For some small businesses, getting a new client is “Good news, bad news” time. The good news is that you have a new client! The bad news is that if you don’t have an automated onboarding system, it can be a massive headache. There is the first consultation, the follow-ups, sending/signing the contract, convincing them of the importance of filling out their client information form, invoices, scheduling your kick off call, learning their habits and preferences… It’s a ton of work! Of course, you can make things go much smoother by streamlining your entire client onboarding sequence. And a big…
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Do you remember back in the days before Google Maps when you would need to stop and ask for directions if you were lost? In my experience, getting verbal directions from a helpful person would often result in me getting MORE lost. It wasn’t their fault though. Verbal language is, well, imprecise at times. We often think we communicate our thoughts out loud clearly, only to have the person we are talking to misunderstand what we are saying completely. This is partially because, when you are talking to someone on the phone, they can’t see the important non-verbal, physical side…
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You know the most difficult step of any endeavor? Getting started. It’s always those first few steps that are the trickiest, especially when you are starting a small business. As an entrepreneur, I remember the very early days of starting my own small business. I felt like I had everything to do and no time to do it. I didn’t have a team, it was just me, so everything was on my shoulders. That’s an incredible amount of stress and is, frankly, unsustainable. Thankfully, most small business owners don’t have to sustain it after the first few months because, by…
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What are your favorite podcasts? I adore podcasts. They are the perfect way to distract yourself while doing chores around the house, going for a run, doing some yoga, or basically anything else where you can put on a pair of headphones. In my line of work, productivity is king, which means that I listen to a good number of productivity podcasts. Here are my criteria for a good productivity podcast: First, it needs to be entertaining. If the podcast is boring, it doesn’t matter how good the productivity tips are, I’m not going to waste my time listening to…
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Have you ever been sitting at your desk, staring at your computer screen, and think, “I… just don’t feel like working right now.” Isn’t it the worst? Here is the thing, we all feel like that sometimes. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep the previous night, or maybe you are in the middle of some kind of emotional turmoil. Maybe you worked too hard the previous day and are burnt out. Whatever your reason, there is no point in beating yourself up. That just makes the problem worse! Instead, try some of these tips I use to kickstart my day…
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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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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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As a self-employed entrepreneur, you know that the overall goal is to reach that sweet spot of a steady flow of business with a solid clientele you love. To accomplish this, it’s worth reconsidering the methods you use to market your services effectively and stand out as a pro in your field. Even if you are hugely talented, you probably won’t be able to draw in clients if you don’t use effective marketing techniques. There are quite a few marketing mistakes that many small business owners and entrepreneurs make, even if they are in-the-know. Sometimes it’s because they’ve never had…
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Being a small business owner is a little bit like juggling, you have to keep all of the balls in the air. The trick is when your business grows and you are expected to catch more and more balls until finally… some of them are dropped. There are a ton of online tools out there that can help you better manage your business and relieve some of that stress. By unloading much of your workload, you might even be able to double your income! Here are some incredibly useful online tools that I recommend you check out to help keep…
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Does this situation sound familiar? You’re a small business entrepreneur, doing it all yourself. You have a big project due by the end of the day that only you can work on. Unfortunately, you also have to post your company’s social media, finish up writing a blog post, sort through your emails, and build a sales page. And that isn’t even counting the hundreds of distractions that can occur throughout the average business day. How on earth are you going to get your big project finished with all of those little, non-specialized tasks in your way? The answer is that you…
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