on each other’s virtual toes.

These are easy changes to implement in any office to enhance productivity.

About the Author: Kate Supino writes extensively about best business practices.

8 Apps That Help You Run Your Business Like a Boss

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We live in an amazing time for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Tools and software that were once only accessible to huge corporations are now free (or very inexpensive) via the web. No IT department needed.

Here is my latest list of applications that can help a consultant or small team act like ‘the big boys.’

  • Time tracking for teams – Toggl

    (https://www.toggl.com/features)

    One-click time tracking for projects, with ability to mark billable hours, save data when offline, and share time reports. Free with Pro option for extra features.

  • Personal booking page – Meetme

    (http://www.scheduleonce.com/meetme.aspx)

    Simple online appointment setting. Offers multiple meeting times, locations, and time slots, with ability to delegate appointment management to an assistant.

  • Group chat, file sharing – Hipchat

    (https://www.hipchat.com)

    Collaborate with your team no matter where they are. Create separate rooms for separate groups of colleagues, share images or files, and create on-the-fly video chats.

  • Sales & CRM – Pipedrive

    (http://app.pipedrive.com)

    Visually track your contacts from initial inquiry through paying customer. Graphic pipeline visualization, reporting, reminders, and email integration makes it easy to keep the deals flowing and keep track of next steps.

  • Documentation – Genius Scan

    (http://thegrizzlylabs.com/)

    The easiest way to scan documents, receipts, etc., into your phone and then share them. Pull together a stack of pages into a PDF for emailing in a matter of seconds.

  • Tutorials, Instructions – ShowHows

    (http://www.showho.ws/)

    Still in private beta, but worth checking out. It’s an easy way to make step-by-step instructions that are beautifully designed and shareable. Include images, screenshots, and text, and then grab the embed code to share it on your website.

  • Demos and Screensharing – Zoom & Join.me

    (http://www.zoom.us and http://join.me)

    Instantly set up remote meetings, share your screen, and give a presentation, with audio and/or video. Add notations, record the meeting, and chat with other participants.

And here’s a fun bonus app, in case you find yourself in an environment that’s too quiet:

Coffee shop noises – https://coffitivity.com/

What are your favorite new apps for small business productivity?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

 

SMART Goals – Or Better Yet Smart-ER Goals!

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By Deb Bixler

When experienced business professionals tell you that you need to make SMART goals, they are referring to more than just using your intelligence to guide your planning.

The SMART goal concept for developing and achieving goals has been around for a while and it has been used by business professionals to grow their businesses and find success.

smarter goals
  • S (Specific)

The ““S” stands for creating specific goals that you can reach for.

Too many people say that their business goal is to ““make a lot of money”,” or “‘hold more direct selling parties”‘ or something equally as generic. A specific goal would be to grow sales in a particular product line by 10 percent or to date 12 shows per month and actually hold 10 after cancellations.

With that kind of specific goal, you can then create a plan of attack.

  • M (Measurable)

If you cannot measure your goals, then you have no way of knowing whether or not you are on the way to achieving them. You may have to get creative to be able to measure some of your goals, but specific goals can always be measured in some way.

  • A (Attainable)

Business goals need to be attainable to be practical. If you set goals that you know you cannot achieve just to try and motivate yourself, then you miss the point of business planning. You can make your goals aggressive, just be sure that you can attain your goals with hard work.

  • R (Relevant)

Entrepreneurs can sometimes allow personal feelings to get in the way of setting business goals. If you set a goal to “crush your biggest competitor”,then that is not really relevant to your business. Keep your goals focused on growing your business and the things you need to do to make achieving those goals a reality.

  • T (Timely)

In business, timing is everything. Your business planning needs to keep up with current trends and keep your company ahead of the competition. If you are basing your business goals on trends that have already passed, then you are putting yourself in a hole.

Smart-ER Goals Work Best

Now take it a step further and make them SMART-ER goals!

  • E (Evaluate)

Part of the reason that your business goals need to be measurable is because you have to be able to set milestones that you can use to evaluate your progress. The process of evaluating your plan and making necessary changes is critical to its success.

  • R (Re-evaluate)

When the plan has been completed, you need to re-evaluate what happened and pull as many lessons as possible from the results. There is no such thing as over-evaluating the results of a business plan.

Setting goals is the way that successful entrepreneurs find success.

When you use the SMARTER method for planning, you will be able to take your business where you want it to be.

Deb Bixler specializes teaching party plan consultants systems for business success. Visit her website, www.CreateACashFlowShow.com to learn how to create systems for your business.

Do Your Employees Successfully Communicate?

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As an employer, what do you look at as some of your greatest challenges?

Many will point to keeping their revenue in the black or at least break-even all the time. Meantime, others will note the difficulties of retaining some of their top employees, employees who may decide the pasture is greener in another job. Still others will single out the task of keeping customers happy.

No matter what you find to be your greatest challenge running a company, having employees who can properly communicate amongst themselves and with customers is oftentimes more difficult than it should be.

For one reason or another, communications break down.

When that happens, customers can be left holding, meaning some of them will choose not to remain with you and go elsewhere.

Review Communication Procedures Regularly

So that you can avoid issues concerning employee communication, put aside these reminders:

  1. Technology – First and foremost, do you have the right technology in place for your employees to succeed with? Simply having a few phones, computers, a fax machine or two and a printer here and there in the office are not enough. You should do a technology review of your office at least a couple of times a year, checking to see that you have all your needs being met. If you have a busy call center, make sure your employees are staffed with the right technology so they can deal with customers quickly and efficiently, not leaving them on hold for extended periods of time or dropping calls routinely;
  2. Usage – Even if you have the latest in technology, is it being put to proper use? Start by looking at your office phone system. Whether you work on the West Coast, East Coast, Midwest or in the Sunshine State and have Florida home phone or another such setup in your office or home office (for those who telecommute or run companies out of their residences), make sure you and your employees are getting your money’s worth. The same holds true if you have office cell phones, especially for employees who are on the road conducting sales, meeting with clients, attending trade shows etc. The phones should have necessities such as texting, the ability to take photos, folders for holding important dates such as meetings and more;
  3. Pricing – If you are a savvy business owner, you undoubtedly are good at budgeting and saving money for a rainy day. Check the pricing plans for your phone and Internet connections, making sure you are clearly getting the best deal possible. In many cases, you can get a bundled deal, meaning your phone and Internet needs are all tied up in one, coming at a discounted rate. Also track the amount of time you and your employees spend on the phone with customer service matters versus email. Many companies have gotten away from the one-on-one phone conversation as the primary source to interact with customers, instead opting for emails and SMS text messaging.

No matter what technology devices your company uses, it is a good idea to make sure you have the best devices around, not to mention the best employees to use them.

Sound communication with your customers is not an option; it is a necessity that should never be overlooked.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Dave Thomas writes for a variety of websites on topics such as social media and marketing.

Four steps to your best day ever

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“Make 2015 your best year ever!”

All of the confetti has landed on the ground. January is in the rear view mirror, and if you aren’t paying attention, the first week of February is almost done.

confetti on the ground

Did you have big planning sessions the week before New Years? Did you set up your new calendar, your new systems, new routines?

Many of us do that, and by the first week of February, some of it has begun to crumble already.

But let’s not sit around being depressed. Let’s switch our thinking up a bit.

What if we applied the “best year ever” thought process to a single day?

What if we decided to wake up tomorrow and focus on making it a success?

Here are some typical planning steps for an “annual planning” session:

  1. Set aside time to dream and visualize.
  2. Decide what you intend to do and why you intend to do it.
  3. Break the goal down into manageable steps with a timeframe.
  4. Take action immediately.

That looks a lot like a perfect day, doesn’t it? Let’s re-frame:

  1. Use your first 30 minutes to visualize the day and let creative juices flow, without external interruption.
  2. Decide what you intend to accomplish that day, and think about why you intend to do it.
  3. Choose which steps you want to advance on that day, and schedule them in.
  4. Take action immediately.

It’s still necessary to do the annual and quarterly planning. However, those longer-term plans are much more likely to happen if you get in the habit of a daily refocus.

Don’t forget to include all aspects of your day in the plan.

When you set your intentions for the day, you should incorporate your afternoon run, your manicure, your visit with a sick friend alongside the business luncheon, the copywriting, and the pitch meeting.

How do you make sure that your days are moving you toward a successful year?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Photo Credit: AndrewButl3r via Compfight cc