Today we’ll continue the series on interruptions and time wasters. To really focus and get more done while working less, you need to change the way you approach each day. The third set of interruptions and time wasters are meetings, people stopping by and problems others could solve.

I know meetings are nearly sacred, but are they necessary? Often meetings can be replaced with a telephone call, an email, or even avoided altogether. Sometimes there is a benefit to a focused meeting. It might be for the purpose of a consultation or training to get others up to speed. It might be for a brief brainstorming session to solve a problem.

If the meeting is simply to update others and give status reports, to set scheduling, or it’s the regularly scheduled weekly or daily meeting, perhaps it could be taken care of in a short email to the team members. Most of what needs to be communicated in these settings can happen more effectively in other ways. Meetings take time from everyone, whether they have something to contribute or not.

The 80/20 Principle applies to meetings. Only 20 percent of your meeting provides 80 percent of the benefit. What if the meeting was limited to that 20 percent time and you could get on with the day rather than sitting there the whole time?

Decide if there are more efficient ways of communicating with your team than having a meeting. Many effective business owners have been able to do away with most of their meetings. In a tight economy we especially need to challenge everything we do. I’d rather have my team being productive, helping customers, working with prospects, or being innovative than sitting in meetings.

Not all meetings are bad, just most of them! When you have meetings, have a tightly focused agenda, stick to it, and end on time. Make sure that everyone who is invited is absolutely necessary. Don’t you waste other peoples time.

What about people stopping by? Employees, customers and vendors all want a piece of your time. Many business owners and managers are proud of their “open door” policy and never turn anyone away. Well, that open door works two ways. It lets people in and lets your time and effectiveness flow out.

To often we greet someone stopping by with a “hey, hows’ it going” which leads to a conversation that has nothing to do with the reason they stopped by. Conversation is fine but if you want to get more done while working less you’ll have to limit the amount of idle chatting.

Wow, that sounds like all work and no play, but is it really? There are times for chatting and getting to know others. And that is an important thing to do, but do it over lunch or after work. If you want to focus and be effective with your time, you have to respect it, as do others. You set the standard. If it’s okay for you to get involved in conversations that have nothing to do with the project you are on, then it’s okay for all your team members to do so.

Be polite with others, and tell them you are on a deadline to get this or that done, and ask them what they need. It will shorten the conversation or interruption. The other good technique is to take questions or meetings at only set times each day. Perhaps you’ll set aside two one-half hour blocks of time during the day for this. Anyone who needs to see you will need to plan on visiting with you then. Less interruptions and you and your team will accomplish more.

Now what about the last item for today, problems that others could solve? How many times do people come to you with a question they already know the answer to? Often they either lack the confidence to act on what they know or you’ve created an environment that doesn’t encourage people to think for themselves. None of us like errors or mistakes, but will we allow our employees the freedom to fail? If not, you’ll get to micromanage everything – a total waste of time.

I’d rather allow my employees a level of autonomy within certain guidelines and allow them the opportunity to make a mistake and learn. In the process they become more confident and more capable. If you micromanage people you’ll never escape this time trap. Most business owners don’t think they micromanage, but you do if you don’t allow decision making by your team.

If you come down hard on an employee for failing, when they took initiative, you have told them “don’t make anymore decisions, bring them all to me”. Personally, I’d rather bear the cost of a few mistakes from time to time to have employees who take initiative, and have more time for they things I want to do. How about you?

There are no perfect solutions to time problems. Take these ideas and try them. Doing nothing keeps you right where you are. Isn’t it worth making some changes, looking for what   will make you more effective, and for what frees up your time for things you’ve always wanted to do?

If you have some other ideas that might help or have questions, share them in the comments.

Just a reminder to keep an eye on your banks financial health. If your bank goes under or is acquired by another institution you could find your lines of credit drying up.  Here is a link to Calculated Risk, a blog that provides an update on the status of most bank every Friday. Check back there regularly to watch for problems. Also visit with your banker on a regular basis and ask for assurances and documentation as to their stability. Finally, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It may be in your best interest to diversify your banking relationships, should the unexpected arise.

Bloggers, both professional and personal, have a large variety of choices for blogging platforms. Many of these are free. However, I prefer the downloaded/hosted version of WordPress for a variety of reasons, the biggest being how it excels in search engine optimization.

If you are new to business blogging, you may consult with professionals who will encourage you to have a separate blog platform developed just for your business or to go with an expensive small business blogging platform company. Don’t! WordPress not only has great customization features, it can also function as a website and once installed, it is easy for the average user to update the basics. No more paying $100/hr or more to change a date of an event on your website!

WordPress.org is different from WordPress.com (the second is free and does not require web-hosting, BUT also has few customization capabilities). If you have NO technical ability, do not try to build or install a WP blog yourself. However, you can have someone design and build one for you for less than $1000. Sure, you can get a website built for that, BUT you will have trouble making updates. This is where this software really shines for the unskilled owner. With a few training tips, you can add blog posts, images and video with ease.

Unlike most blogging platforms, WordPress has pages like a website. You can add an About Us page, an Events page, a featured products page or whatever fits with your business and YOU can do this and make the changes as needed.

WordPress is the software, but there are themes which are user-tools and designs to improve its functionality. I use Thesis and I know people who happily use Frugal. Both are good paid choices. There are tons of free choices as well. If you decide to build your own, I recommend these. If not, encourage your designer/developer to use one of them because the dashboard is understandable and, if you are interested in learning, you can make design changes yourself.

Business blogging and having a website are important components of the online aspect of your small business. WordPress can function as both and is easy to learn and affordable. If you have a WPsite, let us know in the comments section below.

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Is Your Business All Over the Place?

Brand this. Brand that. Personal branding. Brand development. Brand research. Brand awareness.

YOUR small business isn’t Apple, it isn’t Levi’s and it isn’t Coke. You have to stand out in ways that don’t use old-school advertising and before you even start marketing you must know

what makes your business unique?

Do you accommodate customers with flexible or unique hours? Do you have specialists on-site? Have you received any particular awards or accolades? Do you have a high percentage of repeat customers? Has the business been family owned and operated since its inception? Is your location super convenient? Do your customer service representatives wear funny hats?

Something about your company IS different

Getting a cool logo is nice and you want a logo that represents your business. Buying billboard space is 100% passive. You need to get customers in the door or on your e-commerce site and you need to do it now! Brand awareness will not do this! Even Coke encourages buyers to interact via Coke Rewards Points (tiny hard-to-read codes on the inside of bottle caps are saved up and redeemed for products or sweepstakes entry). That’s a Call to Action, folks. You want your potentional customers to DO something. But before you ask a potential customer to do anything

you have to be able to tell them WHY they should do business with YOU and NOT your competitor!

Branding is your letterhead, your packaging, your advertising. It is not the reason people sign up, come in, call, and PURCHASE, though it can inform customers of your USP and who you are as a company. Branding helps create an image of your company in the consumer’s mind but it doesn’t tell them why they should give you their money.

If you haven’t already, sit down and brainstorm 10+ reasons you would honestly recommend your company or your services to a potential buyer. Then ask your employees and your best customers for things you might have overlooked. Know your USP. Let it inform your brand because it will always be the thing your customer cares about.

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Lifestyle design is a new catch-all term for building a life and business/career, free from traditional constraints, unless, of course, traditional is your lifestyle of choice. Tim Ferriss is probably best known for coining the term in The 4-Hour Work Week, but it has spread rapidly through cyberspace. Clearly, if you don’t know what life you want, you’ll never find yourself living it!

Much of what is driving even the discussion of lifestyle design is newer technologies. smart phones, cloud computing, lapbooks, iPads, and netbooks all enable the small business owner to work from virtually wherever he or she wants. And, also due to technology, much of the work that was done by in-house staff can now be outsourced to virtual professionals.

All of this begs you, the small business owner or entrepreneur to really dig deep to determine what you want out of life. The more specific you are, the more successfully you can design your life to fit your dreams. As a coach and mentor, this is almost always the first conversation I have with new clients. And when you say $500 million per year, ask yourself what do you want to DO with that money? What is it buying you? Time, stuff, business growth? And then dig a bit deeper, perhaps there is something more to it all?

Time to do what? Pursue mountain biking, volunteer work, or coach your son’s soccer team? How many more hours per week do you want for these things? What stuff (and why)? Is it higher education for your son, an addition on your home, that vacation you’ve been promising your family for years? Finally, perhaps you want to pour more money into your business so you can develop it further. Beginning your lifestyle design requires that you answer all of these questions in as much detail as possible.

I’ve been very deliberate in designing the life I want. Family, faith and hobbies are important to my happiness. Do you know what you want out of life? Your small business should support those dreams.

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It’s been an employer’s world for awhile now. Employee retention, especially of key talent, has not been a strong focus for the last two years because most employees held tight to their jobs due to economic uncertainty. However, the numbers are beginning to improve and employment experts expect that larger numbers of employees will start seeking new opportunities. Employee retention saves money and protects the morale of the entire company. What can you do to retain your key players?

Understand employee motivation. I’ve talked about it at length here and here, but know this one thing: keeping employees satisfied is not all about money and fringe benefits.

Maintain an open door policy. A significant number of employees cite their direct supervisor as the reason they are leaving their positions. Employees need to have the freedom to discuss supervisory issues without repercussions.

Be careful that you don’t inadvertently punish employees for loyalty. Pay inequity tends to punish the most senior employees because raises haven’t kept up with the external market. New hires often make more, particularly in larger companies, than their loyal, well-trained counterparts. And despite confidentiality agreements, employees DO talk. Review salaries frequently and keep your most valuable employees fairly rewarded.

Watch the micromanagement. One of the key motivators for employees is autonomy. Once well-trained, give them the leeway to perform on their own and to sometimes fail. Often more is learned from failure than training. Employee retention improves the more employees are left to manage their own performance.

Grow a solutions-oriented culture. If employees come to you with complaints about people or processes, always ask them how they would handle the situation. This does three things: it empowers the employee to take a more positive, solutions-based approach, it acknowledges the importance of the employee’s opinion AND it can give you real tools with which to work. A culture where employees are made to feel like they have a role in improving the workplace also improves employee retention.

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I subscribe to several newsletters. One of my favorites is Early To Rise. Newsletters are a great way to interact with your customers and to maintain interest in you or your company. You can use these to advertise promotions, to highlight new products and/or to offer usable content (tips, how-to’s, etc.) to your readers. However, many newsletters that people have subscribed to never get opened and read. What can you do to improve your open and click-through rates (the number of links people click on within the body of your newsletter)?

First, personalize your email. All email services (I use AWeber) allow for personalization so when you create your email sign up form, don’t just collect email addresses. Collect names as well. Don’t always say “Steve, how about this newsletter?”. Try moving the name placement to something like “How about this newsletter, Steve?” And do think about making your statements or questions for the subject line attention-grabbing.

Understanding what your goal for the newsletter is will encourage recipients to open. Is it to promote something or to teach something. Make sure you’ve accomplished that goal in as brief a manner as possible. Write the newsletter like a news piece. The most important details first in case your reader bails before reading it.

If you are promoting something, make it time sensitive. Give your reader a deadline and use it in the subject line or in the first sentence of your newsletter.

Give your reader something to DO. A link to click on (preferably some of your own), a video to watch, resources to use.

Use a conversation casual voice to encourage your recipients to open and read your newsletter.

Use white space. Add in frequent paragraph breaks, numbering and bullet points and do this routinely. Visitors who know they can scan your newsletter quickly are more likely to become loyal openers.

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P.S. You can join the My Small Business newsletter by going to our home page and entering your info!

This weekend I watched a piece on Zappos.com on CBS Sunday Morning. For anyone unfamiliar with Zappos and their young CEO Tony Hsieh, spend some time on Google. Hsieh is a popular keynote speak and his company has become well known for leading the pack in two key areas: customer service and employee engagement. As you’ll see when you watch the piece, the two are intrinsically entwined.

At Zappos.com, employees are empowered to provide exemplary customer service-no matter how long or what it takes. No customer should leave feeling let down by their experience with their customer service representative, ever, and thus, hopefully no customer will leave Zappos feeling let down if there was something that could have been done.

Employee engagement allows the customer loyalty team (Zappos’ term, not mine), and thus each individual employee, to feel empowered and like they matter. Their queue times are not measured. Customer service reps have been known to stay on the phone for an hour or more with customers. They can give things away like free shoes. They will look on competitors’ sites for the desired product if they don’t carry it. Employees are empowered. As I’ve discussed in other posts, employee engagement and empowerment drives productivity and loyalty far more (in most jobs) than financial rewards or punishments.

With 25% of companies polled investing heavily in customer service during this down economy, it is clear that one of the easiest things to do to stand out is to please your customers-at all costs. Surprise them. Call them. Build relationships with them. Tony Hsieh has a new book out, Delivering Happiness, which outlines many more of the companies customer service and employee engagement strategies.

Now imagine calling a customer loyalty team member and knowing, up front, that they will do whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes, to make YOU happy. Is this how you are doing business?

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Becoming comfortable with public speaking takes time. Most small business owners and other professionals are called upon at some point to do some sort of presentation or other public speaking. Polls generally show that more people are afraid of public speaking than dying! If this is you, here’s some quick help to take some of the pain out of your upcoming gig and to make you more comfortable: 

1. First, I always recommend that you watch Guy Kawasaki’s take on presentations. Crucial and entertaining:

2. Know your audience. Tailor the presentation message to them. Younger audiences like graphics heavy, text “light” presentations and a more casual style. Older, more mature audiences have more patience during longer presentations.

3. Understand your end goal and the needs of the audience. What do you want them to walk away knowing or feeling? Work backwards from that and remove any content that doesn’t move them towards that goal.

4. Video tape yourself giving your presentation. This will help you clarify content, identify transitions that need improving, and highlight those little hiccups we all have (throat-clearing, “uhm’s”, difficulty with eye contact, etc.).

5. Join Toastmasters International. They hold meetings all over the world that allow their members to practice public speaking in a safe environment and get presentation feedback on the spot.

6. Technology can be intimidating. Work out the kinks in your presentation software, projectors, and microphones as much as possible before the event. HOWEVER, things WILL go wrong and you need to prepare for that. A contingency plan is always recommended and will increase your comfort level.

7. Remember that your audience really IS rooting for you. There is generally a great deal of empathy and support out there. Identify some warm faces and when you get really nervous during your presentation, land on them for a few for encouragement.

8. Picture the absolute worst-case scenario for your presentation (people sleeping? heckling? getting up a leaving? you trip and fall?) and realize 2 things: a)you will live through that scenario b)it is really unlikely to happen. Now, build a plan on how to manage those possible issues.

9. Be passionate, warm and friendly and above all, put the audience’s needs above your own. Add stories, anecdotes and humor to your presentation to keep them engaged. Watch public speakers on YouTube or on TED.com and practice some of their methods.

10. The absolute BEST way to manage your fear of public speaking is to practice and prepare. You simply cannot do it enough. Go back and watch Guy repeatedly. Do not rely on Power Point. Do not read to your audience. Practice, practice, practice and then report back in and let me know which of these public speaking tips helped you. 

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When you are in business for yourself, either with a brick and mortar store, e-commerce or as a solo proprietor of some sort, almost every task you engage in, at its core, is about sales. Without sales, whether of goods or services, you are out of business.

How you treat your employees is about sales. If you can’t inspire them, they won’t treat your customers well and that can result in lost sales. Treat your employees like the business partners that they are.

How you manage your inventory is about sales. If you don’t have the products that someone needs when they need them, you’ve lost sales. Get referrals from other small business owners about their experience with various inventory management systems and invest in a reputable one.

How you manage your finances is about sales. If you allow bookkeeping errors, don’t stay abreast of tax changes or invest unwisely, you may have to cut back on expansion, product development, staff-all of which can result in lost sales. Find a stellar CPA and develop a strong working relationship with them.

How you work with vendors is about sales. If you don’t develop good relationships and make your expectations clear, they don’t feel compelled to serve you well, resulting in late or lost product which could equal lost sales. Act in a way that elicits respect. Cut poorly performing vendors loose.

How you manage yourself is about sales. If you don’t continually learn, whether it is management, technology, marketing, or financial education, you risk not being competitive and failing to innovate which can result in lost sales. Set specific goals for yourself each quarter. Learn new skills. Stay educated on industry trends.

How you market your business is obviously about sales. If you don’t research and test and stretch your marketing perspective and try new methods and doorways, you truly risk sales. Try and test new marketing methods. Reach out to old customers.

How you treat your community at large (casual interactions, civic events, friendships) can impact your sales. If people you interact with associate you with your business, and they should, if you treat them badly it can result in lost sales. Get input on your interpersonal skills and work at improving them. Be a good citizen!

Look around your entire world. Everything you do, in business and in life, is in some way connected to reinforcing strong sales. What can you change today?