Why Your Team Matters More Than You

Ilya Pozin, Contributor

Contrary to popular belief, the success of a business isn’t ensured by an amazing CEO or even the work of a few all-star employees — it’s all about the team. Even without your key players, your business should function without change.
In light of the recent news regarding the health of Google CEO Larry Page, companies everywhere should be considering how their business would function if their CEO stepped out of the picture. Would you “keep calm and carry on” as usual, or would your company take an irreversible stumble? One thing’s for certain: a strong team will keep you afloat in a variety of both foreseen and unforeseen situations.
The future of your company shouldn’t depend on you–whether you’re the manager, CEO, or unanimous company superstar. It depends on a well-rounded, unwavering team. But working for your team, rather than having them work for you, isn’t so simple in the heavily structured, management-focused settings companies have come to thrive in today.
Kick your bad habits and put your team first. Here are seven ways to ensure every employee is able to step up to the plate without a second thought:
1. Build a strong foundation. Set the teamwork bar high from the beginning. If your company culture and mission don’t encompass the power of team-focused efforts, there’s no way to ensure your company’s strength will lie in the team. Your employees need to know that you work for them, and not the other way around.
2. Empower your employees. Every one of your employees has something they can bring to the table. Since you work for your team, it’s your job to find out where your employees excel individually. Highlight their strengths and challenge them to set an example for others. This will not only increase their interest in staying on top of their game, but also motivate them to live up to their reputation. Even when you’re not in the office, they’re still going to want to retain their image.
3. Establish goals. You can’t have a team without a vision. Throw out the idea of your employees acting as task-doers and let them collectively achieve goals within teams. Establish your company’s teams and give each one a goal to accomplish in a short timeframe. This will allow your employees to focus on the big picture, rather than accomplishing smaller tasks. Working toward team goals will benefit your employees sense of ownership and responsibility — positively impacting your company from the inside out.
4. Learn to delegate. Place your trust in your employees. If you’re a micromanaging perfectionist, you can kiss your team-focused culture and project ownership goodbye. Set your teams on the right path by delivering the big picture message and the measurable outcomes — the rest is up to them. Your delegation efforts will allow them to work creatively to get things accomplished, and they may even surprise you in the process.
5. Let them figure it out. If you swoop in every time there’s a problem, how can your employees ever solve things on their own? Giving orders to your employees may seem easy, but it leaves them out of the decision-making process. Stop telling your employees what to do and start asking them how they would do it themselves! You will immediately increase team autonomy, responsibility, motivation, and create a powerful change in the way your employees make decisions.
6. Recognize their efforts. Praise is the key ingredient for boosting motivation and engagement. Want a more inspired team of employees? Tell them what they’re doing right and encourage them to continue onward. Too many employees think of their manager or CEO as the most critical member of the company. Remove this stereotype and be the person to give the necessary pat on the back. This also makes the occasional call for improvement easier to swallow.
7. Remove hierarchy. Your teams don’t need a manager, I promise. “All for one, one for all” should be your employees’ new motto. By removing the project manager or supervisor, your staff will feel empowered to work together as a team and the structure will form naturally. Your employees will want to go the extra mile for the good of the entire team and the accomplishment of a goal. Why? Because there’s nothing worse than letting down your entire team.
If you let the power of your business lie in the hands of one or two people, you’ll be certain to fail in their absence. Build a team-focused business to keep you afloat under any circumstance.


Source:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2013/05/22/why-your-team-matters-more-than-you/

Does Your Business Have Strategic Partners? Why Not?

Dave Lavinsky, Contributor 

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is trying to do everything alone.  To combat this error, business owners must hire and train the right employees. In addition, they should leverage strategic partners.
So what is a strategic partner? A strategic partner is another business with whom you enter into an agreement that aims to help both of you achieve more success.
Below are several types of strategic partners that you might consider for your business.

Strategic Marketing Partners
Effective marketing is one of the most important keys to a successful business.  Without a proper marketing strategy, customers will never be aware of a business or its location, products, or services.  The problem with marketing is that it can actually hurt a business if done incorrectly (for example, if adverting costs exceed gross margins from advertising).
Developing strategic marketing partners can help you grow your business at a very low cost. For example, if the partner is in a complementary business, you could refer clients between one another. Both partners would increase revenues with no additional advertising costs.

Strategic Financial Partners
Strategic partners can fill a number of financial roles.  They can be accountants, bankers, investors or financial advisers. Their purpose is to help monitor the flow of your business’ money and come up with new solutions which increase the amount of money available to you.
Revenue is the life blood of any business but keeping a constant eye on the flow of money can be a full time job.  This is why financial partners are incredibly important.

Strategic Suppliers
Nearly all businesses will end up dealing with suppliers at some time or another.  These partners can be manufacturers, distributors, or vendors and they will supply your business with everything it needs.  These needs may range from complex raw materials to simple, yet critical every day office supplies.
Developing strategic partnerships with suppliers has a number of benefits.  Working closely with suppliers will ensure that everything is delivered properly and might even lead to special discounts and lower prices. Most importantly, strategic partnerships with suppliers could result in them creating new products tailored to your specific needs that give you competitive advantage.

Strategic Technology Partners
The modern world is heavily reliant on technology and no business can hope to succeed without strategic technology partners.  These can be the people who set up and fix office computers, who design and implement office networks, who create custom software to allow your business to run more efficiently, or even the people who design and run your website.
These partners are incredibly important and developing a relationship with them ensures that your business has dedicated technology experts (particularly if technology is not your core competence) who understand the specific needs of your business.

Building Strategic Partnerships
The first step to building a strategic partnership is to identify which firms could help you achieve key goals (e.g., get more customers, lower fulfillment costs, etc.) and/or otherwise give you competitive advantage.
Then, start reaching out to these firms. While it will take time, once you secure these partnerships, your business’ revenues and profits can start to grow. And, if you make these partnerships exclusive, you can gain critical competitive advantage.

Source:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davelavinsky/2013/04/02/does-your-business-have-strategic-partners-why-not/

3 Belt-Tightening Mistakes to Avoid

By Catherine Clifford

 
With the economic recovery sputtering along, it's easy to fall into the mindset that cheaper is always better. But even when budgets are tight, there's a right and a wrong way to save money.
Trim spending in the wrong places and you can end up hurting your business in the long run, says business strategist Carol Roth, a former investment banker and the best-selling author of The Entrepreneur Equation. Here are three of most common cost-cutter mistakes:

1. Cut back on customer service. When small business owners start to get panicky about their spending, one of the first things to go is often the perks and services that you lavish on your customers. That's the last place to trim, says Roth. For example, if you own a restaurant, it may be tempting to decrease the number of servers, therefore asking the remaining servers to handle additional tables. Don't do it.


"If you are cutting back in areas where your customer is going to notice, that is a mistake," says Roth. "Your best opportunity is to maintain or beef up in the areas that are going to impact the customer."

2. Chop the marketing budget. Another common knee-jerk reaction of an anxious entrepreneur is to slash the funding designated for marketing. That won't affect your core business, right? Wrong. Eventually the economy will recover more robustly and customers will be willing to spend more freely. If you cut back on your marketing spending now, you are cutting yourself off from the new customers that will grow your business, says Roth.

Also, down periods in the economy are ripe for expanding because the rival business down the street has probably had the same impulsive reaction and reined in its marketing budget. "You don't want to pull back in an area like that, especially when your competitors are doing that, because that gives you an opportunity to poach" customers, says Roth.

3. Scrap employee perks. One way to push the bottom line higher is to cut out the Friday snack that has become a tradition in your office. Don't. It's the little things that make your employees feel valued and appreciated and keep workplace morale up. And that goes a long way toward helping your business.

"That loyalty will resonate from the inside out," says Roth. And happy employees keep your customers happy. "It is all about the customer because if you don't have customers, you don't have a business."

Small Business (Time) Management

by Michael Barry

There is a theory glazed over in every freshman economics course on the way to supply side economics and demand side – I’ve already lost you. Economics might not be your cup of tea, but the theory is worth a listen. It goes a little something like this: Should Tiger Woods mow his own lawn? That’s it. The answer is an easy one. No. He has people for that. He should be golfing. The term for that is called opportunity cost. Why is there even a theory about that? Time management is why.

Investopedia defines opportunity cost as:

The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action.

In terms of your small business, opportunity cost refers directly to the actions you perform every day that take away from what you do best – managing your business. Here are a couple quick tips to manage your time so you can get back to work.

How Do You Spend Your Time

Time is money. Wasting time is wasting money. Plain and simple. The killers of time are well known too. Whether it’s fantasy football, Facebook, or searching for that new diet, all the time you click off the clock is time you’ll wish you had later. Future you will work hard, but she’d rather it wasn’t because past you had no discipline.

Track Everything

Make a budget of the time you spend each day, each week. Keep a list, a spreadsheet, write it in the margins of last months expense report. I don’t care where you write it, but get it down on paper. The same way money disappears at Target when you go in to buy “just one thing”, time disappears when you take “just one minute” to check Twitter. By writing down what time you spend doing what tasks each day you’ll be able to see where time is going. Making the change in how you spend that time is the difficult task.

You Have a Staff – Let Them Earn Their Pay

Maybe you read that last paragraph and said “I don’t waste time on social media” but time still escapes you. I have one question for you. How much time do you spend answering phones and replying to email? These mundane tasks are productivity arsenic. Your receptionist is there for a reason. She knows the phones and your day-to-day business like the back of both hands. You are the boss man, the oracle. Be there for the big things and swing in for handshakes and phone calls when needed. You don’t see restaurant managers waiting tables. They check in and move on, confident their staff is top notch. You have more important tasks to be doing. When you consistently spend time doing mundane tasks it become second nature to start there. The same goes for the converse. Your opportunity costs are clear. Be an innovator. The big picture awaits you.

http://www.bizoffice.com/small-business-time-management/#more-1322

5 No-Cost Ideas for Generating Business

New business is the lifeblood of your organization. But generating new business can be difficult, especially if you're working on a tight budget. The good news is that stirring up new business for your company doesn't have to be expensive. In fact, with a little creativity, you can bring in new customers without spending a dime.

Here are five ideas to help get the creative juices flowing:

1. Write an article
   As the owner of a small business, it's assumed that you possess some level of industry expertise. For example, if you own a music store you probably know a little something about music. Why not put your expertise to work for your business?

Think about writing an article and having it published in a local or regional publication. Most publications are open to submissions from new writers with expertise and will be willing to mention your business in an "About the Author" paragraph at the bottom of the article. If you have expertise but lack writing ability, recruit a friend to help you craft a quality article that is informational and draws attention to your products.

2. Craft a press release
   Another way to generate publicity for your business is to generate a press release and distribute it to local media outlets. Reporters are always on the lookout for good story ideas with a local angle. You may not get a call right away, but who knows? Maybe a reporter will be in a pinch for a story idea at the exact moment she receives your press release.
3. Pursue informal reciprocal marketing agreements
   Reciprocal marketing agreements are a fantastic way for small business owners to band together to promote each other’s businesses. Find and partner with another local business that offers products and services that do not compete with your business. For example, if you own a hardware store you could partner with a flower shop.

Then agree to distribute a copy of your partner's brochure or business card along with every purchase from your store. If you are able to partner with businesses that offer complementary (but not competitive) products and services, both businesses may reap noticeable profits.

4. Send an e-mail to your existing customer base
   One of the great things about e-mail is that it is free. If your business has a mechanism to gather e-mail addresses from existing clients and customers, you may be able to generate additional business through an e-mail promotion.

Anti-spam laws make this a little tricky. However, if your customers have indicated they want to receive information about sales and promotions by e-mail, it shouldn't be a problem.

5. Give something away
   Okay, this isn't exactly free, but it can be very inexpensive. Giveaways are a tried and true staple of low-cost business generation. Maybe you have a box of printed t-shirts left over from last year's Labor Day sale. Distribute flyers announcing a one-day sale and that the first 50 customers in the door get a free t-shirt. You'll free up some space in the storage room and bring in some new business at the same time.

http://www.surepayroll.com/articles/marketing/5-free-business-promotion-ideas.asp

Ideas for Generating New Business

by Kate Smalley

One of the biggest challenges for small business owners is finding a fast, effective way to bring in new customers. That’s because most owners must wear several hats – bookkeeper, technical support representative, human resources manager and marketer. And, of course, owners must provide quality goods or services. Finding the time to market can be especially difficult if you are a one- or two-person operation.
The reality is that spending the time to market is essential to maintaining or growing a business. It helps you avoid one of the biggest pitfalls in small business: relying on a big client or two for the lion’s share of your company’s revenue.
Two things often happen in this scenario. First, business tend to provide preferential treatment to the older, bigger client rather than to smaller, new client, which may cost some business. Secondly, businesses find themselves in a tenuous position by putting most of their eggs in one basket. If the primary client leaves, the company could be economically devastated.
A healthy company always has new clients coming in the door as well as happy existing clients. You can rely on word of mouth to get those new clients on board, but usually it’s not enough. Here are three tips to help you stay on top of marketing efforts.
Get organized. Hire someone to create a database of that huge stack of business cards that you’ve been keeping in your top desk drawer. Make sure it’s a database you can easily use for emails or mailings – like your Microsoft Outlook contacts or ACT! Having all your potential customers at your fingertips is money well spent.
Once you have all your contacts input, you can send targeted e-mails or letters to your potential clients. Make the messages short and sweet, as well as informative. People look forward to getting valuable information, so give it to them. Follow up with a phone call to find out if the information was helpful and if your company can provide goods or services.
Even the busiest entrepreneur can send 20 e-mails each month and follow up with them. Schedule the time on your calendar to do it.
Create an “elevator pitch.” Try to pare down your company’s products and services to a sentence or two. Start by writing down what you do and then edit. This is a great exercise, especially if you offer a wide variety of goods and services, to help you clarify your top priorities.
Most people want to try to throw in everything they do. For example, if you’re a landscape designer, you may be tempted to talk about turf, bedding plants and terracing. Instead, tell people “I’m a landscape designer. I help people create their own backyard oasis.”
If at all possible, get specific. If you are a graphic designer, be sure to add your specialties. Don’t just say, “I’m a graphic designer.” Do say, “I’m a graphic designer specializing in e-newsletters and interactive web sites.”
Cultivate your current clients. It’s much easier and cost-effective to sell an existing customer additional services than to go out looking for new ones. That’s what makes the pitfall of having one big client so insidious – the smaller clients that you are tempted to shove to the side may actually bring in more business than your current big client if you give them the same stellar products and services.
Schedule monthly meetings with your clients to find out how you are doing and to learn what they see on the horizon for their own business. Show them how you can help fill their goals and dreams. You’ll be amazed at how much a couple of hours of your time will pay off.
Contact is the most important element of marketing. If you don’t have time to do anything else, make sure you contact at least 10-20 potential or current clients each month. Doing so will help keep that business coming in and your company healthy. 

http://www.infoservemedia.com/support/articles/generating_new_business.html

3 Bad Sleep Habits You Need to Break

by Jane Porter

As an entrepreneur focused on how to grow your business, taking the time to develop a sleep routine is probably the last thing on your mind. But some sleep advice simply can't be ignored without paying the price in productivity. Deprive yourself of quality sleep long enough and you’ll wind up chipping away at your business and health.

Here are three bad habits you'll need to break, if you want to improve the quality of your sleep: 

Bad Habit #1: You pull all-nighters then oversleep on weekends.
You've likely heard you should go to bed and get up at the same time every day to help optimize your sleep. It is advice entrepreneurs often ignore because they're busy burning the midnight oil and think they can compensate later. Think again. Experts say it's critical to keep a target sleep time in mind -- even if it's midnight -- then meet it consistently.

Why is this so important? Our bodies are extra sensitive to conditioning, says Daniel Taylor, associate professor of Psychology at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. When you go to bed and wake up at drastically different hours, you disturb your circadian rhythm—the 24-hour cycle linked to brain activity, hormone production and cell regeneration.

"It's like living on the east coast for the week, flying to the west coast for the weekend and then turning back around and flying back to the east coast on Sunday night," says Taylor. "If you do that every weekend, you're going to have problems."

Bad Habit #2: You check email in bed.
Your bed should be used for sleep and sex -- that's it, says William Kohler, medical director of the Florida Sleep Institute in Spring Hill, Fla. "The brain likes routine," he says. "When the eye sees the bed, it should be associated with sleep, not activity."

If you can't get to sleep for more than 15 or 20 minutes, Kohler suggests you get out of bed. Lying around obsessing about ideas for your business is not going to help you fall asleep. In fact, you're conditioning your brain to be awake in bed. Instead, get up and write those thoughts down on paper or maybe read a book, but don't lie down again until you're good and ready to sleep.

Bad Habit #3: You never unwind before bed.
You can't expect to fall asleep quickly when you try to go straight from work-mode to bed. Taking at least an hour each night to unplug from your day can help you sleep more soundly, says Taylor. You could use that time to take a hot shower or bath.

In fact, slightly increasing your body temperature within an hour of bed can help you get a better night of sleep, says Michael Perlis, associate professor of psychology and director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at the University of Pennsylvania. A 2008 study by researchers out of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience found that a slight increase in skin temperature before bed helps people shift into deeper stages of sleep. Of course, you should also follow the standard advice of keeping your room cool too, since the body's temperature decreases when you're snoozing.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225741

What Type of Entrepreneur Are You?

By Martin Zwilling |

Figuring out what kind of business to launch is hardly a science, but it should be considered logically.

Think about the basic entrepreneur make up. While naturally all entrepreneurs are unique under the sun, they do tend to conform with certain archetypes. Some entrepreneurs are really inventors, who view the challenges of building a business as a necessary evil. Others are really marketers who believe that they can entice customers to any offering. Some just want to change the world and make it a better place.

But why does this matter? It’s my view that if you know what your strengths are early, you’ll be better equipped to launch businesses that are more likely to survive and even thrive.

I’ve always wondered if there was some way that I could quickly deduce a new entrepreneur’s “sweet spot,” and optimize my mentoring to those strengths and weaknesses, maybe similar to the Myers-Briggs type indicator for business professionals. I just saw an interesting step in that direction via a new book “Entrepreneurial DNA,” by Joe Abraham.

His framework seems to be picking up some traction, and is already in use informally by several entrepreneurship platforms, including StartupAmerica, and CoFoundersLab. His methodology measures an entrepreneur’s fit or DNA in each of four quadrants -- Builder, Opportunist, Specialist, and Innovator (BOSI), defined at a high level as follows:

1. Builder. These entrepreneurs are the ultimate chess players in the game of business, always looking to be two or three moves ahead of the competition. They are often described as driven, focused, cold, ruthless, and calculating. Many might say Donald Trump epitomizes this category.

2. Opportunist. The Opportunist is the speculative part of the entrepreneur in all of us. It’s that part of our being that wants to be in the right place at the right time, leveraging timing to make as much money as possible. If you ever felt enticed to jump into a quick money deal, like a real-estate quick-flip, or an IPO, that was your ‘opportunist’ side talking.

3. Specialist. This entrepreneur will enter one industry and stick with it for 15 to 30 years. They build strong expertise, but often struggle to stand out in a crowded marketplace of competitors. Picture the graphic designer, the IT expert or the independent accountant or attorney.

4. Innovator. You will usually find the Innovator entrepreneur in the “lab” of the business working on their invention, recipe, concept, system or product that can be built into one or many businesses. The challenge with an Innovator is to focus as hard on the business realities as the product possibilities. Too many Innovators are like Dean Kamen, still struggling with the Segway Human Transporter, while holding 440 other device patents.

Of course, discovering your entrepreneur type is only the beginning. After that, it’s all about capitalizing on those strengths, shoring up your weaknesses and building a plan that works for you.

Overall, I see real value in using this methodology in conjunction with incubators, business accelerators and mentoring. I’m not yet convinced that anyone has a fully automated system that will nail your entrepreneurial DNA and help you succeed, despite the unpredictable business and personal realities.

But I see a real opportunity here for every entrepreneur to optimize his impact and his personal satisfaction with a minimum of effort. I challenge each of you to take a hard look at what makes you tick.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225652 

 

7 Steps for Generating New Business Opportunities Pt. 2

Step 4: Map it. Mapping your capabilities with your target clients' needs is an excellent way for you to determine your service strategy. You'll find that while you may be perfectly skilled in many areas, you're going after customers who don't need your particular expertise.

One common trait among many entrepreneurs is the urge to "cast a wide net" by being all things to all companies. In almost every case, however, a small business flourishes because it has a narrower service offering. Remember, a small company's value is that it can specialize in unique, top-quality services.

Develop a list of decision-making criteria that you expect your clients to use when choosing a provider in your industry. Then rank yourself (and be brutally honest) in terms of where you'd be positioned in each category. After this intense evaluation, make sure that your elevator pitch is still on target.

Step 5: Utilize marketing tools that work best for you. When deciding on a marketing strategy, implement one that fits your personality and the customers you serve. For instance, if you're terrified of getting up in front of a crowd, don't schedule yourself to participate on a panel in the hopes of generating business. You'll derail your efforts if you don't perform well.

Identify the top two marketing tools you've used in the past that have worked for your company. Let's say that's cold calling and a Web site. Then start adding new ideas for a fresh perspective. When selecting your marketing tools, also evaluate them from a financial and cost basis. Decide what will yield the best return on your efforts. Each tool should lead to a revenue-producing result in one way or another.

Step 6: Implement a plan of action. Up until now we've been in the planning mode, but now it's time to dig in and put it to work. Your action plan will also give you the map you can use to measure your progress.

Establish goals that can be reviewed at three and six months. At incremental points within each three-month period, keep checking your plan to see if you're meeting your goals. If you find you're missing the target, ask why. Were the tools appropriate for your target customer? Did you integrate the strategy, or did you just focus on one of the tools?

And don't forget to plug in specific actions that you'll do every day to help you meet your goals. That daily strategy will keep the goals of the plan top of mind.

Step 7: Exercise the plan. This final step is really straightforward: Just do it: Complete the daily actions, and then do something extra to accelerate your success plan. If you approach your plan and get butterflies in your stomach, either get over it or substitute an action that you're comfortable with so you stay on course. Don't let unplanned tasks waste precious time that should be applied toward reaching your goal. And most of all-enjoy the process!

Linda Kazares is the founder of Face-to-Face Connect. A committed entrepreneur with more than 25 years experience in sales, marketing and channel development, Linda is also an author, publisher and public speaker who presents seminars to entrepreneurs that focus on developing strategies for new business-building practices.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/65210

7 Steps for Generating New Business Opportunities Pt. 1

Entrepreneurs often live with the hope that if they build it, customers will come. But in today's economy, it takes a lot more than hope to get people to purchase your products or services: New business-building practices are a must if you want to expand.

Another necessary element is a clear-cut plan for growth. But many entrepreneurs get obsessed with creating the perfect plan. Or they never get around to putting one together. Crafting a plan is necessary, quick and effective. And we can show you how to do it. The following seven steps should take you no more than four hours to complete-a small price to pay for a tremendous upside. The result? A road map that will infuse new energy, enthusiasm and vision into your company's growth plans. So let's get started.

Step 1: Focus on your core product. A very successful e-newsletter entrepreneur has built his business around this mantra: "Prospects buy when they trust your value is applicable to them and believe your company is stable." This strong position allows him to constantly check up on the services and value he's providing his customers. Keep this statement in mind as we go through the rest of the seven steps, because internalizing this mantra is the key to a solid plan.

It's common in small, service businesses that the entrepreneur feels he or she must do everything the "big guys" do to compete. The truth is, small-business owners can really never compete in the same way. So it's essential for small businesses to differentiate themselves by focusing on the unique capabilities and core products they bring to prospects. Specialization is the entrepreneur's greatest asset.

Step 2: Keep your pitch simple. The last time you asked someone at a party what their company does, did you get a clear, concise response? Or did your eyes glaze over by the time they got to the end of their explanation? My guess is, it was probably the latter. Now imagine that same pitch being presented to prospects who don't have a glass of wine in their hands to distract them! It's not a pretty picture.

What every company needs is a simple "elevator pitch." That's a short, concise message that can communicate your message to a prospect in 30 seconds or less. It explains the value your product or service provides so the prospect understands why it's applicable to them.
Try this little exercise to test your pitch clarity quotient. Ask someone who doesn't know what you do to listen to your pitch. Explain what your company does, and watch for signs of fatigue-eyes watering, lids getting heavy, and so on. Of course, you may have the perfect pitch. But if you don't, you'll recognize it right away from verbal and physical responses.

Step 3: Stay true to who you are. Knowing who you are and what gets you excited (and bores you to tears) will help you reach your goals. Nothing can derail a growth plan more than discomfort and procrastination-it's simply human nature to procrastinate over things that cause discomfort. And there are dozens of daily business requirements that every business owner detests. If you're finding yourself putting things off, it's time to start delegating.

Stay true to who you are and what you do best: Hand off those tasks that will blow you off course because you don't like doing them, so you don't! Stretch and grow your capabilities in alignment with your interests and expertise. If accounting is your nemesis, hire a bookkeeper. If your personal organization is out of control, hire a temp to set up a new filing system. Always make sure that you're focused on your priority "A" tasks and delegate your Bs and Cs.

Stay tuned for more....

5 Steps to More Effective Time Management

Published December 16, 2010 by Steven Snell

Most designers and freelancers wish there was more time in the day to work. It seems like no matter how much you are able to accomplish in a day there is still more that you would like to have done. Time management is not only one of the biggest challenges for most freelance designers, but it is also a critical factor in determining the success of any freelancer or independent designer.

In this article we’ll take a look at 5 steps that you can implement to better manage your time and get more out of your working hours.

Step 1: Have a Plan for Your Time

One of the best ways to waste time is to have no plan or no priorities for what you need to accomplish in a particular day, week, or month. I’ve personally found that when I start working without a specific list of things that I need to get done, I am far less productive and I wind up working on things that aren’t very urgent or I waste the time entirely.

How you plan for your time is up to you, we all work differently. I like to work off of a to-do list on a daily basis, with items prioritized. I don’t necessarily start each morning with the highest-priority task because I am not at my best early in the morning, but I can at least start crossing off some of the minor tasks that need to get done, and then it feels better to have a to-do list with several things already crossed off the list.

Having a plan for your time is really not that difficult. If you haven’t done this in the past I recommend that you give it a try and see how it impacts your productivity. At the end of each week take a look at your progress on the projects that you have going at the moment and make a list of things that you’ll need to accomplish during the next week. Then take that list and break it down into a day-by-day list so it can be more easily managed. Each day you can work off of your list and you’ll find that you stay on task, waste very little time, and have more accomplished at the end of the day.

Step 2: Take Advantage of Your Hot Spots

Each one of us has certain times of the day when we’re able to concentrate and get more accomplished, and other times of the day when we struggle to stay focused. When I first started working from home full-time I didn’t take these natural “hot spots” in my day into consideration. I often found myself struggling to focus on the task at hand during certain times of the day and I would force myself keep working at it, but the results were usually far less than my best work, and it took me longer than it should.

After trying it that way for a while I realized that I could get more out of my time by taking advantage of my best times during the day and admitting that some hours are just not that productive for me. Instead of wasting my prime hours on things I could be doing any time, I now will plan my days to allow my best hours to be used for the tasks that will require the most focus, concentration, and/or creativity. During my weakest hours I can work on cleaning out my inbox, dealing with routine tasks, or simply take the time off. This way I can get the most out of my time, keep the most important items in focus, and still get something productive done even when I am not at my best.

Most likely, you are probably already aware of the times of day when you are at your best and worst. Take that into consideration when you are planning your time to be sure that you are maximizing what you have.

Step 3:  Recognize Your Distractions and Plan to Minimize Them

There are a lot of things that can be distracting to freelance designers. Often the distractions are actually necessary parts of the business, but they can just be an inconvenience. For example, most freelancers communicate with clients and potential clients primarily through email, so this is of course a part of your daily life. But email can often be a distraction because it can break up your time and get you off track.

Email is just one example. There are plenty of other potential distractions, like Twitter, obsessively watching stats, noise in or around your office, phone calls, etc. In order to get the most out of your working time you will need to recognize the things that are most distracting to you, and you must work to minimize their impact on the productivity of your time.

If your distraction is something that is a necessary part of your business that is a little bit out of control, like email or Twitter, you can help the situation by keeping those tasks contained to certain time periods within your day. Instead of having your email open all day and seeing each message the moment it arrives, you could set up a time each morning and each afternoon to deal with email, then close it for the rest of the day while you are working.

If your distraction is the phone you could do something similar by letting calls go to your voice mail (unless it is an emergency) and have a designated time to check the messages and return calls. If your distraction is a noisy house surrounding your home office you could plan your time so that your most important working hours are when your kids are sleeping, at school, or doing something else that is not overly distracting to you.

Regardless of what tends to be a distraction to you, finding a way to minimize or work around those distractions is key to getting the most out of your time.

Step 4: Cut Back on Your Hours

Most freelance designers tend to work long hours, especially when deadlines are looming. Although it is tempting to simply work more hours in order to get everything done, this can often be detrimental to your productivity and efficiency. We all need some time away from work, so working more hours isn’t usually the best answer.

Cutting back on your working hours will force you to prioritize and to manage your time more effectively, or you won’t be able to accomplish everything that needs to be done. If working longer hours is generally your answer when you have too many things on your to-do list, try going the other way and reducing your hours.

I’ve found in my own work that having a definitive ending point to the day helps to keep me on task and progressing towards the completion of everything the needs to get done. For example, if I know I am stopping work at 5:00 I have an end in sight that pushes me to work efficiently and effectively throughout the day. On days when I decide I will just work until I get everything done, whenever that may be, I find that I wind up progressing much slower because I do not have the same sense of urgency. In the end I often work longer hours on those days while accomplishing less.

Reducing your hours will also help to keep you fresh and it will be easier to focus on the task at hand, allowing you to get more out of your working hours. Of course, you’ll want to consider your hot spots to make sure that you are not eliminating your best hours when you are reducing the amount that you are working. This is probably the most difficult of these 5 steps for most of us, but it is important if you are going to focus on the long-term and to avoid burnout.

Step 5: Evaluate

Evaluating your use of time is also a critical aspect of time management. Every now and then it is good to step back and look at your typical process for going about your work, and try to identify some things that can be changed to improve efficiency. It’s easy to develop habits and without even realizing it you can get stuck in the rut of doing things in a less than optimal way.
There are plenty of apps available to help you with tracking your time so that you can recognize areas for potential improvement. Some leading options include Klok, Rescue Time, SlimTimer, and Manic Time.