May 2016 - Page 2 of 2 - Strange & Charmed

Month: May 2016

The 6 Business Assets that are More Important than Your Business Plan

The 6 Business Assets that are More Important than Your Business Plan

One of the most popular questions I get asked whenever I talk about online business building is always about business plans. For one reason or another, the concept of a business plan, what it is, why it’s necessary and how to create your own, always seems to be a primary concern to beginner business owners and/or those who are curious about online business and thinking about starting their own. When you are first getting started creating a business, you have dozens if not hundreds of tasks on your plate all at the same time. If you are lucky, you may have help with your workload, but that still means you have many priorities to balance in order to get your business off the ground. Your business plan is just a document that explains what you are trying to do with our business, which, often times when we are getting started, is a hard concept to define! Until you truly have your business up and running, doesn’t help you with anything, nor does it legitimize your hard work and effort. For that reason, I think there are way more important items and business assets to tackle before you ever even worry about your business plan. Today, I want to talk about six such items that I think you should have in order as a small business owner before you even worry about writing a business plan!

Website

If you are operating a business of any kind, online or off, having a website is a must. When people hear about your business, products or services, the first thing they are going to do is Google you to find out more about you and unless you have throw a stake in the ground with your own website and claimed your distinct area of the internet, you are loosing a very powerful opportunity to engage with potential customers and clients. People will search for you online and make many instant decisions over whether or not they want to purchase from or work with your business based on information they find or do not find online. For this reason, putting the necessary time and effort into your website to ensure it provides an accurate and intriguing face to your business is a must!

If you want to learn more about how to build an inexpensive professional website that looks like it cost thousands, click here to learn more about this specific subject!

Business Model

Another term that I often find thrown around along with business plan is business model. Your business model is the way in which you plan to make money with your business. Remember, until you earn money from your effort, you don’t actually have a business, just a hobby! Your business model is a defined strategy for how money will flow into your business. Until you have your business model worked out and begin earning a steady income from it, there is no reason to even think about a business plan! Until you truly begin earning income from your business, so many factors are up in the air. Spend your time thinking about ways you can earn income and execute on those actions before you worry about your business plan.

Adding income streams and building revenue for your business is no small feat. Try some of these tips to generate passive income to help you build capital.

Products and/or Services

Your products and/or services are definitely the most important part of your business! Like I mentioned earlier, if your business isn’t earning revenue, it’s not a business, so making sure you are creating and offering the right products and services is crucial. Your products and services go hand in hand with your business model. Working to develop not only great products that people are eager for, but also defining the right methods for distribution and production (which are essential elements of your business model) will help you to maximize your revenue and grow your business.

If you will be creating products and are interested in learning more about starting an online shop, this dedicated video on the topic should help you get started.

On the other hand, if you are interested in starting a service based business or adding services to your product based business (this is something that I do!) then these tips can help you get your services off the ground.

Customer Service Systems

Your business runs on systems. They are the actions or sets of actions you take on a regular basis to perform your business tasks. As a business owner you could have systems for processing payments, systems for paying bills, systems for managing tasks and creating products. Or systems for working with clients! There are a variety of systems that business owners use to manage their day to day workload and keep their business running, and the more deliberate and thought out you can make these systems, the easier your work will be. The most important system that you will want to spend a good deal of time and thought on is your customer service system- those actions you will take to manage customer service inquiries and interact with or troubleshoot issues for your customers and potential customers! Because the success of these systems has a direct impact on your business revenue and growth, this is the first system you should define once you begin making money from your products and services. It will go a long way to helping you develop a customer-centric culture within your organization, and will be your best form of PR!

To learn more about systems for your business, watch this vide on systems and workflow!

Daily Work Schedule

Perhaps you don’t think of your daily work schedule as an asset for your business, but the truth of the matter is that your time is your ultimate business asset! As a business owner who works solo or even has a team of people working with them, the way you choose to spend your time working on your business is critical to its success. You should first strive to define all the necessary work for your business and then understand which actives and tasks are the highest use of your time and executive function. You will want to do all you can to maximize the time you spend performing duties that actually earn your business revenue and streamline or delegate administrative items that keep the business afloat but don’t earn. If you were to place an hourly rate on your time and an hourly rate on the different activities that need to be accomplished for your business, you want to do higher value work more often!

If you are new to business and want to understand more about how you should be spending your time effectively, here is more information on the subject.

If you are trying to get your business off the ground while you still work a full time or part time job, here are some additional tips and tricks to help you balance the workload.

Visual Content

The online marketplace is saturated with content, there is no doubt about that, but there is a clear trend illustrating that visual content and visual platforms are where businesses get the most bang for their buck! If you have minimal time to produce content, even promotional or marketing content, spend your time wisely and focus on visual mediums and platforms. Places like Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube command the most traffic and attention online, so learning how to optimize your business for these types of platforms will give you a competitive edge. To optimize your business visually, you need to get very clear on your visual branding and start using graphics and styled stock photography to tell your brand story. Sharing visuals of your products or styled images that define your services, help your potential customers connect and engage with your business.

If you want to learn more about using photography and visual content to elevate your brand and business online, click here for more information and to sign up for an upcoming free webinar on the topic!

Don’t let the idea of needing a business plan hold you back from moving your business forward, especially in infancy stages. You have more important work to do for getting your business off the ground and writing a business plan before you have clear proof of income and concept for your business is a waste of time. With time your most precious commodity, everything you choose to spend it on should be moving your business forward or growing your revenue! So, know I want to hear from you! When starting your business, what did you consider to be the most important activities you spent your time on? If you are thinking about starting a business, what’s currently holding you back or causing you pause? Let me know in the comments below!

xoxo,

Productivity

5 Simple Planner Tips that Helped me Gain Control of My Schedule

5 Simple Planner Tips that Helped me Gain Control of My Schedule

It’s no secret that I have been struggling this year to get myself onto a regular work schedule. As someone who works for themselves and is also a naturally lazy person, I fell into the bad habit of procrastinating on my work and cutting corners too often this year. It was seriously causing me a lot of stress and anxiety because I had set myself deadlines for important tasks but waiting until the last minute to work on a large project wasn’t going to cut it. My work ethic was lacking and I needed to take control of my schedule. So, I started getting serious about my planning, specifically about setting myself a schedule and now after a few months of work trying to get these good habits to stick, I think I’ve finally fallen into a good work pattern! So, I wanted to share with you some of the key tips I picked up for helping me gain control of my schedule. If you are someone who works for themselves or you are someone who finds that they are naturally a procrastinator, hopefully these tips will help you start implementing better habits into your life so you are executing more and achieving your goals.

Tip #1: Define your responsibilities

The first thing I did that was very helpful to me when I was getting my schedule ironed out, was write out a list of all the work and responsibilities I had to manage. If I needed to find a way to balance my schedule, it was important that I understand how I needed to spend my time. Now, when I first made this list, I found that there were items that I listed that I ultimately decided to remove. Editing your schedule and responsibilities is a crucial part of ensuring that you have time for everything that’s important. If a certain activity isn’t really a priority or if there are things you can take off your plate and delegate to someone else, you are making room in your schedule to complete the priorities!

Tip #2: Write every appointment and task down

This one may seem like common knowledge, but we all know that common knowledge is not always common practice. For me, I was really bad about writing down every task or appointment I had and therefore, I ended up missing things or remembering at the last minute without giving myself necessary prep time. It was hard to train myself to write down everything, but I just kept seeing the pattern I was creating working out which was very motivating. When I wrote things down, I remembered them; when I didn’t, I forgot and became anxious. I wanted to keep myself from feeling that anxiety as much as possible, so I kept writing things down and not relying on my poor memory to serve me.

Tip #3: Utilize block scheduling

Block scheduling has been another game changer for me in my daily work routine. This has been something that has taken me at least 8 months to successfully implement. Basically, each day of the week is assigned a category of work. So Mondays are for blog posts, Tuesdays for filming, Wednesdays for editing, etc. That way, I don’t have to really plan my week from scratch, I have a guide to help me assign tasks and activities befitting with the day’s category. This block scheduling also helps me to bulk my work, which was a major issue for me for the last year. Thanks to the block scheduling, I actually find that I am able to take weekends off more often, which is a great treat for me and proof that I’m now more productive during the week if I can take the weekend off!

Tip #4: Don’t plan too far in advance

Although my block scheduling gives me a sense of what I will be working on for any given day, another tip I use to keep myself on schedule is that I don’t make any exact daily plans too far in advance with the exception of scheduled appointments. Scheduling myself one day at a time gives me the ability to be very flexible with my tasks and prevents me from planning out actions that may not end up coming to fruition. For example, if I were to plan my full week and early on in the week something derails my work, that will end up throwing off all my work for the rest of the week and cause me to loose productive momentum. But if I leave the days possibilities open until it’s time to plan them, I find that I am more open to possibility and it helps to stay motivated.

Tip #5: Check your planner every morning

This is another one of those common knowledge but not common practice tips that has really helped me stay accountable. Obviously, we write down all our tasks and scheduled appointments so that when the day comes we read our plans and then execute on them, but for me, I was in the bad habit of often forgetting to check my planner because I *thought* I remembered everything I had to do. Let’s be honest, this is pure laziness run amuck! It takes a minute to check your planner and prevent embarrassing hiccups in your schedule, so get into the habit of checking yours and if you still keep forgetting, set an alarm on your phone to remind you!

So, what do you think about these tips? I know for me, these seem very simple, but the practice of implementing them has been the struggle. I finally just feel like I’ve reached a point of control over my schedule so that I’m achieving at a high level without having to constantly sprint! If you have any other suggestions or tips for helping to get control of your schedule, please leave them in the comments or feel free to tweet me @MissTrenchcoat and I’ll share your tips with my followers. I know we all appreciate sharing the knowledge because when it comes to time management, the struggle is real!!

xoxo,

Productivity

8 Productivity Apps that Lower My Stress, Keep me Organized and Help Me Run my Business!

8 Productivity Apps that Lower My Stress, Keep me Organized and Help Me Run my Business!

As a tech lover with a planner problem, I am often asked about how I use digital tools in conjunction with analog planners to keep myself organized. I do a vast majority of my business and life planning in my Charmed Life Planner, however, I still love using my iPhone and apps to keep me productive. My planner is wonderful, but there will always be things my planner can’t do like make a noise to alert me of a calendar event, or play some relaxing music when I’m feeling stressed and overwhelmed. There are just always going to be some things my iPhone will be used for that help me with my productivity and that doesn’t diminish or take away from my paper planner, instead, when the two work together, I get more done! So today I want to share with you the 8 Productivity Apps that Lower my Stress, Keep me Organize and Help Me Run my Business!

Plaintext is a mobile text editor that I love to use to write emails and social media descriptions on the go. Because it’s a plain text editor, there is no formatting that gets carried over when I type or edit text in this app which is great because it means I can format my final product manually. Sometimes when you copy text over from a text message, another email or a website, when you paste it into a standard notes application, weird formatting carries over as well and is hard to correct on an iPhone, so I highly recommend this application if you are someone who does write important text from their phone.

DocScanHD is a virtual scanner. It uses the camera on your iPhone to take pictures of documents or images and then the application helps you to format your document properly and then export it as a PDF or JPG. You can use DocScanHD to open documents, sign them and then email them back to senders in a snap. If you don’t have a home scanner or just want to keep it simple with your documents, I’d highly recommend the app!

Hootsuite is a very popular social media scheduling application that I use to schedule my Tweets and Instagram posts. One of the tenants of productivity that I love to follow is to batch your work and when I schedule out my social media posts ahead of time it helps me get more content created in less time and then manages the act of scheduling the items throughout the week so I don’t have to remember to post. So this is like a dual marketing and productivity app for me and my business.

White noise is a sound machine application that can play a variety of different sound effects. The idea behind this app is that you can use the generic sounds as “white noise” to help you drown out ambient sounds around you while you work, study or just try to relax. I love the array of nature sounds the app has to offer, plus some interesting sounds I don’t think you normally think of as being relaxing like a boat swaying in waves or a hairdryer blowing.

Audible is an online platform where you can purchase and listen to books on tape. I have been subscribed to audible.com for about a year now and I absolutely love the service. As someone who is interested in books, but doesn’t enjoy the act of reading a physical book, Audible helps me stay current with popular books but gives me the ability to listen while I work, clean the house or take a walk. It’s amazing how quickly time flies when you are listening to a book on tape- it makes unpleasant tasks so much more manageable for me! If you have not yet tried Audible and are considering giving it a try, I have a great offer you won’t want to miss. Click here to get not one, but 2 FREE Audio Books when you sign up for a free trial of the service. Usually you only see offers for one free book, so this is a way better deal, and witch titles that sell for $30-40 in the platform, this is a major money saver!

My package is a parcel tracking application that stores the tracking information for online orders and then keeps you up to date with the progress of your shipment. As someone who buys a lot of products online, this app makes it easy for me to track my packages in one place without having to manually enter the tracking information for multiple packages into multiple carrier websites. It’s such a time, and peace of mind, saver!

Dropbox is one of the most popular cloud based storage applications. I’ve had a Dropbox account for a number of years for FREE and I use mine to store important business documents and information that I may need to access when I am away from home. As someone who runs a completely digital business, storing files in the cloud gives me the ability to share files from whatever device I have with me, from my iPhone, laptop, or someone else’s computer if I’m away from home! It’s very convenient. Although Dropbox gives you web-based access to your account, I keep the app installed on every one of my gadgets!

Clear is a list making application that I love to use for miscellaneous lists and notes. Since I don’t use my planner as a notebook, I find that when I need to make a “mental note” of something, I add it to a list in my Clear app. I keep tons of different open lists in the application that I add to. Lists with business ideas, quotes, website links, books to read, you name it, I have a list for it! The best part of the app is that once you have completed an item on a list, you can swipe to the right to complete the item and it makes a very satisfying *ding* as the item fades and falls off the list. It’s the digital equivalent of the high you get from checking an item off a to-do list!

So those are the 8 Productivity Apps that Lower My Stress, Keep me Organized and Help Me Run my Business! I hope you have enjoyed this post and that it gave you some inspiration for a new app you can download for your own productivity needs! If you have your own favorite productivity apps I’d love to hear about them so please leave me a comment down below and tell me about which apps you love that keep you on track!

xoxo,

Photography

Are you Ready to Learn How to use Photography to Elevate your Brand Online?

Are you ready to learn how to use photography to elevate your brand online?

If so, you won’t want to miss my Live FREE Webinar Training on Wednesday May 25th at 3pm EST! I’ll be covering the 7 impactful strategies that I use on a regular basis to spread awareness of my brand, connect with my audience and sell to my followers without ever having to make a slimy sales pitch!

I’m not sure how long you have been following me for, but let me give you a little overview of the effect these strategies have had on my brand and business since 2015. Right now I’m going to do something I rarely do, and that’s talk numbers. If you know me, you know I hate discussing numbers because numbers can sometimes be deceiving, but in this situation, I think it’s important to understand the numbers to see how effective these strategies have been for me.

Instagram

At the start of 2015, my Instagram following was roughly 4,500 and it took me a few years to hit that number. My current following is roughly 21,800 followers. Since January 2015 when I instituted these effective strategy changes, I’ve been growing at an average of over 1,000 new followers a month! Imagine if each month, you had 1,000 new potential customers or clients. What would consistent traffic like that do for your business?

Site Traffic

From the end of 2014 to the end of 2015, my site traffic made a dramatic leap! My total page views to my website were about 430,000 in 2014 but they 3X’d to over 1.5 MILLION page views in 2015! Understanding some key strategies for how I used my photography made a tremendous impact on my already thriving website and all this new traffic lead me to one very important thing, higher revenue!

Shop Revenue

Growing my social media following and website traffic has been an awesome side affect of my new photography strategy, however, the most impactful growth for my business has been, hands down, the growth in my shop revenue! From 2014 when I launched my shop to end of 2015, I have 6X’d my revenue! And that’s just the start! Q1 2016 results are showing even more growth for my business and there is no doubt in my mind that some key strategies are responsible for the tremendous success I’ve been having.

Amazing results? Right? You too can pick up hundreds of new followers a month, increase your page views and grow your revenue by using my strategies!

I’m confident that if you too implement these same strategies, you can see similar results for your brand! I’m sure you are eager to learn these strategies, and I am eager to share them with you, so also I’ve gone ahead and put together a study guide for you to use during my webinar to follow along, and identify the action items you need to take for your own business!

To get access to both the Live Webinar Training and the Study Guide for the event, click here to reserve your seat for the event on Wednesday May 25th at 3pm Eastern. You will also want to attend live because I will be sharing some exclusive goodies for live attendees, however, if you cannot make it live, there will be a replay available for a limited time!

So that is all for now! Can’t wait to see you on the webinar training and I’d also like to encourage you to share about the webinar with your friends on social media so they can attend as well! If they are bloggers or business owners, I bet they will thank you for the invite!