Business Tips

“There are just not enough hours in the day.” How many times have you said that? When you are first starting in your business, you are often wearing multiple hats: the social media content writer, the new ideas generator, and the bookkeeper. It’s too early to bring in employees/subcontractors. So the next best solution is some tips about time management. Time management is the ability to concentrate on the most crucial task and deal with distractions without letting them derail us from our goals. If you are looking on how to get the most out of your day, then this is the place to be!

1. Figure how you are spending time

If you want to improve your time management, you must first determine where your time is going. Try tracking your daily activities for a week and logging your time. You will start to see patterns and make better judgments on future time estimations.

2. Organize

This tip should be on your to-do list for good time management. There are few things more aggravating than spending time searching for misplaced items, files, and even documents. 

3. Making time management goals

Setting management goals means directing your effort toward what is essential. So it’s essential to write down your goals and keep track of them as you move toward completing them. Besides, every completed goal is a victory and keeps us motivated to keep going.

4. Implementing a daily plan

Your ability to manage your time well is crucial in any area of life, not just in entrepreneurship. To be successful, someone plans time no matter what you do.

5. Setting priorities

Another technique is to prioritize ruthlessly. Concentrate about 80% of the time on top priority and spend the other 20% of your time on your other priorities.

6. Establishing routines

To be productive, you have to force yourself to focus on one task for an extended period. Routines eliminate decision fatigue, which depletes mental resources. Creating a routine helps things be more systematic.

“A daily routine built on good habits and disciplines separates the most successful among us from everyone else. A routine is exceptionally powerful.”

― Darren Hardy, The Compound Effect

7. Setting time limits

When you set a time limit, you make it possible for yourself to get more done. The key to getting your work done is developing the habit of setting time limits for various tasks.

8. Not wasting time

Time is a precious resource. You can’t get more time in a day, but you can spend it more efficiently. You can speed up your development by learning to avoid inefficiencies and ineffectiveness.

9. Delegating extra tasks

One of the best ways to help manage time better is learning to delegate tasks to others and outsource those tasks to professionals. Taking care of routine and administrative tasks saves a lot of time and energy. It is why Virtual Assistants were created.

10. Multitasking

Multitasking is one of the most basic time management ideas for work and one of the most difficult to implement. Switching from one work to another wastes time and reduces productivity.

Utilizing these simple time management tips can help you get more done and be less stressed. Of course, you can always reach out to your favorite virtual assistant to take some of these tasks off your plate.

Schedule a discovery call to see how a virtual assistant can help you.

Prospecting by email is challenging, and often unrewarding. People exchange 112.4 billion (yes, with a B) business emails every day – that’s 122 emails per person per day. So, it’s unsurprising how carefully you must approach email marketing.

Here are three mistakes you’re already making.

Your content is subpar

The subject line

Forty-seven percent of email recipients open an email based on the subject line, and sixty-nine percent report email as spam based on the subject line. The subject line is the gateway to an email, so if yours sucks, don’t bother emailing.

One of the most common mistakes is making them too long. Marketing experts say the optimal length of an email subject line is 41 characters (but fewer never hurts).

The copy

Incorrect grammar, punctuation, spelling, and typos make you look unprofessional and disorganized.

Avoid giant blocks of text, too; they’re overwhelming. Most readers scan for details, so use bold, italicized, or highlighted text, bullets, images, and whitespace to make critical points obvious – and be concise.

Only talking about you

Talk about them. Don’t tell them how great your product is, explain the rewards they’ll reap from using it. Always focus on solving their problems.

Attachments

You know who uses attachments in emails? Spammers.

Language

Salesy language makes you sound like a commercial; write your emails as if you’re friends with the recipient.

Also, use their language. Avoid acronyms, business jargon, and “$5” vocabulary. Ask, “What words would they put in a search engine to find my business?” Then use those words.

Calls-to-action (CTAs)

Without a call-to-action, you’re leaving it to chance that readers will figure out the action you want them to take. Decide why you’re writing the email, then craft it so readers are 100% sure what you want them to do, how to do it, and what’s in it for them.

You’re mishandling your email list

You rarely clean out your contacts

Most companies email the same people relentlessly, and many people stop opening the emails. Even if they’re subscribers (Why don’t they just unsubscribe? Laziness), this causes email providers to mark your emails as spam because of low open rates. It also kills open and clickthrough rates. Fix this by setting lists to exclude recipients who haven’t opened X number of emails.

Your list isn’t segmented

Rarely send the same emails to every customer. Instead, segment your list by dividing readers into smaller segments based on X criteria. The best way is segmenting based on behavior – how they interact with emails, which site pages they visit and how often, what they purchase, how much they spend, which content they download, etc.

Segmented lists allow you to send more relevant emails, which increases engagement, improves open and clickthrough rates, and lowers unsubscribe rates.

You’re sending to purchased email lists

As email automation has improved, businesses have increased their email campaigns. Unfortunately, so have spammers. Eighty-four percent of emails are spam.

Laws govern email marketing and using personal information for commercial purposes, including the CAN-SPAM Act (US), the CASL Laws (Canada), the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (UK), and the General Data Protection Regulation (EU). These laws make it risky to email anyone who hasn’t opted-in to your emails.

You’re spammy

The spam folder: every email marketer’s worst nightmare. Nearly one in five emails gets caught by a spam filter, never to be seen again.

You’re probably not a Nigerian prince who can only access your inheritance in exchange for a small fee and a share in the inheritance – you’re a legit marketer who wants to help people with your products/services.

But spam filters don’t know that, so they check for red flags like:

• Trigger words
• Links to sketchy URLs (often indicated by shortened URLs)
• Image-only content
• Attachments
• Big fonts, flashy colors, lots of exclamation points, symbols, and ALL CAPS
• No unsubscribe button
• No physical address
• Misleading subject line (a form of clickbait)
• No plain text version

To help prevent sending spammy emails, test them first.

Bonus mistake: You’re not optimizing for mobile users

Statistics show that mobile is now the preferred platform for reading email – so are you designing your emails to be opened on mobile devices?

The easiest way is to use responsive design. Many email service providers and all marketing software platforms offer responsive design templates designed to detect and conform to the reader’s screen size automatically. (But test them anyway!)

Remember that statistic about 122 emails per person per day? That’s a lot of email to sort through and many chances to frustrate recipients. Luckily, as a marketer, you can send effective emails that stay out of spam folders and get opened and interacted with by avoiding the above mistakes.  Need more guidance? Behind the Scene Execs is happy to do a Free Email Marketing Audit. Scheu

There is no denying the convenience of email and text messages, but nothing captures a moment like putting pen to paper. Consider how many emails you receive or send in a day. Now ask yourself, “When was the last time you received a handwritten note?”

According to the US Postal Service’s 2010 Survey, one handwritten note was delivered every 7 weeks.

A written note carries a lot of power and therefore can become a powerful marketing tool. When you receive one, you think, “wow this person took the time to write me a note”.  That note puts you in the top of mind of the person receiving your note. The scarcity of a handwritten note is what makes it such a powerful tool. However do not try and get clever, most people can tell the difference of a written note and a font designed to look like handwriting.

A handwritten addressed envelope has an open rate of 99.2%.

Imagine how you can easily get your name in front of potential business clients, just with a simple written note. Whether it be a thank you note, great to meet you or even a holiday card, it will it will be appreciated and leave a positive mark.

 

Webinars are a great way to promote your business, but they don’t need to be stressful, especially if you follow these 15 tips:

15 Tips to a Successful Webinar

1. Remember webinars are not about you. It’s about your audience so avoid using “I am” make it “you will.”
2. Nothing resonates more with an audience than a success story the audience can relate to.
3. Don’t go it alone. Have a virtual assistant, assist you on your webinars to handle the technical side.
4. Practice your webinar in your chosen webinar platform. Be sure to test sound, slides, and technology. Time your presentation leave time for questions.
5. Practice the webinar but practice your offer again and again. This is where people tend to trip up the most on their webinars because delivering offers feels awkward. The more you practice it, the more comfortable and confident you are.
6. Stay true to you. There are so many programs that teach you how to do webinars but keep your voice yours and your personality. Stay true to you.
7. Chose the right webinar platform for you. If you are going it alone, then make sure the webinar platform you choose matches your technology skills.
8. Wednesday and Thursdays are the best days to hold webinars preferably at 11:00 AM PST.
9. Be on the webinar 10 minutes before the start time. This trouble shoots any potential technical difficulties and gives you a little window to resolve them. If you have a co-host or a virtual assistant get on 15 minutes before the start time.
10. Utilize social media. Announce your webinar on Facebook or any social media platform you use.
11. Blog about the webinar. You can pick from topics of your webinar or what they are going get from the webinar. Post blog on website and link to your opt-in page. It also gives you social media posts that are not all about selling.
12. Test everything. Check your links in your emails, social media posts, and opt-in page.
13. Proof your slides. If you plan on having slides in your presentation be sure to have another person proof read them.
14. Start the webinar on time. Don’t wait for the stragglers and be respectful to the attendees that were on time.
15. I hate to state the obvious but make sure you are in a quiet environment. Confirm the kids are occupied, and the pets are in another room.

Remember to relax, breathe, and realize nothing is perfect and nothing has to be perfect. Enjoy your presentation and have fun with it.

Take a little more pressure off and download our free checklist.