Archive for the ‘Time Management’ Category

Do you answer the phone yourself at your business? What do you do when you are on the job, or just too busy to answer the phone when it rings? Do you just let it go to voicemail?

You may not be ready to hire a receptionist. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need one. It is very important to answer the phone promptly and professionally. If your calls go to voicemail, there are two dangers.

First, maybe the person will not leave a voice mail. If they were calling  your business trying to get a quote or information, chances are good that they are calling around. If they do not leave a message, you have no way to get back to them. And if they get a good enough answer from another business, you have lost them entirely.

The other bad thing that happens with voicemail is that you forget to return the call quickly enough. As a small business owner, it is easy to get so wrapped up in your job that days go by before you know it. When you do finally get back to the caller, it might be too late.

If you can have a human answering your phone whenever it rings, or at least during normal business hours, you should. And here’s the thing, you do not have to hire a full time receptionist to do it.

There are a couple of ways to go about it. First, you can hire a virtual assistant. This person can answer the phone from their own office. You just need to set up a system to forward calls. Good systems allow you to control when to forward calls, and may even allow you to forward them after so many rings. This means you can set it up to answer the calls yourself when you are not too busy.

The second option is to hire a receptionist company. The great thing here is that they can answer the phone 24/7.  You simply need to set up scripts for the service to use. You can even set it up so they can answer basic questions and so they know when to forward the call directly to you or to take a message. These services can be very affordable. One I used in the past started at only $80 per month then a few cents per call.

With affordable options available, you really have no excuse to let your calls just go to voicemail. Start doing some research and find an alternative that will work well for your business as you grow.

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Hello, my name is Bradford Shimp. Check out my web design services at BroadRiverCreative.com.

photo credit: mangpages

Have you ever patted yourself on the back for being a good at multi tasking? I have, plenty of times. But I am beginning to wonder if it is truly something to be proud of.

The fact is, multi tasking is often the wrong answer to the problem. The problem, of course, is that you have way too much to do. So you try to do it all at once.

For me, this typically means simultaneously checking my email, my Twitter feed, working on an article, doing research, and maybe sprinkling in some marketing work. The problem with this approach is that everything ends up taking longer. For instance, this post would take me maybe 4 or 5 times as long to write if I spend a minute on a couple of paragraphs and then check some email and then come back for a few more paragraphs.

The answer is simple. Instead of multi tasking, you should be micro focusing. This is not really that hard to do, even for multi tasking veterans like me (and you?). Micro focusing means spending time on just one thing and focusing on just that. Revolutionary, I know.

If you have a day that is full of tasks, do yourself a favor and separate those tasks out at the beginning of the day and give each a time limit. The time limit is very important. If you do not stick to it, your tasks will start to get muddled again and you will find yourself multi tasking. The more you plan your day out, the better. If you need some wiggle room, just plan in some miscellaneous time.

One thing that I found that really helped me to stick to this is to set a timer. I might give myself a half an hour to work on a blog post, for instance. When the timer goes off, time is up. If you find yourself constantly running out of time, it is because you haven’t been realistic about how long something is going to take you. Either that or you have been sneaking a look at Twitter again.

Give yourself a break and get more done by learning the power of micro focusing. You can still get the experience of multi tasking without all the downside. Simply move between tasks quickly. But while you are on any given task, give it your full attention.

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Hello, I am Bradford Shimp. I write this blog and run a web design and marketing company call Broad River Creative. Follow me on Twitter, but be sure not to check for my updates while you are working on something else.

photo credit: daveograve@

What do you want out of your employees? Chances are, you are not just interested in them giving you their time, on a set schedule, every week. But yet, that is how most of us structure our businesses. We pay for time. What we should be paying for is results.

But results are often a lot harder to measure than time. It takes some extra effort to measure results. Yet, that extra effort can pay off in some pretty big ways.

Outsourced Effectiveness

First, I want to riff on outsourcing. Why does outsourcing work? Often, you need to pay someone more money to do a job when you outsource than you would ever pay an hourly employee. Yet, outsourcing can be cost effective and is especially results effective. That’s because when you outsource a job, say typing up reports, you are paying someone directly for results. Sure, sometimes you are still being charged by the hour, but you hire the person who can get the most quality work done per hour.

When you outsource a project, you pay to get that project done. You look for things like quality, speed, and expertise. You don’t pay one dime for downtime, training, or any of the other extras that come with a payroll employee.

Its not that payroll employees are a bad thing. Its just that many small businesses are not using them as effectively as they could.

Creative Freedom

When a worker can focus on results and not time, they are able to get creative. I have written in the past on the best times of day for creativity. It is different for each person. Why not let your employees get the job done on their own creative schedule?

Creativity doesn’t exist in an 8-5 box. If you can start to think about results, and not just hours, you can turn your business into something exciting and very effective.

Creativity starts from the top. Ask yourself why you measure and pay based on time. Is it because you need someone to answer the phone from 8-5? Why not hire a receptionist company to answer your calls, not just from 9-5, but 24 hours a day. This could free you up from “manning the phones.” Think of what you could get done if you had 4 hours straight with no phone call interruptions. If you get creative, you can start to make things like that happen.

Get More Done in Less Time

What if you started paying employees for what they got done? For instance, you might have a series of tasks to do in a day. You could tell the employee that when he is done with the tasks, he is done for the day. You would pay the same whether it took a full day or whether it took half a day. That employee would have an incentive to work harder and faster.

For this to work, you would need to have a good understanding of the worth of the work. You would also benefit by segmenting tasks by employee. For instance, you never want to have to pay a person just to be there. But small businesses do this all of the time. Whether it is to answer the phone, to wait for the next task to start, or to keep the store open, there are a lot of people getting paid to wait. This is of course not cost effective.

If you own a retail store, consider this. Rather than pay for a traditional clerk, hire a person as a salesperson. She could get paid by number of sales made. Now she is not just standing behind the cash register. She has incentive to engage customers when they come in. And if customers aren’t coming in, maybe she can go out and get them. Her livelihood is tied to making sales, just like yours. Before you say this can’t work, look at car dealers. Many car salespeople are paid just this way. They get paid when they make sales.

What if you already have plenty of traffic to your store? You can still pay for performance. Say you have a grocery store. Pay your cashiers by how many items they check through in a day. I bet lines would move a little faster, and cashiers without a line would actively direct customers to their register.

Make Employees Super Happy

Paying for results instead of time is not just about cost effectiveness. Done right, you and your employees can both end up making more money. In fact, results based pay is great for good workers. It is a way to find the best employees and reward them for their skill and effort.

When an employee knows he can work harder or smarter and end up getting paid more for better results, he has the opportunity for greater fulfillment in his job. People like to accomplish things. You are better off having your company staffed by employees who go after results than by employees who get trapped in mundane days of clock watching.

Yes, you may end up asking an employee to do more. Some may resist. But the kind of go-getter people you need in your small business will appreciate the rewards, both monetary and emotional, that come with accomplishments.

photo credit: evelynishere

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com

Have you lost customers because you just haven’t stayed in touch? Do you look back at your list of past customers, see a good one, and think, why aren’t we still doing business? Throughout the course of running your business, it is too easy to lose touch and lose customers. Here are a few tips to help end unnecessary customer leakage.

1. Have a Good CRM

Having all of your customer information together in one place is essential. A good CRM is accessible, no matter where you are. It is easy to use. It also should integrate with your other tools, such as email and invoicing. Use your CRM as more than a file cabinet. Learn to interact with it on a daily basis. Send your emails out from there. Record your phone conversations there.

Make use of tasks and to-dos for each customer. Every customer in your CRM should have an upcoming task, even if they are not currently in the sales process. Schedule several points of contact throughout the year. When you make a contact, be sure to add another point for later on. Stay on top of this and you will never forget a customer again.

2. Stay in Contact with a Regular Email

If you don’t email your customer list regularly because you are afraid you might annoy them, you are crazy. The simple solution to that is, don’t be annoying. Its not don’t send email. Instead, send emails that will be useful and enjoyed by your customer list. Be personal, informative, educational, funny, etc. Don’t send sales pitch after sales pitch. The idea of the regular email is to keep the conversation going and the relationship warm so that when you need to do a sales pitch, you will have ready and willing ears.

3. Have a Follow Up Plan

What do you do with a customer after you make the sale? This is the best time to establish a long term relationship and to make additional sales. Yet, many companies have no follow up plan.

You could start by sending a nice thank you. Large sales can even get a gift. From there, get them into your email system. Get them special offers for add-on products or services. Whatever you do, don’t ignore them. Someone who just bought from you is your most qualified customer.

There are three things you should try to get from a customer who just purchased. Another sale, a referral, and a testimonial. Start tapping into the potential with a good follow-up plan.

4. Have a Reason to Get on the Phone 4 Times a Year

While automated emails and other points of contact are great, you also want to make sure that you maintain a personal touch with your customers. If you can, go ahead and visit your customers. A little face time can go a long way. If not, try to do at least 4 phone calls a year. You may want to call your customers on their birthdays. Another idea is to offer a special discount over the phone. Even if you have a lot of customers, you can call a few each week with the special discount offer.

You can also plan some service phone calls. You could do a survey. Heck, it doesn’t hurt to just call to say hi. The point is, finding a reason to get on the phone with your customers is not that hard. You just need to plan it and do it. This will only help you reinforce your relationship. You will also have a better chance at noticing any issues that may be driving a wedge between you and your customer. And if you are on the phone with them, you can deal with it right away.

If you look up from the grind and find that you are missing customers, start implementing these steps right away. No customer deserves to be ignored.

photo credit: Commutr

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com

To reach the widest audience possible on Twitter, you should be updating all day (and night). Of course, you can’t sit in front of the computer all of the time. So instead, you can schedule Tweets to go out automatically.

Don’t Let a Computer Take Over

Before we get any farther, let me add a pretty big warning. You don’t want a computer to be put in charge of what you do on Twitter. It is frowned upon to do auto-DMs when someone follows you, for instance. While it may bring in some clicks for your newsletter, it is far more advantageous to connect personally on Twitter. Twitter, after all, helps to make the internet personal again.

You also want to avoid pushing tweets all day long that are either the same, or obviously generated by a computer. No one wants the same tweet to show up ten times that says, “Hey, check out my awesome site!” You should commit to keeping Twitter personal.

Scheduled but Personal

That being said, you can be personal and use scheduled updates at the same time. Here’s how. Use a tweet scheduling tool like Hootsuite to write personal and interesting tweets for the day. Then just schedule them to go out at various times.

You should plan on spending some personal time on Twitter throughout the day to reply, retweet, and engage in conversation. If you never do this and always schedule your updates, you will be missing out on the most important part of Twitter, which is interaction.

The Tweet Schedule Formula

So, how should you tweet schedule look? Lets say that you blog for your business every day. You also have an offer that you want to extend to your followers, lets say a free ebook for signing up for your newsletter. Here is how you should consider scheduling your tweets for the day:

40%- Tweets about your new blog post, with a different message in each one. Make the message itself interesting and useful, whether or not the reader has time to click on the link.

10%- Tweets about your offer.

25%- Tweets that point to another blog post you have read that you think your readers will find interesting. Again, make the message itself interesting and useful, as long as it has something to do with the post.

25%- General message tweets without a link. Could be quotes, inspirational messages, or personal updates. Or just about anything else.

You can play with these numbers to find a formula that works for you. The idea is to include more than just your self-serving links. Not that its bad to share them, as long as they have true benefit for your followers.

If you use Hootsuite, you can track your click throughs. This is helpful because you will be able to fine tune what time of day is best for posting your linked updates.

photo credit: Yandle

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com