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December 30, 2011 By Kathy Colaiacovo 2 Comments

Make Changes to Improve your Business

Last week in an email, one of my clients, a General Contractor in Halifax Nova Scotia, wrote a sentence that really struck home for me. He said:

If I do what I do time after time, obviously the results will always be the same. Something has to change.

I think it was the word ‘obviously’ that really makes this statement stand out. Especially this time of year – the year end is always a time where I am looking back at what happened this past year and thinking and planning about changes to improve for next. And “Obviously” if nothing changes nothing improves, unless you have reached perfection already!!

change door 300x300 Make Changes to Improve your Business These are words that should ring true for any business owner. No matter what your business goals are, in most cases we all want to improve; to have increased sales and more business. Putting your plans and goals in writing, assessing where you are and analyzing past results are ways to make certain you are seriously tackling the issue of improving your business and not just keeping it at a standstill, a pipe dream.

The assessment and analysis is especially important. Without looking at what you did in the past you will have a hard time figuring out what worked, what didn’t and more importantly, what needs to change.

Here are a few simple steps to take you through the process of making changes in your business:

Know your results to this point – Financial results and overall Business Practices.
Have goals set in place and understand where your results have taken you with regards to these goals.
Have your goals changed? If so, look at the new goals compared to the results.
Look at what worked to achieve these goals – or what did not. Think about the obstacles (no matter how small) that got in the way of achievement.
Develop new plans to help you overcome the obstacles and plans to build on what worked this past year.
Set your goals for the coming year, taking into account all the changes to be implemented.
Communicate these plans to all who are involved in your business and all who will be affected by the changes.
Implement the changes and then re-evaluate during the year to assess results and make changes along the way (better than waiting it out til the next year end!)

This is my reminder to all you small business owners to take stock; Assess and Analyze yourself, and your business. Look at what your goals are and how you can meet them. What changes can you make to improve? Sometimes it can be simple things keeping us from moving forward.

I was talking with one client last month and her inbox was a big issue – and a really big time problem for her. My question was: ”Can’t the assistants in your office review the emails? Why not create a special private email for yourself and let the girls look after the main email. Most times you are passing the work on to them anyhow.”

Her response: “I … guess … they could.” With the hesitation on ‘guess’. Well, she thought about it some more… within 1 week she emailed me (from her new private email) that she had made all the changes I said, and she figures she has freed up about 1.5 hours every day – that is a full day’s work every week. 4 days a month! All from her emails. As well, the lightness in her voice told me the bigger story – less stress!

As I said, even the simple things can be getting in your way – look at everything. Soooo…..

How is 2012 going to start off for you?

Are you doing the same thing time after time – or are you ready for change – change that will boost your business?

Technorati Tags: business plan, office organization, Small business

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September 8, 2011 By Kathy Colaiacovo 2 Comments

Missing appointments? This Tool can Help

Last week I scheduled an appointment with a renovation company to go over possible work, get an estimate and get it started. I am asking this of someone who I have worked with before, so the odds are good I will hire them again, and home renovations is not chump change.

But they ‘forgot’ about me and never showed up. When I called because I wanted to check on when they were going to be there, I was told “Oh I completely forgot, sorry. How about Friday morning?” This could be enough for some people to say forget it, you missed this appointment, how will you be when it comes to doing the work? Your presence for consults or estimate say a lot about how you work – making them appointments you should never miss, never forget. I will give them one chance, and frankly if they are not here when noted; I will be writing them off.

As a small business owner working in a any business but even more so a business like home renos or other work where you get calls for estimates and have to followup on these you need an easy reminder / appointment calendar system. This is a must if you don’t want to miss out on business.

Most likely you have it already and just do not use it. Few people working in the trades these days go without a cell phone or smartphone, they are on the go and do not want to miss call or be unreachable. That phone is the answer. Almost everyone of these devices has a calendar system of some sort. USE IT! Make this calendar your friend.

Learn how to enter appointments in your calendar and set reminders as well.
Have reminder times that make sense. If it takes you on average 30 min to get to an appointment (if in person) then set your reminders 1 hour ahead. Give yourself reminder time to be on time, if you forget a lot.
Use it immediately. If someone emails, then move that email to your calendar and setup the appointment. Or once you hang up the phone then enter the name / info into your calendar right there. DO NOT do one other thing until this has been done.

It’s all about keeping yourself organized no matter what line of business you are in. I have even started getting my 12 year old son to start using his phone for his homework / assignments. It’s the one device he always has on his person, so we’re using it to make certain he stays on track.

What tools are you using to stay on track? Please post a comment here with other tips you have to share.

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, efficient business, office organization, Time Management

Filed Under: Business planning, Small business, Time Management Tagged With: Customer Service, efficient business, office organization, Time Management

July 13, 2010 By Kathy Colaiacovo Leave a Comment

The Power of To-Do Lists

I really enjoyed reading the book, Write It Down Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want And Getting It by Henriette M. Klauser, Ph.D. The premise of the book is simple: By writing down your goals and desires, you are much more likely to make those dreams a reality.

How much more likely? Research shows that people who write down their goals are about twice as likely to achieve them as those who do not. And if you count those who write down their goals but don’t quite meet them, they still get a lot closer than they would have if they hadn’t written them down in the first place. Therefore, you can see the strong case for committing to your goals in writing.

This research is true in long-term goals like building your dream house or traveling the world – but what does all of this have to do with daily To-Do lists? Well, what is a To-Do list but a list of goals for the day? That means by writing your daily goals list on paper, you’re more than twice as likely to make significant process towards checking those items off than if you just try to fly by the seat of your pants. Here are some tips to help you create do-able, effective To-Do lists:

1. Make it reasonable

We’re all too familiar with the endless To-Do list, the one with dozens of items, more than you could accomplish in a week, let alone a day. While writing every single thing you have to do down on a list may make you feel like you’re getting your life under control, it’s actually counterproductive (when I got married I had the most complete To-Do list ever…3:45pm use washroom was one of the items!!!). Not only will critical tasks get lost in the muddle, you can become overwhelmed with the sheer volume of things you have to accomplish. It may be more attractive to just take a nap!

2. Make it specific

One of the biggest problems with To-Do lists is that people write down projects versus tasks. Anything that goes on your list should be something you can actually accomplish, such as “Call Jane about website launch plans,” instead of “Launch Website.” If you write down projects instead of tasks, you can’t ever cross them off – they just sit on your list and migrate from one day to the next which is obviously very frustrating. On the other hand, basic psychology teaches that rewards make us want to do an activity more – so every time we check off an item on our list, it motivates us to do more. You can only do that if the items are small enough to check off. However…

3. Make it important

I’ve been tempted to write down things on my list just so I can cross them off (sad, I know . While this gives you a little momentary boost, it doesn’t do much to move you closer to your goals. So before something makes it onto your list, ask yourself if it’s critical to the completion of your goals. If not, don’t even write it down. (Trust me, you will remember to “eat lunch” even if you don’t have it on your daily list!)

When used correctly, To-Do lists are powerful tools that can help you to accomplish more in less time. By “respecting the list” and following these three tips, you’ll have a daily To-Do list that will harness your energy and help you blast closer toward your biggest goals.

Have you any other tips to complete your To-Do lists?

Please post your tip here before Sunday July 18th at 11:59pm and you can WIN a PRIZE!

I will do a random draw (on July 19th from the comments that give a tip on completing a To-Do list and send the winner a copy of my eBook – Talking on Twitter. In this you will find a schedule and to-do list to follow that will help you stay on track when using twitter.

TalkingonTwitter2 The Power of To Do Lists

Technorati Tags: efficient business, office organization, Time Management

Filed Under: Business planning, Entrepreneurs Tagged With: efficient business, office organization, Time Management

July 9, 2010 By Kathy Colaiacovo Leave a Comment

Pitfalls to Avoid in Social Media Marketing

No one likes being pitched to all the time? How do you feel about telemarketers calling to sell you a new service? What about your neighbor who talks about how great he is all the time? If you are like most people, you are turned off by these behaviours. The same is true for social media!

Friends, Connections and Followers are People Too!

Value their time just as you value yours. Just because they are on Twitter does not mean they are right for your target market or that you are for them. You will have much greater success connecting with like minded people.
If someone adds you to their network, check them out. Is there a relevant reason they may be interested in you and your business? Check out their profile. Many people have a rule that they do not follow anyone who doesn’t include a photo in their profile. Over time, you’ll have to set some boundaries about who you follow and who you let follow you. These boundaries will allow you to form greater, more meaningful connections with those you want to do business with.
For instance, if your business is centered around creating products that help parents keep their kids away from non-kid friendly sites online, then you obviously don’t want to be talking with (or associated with for that matter) someone who owns an adult-only website. Yes, that’s a bit extreme, but you get the point. You really should pay attention to (or hire someone who can monitor) who follows you and who you follow in return.

Social Media is about connections NOT sales.

One of the surest ways, short of posting completely inappropriate content, to lose all credibility is to use your social media for selling yourself and your services exclusively. No one wants to be chased at a store by a sales clerk any more than they want to follow someone who is constantly selling something. It is okay to tell people about your products and services but this has to be a part of your interaction, not your only interaction.

Having unrealistic expectations

Please don’t expect that you are going to create a new account, start posting great content and immediately see your sales and traffic increase. It will happen, but it takes some time and effort. One of the amazing things about social media is that your efforts are multiplied over and over when people who you are connecting with share your content. Social media is very powerful and can and will benefit your business, but Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will a list of thousands of followers all ready to purchase from you. Based on my experience with more than 50 clients, you can expect to take 3 to 6 months to build a presence which you can then use to build your business.

Letting your social media involvement become a time drain

It is easy to lose track of time with your social media networks and unless you keep on task, it can become a time waster. You need to learn how to make it work efficiently; read about how to do this here.
There is no right or wrong way to work social media into your schedule, but it is essential to find a system that works for you. Be aware of your time and make plans on how and when to use social media to help market your business.

Hopefully these 4 tips will help you stay on track with your social media marketing. Feel free to ask us how we can help on our facebook page, or simply post a comment here – We’d love to hear some of your tips and pitfalls to avoid.

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June 9, 2010 By Kathy Colaiacovo Leave a Comment

Password Security and Outsourcing

I recently read a great blog post by a fellow name Bob Jenkins – also known as the Bob the Teacher. He tells a great story on why you should never rent office space from an employee and how it relates to hiring a web designer or webmaster and how they setup access to your domain name and webhosting account.

You can tell from the comments how many people have had issues of the same sort and how it affected them. And then there is the other side from webmasters and why they have this preference.

All good points, however based on personal experience I am one who recommends and prefers when working for clients that accounts get opened and setup in their name, not mine. In most cases you can add admin access as well.

Working as a virtual assistant for my clients entails a lot of trust because it requires in most cases to have password access to a myriad of their accounts. This is the norm; access to email, social media, newsletter system, website, blog and many more….however, when our contract is complete or the client and I decide to part ways I always recommend they also go and change their passwords and any assigned admin access. This can be a royal pain for the client, but really it is for their protection as well as mine (*Tip* I use Roboform to store and update my passwords – saves tons of time).

As Bob mentioned in his blog post, having password access is the same as having the key and alarm code to your brick and mortar store. If someone is no longer working there – would you allow them to keep a key to come and go when they please? Not likely. Too much is at stake – your business name, reputation not to mention the contents in the store. The same goes for your website and other accounts they have access to; your business name is your domain name, your reputation and contents of your store are dependent upon the content on your webpages, your newsletter has content and even access to email all your contacts. These are all part of your online store and should be treated with the same respect for security.

This is not meant to say that your virtual assistant or anyone else hired to work for you, anyone with password access – will go and ruin your reputation at any chance; it is meant to make you realize that having access is a risk. A risk you need to take seriously and protect as you would the key to your store.

When starting out, start right and have control of the online parts of your business that you will ultimately need to have ownership and control of. If your accounts are not setup in your name then now is the time to question the setup and change it – while you are still working with the other party.

Technorati Tags: office organization, outsourcing, password security, virtual assistant