productivity – Page 7 – Michele Christensen

The key to implementing a lot of things

When I talk to new solopreneur business owners, a common theme is overwhelm at all there is to implement and later maintain. These new solopreneurs are right, there is a lot to implement and maintain to create a successful business. Just to name a few, there are:

A website
Other components of web presence such as social media profiles and directory listings
Banking, payment and billing systems
Print material such as business cards, brochures and flyers
An email newsletter
A physical filing system
Bookkeeping

These are just a few of the projects that new solopreneur business owners need to tackle – there are many more, which is why it can seem like a daunting work load.

There is one critical key to getting all of these projects implemented, and that is to do things one at a time. If you are anything like me and most people, you’ll want all of this done right now. We see people with robust, established businesses and start trying to create that for ourselves yesterday. The reality is though, that people with established businesses didn’t get there overnight. They started somewhere and chugged away at adding things to get where they are today. No matter where you are in building your business, this is one of the best ways to make sure you get where you need to be.

I realize that this is not a glamorous, exciting take on building a business. Some people may be able to jump right in and have all of this done fast but that’s not the norm. When you see a business you’d like to resemble, see how long they’ve been around before you start thinking you’re coming up short.

Along the way, it might be tempting to jump into things too soon. If you are drawn to entrepreneurship, you probably have “bright, shiny object syndrome” which means new ideas and projects pull you like a siren song. It’s especially tempting when you are in the thick of implementing something and it’s gotten boring but isn’t done. Along comes the next new thing and it’s fresh and exciting, and we’re tempted to abandon the half-done project for the new one. Don’t give in! Anything you take on will only produce results when it’s done, so if you keep jumping to new projects without finishing the old ones you won’t get the results you want.

Have you been tempted into a bunch of half-done projects? How did you get some of them done? What’s worked for you in building your business? Tell me about it in the comments.

Save time when scheduling

(Update: 10/9/13: Several items in this post have changed since I originally wrote it. I still use and love Timetrade, but it’s now offered on a freemium model and the pricing is different than I describe. It also integrates with iCal now and they’ve added a lot more features. The general reasons I love this tool are still the same.)

If you work by appointment, you know that scheduling can be tough! In the early days of my business, someone would request an appointment and I’d send them 3 or so choices. Then, I’d have to hold those choices open until I heard back from them. If another client wanted to schedule, I’d have to come up with a set of different choices for that client or put them on hold until I heard from the first client. In the meantime, client number 2 has to put his or her appointment setting on hold until they hear from me. What a mess!

I’m so much happier with my scheduling process now that I use an automated scheduling tool. What is an automated scheduling tool? It allows anyone to whom I’ve given a link to self-schedule their appointment at a time when they know I’m available. I get great feedback on my scheduling process and I can’t even guess at how much time it’s saved me and the people looking to schedule with me.

There are several choices for an automated scheduling tool, and the one I use is Timetrade (timetrade.com). After a free trial, it’s about $30 per year and well worth it. Once you sign up, you link Timetrade to your Outlook or Google calendar and set up some rules for appointments such as the days and times you will accept appointments. Timetrade will then offer appointments that follow your rules and are not already taken by another appointment. Visitors do not see what you are doing when you aren’t available.

I work in 15-, 30- and 60-minute sessions by phone or Skype, so each of these choices has its own scheduling page (called “activities” in Timetrade). If a person has purchased a bundle of 30-minute sessions, I give them the pages where they can schedule a 30-minute call or Skype session. Because of the way the system is set up, the visitor can only schedule a 30-minute session which leads to fewer mistakes and rescheduled appointments.

Another great use for an automated scheduler is to avoid playing phone tag! People are so busy and a lot of productive people I know don’t answer their phone whenever it rings to it can be really hard to connect. If I want to talk to someone, I send them to a page where we can schedule a quick phone call at a time that works best for both of us.

There are other great scheduling tools available, so look for the one that will work best for you. The one feature that was non-negotiable for me was using a tool that eliminates back-and-forth. One scheduling tool I tried requires visitors to send you two options of when they want to meet. You then have to get the email, review it and pick one before the appointment is confirmed. This defeats one of the main purposes of using a scheduling tool. I much prefer that my clients and callers can book and confirm an appointment on the spot. Timetrade also sends a confirmation email without requiring your visitor to have an account.

Timetrade is just one of 32 resources I share in my Solopreneur Success Rolodex. Grab your own copy by clicking here and save yourself some headaches!

How to get people to respond to your calls to action

As solopreneurs, we are often asking people to take action in some way. The most obvious way is to make a purchase, but there are other things we want people

How solopreneurs can encourage responses to a call to action — How solopreneurs can create a compelling call to action

to do such as enter an email, download a report, answer a question or take a survey. How do you get people to respond to a non-sales call to action?

First, make it obvious what you want them to do and why they should do it. I cringe when I see someone I’ve never heard of saying “Like my Facebook page.” They got the first part right – it’s very clear what they want. But why would I do that? If I’ve never heard of the person why would I waste even a few seconds checking their page out without more information? A better choice might be something like “Like my Facebook page for daily tips on training your rescue dog.” Now I know what they offer on the page and can make a quick decision as to whether it’s for me. The only exception to this would be celebrities, sports figures, politicians, etc who are innately interesting to their fans.

Second, make it easy. People don’t have the time or attention span to read complex instructions on your calls to action. What you are asking them to do should be easy – click a button, enter an email, fill out a survey, etc. The most difficult request I’ve seen was someone asking for 5 questions to be submitted via Twitter direct message. The person was gathering information, so other than helping him or her there was no incentive to the reader. They didn’t ask for only 1 question, they wanted 5. Twitter direct messages are one of the more inconvenient way to submit questions as well. If you’re asking for help or feedback, make it really easy for people to jump in and do it.

Third, offer a thank you for their help. Don’t make it too enticing or you may get people doing what you ask just for the reward. If you are trying to survey your market, this might skew the results or you might get people just slopping their way through whatever you ask for just to get the reward. For ideas, you could offer a free downloadable product or one of my favorites, offer to mention them in a tweet. I was thrilled to complete a survey for someone who offered to thank you in a tweet to her tens of thousands of Twitter followers.

Don’t be afraid to ask people to help you or to do something. Just make it obvious, easy and rewarding for them to do so.

Have you ever had a successful call to action? What made it a success?

Should solopreneurs say yes to every opportunity?

Strategy helps solopreneurs choose events wisely — Think strategically when choosing which events to attend for your solopreneur business

I was with a friend over the weekend, and she mentioned an event that she was going to and thought I’d be interested in attending as well. She had told me about it a few years ago and I checked it out and decided it wasn’t for me at this time. When I told her so, she was absolutely stunned! Here she was, presenting me with what seemed like a golden opportunity and I was turning it down. Her thinking was that my business must be at capacity or otherwise I’d be going, but that wasn’t my reason.

The reason I wasn’t going comes down to the #1 thing business owners must have to succeed: strategy. Strategy is everything in a business. It means that everything you do is intentional and has a purpose that contributes to your success. For live events, strategy doesn’t mean going to any and every event that is open to you and hoping that it will help. Strategy means having a specific aim in mind for attending events, and a specific type of person you want to meet. To show how having a strategy guides decision making, I’ll tell you why I turned this event down.

For my business strategy, if I’m going to an event to meet potential clients then the event audience should have some correlation to what I do. There should be something about the event that attracts people who have or want their own solopreneur business. The event my friend invited me to was more or less a random assortment of the public. There was no attraction specifically for the people I feel most called to serve, solopreneurs.

The second factor that led to my decision is that this event required 5 to 8 hours on a Saturday plus prep time. This is a massive chunk of time to spend in an untargeted manner. There was also no guarantee you’d actually get any time in front of anyone. The event is run in a very free-form manner, and people may or may not enter your room when you give a talk and they can come and go as they please during the talk. This isn’t conducive to sharing anything of value with anyone.

The final factor to consider is that I live in the Los Angeles area, and there are dozens of events every week. I haven’t even begun to attend all the events I could that would possibly have people interested in what I do. Until I’ve made a considerable showing at those events, it simply doesn’t make sense to go to an event filled with random people.

It’s easy to pulled off course if you don’t have pre-set goals and strategy. Having those in mind helps guide your decisions and give you something to measure your success.

Have you set your goals for the year and your strategy for achieving them? Tell me about it in the comments – I’d love to hear how strategy helps you or if it doesn’t. If you don’t have a strategy yet, let’s talk and start setting one up. Click here to schedule a call with me.

Realigning my solopreneur business priorities

Solopreneur priorities will evolve over time — Your priorities as a solopreneur will change over time

Over the long haul, your solopreneur business will change. You’ll go through phases, changing interests and maybe even a change of focus. Instead of being surprised, try to expect this and know that it’s normal.

On of my ongoing evolutions is how I prioritize my time. I’ve spent many, many hours learning in the last two years. I absolutely love to learn new things, and as a coach and consultant it’s vital to my business that I keep my knowledge current. I’ve sampled the work of dozens of coaches and mentors with both paid and free information. Something has shifted for me in the last few months though. I’ve become impatient and felt a tug to be doing more. When I looked at how I spend my time, I realized that I was spending too much time learning and not enough time implementing. Sound familiar?

Many solopreneurs fall into this trap. Sometimes it’s fear of moving ahead because we think we don’t yet know enough. Sometimes learning can be a procrastination tool – it’s easy to sit and listen to a webinar or recording but actually creating something can be hard and tedious. For me, I think learning is just so exciting and inspiring that I want to do a lot of it because I love it.

When I first started to prioritize learning about 2 years ago, it was the right choice. I did need to up my skill set and knowledge both for my own business and for my clients. There came a point in the last few months though, where I would get impatient during my daily study sessions. It was almost a feeling of “enough already, go do something!”

It wasn’t until I set aside some quiet time and took a look at my time and priorities and did some realigning. The main thing I shifted was to change the balance between learning and doing. Up until now, it’s been mostly learn with a little doing. Now I’m aiming for mostly doing with some learning.

The reality is that you’ll never know everything about running a solopreneur business. There will always be lots more to learn. There will come a point though, when more learning needs to be balanced out with more doing. Continuing to study without using what you are learning will not help your business. I think sometimes the sheer volume of information available to us plays on our insecurities. It seems like since we know such a small portion of what we could know that we couldn’t possibly know enough to run a business. Don’t believe it though!

Have you been learning without doing? Is it time for a shift? Tell me about it in the comments.

Solopreneurs, what’s your theme for 2012?

Solopreneur business owners can focus on one theme for the year — What's your theme for your solopreneur business in 2012?

What is next year about for your solopreneur business?

Like many successful solopreneurs I know, I choose a theme for each year. Some people pick an inspiring word like growth, action, or fearlessness. I’ve been choosing one big, overarching area that needs improvement for my big project of the year. In 2011, my theme was “expand my online business.” Before this effort, I had a website that functioned as more of an online brochure and newsletter sign up. I was getting one-on-one clients and group gigs mainly via personal connections. Beginning in 2010, I began to learn how to use the internet to promote my business. By the time 2011 rolled around, I was ready to get to work.

It’s been a great year and I’m really happy with the results. I’ve got a full website that functions well, my online presence is fleshed out and ready for more, and I’m finishing my first information product that will be sold from my website. Mission accomplished!

Even though I help others improve their business, I regularly get help too! Nobody can be as successful by themselves as they can with the guidance of a coach or mentor. Expanding my online presence was something I definitely wanted help with and I used two main sources for that help.

The first person I got help from was Kathleen Gage in the form of her 1-year Street Smarts Marketing VIP Club. You get one lesson a week covering just about everything you need to know about online marketing, and the lessons build on each other. At $27 per month, it’s very affordable and the value is great. If you’re interested, here is the link: Street Smarts VIP Club.

The other person I got help from is Alicia Forest. I first purchased her “21 Easy and Essential Steps to Online Success” in the spring. This is like a handbook for setting up the online part of your business. I had so much success with that program that I attended her live event the “Online Business Breakthrough Workshop.” This was an inspiring, motivating, action-oriented 3-day workshop where we learned in-depth strategies to building an online business. By the way, I’m an affiliate for both Kathleen and Alicia since I love their work so much.

2012 is the year of my signature system. I first sketched out my unique signature system at the Online Business Breakthrough Workshop in the fall. Since then, I’ve added lots of details as they come to me, but this year the goal will be to write all the text and have it for sale. Once that happens, I’ll probably add some more products and programs that use my signature system. If you’re curious, my signature system lays out the steps to set up a successful solopreneur business, i.e. to take what you know and make a profitable business with it.

If you’re not familiar with the idea of a signature system, it’s a way to package the knowledge you use with every client. Some of what you do is unique to each individual, but if you give it some thought, you’ll probably find that you say and do some of the same things with each person you work with. It was really enlightening to discover those steps in my work. Now when I’m working with someone, I can often see more clearly what they are missing in their business.

If you haven’t already done it, why not pick a them for 2012? I’d love to help you with this – click here to schedule a Quickcall with me. If you have a them for 2012, share it in the comments.

Internal deadlines help with solopreneur time management

Internal deadlines can help solopreneurs get more done — When working alone, solopreneurs can create their own deadlines

I was working on a sales page for a product I’ll be introducing soon, and was reminded again of how important it is to use internal deadlines for projects that tend to creep. You see, I took an amazing copy writing and marketing course last year and wanted to apply all the elements of the thorough process I learned. But that would have required 1 or 2 days of work and this is a very low-priced product. I though about slapping up a quick few paragraphs but that didn’t feel right either. I decided on a deadline of 1 hour for an initial draft and committed to using just some of the techniques I learned not the entire process, and low and behold I finished it.

What is great about internal deadlines, whether they are a date or a length of time, is that they force you to access how important a project is and how much income potential it has. In my case, I realized that I would have to sell a lot of copies of my product to make those extra hours spent writing copy to pay off. Sure, my less-polished copy probably won’t sell as much as really great copy but I’m betting that I’ll come out ahead with my approach.

When I started this project, I quickly saw myself slipping into a quagmire of continuous improvement but never getting done. With some projects, you have a clear idea of “done” but with something like this the temptation is to keep investing time because it keeps getting better. At some point, you have to look at the trade-off of quality and time and see if it’s really worth it. Will 5 more hours spent generate enough additional sales to make it worth it? Often, the answer is no.

This is valuable for almost any project. Start with a clear idea of what you hope to accomplish by doing the project and then decide how much time is appropriate to invest in it. Make sure the time is proportionate to the benefit, then stick to your limit. You can always go back and put more time into something and make it better, but once time is spent it’s gone. Don’t overestimate how much impact something will have and invest too much time in it. At the same time, don’t do a half-baked job on something critical. In this example, I spent a lot of time on the actual product because people are paying for it and I want them absolutely wowed. But the sales letter? That needs to be good enough to communicate the value of the product to the people for whom it’s right. It doesn’t need to win awards or be the best ever.

What do you spend too much time on? Come on, be honest and tell me about it in the comments.

The biggest asset in your solopreneur business

Sometimes I post about things that aren’t strictly business. It may seem that this post is one of those times, but I can assure you it is related to your business even if it’s not “strictly business.” As a solopreneur, you ARE the business even if you have help. As a result, your biggest business asset is you. As a business coach and consultant, I’d be remiss if I didn’t advise you to care for your biggest asset. So, today’s post is about self-care or insuring your biggest business asset continues to create prosperity for you.

2011 was a turning point in my own self-care. I got much clearer on what I need to do to feel great, and made strides toward accepting that I’m a little “high maintenance.” By high-maintenance, I mean all the things I need to do in order to stay healthy, active, sharp and productive, which is a lot! The details of my self-care regimen are not that interesting, nor are the relevant to what you need but the basics include sleeping, eating, physical activity, relaxation, socializing, fun and maybe a few more.

For most of my adult life, I tried to skimp on these things. After all, you can get yourself an extra hour or two a day by skimping on sleep. Grab a convenient, processed something in a wrapper, eat it in your car and save some meal time. Even the gym, which I love, was a place to cut corners. I spent years trying to get by on less self-care, and what I did do I resented as a “waste” of “valuable” time.

This year, just for an experiment, I decided to practice radical self-care because what I was doing wasn’t working well. To me, that means striving for what will make me my best, not just what will enable to drag myself through the next day. Some examples of this include planning to be in bed early, taking breaks during the day, not missing my workouts, and taking more time off than I used to.

It hasn’t been easy. Like most people, I have more on to-do list than I’ll ever get done so every day I’m making decisions about what to leave undone so I can take care of my well-being. Of couse I want to stay up later than I should (2 year olds everywhere, I sympathize!). I want to spend less time preparing and eating food. I wish I didn’t have to stretch every day to feel good. This is where the acceptance comes in – what you need to do to be at your peak is not disputable. Whether you accept this and act on it is up to you. It’s also about priorities – is what you are doing instead more important than making sure you live long and well?

Caring for yourself isn’t self-indulgent or a luxury if you’re a solopreneur. Caring for yourself fills your tank so you can do the work the world needs of you. You can’t fill someone’s cup if your pitcher is empty.

In what ways can you take better care of yourself? Leave a comment with something you want to do.

Make the most of a slow holiday season

Solopreneurs can use the slow holiday time to get ahead — How to use the slow holiday season in your solopreneur business

Now that December is officially here, a lot of us will see a slow down in business. Events aren’t happening as much, clients aren’t as available and it takes longer to get a response from someone. So what’s a solopreneur to do? Believe it or not, lots! There are some specific things you can tackle right now to set the stage for a great next year. Imagine waking up on that first day back to work after the new year begins and being ready to jump right in!

Last year, I wrote a series on just what to do at this time of year to prepare for next year. Click here to read part one of the series, and then follow the links to parts 2 and 3.

Click here for part 1 of the series “How to make the most of holiday slow time.”

In the comments, tell me some of the things you do at this time of year to prepare for a great next year. I just may try your ideas out!

Maintenance vs. Expansion tasks for Solopreneur Businesses

Solopreneurs have to both grow and maintain their business — Maintenance vs. expansion tasks for solopreneurs

As a solopreneur, there are a lot of tasks that need to be done just to keep the business running. These include things like answering emails, filling orders, posting to social media, blogging, etc. There are also tasks that build or expand your business to the next level of sales. Expansion projects need to be carefully nurtured and kept in the forefront of your awareness so they keep moving ahead.

The problem with expansion projects is that we humans have a strong tendency to want everything NOW! We see other people with much fuller business structures than our own, and know we could thrill all the new customers we’d get if only we had all those things in place. Add to this the almost addictive pull we entrepreneurs feel toward new ideas and we have a recipe for getting nothing done. We may have many grand, beautiful projects in the works but nothing is actually done and making money. An expansion project is done once it’s part of your maintenance routine. For example, if you decide to add video to your marketing, you’ll need to do the initial set up on various sites, get familiar with your camera and the upload procedure, craft a strategy, etc. Once you are in the groove of shooting and uploading video, it’s just another maintenance task.

I often work with solopreneurs who are in the midst of several big expansion projects. I have done this to myself before. The key thing is realistic limits on what you can do. Ideally, take on just one expansion project at a time. Complete it, tweak it, optimize it and then put it neatly to bed by adding it to your maintenance routine. If the projects are small or are prone to stopping and starting because of other people, then you may need more than one expansion project going on all the time just to keep moving ahead. You may also want more than one if you get bored easily or if the project has a lot of boring parts. It may help keep you motivated if you only have to work on the boring parts for a short burst of time every day.

The thing to avoid at all costs is to take on more expansion projects than you can handle. If your business isn’t project management, then managing and juggling many projects should not be a huge part of your day. Take it easy on yourself and build your business in a healthy, sustainable manner. Think marathon, not sprint.

Have you ever bitten off more than you could chew in new projects for your business? How did it work out? How did you handle it? Leave a comment and tell me about it.