Category Archives: Organizational Tips

How to set the right priorities?

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A busy professional has this question regarding time management:

How to set the right priorities?

I have a lot on my to-do list and I tend to focus on the day to day tasks I have. I am finding it hard to find time to focus on some of my strategic goals because the rest of my to-do items take up all of my time. I am thinking I need to do a better job at setting priorities. How do others tackle their strategic goals while getting all of their pressing daily tasks done?

Every successful person will have their own system.  And I believe that the best system is the one that works best for you. Having said that upfront, here is what I recommend.

Start with the end in mind

I applaud you for having your strategic goals clearly defined.  Often people go through life without a strategic plan for their personal, professional, social and career lives.  It is these same folks that wonder where time has gone and why they haven’t accomplished more with the time they were given.

Outlining a simple mission statement for your personal, professional, social and career purpose will help keep you on track.  After all, how can you stay on course if you haven’t plotted a destination?  If you don’t know where you are going, you deserve anywhere you end up.

So – get a 360° mission statement which includes all significant aspects of your life.

Outline your imperatives

Once you have your 360° mission statement, carve out the imperative things that need to be accomplished to support those statements. Imperatives are those things that – if everything else were to disappear from your live – your life would still be happy and fulfilled.

For instance, perhaps one of your personal mission statements/desires is to be closer to your family and increase quality time with them.  You then realize that your family is an imperative.  That’s something that – if everything else were to disappear – you would still be very happy.

So you now have prioritized your family as one of your imperatives.

Some other imperatives might be your health, working on things that you are passionate about, getting great satisfaction by helping others or the community, be recognized and accomplished in your career – whatever creates joy in you.  Nothing is wrong – it’s just your individual imperative list.

Create supportive tasks

Once you have your imperative list, create realistic actions/activities to accomplish those goals. Create them in the form of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).

For example: To accomplish getting closer to your family, commit to a block of time each week for quality time with family members (sans electronics and distractions).

To be recognized and accomplished in your career, commit to working with a mentor or business coach to identify your career road-map and subsequent skill gaps.

To give back, commit to volunteer your talents to a non-profit organization.  I would also recommend volunteer to a position that also supports and enhances your career.  For instance, if you wanted to improve your skill set in web-design, offer to design the website for a non-profit.  Combining the two imperatives will be of greater benefit to you.

Schedule the time

Once you have your SMART goals identified, take out your calendar and block the time out in your calendar.  Treat these assignments as imperative, and allow the day-to-day activities fill the gaps around them (instead of the other way around).

Bottom line:

Every day activities will always fill in the gaps.  So, if you don’t deliberately and mindfully create the space (schedule it in your calendar with a “DO NOT DISTURB”), you will never have the time to accomplish your most important activities.

How can I manage multiple web projects with a deadline without outsourcing?

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A busy professional has this question regarding project management:

How can I manage multiple web projects with a deadline without outsourcing? 

I don’t have money to invest in outsourcing. Beside outsourcing, what is the most effective way of complete 20 website design projects that are fully monetized and traffic generation optimized on or before December 2017? I fell into the folly of pursuing many site projects at the same time and I don’t want to give up. I strongly believe nothing is impossible to him who believes. I’m in dire need of an expert’s advice please. 

Without understanding the full scope of each project, there are a few things to consider and try.

Be realistic and transparent

In order to keep your clients – you need to be realistic and transparent about your talents and delivery schedule.  Tell your clients your current situation and give them a chance to either work with you or find another website developer.  This is the only way to keep your clients welfare and business in good standing.

At best – it would be selfish and unprofessional to jeopardize your clients’ business and income – because your mismanaged your business. At worst, knowingly taking money for projects that you cannot deliver is fraud.

Please, share your plans with your clients and give them the opportunity to decide what they want to do.

Have a list of other website developers that you can refer them to – as an option.  Work with affiliated referral partners to create a referral program – for cases such as this (more information on this below).

Minimize the requirements

Work with each client to minimize the requirements and delivery timeline.  By this I mean, identify exactly what needs to be delivered and when.  This may allow you to interlace your deliverables in phases to each of your clients.  Although this may extend the delivery to the entire projects past December 2017 – it may allow a working version of all the sites by December 2017.  This may allow all your clients to accomplish their goals, even though the full contract hasn’t been delivered in the original time schedule.

 

In either way – please be transparent to your clients regarding your schedule dilemma.

Re-usable routines

Investigate using routings or pre-tested functions/packages that do the required tasks (versus coding manually yourself).  This is different from outsourcing because you are doing a one-time purchase of the features or functions that you are interested in.  Your task would be to successfully integrate them into your various websites.  You can often purchase functionality at low costs or even free on open source sites.

The negative is the maintenance of such routines.  It might take you longer to fix any issues found in that code. 

Deliver in phases

Although your contract may promise a December 2017 delivery date, some of your clients may agree to extend the deadline.  Offer discounts or additional free months of maintenance to their contract in order to extend the deadline.  Create a new contract that outlines exactly what will be delivered in each phases, what the clients will be able to do with their website and when it will be finalized.  These changes in the statement of work needs to be documented and signed to afford problems in the future.

Release some projects to other website developers

Actually give away some of the projects to other website developers that you hold in high regards.  This allows you to keep your promises to your clients and refer business to other website developers. This also opens the door for those same website developers to hand-off business to your when they are over-loaded.  Discuss some type of referral fee when you and your referral partners exchange business as a way to motivate referrals.

As you mentioned earlier – this is your folly to schedule so many website projects in the same project schedule.  Don’t let your clients suffer for your mismanagement.  Your foremost goals is to keep your client’s welfare in mind at all time – even if that means you not making the profit.

Sometimes you can best serve your clients by referring them to someone else.

 If you need additional help on this, just let me know.

What is the best way to advertise a forum on a niche topic?

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A busy professional has this question regarding branding and marketing:

What is the best way to advertise a forum on a niche topic?

I have a forum on a niche topic. I am advertising the forum via ads (Although some of the keywords have low quality scores, they are all very specific to this niche).

Now, do I directly link the ad to the forum home page, or add some high quality article/posts around the ads? Does this matter?

Thanks in advance for any help. I didn’t find the right answer from searching the internet.

 

Whether you are marketing your forum, book, website, product or service, you can use similar marketing strategies.  But a successful marketing strategy has lots of moving parts and tools.  I recommend doing a combination of things:

  • make sure your “ads” are on brand with a consistent message
  • create engaging and compelling content (blogs, articles, posts, videos, vlogs, etc)
  • opt-in offers (valuable information through eBooks, white papers, webinars) to collect contact information of the people that you are attracting with your offers
  • create a Facebook around your forum – to start engaging and creating your followers
  • give speaking engagements about your topic with door-prizes to collect the contact information of the people that you are attracting with your topic
  • keep your CRM (customer relationship management) up to date personally contact them with emails or newsletters
  • with everything that you post or release – include links back to your forum

Find similar forums that share your target market

It will take time to create a following from scratch.  Therefore, investigate or go where your target marketing is already.  For instance, if your target market is parents, you might want to visit or guest speak at forums for single parents, divorced dads, and other topics that interest your same target group.

 

  • investigate what your competitors are doing.
  • reach out to complimentary forums and engage with those groups that share your target market/followers
  • invite guest speakers to your forums that have already have their own followers. This will introduce you to their followers.

As you can see – there’s no 1 thing that you do. There’s a never-ending list of things you can do to market and expose your forum.

To help narrow your focus, clearly describe your target audience or personas.  By deciding the age group, interests, income, hobbies, and lifestyle – you can better focus your marketing strategies to get the bigger bang for your time and budget.

 

Do you need a logo and brand before selling?

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A busy professional has this question regarding branding and marketing:

Do I have to have a logo and brand before I start selling my product?

I have a limited budget and am eager to start selling my products to get some revenue. Should I allocate my budget towards advertising/sales right away or do I need a logo first? I’ve read that a logo and brand is really important, but I’m not sure if it’s important enough to put it before sales.

No, you do not need a brand/logo designed prior to selling products.  In fact, there are many cases of businesses starting up without logos. It takes time to actually figure out what your brand and message will ultimately be.  While you are figuring out your brand, start selling your product; continue to research which message works best; and figure out  what your brand will actually stand for.

The simple truth is that branding in the start-up stage can be counter-productive. It’s at this stage that you’re learning the ropes, making mistakes and as much as you might strive to do the opposite, making customers unhappy. In cases like this, it’s best that your brand is not strong so that you can ride through it and develop your processes, before developing your brand and locking your logo into people’s psyche.

Once you’ve got a good handle on your business, find someone whose experience and sensibility match your vision to help you.  Hiring an expert in branding will save you much rework and issues in the future.

A strong identity is an important factor in establishing brand recognition and lending credibility. A well-designed identity also helps in attracting the prospective audience you wish to engage.  Investing in brand experts is a good step.  But until you figure out who you are, what you do, who you do it for and why, you are simply wasting your resources.
Hopefully this helps

Is multitasking good or bad for productivity?

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A busy professional has this question regarding time management:

Is multitasking good or bad for productivity?

I have always been good at multitasking, but I have recently had a debate with a friend who said multitasking is actually inefficient. I believe that I can get a lot more done when multitasking, but I do think it sometimes makes it hard to focus. I am curious what others think. I want to be more efficient and organized this year and wondering if I should try to be more focused on one task at a time. Thanks for sharing your experience.

What many people see as multitasking is often more “time-sharing” than actual multitasking.  You actually can devote effective focus on more than one important task at a time.

For activities that require little to no thought, it can be possible to perform multiple tasks at once, especially if one of them is completely passive like letting a video or podcast run in the background while you stuff envelopes. But for things of any significance, multitasking is actually inefficient.

What you feel is multitasking is actually focusing your attending on 1 item for a small amount of time, before switching your attention to something else for another small interval of time – then back to the first issue.  This time-sharing between multiple activities is still single-focus, just interrupt driven.

Often times, when we switch our focus before completing the first task, we need to spend some additional time to review our status on task 1 before we can continue.  While this review time might seem inefficient, not reviewing before you continue increases the likelihood of mistakes.

Deliberate multitasking

To increase efficiency my recommendation is to create Sprint & Buffers that even accommodates inevitable interruptions.

See below simple example.  You have Task A and Task B – both lasting 8 hours.  Instead of mindlessly moving from one task to the other, break the tasks into mini-self-contained tasks.  This allows you to make progress on both tasks, while staying focused on one activity until a suitable completion/pause.  Since you stay focused to the mini-tasks’ conclusion, you have no need for additional review time when you restart.

When inevitable interruptions occur, you merely inform the interrupter that you will be able to spend time with them in 30 minutes (or when your mini-task is completed). You now have the buffer to accommodate interruptions between the different tasks without losing your place or derailing your delivery schedule.

12 Tips to Realistic Scheduling

Creating Sprints and Buffers is just one technique to improving efficiency. To learn more about tips to realistic scheduling, please reach out to me.  I have a white paper and presentation on this topic.

Conclusion

For anything that requires focus you can probably only handle one at a time. Our minds ability to hold focus and the number of things we can be consciously aware of at one moment are limited. Switching focus back and forth between tasks consumes energy and increases the likelihood of mistakes.

All in all, multitasking is bad for productivity.

Hope this helps a little.

I know your situation is different.  If you would like additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally.  It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ

 

With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.

 

How do you craft a polite email to customers who haven’t responded to your previous emails?

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A busy professional asks a question regarding customer sales.

How do you craft a polite email to customers who haven’t responded to your previous emails?

I’m an international trading clerk, I have some customers who used to talk to me smoothly, but once I give them the price, they don’t reply me or even a comment on the price. So how should I contact them in a polite and comfortable way as a follow up?

Well, email isn’t the only tool in your toolbox.  Also email isn’t actually “talking to you smoothly”.  My recommendation is to use email:

  • as a “record” of your more intimate phone conversations
  • as a summary of your last phone conversation
  • to remind the client of the next step in the buyer’s journey (which may be another phone or in-person meeting)

One recommendation is don’t craft a polite email, call them. Calling them shows that you’re serious about winning their business, as you actually took time out of your day to follow up in a more personal manner. Attempting to speak with them directly shows initiative on your part, and a desire to do what is necessary to not only wins their business, but to retain it.

With an actual phone conversation, you can provide additional information, demonstrations, and charm them with your personality and sense of humor.  You can also discuss next steps and get verbal agreements throughout the conversation.  Verbal agreements lead to sales.

As far as price: price is never the biggest sticking point in the prospect decision making process.  It’s usually that

  • they have questions you have not answered (you need to know what those questions are, they are not going to tell you),
  • you have not asked the RIGHT questions (to find their pain) or
  • they don’t like/trust you

Bantering through email doesn’t really resolve any of these things.

Consider a more personal approach:

  • Visit the at their site
  • Invite them to your site
  • Make personal phone calls

Bottom line:  If one method of communication isn’t working, do not continue with that method.  Switch it up and make your next method more personal with a sense of urgency.

See what you think about those ideas.

At what staff number is it worth to provide daily “free” lunch or dinner for your employees?

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A busy professional asks a question regarding Company Culture:

At what staff number is it worth to provide daily “free” lunch or dinner for your employees?

I am the Recreation and Events Golf Manager for a course in Orlando. Part of my responsibility is overseeing the Clubhouse’s food and beverage team. We have always offered our staff 50% off a meal if they are working that day, and 20% off a meal if they come in to eat on their own time. We only staff about 20 people (including both back of the house and front of the house) in the clubhouse. With the spotlight on “company culture”, should we be providing additional benefits like free meals to our employees?

 

I think it’s very generous that you offer your staff discounts on meals.  In regards to “what staff number”, I think it should be directly proportional with your revenue/income.  You are still in the business to make money.  My recommendation is to continue your current method as long as it feels good to you and is still profitable to do so.

Additional benefits

As for “additional benefits” – consider rewarding performance versus just being “present”.

Some ideas are:

  • When salaried employees work “over-time” (evenings during the week, or weekend hours over lunch) – the company provides free meals to the employees during those “over and above” hours. This was in recognition for helping out in a moment of crisis or in a critical client situation.
  • Thank you card and restaurant gift certificates (or meal gift certificates to their entire family) can also be given as a performance award to celebrate outstanding accomplishments or outstanding performances. This provides a nice thank-you to their entire family. We often need to acknowledge that there’s an entire family involved that allows the employee to work those extra hours and/or provide that excellent performance. Thanking their entire family is also a nice show of overall appreciation.
  • Providing additional vacation days to compensate for extra/long hours is another option.
  • Some companies provide continuing education reimbursement to support their employee’s career growth and development.
  • Some companies reimburse for professional organizations or professional association fees. These are professional groups associated with the company’s industry.  When employees business network in these group, it’s a Win/Win for both the employee and the company.
  • Some companies reimburse for attendance to industry conferences, seminars and tradeshows. It’s another Win/Win for both the employee and the company.

 

Whatever you decide, keep in mind your employee’s advancement and career goals.  Then continue to provide additional assistance to help your employees develop and advance in their chosen career.

See what you think about those ideas.

How do I define my role in my daughter’s business that I will be funding?

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This question came from a loving parent and business owner.

How do I define my role in my daughter’s business that I will be funding?

 My daughter wants to start her own business in a field in which she is not only certified, with 5 yrs. experience, a solid client list, but has some excellent ideas in which to grow the clientele. She has no credit, so my husband and I would be taking out the loan on her behalf. How do we ensure that we get our ROI? She has already asked me to help her with bill paying and such. I have read the posts about silent partners, but I’m unsure that is what I’ll be.

Don’t go in blind

Starting a new business is not an easy endeavor and many businesses fail within the first 3-5 years. If they do succeed, it may not be until the 5th year until they see any profits.

Add to this the complication of loaning a child or family member and you are in very, very risky territory.

A new business is a gamble

It is very difficult to “loan” a children money, because even though they may initially recognize it as a “loan”, they often it do not pay it back.  Other expenses take precedence and they are predisposed to accepting your help.  This is doubly risky if you introduce the idea of “investing” or becoming a silent partner.  You are now “investing” in a new business that may not succeed or may take several years to see any profits.  Therefore if you have to take out a loan that you need to be paying back in a timely fashion, I do not recommend “investing” as a silent partner.   Investments are not guaranteed to be paid back.  A new business is a gamble.  And if you do not have the money to lose, do not do it.

Recommendation:

Instead – treat this as a strict business loan with payback expectations (along with any interest you agree as your ROI – as well as timelines for payback).

Have a signed contract with well-defined payment schedule AND consequences for defaulting on the loan. Avoid a payment schedule that states “payment due when business starts to make money” (or anything similar). Don’t tie the payment schedule to her business success…. BUT consider her Business Plans and income forecasts when defining a tangible schedule with actual dates. (Even silent partners do their homework to verify that the Business Plan is solid and there is actually a reasonable expectation of ROI)
For instance – Require her to show you her Business Plan with income forecasts, budgets, expenses, and forecast revenues. Help her with coming up a realistic Business plan. DO NOT TAKE OUT THE LOAN IN YOUR NAME until you see and approve of her detail business plan. Demand that the loan payment become a regular expense in their business plan (just like any other business expense).

Then create a calendar of payments based on her actual revenue forecasts. Review her company expense schedule to verify that the load payment is included as a regular fee of doing business.

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Also include consequences for not meeting those payment schedules (late fees, payment in other forms, payment extension with increased interest rates, etc).

For instance, if her business folds or she abandons the business – she still needs to meet the payment schedule BECAUSE you still need to pay back the loan (regardless). Iron out all the scenarios and exit strategies if things do not go as plan. Do you expect late-payment fees, etc. How many months of non-payment determines an abandonment – and what would the next step in that scenario. Do you want to hold any collateral for payment, etc.

Do your homework

You will want to iron all these scenarios out and make the expectations clear up front. Do your homework to make sure this even makes sense. Or hire a business coach to help you with these decisions and help her with a realistic business plan. Understand the start-up costs, the recurring costs, the target revenue goals, what steps will be taken if the revenue goals are off-target, the resources and equipment needs, and everything else a realistic business plan covers.

If you don’t want to approach this as a business loan – then just agree to “gift” her money (with ZERO expectations of ROI or repayment). And only give her money you can afford to lose (not get paid back).

I know your situation is different.  If you would like additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally.  It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ

With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.

 

Best way to break bad news to employees

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Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – author of the business and time management books TimePeace: Making peace with time – the The Book of Answers:  105 Career Critical Situations – and I am a business and efficiency coach that specializes in time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.

 

Today’s discussion is regarding how to break bad news to employees.

 

A busy professional asks:

How do I break bad news to employees?  It might be staffing changes, a lost contract or even the death of someone close to the business.  When should I:

  • Break the news?
  • To whom (or everyone at once)?
  • Appropriate ways to communicate?
  • Tips for doing it right?

 

 

Giving bad news is never comfortable, but necessary.  The way you do it can influence the way people accept the news.

Some tips:

  • For those that are directly affected with the news, you talk to them directly (one-on-one).  Those that are not directly affected, it can be a group discussion.
  • Depending upon the type of news, be prepared with answers and follow-up counseling (grief counseling, further training, next steps life coaching, etc.)
  • Focus on them versus yourself.
    1. Avoid the temptation to fill in awkward pauses with “This is the most difficult thing I have had to report.”  or “I’m really broken up about telling you this”.  “This is a shock to me as well.”
    2. You might think you are helping by showing them how badly you feel — but — in actuality – they don’t really care how it’s affecting you (especially if you are not really affected by the layoff, structure change, etc).
    3. Silence is okay.  It gives them the space needed to absorb the information.  Continued talking doesn’t help them.  Wait patiently for them to end the silence, after the initial reveal.
  • Realize that they might want to immediately leave your presence after the news. But don’t assume that your job is done when they leave the room.
  • Schedule a follow-up meeting.  Recognize that people might need time to absorb the information.  Acknowledge that they will have more questions later and need to time to process what has been said.  Actually schedule a follow-up meeting before they leave.  That next meeting will have answers to the questions they asked today, as well as an opportunity for any more questions.
  • Know your audience.  If it’s a particular tough topic and you suspect your employee will be emotional or even volatile – have security (or muscles) ready (but out of sight).  You don’t want to show that you expect trouble (because then you will get it).  But you want to be prepared for it – just in case.

 
See what you think about those ideas.
I know your situation is different.  If you would like additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally.  It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ

 

With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.

Reasons to add an account manager to your sales force

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Account Manager/Marketing Coach Responsibilities

Mission – provide a unique experience and personalized treatment plan for each and every client.

The Account Manager takes the client to the next level of success through marketing techniques and strategies.   I know most companies are concerned about the cost of non-billable hours.   This solution provides a platform to price the Account Manager/Marketing Coach as part of package.

  • Incorporate Account Management hours in your package pricing – as Client’s <your industry> Coach
  • Meet and maintain client relationship
  • Keep focus on Up-Sale opportunities (Sales folks don’t have time to keep a lookout for up-sale opportunities on current clients – and it’s not the production team to keep a lookout for up-sale opportunities).
  • Keep eye on original constract/featured Items
    • If feature creep – use opportunity to up-sale
    • Continually review Change Requests to validate in original SOW
    • If not – price the change request
  • Weekly meeting with client on account progress
    • Understand the social media, website hits, brand monitoring and various other reports per client. Be able to explain the metrics, what they mean to the clients’ business and what the data suggests the next steps should be.
    • Continually remind clients that they need to go through account manager for requests (even if they think the request is included in the original contract)
    • Continually be the liaison between Sales/Production Team/Client
    • If the Account Manager becomes valuable to the client (understands, explains, and guides toward next steps- the client will want to work through the account manager and not around them).
  • Monthly meeting with client to review up-sale opportunities
    • Determine how long a client should stay at “base/platinum” level before moving to next level
    • Help guide “qualified clients” to their next level of growth with possible discount or “free month” at next level
      • Use the data gathered in the past weeks/months to help determine the next steps
    • Revisit Referral opportunities every month in the monthly meeting
      • Who does client want to do business with in the future to get them to their next level
      • Who can client refer to your company (who do they know that could use your services)
      • What type of industry does client want to be associated with (via cross-promotions, at events, shared interview/tv/radio spots etc)
    • Meet weekly with other Account Managers for synergy
      • Which clients that are complementary and can benefit from cross-promotions
      • Which clients would benefit in being introduced to each other
      • Any common tasks that can be combined for efficiency
      • Any solutions that can be shared – based on common issues
    • Maintain and continually promoting the client working relationship
      • Regularly send Anniversary, Birthday, Sympathy, holiday and gratitude notes/calls
      • Use CRM in Ravetree to track Account Manager’s workflow and client relationships
      • Sales team probably use a CRM, but recommend Account Managers use the same project management tool as the production team does.

 

I know your unique situation is different.  If interested, please setup a complimentary one-on-one discovery call, so that I can learn more about your circumstances and supply a more customized recommendation.

 

For additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally.  It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ