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…
Read More
Oh, the joy of tech support… Just about everyone has had the experience of their computer dying in the middle of an important project, only to have to spend the rest of the day wrestling with tech support. Listening to hours of “Your call is important to us” hold music and low-level clueless employees whose advice basically boils down to “Turn it off and then on again.” Then, if you don’t mysteriously get disconnected, you MAYBE might get to someone who can actually help you with your problem, if you’re lucky. So imagine trying to deal with tech support while…
Read More
Do you remember sitting in school as a kid, vaguely staring at the walls as your teacher droned on and on about geography, history, or math… You were kind of paying attention. Maybe take a note every now and then, but the sad reality is that your attention is elsewhere. The material just wasn’t engaging you. But why? What your teacher was saying might have been interesting, but without a visually engaging element, your attention was lost. What if the teacher had a winning slide deck? We like to think that, as adults, we have more focus. That we can…
Read More
Do you have a business plan? Something that I highly recommend all of my clients (and pretty much every entrepreneur) do is create a business plan at the beginning of the year. Spending the first week or so in January putting together a comprehensive business plan can pay off dividends for a small business through the new year. A business plan gives you a map, with goals and strategies that may help you confront the biggest challenges facing your business. But here is the problem: plans change. Things change! Life happens! Maybe your business did even better than you expected…
Read More
Do you have any tricks or tips that help get you through your daily workflow? Back when I first started my small business, my daily workflow was very different than it is now. There were very few applications out there that not only make my business easier to manage but also helped me get so much more done throughout the course of my day. Today, I have tons of programs, automated processes, and other tools that help me be super productive from the first thing in the morning until the very end of the night. If you’ve ever been curious…
Read More
Have you ever thought about deleting your Facebook account? Trust me; you’re not alone. There comes a time when everyone feels fed up with all of the social media drama: Terrifying news stories about privacy issues, “vaguebooking” when your friends post vague and worrying statuses, or just the general feeling that everyone else is living their best life but you (spoiler alert: they aren’t). When this kind of thing happens to my friends, I almost always suggest taking a break. You can deactivate your accounts for a while and take a breather, no problem. That is, you can for your…
Read More
The funny thing about our social media networks is that we still don’t have any idea of their potential. Do you remember back when Facebook first made the scene? It was thought to be a digital Rolodex. Today, it’s a multimedia sharing hub and one of the premier marketing platforms in the world. Social media networks and other digital services often grow in ways that you can’t expect. Just look at Instagram. From its humble beginnings as a mobile-only Facebook knock-off, it’s emerged as the biggest competitor to Facebook (Well, sort of competitor, seeing as Facebook bought them). And we…
Read More
Have you ever heard the phrase, “aging gracefully?” While I personally think that aging gracefully is a virtue, I can tell you one place where age really does matter: your website. After just a few years, even the most cutting-edge, beautiful, and well-designed website starts to look a little dated. And there are many websites out there that look like they haven’t been updated since 2005! Whenever I see one of those websites, I know that there is only one solution: a “facelift!” And believe me, when it comes to websites, I’m the cosmetic surgeon of your dreams! Look at…
Read More
As a marketer, I love Instagram. It is arguably one of the best platforms for getting your brand out there. Instagram is also the best-known place where you can meet “influencers.” These are folks who have built a massive following on Instagram and other social media platforms and use them to share their lives (and the products in them). It’s big money! Many of the biggest, like the Kardashians, make millions upon millions of dollars a year from being influencers. But the influencer phenomena has got me wondering, how much is too much? At what point does it stop being…
Read MoreIf there are two words that send shivers up my spine, they are “writer’s block.” As a professional writer, you can imagine how important it is for me to be able to write all day long for my clients. Getting writer’s block isn’t an option when I have so many people depending on me to deliver polished blogs, newsletters, copy for websites, sales pages, funnels, nurture sequences, etc. into their inboxes. If you write your own copy, then you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. Suffering from writer’s block can be incredibly frustrating, but I know one method of…
Read More
