Time Management

  • 5 Ways to Rewire a Bad Habit to a Good One

    Back in 2005 before starting my Marketing Firm I owned a professional organizing business. During my work in this industry I saw a lot of people struggling to get their personal and professional life organized. These people were young, old and in between. Many were professionals but some were retired or stay at home parents. So, you can see everyone can fall into having bad habits no matter where they are in life. I’m not a fan of the word bad but when it comes to this topic, I’d rather not sugar coat it.

    Basically, being disorganized is just a series of bad habits or routines that need to be rewired into good habits. We all have bad habits; it’s a fact of life because we’re human and imperfect. The good news is that bad habits can be changed with some discipline and work. Yes, I said it. It takes effort to make changes and rewire our brains into doing things differently. Changing bad habits doesn’t happen overnight but simply acknowledging them is the first step towards change along with making up your mind to do so.

    Messy Computer

    So, what are some bad habits? Here are a few examples.

    • Not creating a plan of action for the work that needs to be done
    • Setting lofty goals and timelines that are unrealistic
    • Overeating or eating the wrong types of food
    • Letting your inbox get full and out of control
    • Not practicing self-care
    • Lacking organization in the space you live or work in
    • Not getting back to people who call or email you in a timely fashion

    Maybe you recognize some these or have other bad habits that need to be tamed but how do we go about doing that?

    One quick tip: Don’t try to change multiple bad habits at once. Choose one behavior or area to focus on and work on that first. When you feel that bad habit has been changed for good, work on changing another – or work on incorporating good habits into your daily life.

    Here are some tips for creating good habits.

    1. Keep the temptation out of sight. If you have a problem with overeating junk food, for example, keep those tempting foods out of your home. Avoid those aisles at the grocery store. Step away from the snack table when you’re a guest at someone’s house. If your temptation isn’t visible, then you’ll get used to not having that temptation in your life, which forms a good habit of not overindulging.

    2. Reward yourself (positive reinforcement). If you want to be get organized, schedule an activity they you love doing like a day at the spa or whatever is your thing for about 6-8 weeks out as a reward, provided you stay true to your organizing goals you will have a wonderful reward to look forward to. Now use this reward, to stay focused on the goal of organizing your life/spaces that you live or work in. Also consider rewarding yourself for incorporating a good habit into your life as well and choose small, simple rewards that fit your budget.

    Money Jar

    3. Give yourself a consequence for the bad habit (negative reinforcement). If you have a habit of not getting back to people in a timely fashion, try charging yourself a fee for every time you forget. Keeping in mind, that it’s costing you way more in revenue because this habit can be making you lose clients and opportunities. Collect that money in a jar so you can see it as a reminder that you need to get better at that task. We all get into ruts and routines that we need to take charge of and not let them take charge of us. When you haven’t contributed to the jar in a month’s time, take that money and give yourself a reward. Tell your team members at work, your friends and family, too, so they can help keep you accountable. Sometimes we’re so used to doing bad habits that we don’t even notice when it happens. Giving yourself a consequence forces you to be more aware of your behavior and eventually eliminates that bad behavior.

    4. Track your daily habits. Whether you choose good old paper and pen or a sophisticated app on your phone, tracking your habits puts them in the forefront of your mind and you’ll also feel accomplished at the end of the day. For instance, if you’re exercising daily, mark down what you did and for how long. If you’re stopping your procrastination, mark what time you started work. If you’re unplugging more from something like social media, use a calendar to jot down when you turned your app off and how long that lasted. Visual cues that you’re succeeding in busting these bad habits can go a long way to make you feel proud and accomplished, which will positively reinforce this new behavior.

    5. Ask for an accountability partner. Do you have a mentor, business coach or friend who can help monitor your success? Do you have a nutritionist who can help create healthy meals? Do you have a business partner or friend who you help turn your business struggles around? Or do you feel comfortable posting certain struggles or challenges on social media, so your followers then become your accountability partners? Keeping your struggles and goals to yourself often makes it easier to cheat; however, if you tell other people what you’re trying to accomplish, then you’ll focus more on the new behavior, which eventually will overtake the bad behavior.

    I hope you found these ideas helpful. Again, remember that rewiring your brain and changing daily routines takes time so be kind to yourself. Best to you and your endeavors.

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  • Systemizing Your Business for Success

    When you look at a successful entrepreneur or business owner do you ever wonder how they manage to get it all done?

    The answer is they have systems in place.

    It’s true. The most productive people all have one thing in common: they don’t reinvent the wheel every day. Instead, they’ve figured out the best, most efficient way to do every task, and they create a system to do just that.

    No matter what business you’re in and what projects you find yourself tackling, a systemized approach will help you:

    • Work faster and produce more
    • Produce higher quality results with fewer mistakes
    • Easily outsource the tasks you don’t like to do

    The Magic of Templates

    How many times do you answer email from potential clients? What about responding to customer concerns?

    These tasks and become more effortless when you create fill-in-the-blank templates that can be re-purposed for specific cases/people. Templates can be as simple as a “canned response” in your email client or help desk, or you can use software such as Text Expander (for Mac) or Phrase Express (for Windows). You might even create a template document in Dropbox or Google Drive to house all your templates for easier access for you and your support staff.

    While templates will undoubtedly save you time, the real beauty is that once they’re created, you can easily outsource things like email and even sales. Simply instruct your assistant on the proper use of your templates, and you’ll be free to do other, more important things.

    Checklists Prevent Mistakes

    Planning

    It might seem counterintuitive, but when you perform the same tasks repeatedly, it’s easy to miss a critical step. You might think you paid your bills this month—you might even remember doing it—only to look back and see it was never completed.

    But when you implement checklists, it’s suddenly much more difficult to miss an important task.

    You can easily create checklists for all your common tasks and projects using nothing more than a text document. If you’re managing a team, checklists in your project management system allow you to see exactly what tasks are complete, and which are still outstanding.

    Templates and checklists turn smart business owners into productivity superstars, and it’s easy to get started. The next time you answer an email you’ve answered before, save your response. The next time you set up a new product in your shopping cart or create a new opt-in page, take the time to record the steps. These documents will make future projects easier and faster to complete, and best of all, you can hand them off to your assistant to do instead.

    And if you’re techie, make a video tutorial and show the steps with an over-the-shoulder training.

    Automated Follow-Ups Make the Next Step a

    No-Brainer for Systemizing

    As any smart business owner knows, the key to passive income is a well-established (and full) funnel.

    So of course, you’ve optimized your opt-in pages and monetized your download pages and have encouraged more buyers through well-placed upsells and down sells.

    But what about the follow-up? Do you contact customers about the products or services they didn’t buy? Do you encourage them to use the products they have purchased? Are you making sure they know about all your other wonderful programs?

    If not, you’re missing the boat. But the good news is, this can be easily managed with just a bit of simple automation, and when done right, it will smoothly lead your customers from one purchase to the next, at the exact right time for them to take advantage of your best offers.

    Segment Your Audience in Your Email

    to Save Time

    Many autoresponder services allow you to target emails based on reader action. Want to send a follow up email to those who clicked a specific link? Create a segment and mail away. Want to re-engage with those who haven’t opened your emails in a while? Easy to do, and you can potentially recover subscribers who have gone missing. Of course, you need a more sophisticated email service like Constant Contact.

    http://www.constantcontact.com/signup.jsp?pn=strategizeyoursuccess

    These tactics require that you know your audience and your products exceptionally well. Study your stats. Know your open and click rates. Pay attention to the promotions that work, as well as those that fall flat. With information in hand, you’ll be better able to effectively segment your lists and make the most of all the parts of your funnel. Knowing your audience takes the guess work and time out of mailing to those who have no interest in specific products, services or events.

    Segmenting your list in the long run will save you time and produce higher quality prospects for your business. The more hands-off you can make your systems the more time you will have to do the higher-level work that makes your business more money.

    Making small changes in your business can yield big returns. Systemizing as much as you can like other successful entrepreneurs will help you be more productive and make less mistakes.

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  • The Challenge of Business and Life Goals

    Life and Work balance

     

    One of the big issues when you start your own business is whether or not you will have time to actually live your life. Striking a balance between the two has always been a problem for entrepreneurs forever. I know at times I struggle in this area as well.

     

    You think you have it together the plans and strategy and then life happens and all of a sudden you’re off balance. So the best thing to do is to affect balance without sacrificing your goals for either.

     

    Does this sound familiar? You start a business so that you can have more financial freedom in life and then you don’t spend any of your earnings because you are always working. Working for yourself may fulfill a lifelong goal, but you don’t have time to spend with your family, enjoy recreation or take a vacation.

     

    It can be hard to find time for both work and family, especially when you are doing it all alone. But, there is hope.

     

    Let’s look at 5 Balancing Tips for Business and Life

     

    Get help as soon as you can

    – Yes, it will be hard in the beginning. You may work long hours, but there is a brighter day coming. As soon as you are able to afford help without sacrificing profits, then get it! Extra help will free you up to handle bigger tasks and knock off of work early to enjoy the simple things in life.

    Flexibility

    – Rome wasn’t built in a day and your business won’t be either. Realize that there is more to life than working all the time. Build in time for family activities instead of finding more time to work. Keep your schedule somewhat flexible to account for sudden changes because we all know they happen!

     

    Life Balance

    Communicate

    – Keep your family in the loop about what is going on with business. If you need help from them, then ask. Make sure that you make decisions together as much as you can, so that no one misunderstands what is going on. Even though it is your business enterprise, it is a family concern in many ways.

     

    Use time wisely

    – Time management is always important, even if you don’t own a business. When you are working, divide tasks to get everything done in the allotted time frame.  While the week is mostly for work-related goals, let the weekends lead off as family-oriented. Adjust your schedule to take off a Friday now and then for a long weekend getaway with the family. Does that sound nice?

     

    Enjoy yourself

    – If you are not happy in your life or with your business, then nothing you do will matter. You won’t be motivated in either arena. Does the business seem to be sucking you dry? Take a new perspective on your goals. The same goes for your life. Making changes can lead to fulfillment and success. Life is too short not to get pleasure from it.

     

    So keep in mind your “why”. Why did you start your business and when it comes down to it does it bring you the lifestyle of your dreams? If you are struggling in this area reach out to me. Business building is easier if you don’t have to go it alone.

     

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  • How Can You Reach Your Target Market?

    Gambling Your TimeWhen people set about marketing their business, it can be a big gamble.  If you are putting up money, it can be scary to think that you might not get a good result.  And if you are using free marketing methods, then you are putting up a lot of your time.

     

    Either way, once your time or money has been spent, you cannot retrieve it.  To make the best use of time and money, it is important for any business owner to make sure they are delivering their message to the right target market.

     

    For instance, a business which sells high-end baby clothes is not likely to see a good result from advertising on a frugal mom website.  Yes, moms are in need of baby clothes, but a site catering to moms who are trying to save money isn’t the place for the ad of a business which sells $40 onesies.

     

    So how do you define your target market?  It’s your ideal audience.  These are the people who would be your best type of customer. If you have already generated clients in the past think about which ones worked out the best for your business. These are the ones that you had a connection with and looked forward to working with.

     

    There are also other ways to determine your target market.  One of these is to take a few minutes of quiet time and visualize exactly who is in need, or want, of your product or service.

     Targeting Your Market

    You can also do a search for competing and complementary products or services and take a look at their websites.  When you look at it, who do you feel they are marketing to?  Do you find a similar image to their target market and your own?

     

    Once a business owner begins to target their marketing efforts and has made sure their message is being sent to the right market, they will see a much better return on investment. Take the time and really hone in on who that is for you.

    There really is no sense in putting time and money into marketing if the message is being delivered to the wrong audience.  In fact, it is a big waste!

    At Strategize Your Success we help entrepreneurs, coaches and small business owners with online strategic goal setting, marketing and planning.  We know what struggles you face and offer solutions to help make your business THRIVE. Contact us today for a FREE 30 minute Discovery Session. 

     

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  • When Should You Begin Outsourcing?

    More and more entrepreneurs are starting businesses as solopreneurs.  Many of them begin with no employees, leaving every aspect of the business on their own shoulders.  While this is certainly an inexpensive way to start a business, it’s not always the most efficient.

    young successful business woman working at home / office

     

    Fortunately, there is a way to get around hiring full-time employees.  It’s called outsourcing.  That simply means hiring a third party to perform work for you on a contractual basis, not as an employee.  By outsourcing, you get the benefits of not having to do everything yourself without hiring an employee you may not need all the time.

     

    How Do I Know When I Need to Outsource?

     

    As long as you have the means to pay an independent contractor to do the work you need done, it’s never too early to outsource.  But many business owners prefer to go it on their own until they absolutely have to let go of some of the work.  Here are some signs that you might do well to consider outsourcing:

     

    • You run into something that your business needs but you can’t provide.  Maybe your accounting has become more complicated than you’re comfortable with, or maybe you need a coder to work on your website.  If there’s something you’ve been doing without because you can’t do it yourself, outsourcing may be in order. 

    • Everyday tasks are becoming more than you can handle.  If your emails and phone calls are going unanswered, your customer service is suffering, and you can’t even make time to empty the trash, it’s time to get help.  Depending on your needs, you could hire a virtual assistant or a temporary in-house assistant. 

    • Your workload is getting overwhelming.  You might be taking on too much work.  Then again, if you had someone to handle certain aspects of your projects, you might be able to handle everything you have and more.  If you design websites, for example, you could outsource the content writing to a writer and the graphics to a graphic designer. 

    • You have no time to spend with family or participate in leisure activities.  Everyone has things they enjoy doing outside of work, and just because you own a small business doesn’t mean you should give that up.  Outsourcing can take some of the burden off of you and allow you to do more of the things you enjoy.

     

    Outsourcing is not a sign of weakness.  It is a sign that you know how to handle your workload efficiently.  It can allow you to take on more work than you could on your own, and that means greater profits.  Whether it’s everyday tasks or projects requiring great expertise, outsourcing as needed is good for your business.

    At Strategize Your Success we help entrepreneurs, coaches and small business owners with online strategic goal setting, marketing and planning.  We know what struggles you face and offer solutions to help make your business THRIVE. Contact us today for a FREE 30 minute Discovery Session.

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  • Being a Business Owner Can Be Overwhelming

    Overwhelmed
    Starting a new business is fun.  It is exciting to think that you will be your own boss and make money.  These are all good things about business life.  On the flip side, being a company of one can get to be too much at times.  No one wants to admit when they are in over their heads, but if the business is to continue to thrive, knowing the warning signs and getting help is vital.

     

    Do you waste more and more time each day?  This is not a slight.  We all waste a fair amount of time, even with our businesses.  Wasting time could be spending too much time answering emails or looking something up on the Internet.  It could be taking thirty minutes to write up a “To Do” list and then only doing one or none of the things on it.

     

    This could be a sign that the business is overwhelming us.  Instead of jumping in and tackling the tasks that need to be done, we avoid the one job we know we need to address because we either don’t have the answers or don’t want to deal with it.  Either way, our business is going to suffer as long as we hide from the task.

     

    Look to fellow business owners for help.  This is why it is important to be a part of forums and organizations that deal with your area of business.  You are not the first business owner to feel this way and you won’t be the last.  Someone out there has practical tips that can help you to get over the hurdle and be successful in your business.

     

    Does it seem that you work and work each day but the pile of work never seems to get any smaller?  This is a sign that you need help.  Take a step back and look at your business as a whole.  What is consistently not getting done?  What is the nature of the majority of the work that is left each day?

     

    Consider your options.  If emails have you bogged down, find ways to organize things so that it doesn’t take five or more hours to answer them.  Set up your work day to include an hour for dealing with emails.  During this time, you can answer, organize, flag, create drafts, and whatever else you have to do to keep the emails from overwhelming you.

     

    Is it marketing that concerns you?  Choose one area to market your business.  This doesn’t mean that this is the only area to use.  Quite the contrary is true.  Once this area gets going, explore another part of the marketing strategy.  Diversifying is necessary but not all at once.

     

    Are you overwhelmed?  Take time to discover the source and find solutions to alleviate the stress.

    At Strategize Your Success we help women entrepreneurs, coaches and small business owners with online strategic goal setting, marketing and planning.  We know what struggles you face and offer solutions to help make your business THRIVE. Contact us today for a FREE 30 minute Discovery Session.

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  • The New Years Game Plan for Business Success

    • Comments Off on The New Years Game Plan for Business Success
    • by

    It’s the start of a New Year and usually the time that business owners like to plan strategies for the year. They want to increase productivity and get things done which means having a good game-plan.

    This is a time of the year that I see a lot of people reaching out to coaches like myself to get the help or accountability they need in order to achieve success.  They may have determined that the year before did not work out as well as they hoped and need to seek support from someone who may have been down the road they have yet to travel.
    Game Plan

    So let’s take a look at what steps need to be taken in order to make life easier and flow better.  First, you need to know exactly what must be done.  Second, even if you do not have a specific deadline, you must also decide when it must be done.  The third step is putting yourself to the task of doing it.

    You want to accomplish your goals, whether they are short-term or long-term.  You also want to be proud of and satisfied with the results.  When you make up your mind to not “go with the flow,” but instead take your game-plan more seriously, you are nearly guarantying success, pride, and satisfaction. 

    Some people are more organized and are used to having structure and time-management as a regular part of their lives.  If you are not used to these concepts, now is the time to implement them into your everyday life.  Whether you are working a business of your own, working for someone else, or whether your work is taking care of your family you will gain many benefits from setting up a good game-plan. Any successful person will tell you this is the key to any sustainable success.

    planningIf you have ever felt that there are not enough hours in a day to do everything you need to do, this will be a very positive step for you.  You will be pleasantly surprised with how much you can accomplish.  With a game-plan, you may find yourself getting more done each day than you usually accomplish in a week.  Not only will you be more productive, but achieving each goal will come much easier.  You will soon appreciate this all-important factor in your success.

    At Strategize Your Success we help women entrepreneurs, coaches and small business owners with online strategic goal setting, marketing and planning.  We know what struggles you face and offer solutions to help make your business THRIVE.  

     

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  • 5 Reasons Every Business Owner Should Be Outsourcing

    In most large businesses, employees perform specialized functions.  Secretaries handle all of the filing and related tasks.  Marketing people handle the advertising and public relations.  Accountants keep the books.  Salespeople make the sales.
    3481211287_0612059a22
    Many small businesses do not have the luxury of being able to hire employees.  So the business owner must handle everything herself.  While this may work out reasonably well in the initial stages, as the business grows it gets more difficult to keep up with it all.  There are some compelling reasons that business owners should consider outsourcing.

    • You can’t learn everything.  No matter how smart you are, you simply can’t.  Even if you could, learning takes time, and there are only a set number of hours in a day.  If you try to learn every minute aspect of the things that need to be done for your business, you’re going to end up disappointed and frustrated.

    • You have a life outside of your business.  Everyone needs time to spend with family and friends, even if they’re running a business.  If we try to tackle everything ourselves, we won’t have time to enjoy the finer things in life.

    • The stress of trying to do it all can adversely affect your health.  There are enough stressors in life that we don’t need to add to them unnecessarily.  But if we put pressure on ourselves to run a business on our own with no help at all, it can really stress us out.  Besides affecting our state of mind, too much stress can cause high blood pressure and put us at risk for many other ailments.

    • People who are trained well in their fields may be able to do a better job.  If you barely know HTML, it would take you quite a while to learn how to make a good-looking and functional website.  An experienced web designer could have your entire website up and running before you were finished learning what you need to know.  In situations such as this, it makes more sense to outsource than to try to do it yourself.

    • Outsourcing can save you money.  Some tasks require special equipment or software.  If you’re not going to need these things in the future, it doesn’t make much sense to buy them for one project.  Hiring someone else that already has what is needed to get the job done is usually more economical.
     
    In many cases, outsourcing makes good business sense.  It allows us to concentrate on the things we’re best at, and it can save us time and money.  So the next time you find yourself with an over abundance of work, consider outsourcing.

    At Strategize Your Success we help entrepreneurs, coaches and small business owners with strategic goal setting, marketing and planning.  We know what struggles you face and offer solutions to help make your business THRIVE. 

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  • Managing Your Social Networking Time

    3-a-time-moneyGetting Lost on Social Media?  Social media is one of the most important business communication developments in a long time, but it’s also one of the biggest sources of distraction and is often a time suck for otherwise productive business owners.

    Learning to manage your own social networking time will help you leverage all those great benefits and help you get rid of those unwanted side effects.

    Here are some tips to get you going…

    Know What You Want to Do
    3-b-plan

    Before you log into another social network, make sure you have a very clear idea of what you want to accomplish with your social networking participation. While you should know where you’re going before you go there in all aspects of your life, it’s even more important on social media because it’s just too easy to get distracted. Whether it’s political stuff that gets you all fired up or a funny meme of a cat saying something hilarious, we’ve all been there.

    I’m also talking about knowing what you want to accomplish on a large and small scale.

    You should know what you want over the long term (ex. expand your reach, get more loyalty from your audience, etc.) and what you want to do on a daily basis (ex. respond to comments, post a new video). Whether you use paper and pen, mind map software or voice memos to yourself to plan, record your ideas, so you have a rock solid plan for what you hope to do.

    Limit the Networks You’re Involved In

    Too many business owners try to be everywhere at once. It’s a recipe for burnout and it isn’t likely going to grow your business because you won’t have time to work on your actual business. It’s important to select only a handful of key social networks and if you’re just getting started with social networking, simply start with one network and move from there.

    Of course, finding out what works best for your business will take some experimentation. Just don’t rush to do everything at once because you need to dedicate the appropriate time and effort to seeing what produces the most benefit.

    Finish Other Tasks First

    On a daily basis, work on your core business tasks first and then try saving social networking for the end of the day. That way, you can ensure everything that needs to get done gets done. This strategy also allows you to do more exploration on social networking so you can find new people to follow, interesting information and more.

    Carve Out Your Time

    Know how much time you are going to spend and what you’re going to do before you log into any of your accounts. Setting a limit is important, particularly if you have other business tasks or personal things to attend to when you’re done. Making sure you have your tasks outlined also helps you stay on track…instead of following that link to a YouTube video of an amazing 5 year old opera singer.

    And always remember, when you log in…serve your audience first. You can’t go wrong by focusing on your audience.

    Have a Notification Strategy3-c-notification

    There’s nothing more detrimental to productivity than being interrupted all day long with emails telling you about new retweets, likes and comments. You can limit these interruptions in a few ways:

    – Turn notifications off completely. Rarely, is there a social media emergency and if you’re already checking in regularly, you don’t really need to get an email notification for everything.

    – Some networks, like Pinterest, allow you to get a daily digest of notifications, instead of receiving an individual notification of each update.

    – Don’t send the notifications to your main email address. Choose an address you check less frequently, so you aren’t constantly distracted by the new updates.

    Keep Your Business and Personal Accounts Separate

    While you may share some personal information on your business accounts, it’s easiest if you keep your business social networking activities separate from your personal ones. There are actually a few benefits to this.

    The first is eliminating distractions. So if Aunt June sends you a private message and your friend Steve post a funny picture of his toddler, you won’t distracted from your to-do list.

    Keeping things separate also helps you stay informed about your niche and makes it easy for you to be a useful for source of information for your readers. So follow personal connections on your personal accounts and follow industry leaders and information providers on your business accounts. That way, your news feeds will be relevant to what you are working on.

    And finally, it makes you more relevant to your followers. Many online business owners broadcast business related information to their friends and family when it doesn’t really make sense. And the reverse problem is true. If you’re posting a lot of personal information, it may or may not be of interest to your business followers. You can avoid this, by separating your social media activities.

    Get Help

    There’s no reason you have to do all your social networking yourself. Even if you’re a solo entrepreneur, you can build a team or have someone alongside to help you. You can have someone help you with:

    – Posting updates

    – Scheduling updates you’ve prewritten

    – Creating and collecting images and other useful content you’d like to share

    Building a team that represents your brand takes a lot of pressure off you and allows you to focus more on strategy and business building. At Strategize Your Success we can help you with this (strategizeyoursuccess.com).

    Use Tools3-d-tool

    We are going to talk about various tools that can help you in a later post, but there are plenty of tools that can help you schedule updates, allow you to view your various network streams in one place, compile analytics for you and more. These are very useful tools to ensure you keep tabs on your interactions, allow you to participate more efficiently and can help you rework your strategy for maximum effectiveness.

    At Strategize Your Success we help entrepreneurs, coaches and small business owners with strategic goal setting, marketing and planning.  We know what struggles you face and offer solutions to help make your business THRIVE. 

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  • True Freedom: Make Your Summer Business Plan of Attack Your Year-Round Approach


    Over the last little while, I’ve shared a few tips on getting more done with less time and obviously, our focus has been on keeping things together through the many wonderful distractions of summer. But keep in mind, the approaches we’ve discussed can certainly apply all year round.

    Most of us started our businesses because we wanted freedom and really, we have it right here for ourselves when we need it. I’d like to do a little wrap up of my previous posts, so you can create the schedule for your business that you want.

    • Be Disciplined: It may seem contradictory to tell you to be disciplined when you’re actually seeking freedom, but the more disciplined you are, the more time you will have to do what you really want to be doing. Setting your work hours and planning your work days go a long way to ensuring you have time to do everything you set out to do.

    • Be Flexible: On the other hand, not everything has to be written in stone. Sometimes we take on more than we can chew. Other times, we focus on things that just don’t work and we need to make a change. Don’t be afraid to make changes that are good for you and your business.

    • Get Help: I can’t stress it enough, but don’t go it alone. If you’re doing everything, you’ll forever be chained to your computer. Hire an assistant, take on a business partner or even barter where you can.

    • Focus on What You’re Good At: When you have a team in place, it’s easy to focus on the stuff you like to do and do well. It’s much easier to stay disciplined and motivated when you get to do what you love.

    • Plant the Seeds Now: Whether you’re planning a vacation or something unexpected happens, having things in place will help you go far. That includes building your team, growing your mailing list, developing a steady stream of traffic and all the things that you need to keep your business moving along. So enjoy the rest of your summer and enjoy every moment of what you do.

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