Solutions Are Only A Unique Thought Away!:

Time Management 101

by Laura Kennedy on July 1, 2010

We are now halfway through another calendar year.  By now (at least if you were one of my coaching students) you would be in a routine of promoting and growing your business.  But, there is still one  problem that I have seen with many business owners, new and old.   TIME MANAGEMENT.

Time management is not just about how much time you spend on your social media campaigns or talking with customers or reading the daily news. Time management is about using what limited amount of time you have doing productive things.  (We all know as business owners that time is limited especially if you have a family.)

One of the easiest ways to ensure that you are winning the war on time management is to clear on exactly what needs to be done when.  To accomplish this, you need to schedule activities…no I don’t mean by time slots…I know that goes against the grain, but I am known for doing that!  Here’s an example of how I run my business week:

SundaysAction:  Write blog posts for the week and schedule them for automated posting throughout the week.  Result:  No more trying to write a quality blog post when things are hectic or your mind is focused on 12 other things.  Ideas for new posts that come up during the week are loaded into my notes database and pulled upon come Sunday! Time Spent:  Approx 2 hours (that’s for 9 different blogs)

Mondays – My Mondays are all about one-on-one coaching calls so the only items that I execute on Mondays are those that relate to the clients I am working with for coaching.  In between calls I do my social media and I end the day with verifying my schedule for the following Monday.  If there are blocks of times that are empty on a coaching day, then I will pull from my open tasks list for coaching related projects that need to be completed.  Notice I do not stray from the theme of the day which is COACHING!

Tuesdays - My Tuesdays are spent on the road with brick & mortar clients.  I normally start my day with a quick hit & run on social media and then after I return from my outside appointments, I will spend some more time with social media.  However, my focus on Tuesdays is to be on time to my B&M clients with their tasks ready for delivery upon arrival.  When I return, I usually write my summaries from  the days events for each client and posting the following week’s tasks & appointments into the calendar.  Again, my focus for that day is specifically on OUTSIDE clients, everything else will still be there when I get back!

Wednesdays – My Wednesdays are all about new business creation.  I work on executing new marketing campaigns, website updates, course scheduling, call backs, new client proposals, and follow-ups for clients that have not yet contracted.  Again I usually start and end my day with social media but my focus for the entire day is about NEW BUSINESS.

Thursdays -  My Thursdays are all about my Veterans.  I spend the day either physically at Veteran organizations or working on Veteran campaigns but everything on Thursday is Red, White and Blue (except for my normal am and pm social media breaks).

Fridays – Now those of you that know me, you know that I like to start my Friday’s early.  One of the luxuries of being self-employed.  Fridays are all about tying up loose ends and clearing away the stacks of paper on my desk.  So Friday as you have guessed is my admin day wher I catchup on routine emails, review bills, read the mail.  Action:  Schedule (and delegate if that applies to your business) tasks that must be completed the following week.  Result: No time lost on Monday mornings figuring out what needs to be done & the week runs more smoothly.  You can easily determine throughout the week if there is space to add additional tasks because you are know what the hot items are!  Time Spent:  About 2 hours (but that much time might not be required for your business, depends on size of your business).

SaturdaysAre all about having fun! No work on Saturday unless it is an out of town conference and then it’s still play anyway!!!

Hopefully you are seeing the bigger picture here.  Its not about you’re business not being the same as mind, its about WHAT ARE YOU FOCUSING ON EACH DAY.  You can only successfully focus on one thing at a time!  If you need help finding your focus as it applies specifically to your business, call me!  I’ll be happy to help you out!

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5 Ways to Generate Traffic to Newly Created Websites

by Laura Kennedy on June 17, 2010

Now that you have your new website up and running, you are hopefully keen on starting to make some sales! But, how can you make sales if you do not have high volumes of traffic to your website?

One of the challenges people starting a new online business face is that of getting traffic to their website. This article outlines four important steps you must follow to start generating some traffic to your website.

  1. Have unique content on your website. Search engine robots and spiders look at all websites on a regular basis looking for sites with fresh and new content. It is therefore important for you to have fresh and high quality content in order for your website to get quickly indexed by search engines.
  2. Have all your keywords on your website. It is important that you have all the relevant keywords and phrases that relate to your topic on your web pages and any articles you post on your website. This will increase your website ranking as well as the number of visitors coming to your site from search engines. When people visit your website, the high quality content you have will make people spend more time on your site and ultimately buy some of the products or services you offer on your site. DO NOT DECEIVE YOUR VISITORS BY USING KEYWORDS THAT ARE NOT ON THAT PAGE OF YOUR SITE!
  3. Because your website is new, you must submit it to search engines. Submitting your URL to the search engines is an important step towards getting more visitors because it means your website will be visible from search engines. Having your website URL on search engines means that when people look for information relating to your topic on these search engines, they will find your website.
  4. Announce the launch of new site on your social media platforms.  Hopefully as you were creating your website, you were already creating the hype to your social media circles about your forthcoming website and now is the time to announce that you are ready for visitors.  Ensure that you have added the link to all your social media profiles as well as the signature block of your business email templates!
  5. Exchange some website links with websites that have a high popularity rank (PR). Exchanging links with popular and related websites is an effective way to drive traffic to your website, and improve the raking of your site. You will get some traffic coming to your website through other websites that you have linked to.  I personally recommend that you do this with people you know are reputable and that you have at least begun to establish a relationship with.  I do NOT recommend buying reciprocal links or backlinks.

By following the tips outlined in this article, you will realize that increasing your website traffic and getting more people to visit your new website is very easy to do. All you need to do is to follow these steps and you will soon see an increase in traffic to your website which will hopefully mean a lot of sales and online profits for your internet business!

Remember, driving traffic to your website is an on-going process and something that you continue to do with additional methods NOT just the ones that we have mentioned here!

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From Behind the Shower Curtain

June 16, 2010

Sometimes work schedules and just life in general get out of control and become overwhelming.  Sometimes just the amount of new ideas running through your mind having you spinning out of control.  If these things aren’t happening to you to some degree, then it would be my opinion that you are just not LIVING your [...]

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Identify Target Markets With These Twitter Tools

May 26, 2010

By Stacy Kinney
Your success in business depends on making sales. Without enough sales to maintain the business and your lifestyle all you really have is an expensive hobby. To maximize your sales potential, you want to focus on attracting people in your target market to your business.
What is a Target Market?
Your target market is the [...]

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What Does It Take To Become A Successful Blogger?

May 20, 2010
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How Effective Is Your Marketing Plan

May 13, 2010

We are now well into the second quarter of our business year.  Now is a good time to take a quick look at the results of your existing marketing plan and determine whether or not your plan is effective.  There is still plenty of time left in the year to make the necessary adjustments and [...]

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Do You Suffer From The Monday Blues?

May 10, 2010

Another amazing Monday is about to come to an end!  I hear people all the time hating Mondays like they were intentionally put in front of them to stop their progression in life.
Mondays are great…Why you ask? Because they set the momentum for the rest of your week.
Nobody finishes their projects on Mondays…their always starting [...]

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Creating A Home Office On A Budget

May 3, 2010
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Screen Casting Made Easy!

April 19, 2010

As you know, I am always looking for new ways to make our business on the internet as simple as possible for people with all levels of computer experience. This weekend I found yet another great tool that is FREE and requires:

No File downloads
No Camera
No technical expertise
No extra disk storage

So if you are ready [...]

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3 Perfectly Effective Ways to Lose Customers

April 15, 2010

It’s difficult to reach your business goals if you don’t have the right materials and/or the information to help your business reach the success it’s capable of.  Here are 3 mistakes business owners make that cost them customers:
Mistake 1:  “Let Them Procrastinate” – Yeah, procrastination has stolen millions of dollars from the pockets of business [...]

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