When Business is Slow in Summer: What you can do

Customer care, Organisation, Small business0 comments

Many virtual assistants and other service-based businesses can find that their workload slows down in summer. Perhaps because their clients take time off to go on holiday, or the business owner themselves has to cut back hours to look after the kids who are off from school. Whatever the reason, as a small business owner it can be tough when the client work isn’t rolling in as regularly as you’d like. You can lose momentum and motivation if things go too quiet for too long.

So how can you keep things moving over the holiday period? Well you don’t have to start selling holiday packages or swimming pools but like travel agents, you do need to understand what your customers are thinking about in the summer months and cater your marketing to that.

So when business is slow, ask yourself a few questions:

• What are your customers’ worries and concerns in summer? As a virtual assistant, some of my clients may be concerned about who is going to answer customer enquiries while they’re on holiday, or they may want to keep their Facebook page or LinkedIn group updated while they’re away. So grab a piece of paper and write down the kind of concerns that your target market may have over the summer months and how you could help them with that.
• What are they busy doing? When you know what your customers are doing and what’s on their minds, you know how to speak to them. Ask your clients what their plans are over the summer months. Perhaps they want to get started on a project that they’ve been putting off and want to use the quiet summer time to do this. By asking questions and finding out what their plans are for the rest of the year, you can talk to them about how you can help them achieve these plans.
• What would they rather be doing? They may want to take some time off over the summer but are worried about how this will affect their business. Perhaps they’d just like a few days lazing by the beach. So what would your clients love to do but feel they can’t, but possibly could with the help of your services? Again, educate them as to how you can help them achieve this without a lot of stress on their part.

Putting together a summer marketing plan doesn’t require any magic skills, but it does require some thought. When business is slow, take time to speak to your clients and find out what they are doing over the summer months. Then put together a plan that can help them with any issues or projects that they have. By doing this, your clients will not only appreciate what you’re doing for them but you will also be ensuring that you have a steady stream of work to cover you over the holiday period.

 
Are you planning to go on holiday but worried about who’s going to look after things while you’re away? Or perhaps you’re planning to work on a project and need some help? Then click on the arrow button to find out more about our virtual assistant services and how we can help you in your business.
 

7 Steps to Working Smarter in Your Business

Organisation, Time management0 comments

I recently read about a survey from Yorkshire Bank that said that small business owners work an average of 15.3 million extra days each year, in comparison to the average UK employee.  They are working long hours and taking few breaks just so they can look after their clients and keep the business going.

However, regularly working such long hours can seriously affect your physical and mental health.   We all need to recognise the importance of working smarter in our business and investing our time in our mental and physical well-being.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your workload and have got to the point where you seriously need to take time out, then here are 7 steps to help you work smarter and have more time for you.

• Have a specific plan which contains clear goals as to where you and your business are going.  Don’t forget to add personal goals on there as well to help maintain your work/life balance.

• Review your plan regularly and see what tasks have not been done.  Ask yourself whether they are important or not.  If they are important then make a decision to do them or delegate them.  If not then ditch them and move on.

• Block time out in your diary.  Don’t accept every meeting request you get as you’ll end up feeling burnt out and overloaded with work.  Set aside at least 1-2 hours a day in your schedule so you can spend time focused on your projects and what you need to do to achieve your goals.

• Don’t automatically say yes.  It’s easy to say yes to every job you get offered, perhaps because you need the work or don’t want to let people down.   However, you could find that you end up doing work that you hate or working with people that you don’t get on with.  This will just leave you feeling stressed and exhausted so judge each request as it comes in.

• Delegate or outsource non-fee earning tasks.  This gives you more free time to focus on what you do best and what’s important for your business.  If you’re on a tight budget then see if you can barter with someone whose services you need.

• Clear the clutter.  If you find that you’re drowning in paperwork and spend too much time hunting around for files and folders, then take a day out to declutter.  If you find this too overwhelming, then just focus on one part of your paperwork and either throw out what you don’t need or put it into a proper filing system that works for you.  If you’re not naturally organised then bring in someone to help you.

• Set strict working hours and stick to them.  It’s easy to keep going when you’re running your own business, especially if you work from home.  But you can easily lose focus and start to feel demotivated if you try to work long hours without a break.  So set a time when you switch off at night and share this publicly with everyone you work with.

These are just a few measures that you can take to help you work smarter.  By investing your time wisely, you will achieve your goals far more quickly, feel energised and motivated and find that you have more time for yourself.
 

If you want to get more tips on how to manage your time and work effectively in your business, then download a copy of our guide “How to organise your workload so there’s more time for you“. This guide is packed full of time management tips as well as 10 online tools to help you work more productively. Click on the link to download the guide >> How to organise your workload
 

3 Ways to Keep Motivated

How to, Organisation, Time management4 comments

One of my aims this year is to be more clear and focused about what I want to achieve in my business.  It’s very easy to start the year off with great ideas and plans and then by the time February comes, find that the energy starts to drain away.

Let’s face it, there are some days or weeks when you just don’t feel as energised as others. And if you’re like me and running a business on your own then keeping the motivation going can sometimes be a struggle.

So I’ve found that there are three things that are helping me to keep motivated and focused on what I need to do to move my business forward.

Set deadlines. The first one is having deadlines.  This is important when you’re setting out your plan as having specific deadlines will give you something to work towards.  So before starting a project, think of the end result that you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it; and then break the project down into small steps, each with its own deadline.  This prevents you from becoming overwhelmed by a big project.  Also, don’t be afraid to set stretch targets for yourself but don’t make them so unachievable that you feel overwhelmed before you even start!

Limit your time.  Setting specific limits on my time has also helped to keep me focused on projects.  So if I’m writing a blog like this or spending time on social media, then I’ll set the timer on my phone for say 25 minutes.  When the alarm goes off, I stop what I’m doing for a few minutes and then either go back to the task or on to something else.  It stops you getting bogged down in one particular project and also prevents you wasting time on things like Twitter and Facebook.

Make yourself accountable.  It’s very easy to have a long to do list, but there will always be tasks on it that you put off because they feel like too much hard work.  With me, it’s sending out my monthly newsletter – some months I just can’t think what to put in it so I wait for inspiration.  And that can take a long time coming!  So making yourself accountable by sharing your goals and deadlines with someone else.  Most of us don’t like to lose face so if we’ve said that we’re going to do something then we’re more likely to do it.

So these are just 3 quick tips to help you stay focused and motivated with your goals and plans.  If you’ve got any other suggestions, then please drop them in the comment box below.
 

If you want to get more tips on how to manage your time and work effectively in your business, then download a copy of our guide “How to organise your workload so there’s more time for you“. This guide is packed full of time management tips as well as 10 online tools to help you work more productively. Click on the link to download the guide >> How to organise your workload
 

10 Tools to Help You Increase Productivity

Organisation, Time management0 comments

Like a lot of people, I’ve been spending the last few weeks putting my plans together for next year.  Obviously planning is essential when running your own business.  As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!  However, one of the things that can stop a lot of business owners from achieving their goals is having a lack of focus on their core activities.

So I’ve put together my 10 tools to help you increase productivity.  By using these tools, you can have more time to focus on those tasks that will take you towards your goals.

MindMeister or Mind42 – Both these mind mapping tools will help you to brainstorm and put together your goals and plans for next year, using text, images and links.  I use mind maps when I’m working on a project and I’ve also created one for my 2012 plan for my business.  MindMeister has a limited free account whereas Mind42 is totally free.

Workflowy – If you like to organise your projects in hierarchical lists then Workflowy is the solution for you.  You can use it when working on projects, brainstorming ideas or keeping a journal.  Because it works like a text editor, it’s very simple to use. 

Focus app – Use this to limit the amount of time you spend working on a project.  You can set a deadline and once the alarm goes off, you take a break and move on to something new.

RescueTime – Enables you to track the time you spend on projects and voluntarily blocks the most distracting parts of the internet for a period of time set by you.

Rememberthemilk – Great task application which lets you manage your to do list and sends reminders via email and SMS.

Enso – Enso is designed to give you instant access to your applications and windows, meaning that you no longer have to hunt around the Start menu to find a particular application such as Notepad or Calculator.

Dropbox – I’ve mentioned this before but Dropbox is a great tool to share documents with other people and also back up documents online so you can access them from any PC – great when you’re on the move.

LastPass – LastPass allows you to manage your passwords from one place so you need never forget a password again and can log in to your sites with a single mouse click.

Evernote – The best tool for clipping and sharing online articles and web pages – basically a virtual scrapbook which you can organise by tags and folders, and then share with other people.

Fiverr / MechanicalTurk – Not a tool as such but 2 websites that will give you more time by outsourcing those minor tasks at a fraction of the cost it would take for you to do them.  So whether you want to create a short promo video, design a header image for your website, or get comments and views on your YouTube videos – you can hire people to do just this for a few cents or dollars.  The quality may not be brilliant but it’s a good alternative if you’re working on a tight budget and need something doing quickly.

So these are my tools to help you increase productivity; let me know if you have any other suggestions in the comment box below!

 
If you want to get more organised with your workload then download a copy of our free guide “How to organise your workload so there’s more time for you”.  This guide contains essential time management tips as well as 10 online tools to help you work more productively.  So click on the link to get your free time management guide.
 

How to Export Contacts from Outlook

How to, Organisation, videos0 comments

If you use Outlook to manage your emails then you’ve probably got a lot of contacts stored in your contact folders.  However, what if you want to use this data in other programs such as email marketing or CRM systems?  How can you download this valuable information without having to physically input it into a database?

Well, it is actually very easy to export your contacts from Outlook into an Excel spreadsheet.  And by doing this, you will have it in a format that you can use in the future.

So here are the steps to export contacts from Outlook.

• Select the contact folder that you want to export and then click on ‘File’ in the main menu bar, and select ‘Import and Export’ from the drop down menu.

• Select ‘Export to a file’ in the list and click Next.

• Now choose the appropriate type of file – you want to select ‘Comma Separated Values (Windows)’.  A CSV file is similar to an Excel spreadsheet but without any formatting, and this format is the one you will need when uploading your contact data into other programs.

• Now select the contact folder that  you want to export and click Next.

• Give the exported file a name and choose where to save the file on your PC, and click Next again.

• Now click Finish to export the contact folder.

• Go to the folder where you saved the file and open it up to view your contacts.

So now you know how to export contacts from Outlook, you can use this CSV file in a variety of ways, including uploading to an email marketing or contact management program, or to Gmail if you’re switching email providers.

 

If you want to get more tips on how to manage your time and work effectively in your business, then download a copy of our guide “How to organise your workload so there’s more time for you“. This guide is packed full of time management tips as well as 10 online tools to help you work more productively. Click on the link to download the guide >> How to organise your workload