As a lot of you know I run a small business marketing company – Scapes Consulting as well as writing for this blog. I have been focused on bringing internet marketing ideas to the local bricks and mortar type businesses that don’t normally know how to enter this strange new marketing world beyond just putting up a website.
I have noticed as business is picking up I have had less time to commit to producing new articles for all my Bootstrapping Friends. Well I decided that I will share the video’s that I have created for my local clients with you guys as well. A lot of the information in them is just as important for my readers that are here as well.
It also does not matter where in the world you are my company would be able to help you with any of the concepts that I talk about.
For many people who run businesses that are located in offices, their bodies don’t seem like vital investments. Sure, if you were a cook or a construction worker, your physical wellbeing might be something you invested in. After all, it’s the only way to make money. But office workers tend to think that they only need their thinking, which doesn’t depend on physical wellbeing, right? Wrong! How you take care of your body is vital to how well you can work; whether you crush rocks or philosophize.
One place to really make this happen is with your diet. It might seem odd…can diet improve my business? The answer is a definitive yes. For most, work is where we eat poorly, because we’re always on the run and in a hurry. We just simply don’t have time to make a good meal happen. After considering the next few paragraphs, you may start to treat your diet like you would a client.
Firstly, there are many different foods which can improve not only your energy, but also your ability to think and make decisions. No, this isn’t coffee. It’s extra supplements such as vitamin E and fish oil. These nutrients, found naturally in many foods, have been demonstrated to increase thinking ability. You can easily find these foods around as many restaurants allow you to substitute beef or pork for fish in many their dishes.
On that point, avoid any fatty foods. Even if you are in the best shape of your life, a fatty meal will slow you down because your body has to process it. This mean you work slower, you think slower, and you are simply less motivated. You may still feel into your work, but you’ll be working at a decreased rate compared to how you might work had you had a lighter meal.
The same goes for the beverages you drink. Many drinks give you a short burst of energy, but they’ll make you crash later. Sodas and similar drinks provide you with sugar for energy, but many of these sugars are hard for your body to work with, so you’ll end up spending more energy in order to digest them. Instead drink water or other natural fruit juices. Tea is a great alternative to coffee that can still wake you up in the morning, but isn’t as harmful; especially compared to espresso drinks.
Generally speaking, your body is an investment as well. Just like you would invest in worker safety and appropriate training, take the time to do so with your diet. Just like your business in general, what you put in is what you get out. Your body in this sense is a tool to make your business run at its optimum rate. With a poor diet, you may be able to work, but you’ll be doing a worse job comparatively.
And hey, you may end up looking and feeling better in life in general as well.
Whatever your job is, when you sit down to do it, often the task at hand can distract you from the importance of the way you do it. If you’re a small business owner or otherwise, you’ll want to save yourself small bits of time that can otherwise add up to entire days of extra work performed. Here are 10 ways to improve workflow.
- Think mise en place, or everything in its place. This idea is popular among professional chefs. Basically put, make sure your work space is organized with everything in easy reach and nothing in the way.
- Your computer desktop is still a desktop. Clean your computer’s desktop of needless links and files. Put relevant files together in folders and create quick links for all regularly used applications and websites.
- Grabbing something? Grab something else. Every time you get up to get something, stop and ask yourself if you need anything else while you’re up.
- No more games. We all need a little release with games and other distractions at times, but if you eliminate these products from your computer, you’ll be surprised how little you miss them.
- Turn off chat. Many offices and Web applications have Web chat. Unless this is essential to your business, turn it off, or put your account on “busy.”
- Keep separate business and personal emails. Doing this will keep you from being distracted by personal activities that can probably wait till after work.
- Swallow the biggest frog first. When you organize your day, do the hardest and most painful task first. This will make everything else easier and prevent you from procrastinating.
- Keep work at work. Don’t allow yourself to carry work over into your personal time. Often, this is an excuse to be lazy at work to limit your work time. This will help you focus while at work and improve your personal life as well.
- How do you work when your boss is watching? Always work as if your boss is over your shoulder—especially if you are your own boss! With this mindset you’ll see greater productivity.
- Time to lean, time to clean. While you might not have anything to clean when you work, keep in mind that there is never down time. Many workers allow this little bit of wiggle room with their time, however it only pushes work off that needs to be done anyways.
In a general sense, your workflow will greatly improve when you make your work area as streamlined as possible for completing a task and creating attitudes that focus work time on work. Thinking in terms of tasks to be done instead of hours to work will also greatly improve your productivity. It may take time to completely adapt these ideas into your work area and attitude, but the extra effort required to do so will pay off large dividends.
How Article submission Can Create Business
Stating that the Web has forever changed business is a massive understatement. The amount of customers available to a business like yours has exploded with people from all over the world able to access your products any time of day. However, every business is taking advantage of this new market and crowding has become a significant problem for businesses trying to stand out in search engine listings and against other competitors selling similar products.
Though it may seem like spending loads of money on advertising is the only way to really get ahead and standout in search results, this isn’t true. In fact, you can stand out amongst your competitors, come up higher in search listings, and generate greater interest in your product line all at the same time. How to do this is simple—take your remaining cash budget and throw it down a wishing well! Okay, that’s obviously not what I suggest, but sometimes the frustration of new business ventures makes you feel like that’s the only why. But for a much more realistic approach, you can write and submit articles about your business subject.
This doesn’t mean write sales sites for your business—you’re already doing that and everyone else is too. The way to stand out is to take advantage of the other great utility the Web has provided consumers—information gathering. When people are interested in something, they search the Web for information. Even if they are buying a product, prospects won’t just look up sales websites, they’ll look for purely informational sites for objective opinions free of any sales pressure. For example, if they want a bed, they’ll want to know what types of beds are out there; if they want cheese, they’ll want to know health info; or if they’re interested in widgets, they’ll want to know what one is even before they think of buying.
Here’s where you and your business come in—you create this content for customers. Whether it’s setting up an entire website for information or submitting articles to a larger service, by generating content on your area of expertise, you increase the amount of traffic to your specific business area. Furthermore, you become a resource for not just products, but for information. This means more potential customers are coming to your websites, and more content means a greater chance of appearing on search result listings without extra money spent on advertising. Best of all, you position you and your business as a source of expertise on whatever you sell. Customers trust you for all the valuable information you’ve given them and they know you are competent about your products rather than just a business doing a sales pitch.
However, you can’t just put any content on the Web. Find out what customers are interested in when it comes to your products. Give them great content that isn’t only about your products specifically, but how to use them, maintain them, or enjoy them best; stated in a general way. When you write these articles, providing information about the subject should be the primary goal. Your business should be a small footnote at the end, reminding customers if they’d like to see some great products related to this subject, they can find them at your website.
Using these guidelines, customers will become excited and informed about your product realm, and they’ll remember which businesses helped them along the way. For you and your business, you’ll see greater interest, Web traffic, and better search results in a way that makes you stand out among competitors.
Graphic Divider
In addition, I haven’t seen many comments on these articles lately. As much of an absolute marketing mastermind I am, I’m sure I bring up arguable points once in a while. And as I’ve said before, I always welcome suggestions on future articles. Please feel free to drop me a line if you think of something you’d like to learn more about or introduce for discussion. Thanks!
Today’s businesses suffer from one giant dilemma—they need to reach more customers in an increasingly competitive marketplace and they also have tight budgets that demand results. It doesn’t take much thinking to realize that this is a huge problem for many businesses. In an ideal world, you could just throw unlimited amounts of money into your marketing budget, yet this isn’t possible.
When money is abundant, businesses tend to make choices that aren’t as effective or pragmatic. In this way, a tight budget may be beneficial in helping you create a concise marketing plan that targets customers that will actually purchase your products or ask for your service rather than just be aware of them. Here are a few basic ideas for marketing campaigns for under $100 to help you get started in expanding your business.
To begin with, make use of marketing materials that don’t cost anything. The best way to do this is using Internet tools that help you create word of mouth about your business without having to spend. There are many websites that people use for social networking that your business can use such as Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter. These websites allow you to post information about your business—upcoming events, new products, change of service—for free and anyone connected to your business and anyone connected to them will hear about it. Use this as a soft campaign to generate awareness of your business to a huge customer base.
Another option is to set up an informational website associated with your business. Whatever you sell—cookies, janitorial service, or stiletto heels—you can create a website that helps people learn more about your realm of service and products without directly selling to them. This may seem contradictory, but many people research on the Web before purchasing products or services. If they happen to learn what makes a great cookie on your website, they’re more likely to buy from you when they’re ready. These sites are easy to set up (you already know everything) and they don’t take much to maintain since there’s no e-commerce applications, just simple text, pictures, and maybe video.
Work with companies that do targeted advertising online. Unless you’re selling a very general product, you probably do business with very interested people. In order for you to get customers who are serious buyers you need to go where they go. It’s expensive to post ads in magazines, but it is much less expensive to post ads with companies that will only charge you based on the number of times the ad is shown on a webpage that is topically related to your business. These companies greatly reduce your costs and you are only paying to advertise to people who are likely to buy.
Generally speaking, think of the modern marketing campaign this way—getting the word out to the public should be free and advertising to customers should be done directly based on their interests. The Web has revolutionized business in so many ways—there’s no reason it can’t save you money as well.