The early bird gets the worm. This is true, but he doesn’t stay up all night waiting to catch the worm. He rests, so that when morning comes, he has the energy he needs to catch that worm. If you are the type of business owner who will sleep when you are dead, pay attention. The long term health of your business often depends on the health of your life. If your business is your life, there is a pretty good chance that it won’t outlast you, or even last you. When you burn out, so will your business. Those who ignore all else for their business often also ignore important building blocks to their business. One of the most important of these is the owner being able to get out of the way.

Take a Hike

One of the best signs that your business is healthy is that you can walk away from it for awhile. This is true even if it is just you running things, but it is especially important when you have employees. If you can take a vacation and know that your business is in good hands, you are doing a good job building your business. If, on the other hand, no one knows what to do and chaos ensues, you are the only one to blame. Micro-managers have a hard time taking vacations. Bosses who don’t hire and train people for important tasks are tied down to their businesses.

The stronger your business, the more time you should be able to spend away from it. That is because a strong business is built on systems and people. It doesn’t run on your sweat and tears, at least not after an initial start up phase.

Know When to Stop

Of course, there is much more to your life than the occasional vacation. You need to be able to maintain your life while running the business at the same time. This includes having time for your family, for your hobbies and for involvement in things beyond your business (every small business owner should be volunteering for something). These are all things you do in addition to work, and in order to do anything in addition to work, you need to know when to quit for the day.

The nice thing about having your own business is that you can control your schedule. Don’t scoff. Sure, it’s not always easy, and the mandates of your business often dictate, but you do have control. As owner, you have the power to say no or to say later. If your business is controlling your schedule and making you miss dance recitals and ball games, you need to make a change. Part of it is being able to leave things in capable hands, as we just discussed. The other part is understanding that you are in control, not the business. It’s your life, so start turning off your cell phone and stop checking those emails right before you head out to the movies with your family. Business emergencies come and go. It’s your life that you just get to live once.

Add Some Culture

If you have employees, I hope you realize that they too, have a life. Building your business around their lives as well as your own can do wonders for productivity, retention, and morale. For instance, if you hire a lot of moms, making it possible for them to get home earlier will be greatly appreciated.

It used to be the image of businesses that bosses would expect those employees who wanted to get ahead to stay late, work weekends, and take their work home with them. Modern businesses are more results driven. They realize they can accomplish more not by forcing extra hours, but by empowering employees to be their best. Technology makes work flexible. Caring leadership makes sure work does not overwhelm life.

One of the best ways to make sure you and your employees maintain a life is to bring a little of that life into work with you. Have days where you let your hair down, have a little fun, and enjoy each other’s company. Make work hours flexible around family schedules. Model good behavior by maintaining your own life and not always being stuck in your office. And if you have no problem maintaining a life, don’t be the boss who goes golfing every day but does not allow for flexible time off for your employees. There is nothing worse than having fun yourself while your employees look on in misery. Empower your employees to have a life, to blur the lines between work and life, and you will empower your company with a workforce that is gun-ho to do their best every day.

Having a life keeps your energy up. It helps you build a better business, one that supports its workers rather than consumes them. How’s your life?

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When “Mom and Pop” still owned the local store, customers could go in and get a friendly hello and highly personalized service. For generations, much of our business was done on a first-name basis, often over handshakes and coffee, not contracts and email. For most of our shopping, that level of personal connection has been lost. Yet it still exists, even thrives, in the world of small business.

Big businesses focus on efficiencies, not back stories. I am a huge proponent of systems and procedures for a small business, but you should never do them at the cost of losing personal connection. The good news for small businesses is that people still crave personal connection when they spend their money. Even more interestingly, recent technologies have actually made it easier for small businesses to conduct their business on a personal level, even if they are working with a customer half the world away.

Personal Mindset

It starts with developing a personal mindset in your business. This consists of you valuing the individual over the group. The customer you are with is the most important person in the world. So, no, you should not answer that text message right in the middle of a meeting.

To get personal with customers, you need to start to really care about them. Some, like my father, are naturals at this. He finds out personal history and connects on an emotional level with almost all of his customers. If you are not naturally empathetic, you should start to add up the value of caring. One loyal customer is always worth way more than one unknown prospect.

On the most basic level, you should at least learn the names of your customers. If you have a retail business, make it part of your procedure to ask for and memorize names of regular customers. If you don’t recognize a customer, ask them if this is the first time in your store, and start a conversation with them. For other types of businesses, collecting names is easier, since it’s right there on the contract. Start using those names as you talk and start having conversations with your customers about their lives. If you can frame everything you do around the personal lives of your customers, you will be loved.

Culture of Communication

As it stands, you may have very infrequent communication with your customers. This makes it harder to do business on a first-name basis. So here’s what you do. Create a culture of communication. From the very first moments that you begin to work on a sale with a new customer, be profuse in your communication. Keep them informed what is going on, check in on them, etc. In essence, get to know the customer and let them get to know you.

After the sale, don’t stop. Keep checking in, making sure they are happy with what they bought from you or seeing if there is anything else that you can help them with. Also consider a marketing strategy that provides education and information to your customers, via tools like blogs, email, and social media.

Tools to Communicate

This is where everything is turning on its head right now. It wasn’t that long ago that doing business on the internet was the ultimate in non-personal communication. Then came social media. Businesses are using tools like Twitter and Facebook to become more accessible to their customers. The smartest business owners are learning how to create ongoing, two-way conversations with their customers using these tools.

Not every one of your customers uses these tools, but for the ones who do you have an always open door to communicate. Likewise, they can always reach you with a question. The same can be said of email, but our email habits are different then our social media habits. Online tools like blogs and Twitter allow us to let our hair down a little and give customers a glimpse into our lives. They also allow us to share our knowledge and to be on hand to help out with questions and issues that arise in the lives of our customers. When you are friends with your customers on Facebook, you can send birthday greetings and other personal messages easily.

Online tools have made it possible to easily merge business and personal. Some are uncomfortable with this blurred line, but it is only recent history that has forced us to separate the two. Before the age of the big box store, there wasn’t such a clear line between business and personal. When you did business with people you knew, you naturally cared about them and found out about their personal lives. Today, that same thing is happening online, and it is a good thing.

With today’s tools, you have little excuse to stay aloof from your customers. You can interact with them on social networks. You can chat with them on Skype, having virtual meetings no matter where in the world they are. Most of all, you can stay in touch. All of this allows modern businesses to get to know their customers on a first-name basis.

How well do you know your customers?

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photo credit: dimnikolov

From Fast Up Front:

Why Investing in Your Employees Makes Good Business Sense

It’s always been my belief that employees should be the number one customer of any business. This article highlights how investing in entry-level employees is really paying off for some larger companies.

From Planning Startup Stores (Tim Berry):

5 Reasons Not To Build That Online Community

This is more of a thought piece. I’m not sure where I come out on this, while Ning was around for free I toyed with community ideas. But Tim is probably right, we can just use the universal tools and do a better job connecting in real ways with our customers, rather than inventing an environment to interact within.

From Business Value Matters:

Designs on Commerce

To quote this article, “design is everything that your organization does. Don’t underestimate it.”

Don’t Let Prospects Slam the Door in Your Face

This article isn’t about life insurance. The same concept holds true, no matter what you are selling. If you ask a general yes or no question too early in the sales process, you provide the opportunity for the prospect to slam the door in your face. Now, everyone should have the right to say no, but it is your job to help them make an educated decision. You aren’t doing any favors to your potential customers by asking them to make a decision before they get all (or any) of the facts.

The Right Way to Ask

Here is an example. You own an HVAC company. Which is a better sales question?

1. Hi prospect, I was wondering if you are in need of a new furnace?
2. Hello prospect, have you noticed an increase in your heating bills in recent years?

The first question demands a yes or no answer. It forces the prospect to make a determination based on his limited knowledge. He will think about whether his furnace gives heat. It does. So he will say no. It won’t matter that your furnace will be more efficient, that he will save money both on his monthly bill and with a current tax incentive. All he is thinking about is the general question of whether he needs a new furnace, and since his works, he says no.

The second question is designed to get the prospect thinking, not deciding. As an expert, you know his bills have likely been going up. He takes a moment to think about it, and then he agrees with you that, yes, his bills have been going up. This opens up a door to more conversation. You can explain to him how a new energy efficient model can save him money on his energy bills. You can also show him how current incentives and pricing make now a perfect time to upgrade his furnace. Of course, I don’t suggest launching right into a sales pitch first thing. I think you should ask a lot of these open-ended questions. They will help you get an idea of what the prospect needs. They will also get the prospect thinking about his situation and agreeing with you.

Gain the Knowledge to Make the Sale

Questions are a great way to gain information as well. If I ask you if you agree with what I am saying in this post, you will answer yes or no. If, however, I ask you how you think this article will help you in your sales process, you are nudged toward giving me a more elaborate answer. You need to get your prospect to elaborate as much as possible. In those answers, you will discover their needs and desires. By the time you are done asking questions, you will know exactly what to say to get the sale. If you are really good at asking the right questions, you will have the prospect asking you for the sale!

Fix Your Yes or No Questions

Do a study of your own sales process. What kind of questions are you asking? Are you torpedoing opportunities by asking yes or no questions to early on? Add more depth to your questions and you will be able to talk to more prospects. The fewer nos, the more opportunities you will get. Write down the standard questions you ask now and then rewrite them in a way that leaves them open-ended. The right questions will lead you to more sales.

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photo credit: mattwi1s0n

Being in small business means you’re probably your own office manager, receptionist, sales manager, accountant, HR manager and R&D manager all rolled into one – no wonder you’re so busy. With all this happening you might be tempted to push “branding” into the too hard basket, or even think that your business is too small to worry about that sort of thing.

This may just be the biggest mistake you ever make…..

Branding isn’t just something big business does, it’s how you set yourself apart from all the rest and become bigger business! You’re time poor, you’re multi-tasking as much as you can and you might not be a natural business person – so here’s a ten minute guide to building a baby brand!

1. What do you do differently?

Is there one thing you do that nobody else is doing? Is it great? If this is hard to answer, think about what you don’t like about how your competitors do business. If competitor A is too pushy and competitor B sells poor quality goods – you are already on your way to being something different. Is there something your customers always complain about – is there a way for you fix their problems? If you can find something unique about your business that is desirable for a section of the market – then you have the first step to establishing your brand – your “Unique Selling Point” (aka a point of difference).

2. Tell it clearly

Write down a summary of what you do, who you do it for, what the advantage or benefit of it is and how it’s different to everyone else. Try to get all of this into one clear sentence using language that your customers speak. This is your “Positioning Statement”. Give this pride of place on your website and treat it like a promise – ensure you always carry out that promise to the letter.

3. Tell it memorably

Take the essence of your positioning statement and cut it down to 3-7 words. Make them memorable or catchy in some way. If you’re not a natural wordsmith, maybe ask a friend to help. This is going to be your “tag line” and should be memorable enough for people to recall it long after they stop dealing with you. You can develop tag lines for some of your product range too but first focus on how you’ll tag your business.

4. Make it attractive

A tag line is usually attached to a logo. A logo doesn’t have to be a work of art and it doesn’t have to be a profoundly meaningful symbol – it just has to be something that represents what you do. Ideally, you’ll create something unique and easily recognizable as your own, that can be replicated onto shirts or business cards or your website that is simple but memorable. If you are not very arty and don’t know anyone who is good at art or design, you could try just a different and interesting font for your business name (although you may need to go through a comprehensive rebranding down the line if you don’t get it at least part right this time). If you are a plumber for example, look for a font that resembles pipes or simply color your existing font a metallic grey or silver. Check out your competitors logos and make sure you do something completely different. Once you have a design you are happy with, attach your tag line to it and you have a header for letters, your website….everything.

5. Make it consistent

Once you’ve chosen a font and colors or styles, consider using those colors and attributes in everything you do. When a customer sees your color and font on a van, they should be reminded of you. This is the most basic of visual branding and it’s easy to develop. What’s more, if you’re not very visual, making this little decision makes all other design decisions easier to make. You won’t need to worry about what color uniform for your staff or what font to use for your signage – it’s all taken care of and consistent.

6. What’s in it for them?

Now it’s time to tell your potential customers about how your brand is just what they are looking for. In all your marketing collateral (flyers, cards, information folders etc), on your website and in any other written communication with your clients, make sure you are always telling them “what’s in it for them”. Don’t tell them that your brand is great, tell them that your brand will greatly benefit them by providing them with your unique selling point. Always answer the customer’s questions or needs in your “copy” (sales writing). Always make sure you speak their language too – don’t talk about the extensive corporate benchmarks met and exceeded by your chocolate shop, tell them that they’ll be in a whole new kind of chocolate heaven with just one taste of your yummy creamy fudge.

7. Live it!

In just a short time you can go from being just the same as everyone else to being one very special business that addresses customer needs in a very specific and desirable way. Make sure you live up to your promises and that your brand is a perfect ambassador for your business.

Don’t put off branding. Don’t be afraid to brand. Just doing the basics is enough to make you a real competitor!

It has been a few years since I hiked up one of New York’s beautiful Adirondack mountains. I need to plan a trip. Chances are you need to plan one to. Not necessarily to the Adirondacks, but to your own personal mountain which, for you, may actually be a lake or a forest or a dessert.

You see, for me, a mountain is a place to let all of the worry drain away. It is a place of solitude and beauty. I can get refreshed when I climb a mountain. For you, that place could be anywhere, likely out in nature somewhere. It’s hard to find solitude in a mall.

What is so great about solitude? When you are running a business, you have demands flying at you from all directions, all day and night. It is possible to drown under the pressure. You need to come up for air once in awhile. You need to be able to think without the phone ringing. You need to ponder issues and let your mind work without everyone jumping in with an opinion. You need space.

So, how long has it been? Have you taken a personal vacation recently? Not a family vacation, because while these are wonderful, they don’t give you a lot of opportunity for solitude. Sometimes you just need to get away to clear your head. Whether you take a pup tent into the woods or go for a golf outing with a quiet friend, you owe it to your mental and emotional health to get out. Breathe some fresh air and let the blood pump to your brain again.

When you invest in yourself, in reenergizing your soul and your mind, you will see be payoffs. You may be calmer at work. You may get new ideas for your business. You may learn how to relax. So get out and climb a mountain, or whatever. Stop making excuses and take a weekend away from it all. One thing; if you are married, make sure you arrange for your spouse to have his or her own weekend away too.

What do you do to clear your mind?

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photo credit: inottawa

Always Be Building Your Relationships

Strong sales are built on good relationships, more so today than even a few years ago. It is getting harder to walk in cold and “close” a sale. At the same time, it is getting easier to network and build relationships with customers and prospects. The web has opened the doors wide to relationship building. But it’s not just online where you can and should be building relationships.

People are looking for more connection with what they are buying. In some senses, they are beginning to think local again. But more so than local, they are looking to have relationships with the people they are buying from. People enjoy doing business on a first-name basis.

What does it look like to always be building relationships? It starts with you caring about your customers. Get out there and visit customers and prospects. Get online and join in on groups that share a passion in your business’s area of expertise. If there is a forum or website devoted to some area your business serves (and there is) you need to be involved there. It is time to get off the sidelines and get involved in your customers’ lives. Don’t be the wallflower. Instead, find out about the people you serve, interact with them, and care for them.

Always Be Building Your Website

This goes for all of your marketing and sales materials, but especially for your website; always be adding value and content. Your website should be a living thing, with new information, news, helpful articles and videos, and more. Think of your website as an important hub of information for your prospects and customers. It is not enough for your website to be just another sales pitch. It needs to provide real, useful information to your audience.

Today, one of the best ways to keep your small business website alive and well is to maintain a blog. Write about things that your customers will care about. If you are a brain surgeon, this means sharing your knowledge about health, procedures, and research. If you are tree surgeon, this means sharing your knowledge about horticulture, pruning, and tree diseases. Everyone has some knowledge to share.

Sharing knowledge attracts visitors to your website. Some of these visitors will be potential customers. The more you build your website, the more potential customers you will be able to reach.

Always Be Building Your Business

One of the best ways to get new sales is to sell something else to an old customer. To this end, you should always be building your business by adding new products, services, and affiliate or partner offers. Don’t go crazy here, a car dealership probably shouldn’t start selling flowers, but it could certainly add a car wash. Look to build new revenue streams that fit right in with what you are already doing and won’t require a massive reorganization of your business.

By adding on new business offerings, you have more to sell. You can earn a higher profit per customer, and long-term, loyal customers will be worth more to you. If you don’t build your business in new directions, you will always need to focus on getting new customers and won’t have the time to build those great, long-term relationships that can keep your business humming along for years.

These are just a few ideas for how you can adopt the Always Be Building principle into your small business. Can you think of some more? Keeping your eyes on growth and building strong bases from which to grow will do more in the long run for your business than any single sales push ever could.

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photo credit: C. G. P. Grey

If you send a lot of mail for your small business, then you know the drill. You either make a lot of trips to the post office, perhaps purchasing a wide variety of stamps, or you use a postage meter, which can get pretty expensive (if you can figure out the bill). There is another option, which has been around for quite awhile. It is called Stamps.com. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, but maybe you have never given it a try.

Print Stamps from Your Office Printer

Stamps.com is software that gives you the ability to print USPS postage right from your own computer, using your own printer. There are advantages to this. For one thing, ink in your printer is likely a lot cheaper than the ink that comes in postage meters. And, since you already have a computer and printer, you do not need to lease an expensive machine. If you are currently making a lot of trips to the post office, you can save time and gas by printing stamps from your office.

How Much Does it Cost?

There are a few simple costs involved with Stamps.com. First, there is the monthly software fee, which currently starts at 15.99 per month. This gives you access to the software you need to print official postage. The other main cost is supplies. You can buy special labels to print your postage on. However, you can also print directly to your envelopes. Finally, of course, you need to pay for your actual postage.

The convenience is what makes up for the additional software and supplies cost. And if you are using a postage meter, you can actually save a lot of money with Stamps.com. Just compare the monthly cost.

Convenience and Value

Stamps.com goes out of its way to be convenient. When you sign up, you can get a free digital scale which plugs into your computer via USB and automatically records the weight in the software and assigns the correct postage amount. If you are printing directly on envelopes or if you use shipping labels you can also synch Stamps.com with many address books, including Quickbooks and Outlook.

I am a fan of the low price and convenience of Stamps.com. Postage meters are handy, and perhaps even a little more convenient, but often they can be expensive. Stamps.com uses the tools you already have to bring you a way to print custom postage right in your office without a lot of hassle. You can currently get a free 4-week trial, so it may be worth checking out. Anything that makes your small business a little more efficient and professional is a good thing, in my book.

Get 6 Months of Stamps.com Free!

Stamps.com has generously offered to provide 6 months of free service ($95.94 value) to one lucky reader of All Business Answers. All you need to do to qualify for this is to answer one simple question about Stamps.com. Write your answer in the comments below, and while your at it let me know how you think using Stamps.com will help your business. Here’s the question (hint, if you don’t know the answer, look it up on the Stamps.com FAQ page):

Question: Do you need special labels to print Stamps.com postage?

Be sure to put your answer in the comments section. Winner will be chosen after 1 week, at which time the give-a-way will be closed.

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Getting the sale is the most important piece of any small business pie. Without sales, there is no business. How you get the sale can define your business as well as determine your ongoing ability to succeed. If the only sales you can get are the “low-hanging” fruit of friends, family, and prospects that just happen to be buying right now, you may have a hard time sustaining your business. If you get sales through brute force or sweaty determination, you could earn yourself a bad name, or at the very least create a business that is very hard to maintain.

There are many ways to get the sale. You should find one that you are both comfortable embracing and which will help your business grow exponentially. You should also be willing to embrace a little challenge when it comes to sales. Rejection is still part of the game, though you can insulate yourself from it with certain approaches. Just don’t avoid growing your business because you are either afraid or don’t know how to go about getting sales.

Bring up the Pain

Showing prospects their pain points, and then providing a solution, is an effective way of making sales. Done successfully, you will have prospects begging for you to help them. The key here is to listen and to know your prospects. Go into the sales process as a doctor goes into a visit with a patient. Your job is to diagnose the problem and then to provide a prescription.

If you can get the prospect to admit a pain point you are well on your way to a sale. Now all you need to do is show them how you can relieve their pain. You could do that through better service, better product, lower price, or new solution. In the sales process, get the prospect to self-identify the pain point and then get her to agree that your solution would end the pain. The rest is just paperwork.

Educate to the Offer

Educational selling is my favorite form of selling. It can cover a wide array of techniques, from seminars to blogging. One of the best things you can do is to turn your presentation into an educational seminar. The goal of educating is to make prospects aware of your solution in a wider application. For instance, you may provide data about their industry that can help them with their business. Through education, you can move their mindsets toward being ready to buy from you.

Moving mindsets is hard to do in a sales presentation. If a prospect is set in their mind that they aren’t buying, then chances are you are not going to change their mind. However, with an educational presentation, you can bring new information to the table and help prospects to see what you have to offer from a new perspective.

There are two secrets that make educational selling really powerful. The first is that you will be able to speak to a lot more prospects. Almost everyone is ready to learn at any time, while almost no one is ready to buy at any given time. If you use an educational approach, you can get your message in front of a lot more people AND make a bigger impact (where their eyes would glaze over if you just gave a standard sales pitch). Secondly, educational selling can establish you as an expert in the minds of those prospects that you present to. So, even if they are not buying today, they will think of you first when they are ready to buy.

Make it a No-Brainer

This is an approach that is taken by a lot of new businesses. Load as much into the service or product as possible and price it to sell. In the presentation, just list of all of the features and you are sure to get the sale. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work out. Part of the problem is that when you try to make the sale a no-brainer, you are working off your own assumptions of what you think the prospect needs. In a true sales process you would talk to the prospect and find out specifically what their needs are.

No-brainer sales can work, but they don’t work as well as you might think. What is obvious to you may not be obvious to everyone else. And if the prospect doesn’t see the benefit, or doesn’t understand how you can make their life better, you won’t get the sale. To make no-brainer sales work, spend some time with the prospect and design an offer specifically tailored to him.

Trigger the Emotions

Emotional selling relies on triggering some basic emotions to get the sale. Emotions you target include fear, hunger, desire, frustration, and envy. Good selling should include emotional connection, but not necessarily a full onslaught on a prospect’s base emotions. Here’s the thing, emotional selling works. Many businesses base their entire existence on it. If you can walk the fine line where you play on a prospect’s emotion AND provide them something that will truly improve their life, it can work for you. But too often emotions are misused to sell overpriced products that don’t have nearly as much impact as they purport to have. This goes for everything from online study courses that will help you make money to hair products.

When it comes to emotional selling, understand that “everybody” is doing it, but at the end of the day you need to be happy with your sales approach. Use emotion to get attention, to make a point, and to pave the way to truly helping people. Just beware of using it to “trick” people into buying, because it can come back to bite you.

Push Your Way In

The pushy salesman is the prototypical image of sales in the minds of many. It is everything we hate about sales. It is best epitomized by the alpha-aggressive car salespeople we all know and loathe. Pushy salespeople do not take no for an answer. Unfortunately, the bad rap that sales gets because of people like this makes some of us unwilling to go after sales. The thing is, it is okay to push for the sale, to go until you get the no. It is not okay to harass, to ignore a no, and to just be obnoxious.

To get good at sales, you need to be able to push yourself, to be determined, and to keep moving until you get a clear decision. But you never need to be a jerk. There is a big difference between being determined and on top of details and just being cocky and unwilling to respect the wishes of your prospects.

With all of these ways to make a sale, you have no excuse not to pursue sales more wisely. Feel free to mix several approaches, but don’t make excuses. You need sales to survive and thrive. Find a way that works for your business, and then hammer it every day.

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photo credit: AF-Photography

Tip #1: Folders & Filters

Make Your Robots Organize For You

Many of the pop3 software systems available, including that which comes with Microsoft exchange hosting and Google apps, provide the opportunity to easily manage your emails and files. Beyond simply creating the “folders” or “labels” that you deem necessary, you can create filters that automatically direct messages from certain people, with certain subject lines, or that were submitted through certain web forms to the appropriate area. This adds zero work for your employees and makes organization clear and simple.

Tip #2: Use Individual Action Methods

Projects Are Unique—Treat Them as Such

Instead of using a one trick pony approach to addressing client needs, allow your team members to develop an appropriate action method for each client. You can use other methods listed below in order to make sure those approaches are communicated to anyone working on the project, but providing this flexibility and the chance to communicate about it will increase your efficiency and employee satisfaction.

Tip #3: Video Conferencing

From Anywhere, to Anyone, Anytime

There are many different video conferencing software programs available, including some free web-based platforms like Mikogo. Higher end software, which comes with a small monthly or annual fee, will also allow for more advanced presentations, voice over internet processing, and a more clear connection between users. You can use this for video conferences with clients, from group member to group member, or between multiple group members and your valued customers.

Tip #4: Basecamping

Where Reconnoitering Is Easy

You can use a web-based application like Basecamp or a desktop-based application like those provided by Microsoft to allow your group members and clients to access projects, leave notes, create to do lists, and communicate without disrupting general work flow.

Tip #5: Synchronizing Calendars

Functioning as a Single Scheduling Unit

Microsoft calendar, including the versions that integrate smoothly with Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, as well as Google Calendar, can be used by groups as well as individuals. Setting up group and individual calendars to schedule the day will allow for easy appointment setting and coordination for meetings or conferencing.

The point of all these techniques can be summarized pretty easily. Your goal in managing the team is to enable communication, synchronization, and scheduling between all members of your team as well as your clients, while making projects as accessible as possible. There are many other solutions for this, and new ones are being developed constantly, so be sure to keep your eyes open for new business solutions.

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photo credit: Stipo team