The new year is the time of year when many entrepreneurs and individuals sit down and decide what their resolutions will be. Getting fit, getting more organized and getting started in a business are many of the things that top the lists. How to be productive in the new year is something that tops the list and we’ve put together some actions you can take to help you achieve that goal.
Remember, it takes twenty one days to be invested in a habit and to make it part of your daily routine. Don’t give up!
How To Be Productive In The New Year
Put your phone away and silence it. If you want to complete a task, you can’t do that if you’re waiting for a chime from your phone. Turn off alerts and put the phone out of reach.
Look for a task that you can complete in five minutes or fewer. This will give you a real sense of accomplishment and will keep you moving forward.
Guard your “planning time.” Set aside time every day to plan the day ahead, the week ahead and the month ahead. Guard that time and use it only for planning.
Know your most productive time and guard that zealously. If you get your best work done at 5 am, don’t go to the gym at that time. If you are on fire creatively at 9 pm don’t turn on the television or plan evenings out. Know yourself and know your best work times of the day — we all have them, you just need to find yours.
Reward yourself for doing a task you don’t want to do and one you’ve been procrastinating on. This is the carrot on the stick principle — work done, reward earned.
Put your to-do list in order. Just as you might categorize your shopping list you can do that with your to-do list for maximum efficiency.
Manage your inbox, don’t let it manage you. You can either react to emails or you can batch time to look at them and be proactive. Turn off email notifications when you’re working. If you feel it necessary set up an “away message” and let people know at which hours of the day you respond to messages so they aren’t waiting for an immediate response.
Be compassionate with yourself. If getting more productive and being more efficient is new, you will have times when you want to give up. Don’t. Give yourself grace to fall off the wagon, but pick yourself up and start over again. It’s a new year, there are so many possibilities to make it great!
We know we are usually uplifting and offer “what to do” ideas for entrepreneurs. Today, though we want to discuss 3 reasons to not be an entrepreneur. The reason for this is that we hear so many people thinking about going into business for themselves and thinking they will be:
Overnight successes
Be rich beyond measure
Will have nights, holidays and weekends off
3 Reasons To Not Be An Entrepreneur
Get rich. We mentioned it earlier, but many would-be entrepreneurs think they will be rich beyond their wildest dreams if only they own their own businesses. They see the income the could potentially make but don’t take into consideration, the expenses needed to support that income. Remember when you’re self-employed you are responsible for so many more bills and expenses than you were when your employer footed the bill on many of those items — insurance, office space, payroll taxes and more.
Unlimited time off. If you think that owning your own business means daily hours-long lunches, coffee dates with friends, weeks-long vacations and not working nights, weekends or holidays please see “get rich” as a reason you won’t get rich. If you’re out on your own and if you’re not big enough to hire a staff or even work with contractors, then you will need to work a LOT of hours. Vacations may become a thing of the past unless you start making enough money to afford one and even then, we bet you’ll be working.
If “he/she” can do it so can I! We call this the “why not me” syndrome. If you aren’t specifically motivated and driven, you’re likely doomed to failure. Not just anyone has what it takes to run a business. Not everyone has what it takes to motivate him- or herself enough to succeed. If you don’t have a boss cracking the whip, will you hold yourself accountable or will you be looking at “unlimited time off” as your motivation to be an entrepreneur?
We applaud any, and every, entrepreneur and solopreneur who comes across our path. We know the sacrifices they made to get there and those they make to remain viable. Do you have the drive to be an entrepreneur? Do you not know where to start? Reach out, we can help!
In the hustle and bustle of the holiday season — which for many people starts on Thanksgiving Day and goes until the second day of the new year, it’s time to count your blessings. As an entrepreneur, I count on my positive attitude to get me through the day and to power through challenges.
It’s not every day, though that we do stop to count our blessings. We don’t often enough stop and think about all for which we have to be grateful. Attitude colors everything and it can make it bright or it can make it dark. This is true not only at the holidays, but year round.
It’s Time To Count Your Blessings
I love this thought: “A person is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.” If you wake up and think, “I have to go through so many horrible things today… it’s going to be a bad day.” Then, chances are it will. Even if you’re facing a challenging, or bad, day you can wake up and think, “It’s going to be a challenge. I will, however, come out the other side and my day will be better after I get through XYZ.”
Dread is natural, but you may be able to turn it on its head and wake up in a better frame of mind. The challenge you’re anticipating may not be as daunting as you’d imagined. Even if it is, having a more positive attitude will help you recover from the challenge more quickly.
Picture this: If you’re a negative person and if you’re unhappy, negativity and unhappy people will follow you. Your attitude will impact those around you. Like brings like. If you’re happy and if you surround yourself with like-minded happy people you will be happier and your attitude will soar.
What can you do to adopt an attitude of gratitude? You certainly don’t want to look at others’ suffering as your blessing, but you can stop and look at your “suffering” through a different lens. If, for example, you’re angry about work — think about those people who don’t have a job and would love to have one. If you’re unhappy with where you live, think about those people in Alaska or Hawaii who have lost their homes — they would likely trade places with you in a heartbeat.
I urge you to take a moment today to count your blessings. Write them down so you can see all you have to be thankful for. Think about your blessings before you fall asleep at night. Face each day with a smile because there are many people who will not be given the gift of a new day.
Are you sending cold emails to potential clients? Are they getting any response? Do you wonder if you’re sending to the correct email? Why your cold emails aren’t getting opened is a question and concern many entrepreneurs face. Why do you keep sending emails if they aren’t gaining traction?
Is there a better method you should be using to reach out to cold contacts? Do you need to employ a different aka better marketing strategy? Before you stop all email marketing, we have a few ideas you can try to potentially see better results with your cold emails.
Why Your Cold Emails Aren’t Getting Opened
Know whom you’re trying to reach. If you sell dog products and you’re marketing to cat owners, you don’t have your buyer persona dialed in. Know who your ideal client is before you send that email.
Are you A/B testing your subject lines? If not, start. Your email may be going to spam or the subject line may not resonate. This will impact open rates and responses.
Drill down and segment your audience. Don’t send an email that is a “one size fits all” because in the marketing world there is no such animal. Segment and market specifically to that segment.
Use an email signature. Remind people who you are, what you do and why they should believe what you say in your email. Your signature is valuable space on your email – use it wisely.
Be clear and be brief. If you need to send and email that is 500 words long, you’re not honing in on your message. Be clear – here’s my product, this is how it will help you, here’s how you can buy it. If you want to expand upon your message, offer calls to action. “To learn more about our product, click here.” “Want to know how our product is helping others who are dealing with the same things you are, click here.”
Is email marketing part of your overall marketing strategy? Don’t just throw spaghetti at the wall and hope some of it will reap success. Have a strategy for all the marketing upon which you spend your time. If you’re struggling to get your message heard, reach out to use, we can help.
If you’re continually telling your employees or the vendors with whom you work that the customer is always right, you need to stop saying ‘the customer is always right’ and there are many good reasons to stop that right now. Some of them you may never have thought about.
We truly think that believing the customer is always right leads to poor customer service because your employees won’t care how they treat them because if they offer stellar service or poor service, the experience for the customer is always the same.
Stop Saying ‘The Customer Is Always Right’
However, I think businesses should abandon this phrase once and for all — ironically, because it leads to worse customer service.
Here are the top five reasons why “The Customer Is Always Right” is wrong.
If your employees are NEVER right because the customer is ALWAYS right, why should they give it there all? There’s no reason. You should be loyal to your employees and if you are, they will probably offer better service to your customers simply because your employees are feeling heard and valued. You certainly don’t want to reward poor service, but it’s more expensive to a business to replace employees than it is to treat them well and in turn they will perform at higher levels.
This mantra gives horrible customers carte blanche to be rude to your employees and to complain no matter how high a level service you offer.
Some customers, no matter how well you treat them will still complain and will also think they have you over a barrel and you will be forced to give more and more away to a customer to whom you should show the door.
You’ve been there yourself.
You KNOW there are sometimes that customers are just plain wrong and they will holler to the rooftops that “the customer is always right.” Your customers need to know you value your employees and that you welcome their input and that you trust your employees’ opinions on a customer interaction.
Make your employees feel valued and heard and you won’t have to worry about whether the customer is right — you know they will likely be happy and you know your staff will be happier. What measures do you have in place to show your employees they are valued even in light of a yelling customer?
