by Karen Petrauskas | Dec 19, 2017
Everyone wants to accomplish as much as they can in the quickest time frame but often this comes at a price. Being quicker at something is not always the most effective way and can often lead to a negative result at the expense of your business.
Being productive at work, whether you are an employee in an office, a freelancer working from home or an entrepreneur starting a small business, it is an important aspect to learn if you want to be successful.
If this is you and you’re looking for tips on being more productive in the work place, then take a look at our short list of things to think about to achieve productivity.
Learn to say no
If you’re a small business owner or freelancer just starting out, you may feel that you have to accept and tackle every job that comes your way. But you don’t have to! How important is the quality of your work? This should be at the top of the list in terms of business objectives and if this is compromised at any time, it will have a knock-on effect in your business.
Learning to delegate or working with others could be a solution if you are finding that there is just not enough time in the day. Delegation is not a way of giving up or defeat – it’s a way of managing a growing situation that you know could be handled better.
Start with tasks that you know are time-consuming or you simply don’t have time for but you know they have to be done. Hire a Virtual Assistant for those small takes, just a few hours a week and be assured that they will be completed whilst you focus on other parts of your business.
Say no to other jobs that you simply cannot fit into the puzzle. It is better to say no than to do a bad job – word of mouth and reputation is extremely important for any business, especially a small business that is trying to grow. If it’s a job that you know fits with your business but you personally don’t have time – is it something that you could hire a freelancer / virtual assistant for?
It’s about working out a way of managing your time and workload and staying focused on what you enjoy in your business.
Prioritise
We all have a hundred and one things on our to-do list and as the above point, there are times that we have to say no. However there are also times that we need to prioritise what we are doing and put order into our days.
Prioritise the work that comes in, work through tasks in order of importance. Often a good tip is to complete the tasks that take the most amount of time first, knowing that once that is done, you’ll have more time to focus on the rest.
Use lists to help you with your workload. Wunderlist is a great app that you can use on the go and will sync with your laptop so wherever you are you’ll be able to see what needs doing and what you have completed. It may seem tedious to start with but when you get the hang of working with lists and prioritising the tasks on them, your working week will become more manageable and you’ll be able to see what comes next each step of the way.
Manage your time
It’s extremely easy to get side-tracked and start one thing and then start something else halfway through. Managing your time properly will enable you to know how much time you spend on each task (especially useful for freelancers or virtual assistants who charge per hour) and help you to work to deadlines more efficiently.
Using your lists, work through your workload in order. If you’re charging per hour, be sure to use a stop clock or online app that helps you track exactly what time you are using.
Using an online calendar is also a great way of ensuring that you stick to your timeframes and with reminders being set, you can be sure to get each task done as and when they are required. Don’t forget to schedule phone calls or meetings into your calendar as this is time away from your day that you have planned to complete other work. Along with this comes scheduling time to check emails and messages. This should all form part of your daily lists and be entered into your calendar. It may sound silly but actually managing your time effectively means you need to know where all your time is being spent – and this is a great way of keeping track.
If you work from home and have family commitments, have your desk ready for working when you come home from the school run and then you know that you’re ready for business from that point on. Discipline is very important when working away from an office and getting in to a routine takes practice but is definitely worth it.
Stop multitasking
May sound an odd thing to put on this list as multitasking is often taught to be a good thing. But multitasking can often lead to mistakes and work not being produced to a high standard.
Use your lists and your priorities to organise your work load and work on one thing at a time to produce great results that clients will be sure to recommend you for.
Less is more when it comes to your productivity in the workplace – get tasks done more effectively and efficiently by not multitasking at work.
Take breaks
Yes, you want to get more done and you have a ton of things on your to-do list … but being productive is about time management managing your workload well. If you schedule breaks into your working day, it will enable your mind to re-focus and re-charge.
Grab a snack or a coffee, perhaps go for a walk and get some fresh air and definitely step away from your screen! Allow your body to have a break, ready to come back refreshed and ready to start again. This will make you more effective in your work.
There are many more things we could add to this list but remember that your business is your livelihood, it is a part of you and in order for your business to grow and to be successful, you need to a good reputation and your recommendations matter. Staying on top of your workload and being more productive at work will bring great benefits to you, health wise and also to your business.
If you’d looking for a helping hand in achieving any of the above or are looking for a Virtual Assistant to be your pair of helping hands, then get in touch!
by Karen Petrauskas | Dec 12, 2017
Everyone is trying to get a piece of the action and when it comes to social media marketing, you need to get yourself heard.
For us here at KJP Creative, we believe that one way to ensure that will happen is to hire someone that knows the industry and can get your business where it should be – but – if you’ve not got the budget or would rather have a go yourself, here’s a few tips to help boost your social media performance.
Firstly, social media is all about building relationships and creating engagement. Creating engagement means that people are interested in your services and product and they have started their customer experience with your brand. Maintaining that trust and building up to be somewhere that a customer actually wants to buy from is your goal whilst being a place of information and advice for that customer also.
Most people will research a product or service prior to buying, therefore, it is vital that you provide an excellent customer experience right from the beginning to enable that customer to come back for more.
Provide value
Always focus on providing value. If someone is doing their research properly, anyone will see through a business that doesn’t really know what they are talking about. A few good quotes here and there may seem pleasant but is there really knowledge and understanding of what the customer really wants beneath it all?
Ensure that your social streams are backed with plenty of industry related content and posts that you personally relate to as well. People don’t want to be inundated with irrelevant news – they will follow and engage with you if you provide value for what they need.
Using a content curation programme can make life easier when you’re searching for content. A person can spend hours (we’ve all been there and done that!) looking for posts that relate to your industry. Using a content curation feed will make finding relevant articles so much easier and will be much more time efficient.
Here’s a few for you to take a look at to get started:
Create a posting strategy
It’s all well and good posting every now and again when you’ve got time to sit down and find content but how much more effective would your social media platforms be if they were planned out and there was content being added daily? More people would see your presence, you’ll have more of an impact and you’re more likely to be seen by a wider audience which in turn will mean that your engagement will increase. The more you post, the more likely you’re going to get in front of your ideal clients.
Think about the type of content you want to use. Think about the different sources you might have and work out a strategy that can incorporate these. For example, if you have your own blog feed, schedule one of these posts once a day. If you want to use quotes, add one quote a day to the mix. The using your curated content, add one post a day… or however often you think appropriate to post, schedule content to these timeframes.
Work out what times of day are best for your ideal audience. Are they are work during the day, perhaps an evening might be better? Are you aiming at businesses – then first thing in the morning might be better? Test different times of day to find which times are good to gain the most engagement.
Use a social media management programme
You’ve now got your content organised and you know where you are pulling your content from, so now is the time to find a social media management programme that will allow you to schedule these posts in advance. No one has time to jump on to their social media platforms 5 times a day to post!
Again, this will make your life so much easier and will allow you to rest assured that your content is being shared on your social media channels and you can get on with other parts of your business.
Here are a few social media management platforms that we can recommend:
Make Your Content Visual
Visuals gain more engagement over text posts (that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use text). But looking through a social media feed and seeing visuals will strike more appealing for the majority of your audience. Therefore, you need to get creative!
There are 3 main types of visuals:
Using any three of these will boost your social media performance and will encourage people to share and engage with your content.
If you’ve got products to show, use an image rather than just talking about it. If you’re promoting an event, create a image to advertise the event. Even if you want to share a quote – add it to a nice background and make it look attractive. More people will share your content if it looks good enough to share!
Creating images are one thing and you may be thinking that videos are too tricky for you to tackle. They don’t have to be. Why not try a live Facebook video introducing your staff or showing off your products? Or perhaps you’ve got story to tell, add a quick snippet to your Instagram feed. People love to watch videos – you’ll be surprised at the engagement they have when you put them in your social media feeds.
And GIFs? This may be something that you haven’t even touched upon yet. Don’t be scared of them, they are extremely popular at the moment and are overtaking static images. GIFs can be created in a number of ways but first off if you’re not that tech savvy, you can head over to somewhere like Gify.com and get started there. If you have a number of static images, you can make them into a rotating slideshow. If you’ve got some drawings you’ve put together, you can make them move! If you’ve got a video that you’ve made but only want to show a few seconds of it, you can upload it and snip it down. They are very simple to create and will be very effective in your marketing. If you’re not comfortable in creating your own GIF, then there are an array of ones to choose from depending on what subject you are looking for.
If you’ve not yet tried them – have a go!
The above are just a few ways to boost your social media performance but remember that the more you engage with your customers, the more they will engage with you. The more opportunity you give your customers to see and hear your branded voice, the more opportunity you have at reaching them.
Social media is about being ‘social’ so get stuck in and promote your business in the best way you can.
If you’re just starting out in business, or you’re a small business owner with not enough time in the day to do social media effectively, then get in touch. We have standard, affordable packages available to get you started or more bespoke packages if you’re looking for something a little different.
We’d love help so contact us today!
by Karen Petrauskas | Dec 5, 2017
Whether you are a sole trader, freelancer, entrepreneur or small business, branding is the key to building your business and creating an awareness of your product and services. Without branding your business properly, you are limiting your career opportunities and business growth.
Branding is about building a reputation that goes above and beyond, allowing you to market your business as a trustworthy, reputable, growing organisation.
Your brand is your promise to your customers, it stands you apart from your competition and allows to create your own image to show what you have to offer.
Simply ‘existing’ is not going to grow your business, you need to step out of the boat and promote your services – using your brand identity.
Here are a few tips to create your brand identity for you and your business…
Become an expert in your industry
Learn, learn, learn. Be knowledgeable about your industry and be aware of everything that is going on in your niche. This doesn’t have to be hard work; using Google alerts or using a platform like Feedly can keep fresh information coming in daily, giving you resources to be able to stay up to date. Education is key to show people that you mean business and you do know and understand your market.
Start networking – brand awareness
This doesn’t have to be completely online. Remember those business cards you’ve got stuffed away in a drawer? Keep them in your wallet and when you meet someone and get chatting about what you do, you’ll have a business card handy to be able to share your services.
Find a networking group, whether that be a physical group that you attend or an online Facebook group – start to build contacts around you where you can share your knowledge and talk about your business. People can learn from what you have to offer and if your industry knowledge is good – you’ll portray a good business image for those you come in contact with.
Build an online presence
It goes without saying that a modern business needs to be online, everyone who looks for a service or product more than likely will do a Google search for what they are looking for. Therefore, you need to be online.
Social media. Ensure that all your social media accounts show a professional, trustworthy image of your what you and your business are about. You may choose to separate your business and your personal profiles but be sure to keep your personal accounts professional too. If people know and search for your name rather than your business, you need to look like you can offer the service or product that you have promised. Remember that once on the internet, always on the internet! If you are serious about building a business and want to be seen as professional, your personal profiles need to show this image too.
Start blogging
Blogging is a great way to express yourself but it’s also a great way to get your voice heard. Blogging for your business is great for SEO and a way for your brand to seen. Incorporate your blog into your business branding and write as you want your business to be portrayed. Even blogging for personal enjoyment is great, just link back to your company to ensure that it gets seen by the right people.
If you want to blog outside of your business, use LinkedIn to create articles and get exposure to industry linked people. You can mention your business within your article or simply allow people to see your company through your profile. Either way, you are the voice of your business – make it be heard!
Don’t forget that branding is one of the most important aspects to any business, whether that be a big or small business.
On top of all the important points listed above, your brand is recognised by your logo. Your colour scheme, fonts, packaging and promotional material should all be recognised by your logo. Ensure that your business branding is professional and in line with your values and how you want your business to be seen. Then use your branding in everything you do.
People will soon notice you, your business will be recognised and the more you step out and push forward with growing your business, the more powerful your brand will become.
Be true to your branding, be true to what you believe and the rest will follow.
If you’d like advice on branding or would like to look at a strategy for your business, feel free to get in touch!
by Karen Petrauskas | Nov 30, 2017
Keeping a blog up to date and keeping on top of it takes time and effort but is extremely valuable when it comes to your business.
Putting measures in place for your brand to become noticed and for your sales to increase, is a good step in growing and expanding your business. Everyone wants their business to expand and to be successful but not everyone manages to achieve this or has the knowledge in how to drive it forward to achieve results.
There are several reasons why it’s important to keep a blog for your business and to keep it updated regularly so let’s take a look at them …
- Increase brand awareness
- Be seen as a thought leader
- SEO
- Adds value to your business
Brand awareness
The more you write and the more you share your blog posts online, the more people are going to hear about your business. Your ultimate goal is to see your business grow and therefore you want people to hear about you and your brand.
When you write a blog post, you have an instant piece of information to share on social media, to share with your network and for people to hear about you.
Shout about it! Share it across all the platforms that your business uses, share it on you personal profiles, if you have employees, encourage them to share the company posts… The more it gets shared, the more your business will get seen.
Expertise and recognition
The more you write about topics that your business deals with and you share your knowledge about a certain topic, the more you will become and been seen by others, as an expert in your field, in your industry.
Write blog posts about topics that you know your audience will want to hear about and try to answer solutions to what they might be less knowledgeable about.
The best way to grow a business is to solve a problem. People want answers and they want them instantly. Research about what your ideal audience are trying to achieve or what they are looking for and write about it!
The further you go with keeping your blog updated and are able to provide solutions in order to help others, or to provide valuable tips and advice, the more you will be seen as a thought leader. This will result in more people visiting your site and in turn, if you’re marketing correctly, more sales.
SEO
Search engine optimisation is a very important step in a successful website and for your business to be found on Google or any another search engine, it needs to have good SEO. According to HubSpot, 80% of a websites traffic comes from a search query, so your SEO is extremely important and not to be overlooked.
You may have a great looking website and everyone looks fantastic within that, but what is the point of it if it doesn’t gain any traffic? If no one visits your website then you are putting a lot of effort in for no reason.
Writing a blog post or keeping your website updated on a regular basis shows the search engines that you are maintaining your site, that you are looking after it by updating it and that adding valuable information for people to search for and read.
Google scans through websites and will determine which websites will be shown at the top of searches. Simply filling a web page with lots of images does not give Google information to be able to use in their listings… Valuable and meaningful information will please Google. Obviously there is a lot more that goes into SEO that we can go into another time but having good structure and updated content within your website is a good start.
Adds value
Adding a blog to your website enables a researcher to see what you as a company can offer.
If there are two websites offering the same product or service but one showed knowledge and offers advice and the other website was a static one-page information sheet, you could probably make an assumption that the buyer would choose the first option.
Add value to your business, show your potential clients (and also your current clients) that you value your business and you are proving what you have to offer.
As we mentioned in the beginning, we understand that keeping a blog is time consuming and takes a lot of time to do properly and correctly. If a blog is started, it’s a good idea to keep it going rather than letting it fizzle out, to keep the above points valid.
Here at KJP Creative we offer content creation packages so you don’t have to worry about finding the time to write yourself. Get in touch if you’d like to find out more!
by Karen Petrauskas | Nov 24, 2017
Any time of year is a busy time for a small business or a budding entrepreneur. With the run up to Christmas it could prove to be an extremely busier time.
A virtual assistant is a perfect pair of helping hands to provide your business an extra aid in times like these.
There are many things a virtual assistant could do for you but it’s best to work out tasks or projects take up your most valuable time and at the same time are tasks that could be passed to someone else to ease the pressure from you.
What could a virtual assistant do for you?
- Emails
- Social media management
- Diary management
- Follow ups and bookings
- Newsletters and email marketing
Check your emails and inbox
How much time do you spend checking back to your inbox and then getting drawn into reading junk mail or responding a bulk of emails that actually all asked the same question?
How much time is taken up by you checking and responding to emails that could be used much more wisely and adding value to your business?
Having a virtual assistant check your emails throughout the day will ease this pressure from you. They can alert and forward you emails that they are unable to respond to without your guidance (perhaps in time they will be able to know how you like your emails done) and send them to you at set intervals during the day, as to not disturb you.
If you spend a little time at the beginning with your virtual assistant, they can set up some template responses so they know how to respond to certain types of emails and not have to bother you.
Social media management
This is often a very time-consuming task for one small business owner, and a task that gets forgotten or left behind when there’s not much time to allocate. This can be detrimental to your business growth as online marketing is a definite necessity if you’re wanting to see your business grown and fit with competition.
If you’re worried about someone taking on this task as you believe that you have the business ‘voice’ and are unsure on the tone that a VA would use, spend time with them initially making notes on how you’d like it to run. A virtual assistant who specialises in social media management is a very valuable tool as they would have gained the knowledge and kept up to date with trends and the latest news…. Social media moves very quickly as is an ever growing market.
You could agree on a schedule that happens daily, agree on the platforms that are to be used and ensure that you’re happy with the content that is being used… But learn to let go and let an expert take this task from you.
You will be amazed at how much time is given back to you by not having this task to think about!
Diary Management
Imagine the scenario – you’ve come to work Monday morning and you know you’ve got a busy week ahead. A quick call or email with your virtual assistant and they could give you a running of order how you are seeing, what calls you’ve got to make and how your day is looking. Simple. No need for you to route through your emails trying to find the address of where you’re meeting for lunch. No need to spend time sifting through text messages to find the number of the new contact you’ve got to ring at 2pm… it’s all there in an email for you.
This process could be done on a daily or weekly basis if you had a VA to hand.
Follow ups and Bookings
Following on from the many emails and calls you get on a weekly basis, your virtual assistant could be scheduling new meetings or following up on enquiries that you’ve received. If you’re a small business owner, you won’t have time for everything. Small tasks like this are easy to pass over. You have the control when all details are passed back to you and you can see what meetings have been booked or who needs an extra phonecall to keep them sweet. But having that first step of the process taken away from you will free up a lot of time.
Email / marketing newsletters
You have a list of customers and potential customers, you have a list of people that have contacted you through social media or general enquirers … So use this list to reach out to deliver more sales.
You know it’s a task that should be done regularly and one that often shows good results – but not having the time pushes this important task to one side. Time for a VA to step in and manage this for you!
Newsletters can be designed, templates made for ongoing communications and then various content added on a monthly or quarterly basis to engage with those potential new sales.
You could ask a VA to set up a sales funnel for you so when someone makes an enquiry, an automatic email is sent to them which is then followed by further emails down the line to keep their interest.
Don’t’ try and do everything yourself. Small businesses or entrepreneurs often struggle with time management and become stressed or worn out from trying to do too much themselves.
All these tasks are jobs that a virtual assistant could do for you.
Here at KJP Creative we offer structured packages to make the process swift, easy and affordable. Pay for the time you need an assistant – that’s all!
If you’d like to find our more, get in touch for a free consultation.
