You know, the only bad part about taking a vacation during the holidays is when you return to work in January. You sit down at your desk and just feel… stressed. You might feel overwhelmed at the amount of work that has piled up while you were taking a well-deserved festive rest with family and friends. There are clients to take care of, blog posts and social media that need to be written, a ton of email marketing to send out… Happy New Year! Thankfully, you don’t have to do it all alone. If you had a virtual assistant working…
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Who in their right mind would plant seeds in the dead of winter? Smart small business owners, that’s who! The biggest hope for a new year is growing your business. That’s what most New Year’s Resolutions are about, people want to grow. Grow their business, grow their income, personal growth. Growing your business doesn’t happen by accident though, you need to plant seeds. For an entrepreneur, the seeds of growth are plans for the future, and January is the perfect time to make them. Seed #1: Make a New Year Business Plan Do you have a business plan, written down…
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The holidays are when everything can seem like it is spinning out of control for small businesses. Everyone wants to spend time with their family, but you still need to keep your customers happy while getting everything at the office finished by the end of the year. On top of all that, you should already be thinking ahead about the upcoming new year. By making some plans right now, you can get ahead of the game for your business and know exactly where you want to head starting January 1st. Here are a few ideas of things you can do…
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Boy, I remember my first few years of business… When I think back, I kind of cringe at some of the mistakes that I made in my first few years as a small business owner. Now, sixteen years later, I simply can’t believe that I ever made those silly errors. But the reason that I am still in business is because I learned from them. Every single mistake I ever made, I learned from. That’s how you make a small business thrive. December is the perfect time to take a good look back at your year, figure out what worked…
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Tis the season… to be ridiculously stressed out! The holidays can come at you fast, sometimes too fast for you to get everything done in time. Your usual workload is often augmented by extra holiday-related tasks, and not just at your small business. There is decorating, cooking, gift shopping… That kind of stress can build up! If you have limited staff at work, or if it is just you, getting a little extra holiday help can be useful. But it can cost too much to hire and train new employees just for the holiday season. Enter an experienced virtual assistant!…
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It is no coincidence that you see an explosion of advertising around the holiday season. No matter what the industry, the winter holidays are a time when wallets tend to open just a little bit easier than the rest of the year. As a small business owner, you want to take advantage of the spirit of the season by putting your brand’s best foot forward. Here are a few ways that you can give your brand a boost before the new year! #1: Outsource Frequent Tasks Time is money, and as a small business owner, you probably don’t have much…
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There are some holidays that seem almost custom-made to give you the perfect excuse to reach out to former and current clients, telling them how much you appreciated their business. There is Christmas, of course. Valentine’s Day is another popular occasion. And then, there is the November holiday that is coming up fast, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the time of year where we gather with family and friends to give thanks for all of the wonderful things in our lives. For the small business owner or entrepreneur, Thanksgiving also gives you an ideal opportunity to be thankful for your business, including…
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Time flies. To me, it feels like the year just got started, but now we are rapidly approaching the end of it. With Thanksgiving in just a few weeks, you can soon expect to see holiday decorations everywhere, with “Jingle Bell Rock” playing every time you walk into a mall. Between the chaos of the holidays and the end of year work crunch, you might be worried that you won’t be able to find the time to spend with your family and friends, let alone make time for a winter vacation. The last thing you want to do is get…
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How long is your to-do list? To-do lists are awesome things. Just trying to get through the day-to-day work at your business can be stressful. When you need to tackle a huge project, the work can sometimes seem overwhelming. By using a great to-do list, you can mitigate that stress by seeing all of the tasks of the day, week, or month laid out in front of you. The trick is that, when you are running a small business, your regular to-do list might be a bit too limited to get the job done. This is one of the reasons…
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With the advent of social media, the world of advertising has been blown wide open. It used to be that small businesses would have to pay through the nose to get print ads in major publications. I mean, how else could they get the attention of new customers? But social media and the internet changed all that. Now, small businesses can run specifically targeted ads on social media platforms, and best of all, they can do it at a price point that is WAY cheaper than it used to be. One of the best advertising platforms today is an app…
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