Adobe Photoshop Tips
February 9, 2007
This evening I had my friend Tiffany over for a movie night and she got talking about her career as a graphic designer and the things I do with regards to her expertise. I was explaining a few of my main uses for PhotoShop and she provided me some really good tips that I wanted to pass along to you. You may not use PhotoShop but if you do, you’ll more than likely find these tips extremely helpful (if you don’t already know about them…)
(1) Actions
Did you know that you can setup an action within PhotoShop for any sort of repetitive task you perform? Think macro if you’ve set up repetitive events in Microsoft Excel. For my blog entries, I take stock photos, resize them all to the same size and then I add a white border around them so that the edges don’t touch the text. It makes them look pretty on my site!
Minimizing Your Time on the Phone
February 2, 2007
As a business owner, I spend a fair amount of time on the phone speaking to different people: potential clients, existing clients, virtual assistants, my web hosting company, etc. If I allowed each conversation to be unclear and unfocused, I could be spending additional time on the telephone and less time on my work and the things that I need to do to build my business. So, ask yourself - how much time do you spend on the phone?
Spending less time on the phone is easy if you know how. Here are a few tips to get back some of that lost time:
(1) Before You Call, Get Clear and Focused
If you place a call to someone without being clear and focused on what it is you need to talk about, you can spend a lot of time trying to remember what it is you wanted to talk about and / or discussing things that weren’t on the agenda. Before you make your call, list the items you need to talk to that person about so that once you are on the phone, you can be clear, concise and quick! What I do is keep my appointment in Microsoft Outlook and when I think of items I want to bring to the conversation, I open up that appointment and make a note in the notes section of the appointment.
Contact Management
January 31, 2007
Working as a virtual assistant, my clients often ask me about contact management and what my advice is on storing contacts. I think this tends to be a struggle with a lot of people who work in both the offline and online world. I hope that I can help clarify what my recommendations are for contact management in this post.
If you run a business where you are contacting people online as well as offline, your setup needs to have some form of resource for both of these types of contacts.
When choosing your online resource, I highly recommend thinking long-term. Think about what your needs are going to be down the road because moving your list from one resource to another is not a good idea. In doing so, you often have to have people double opt-in (depending on where you are hosting your contacts) and you will often lose a lot of people. So, think about your needs: are you going to eventually need a shopping cart? What about an affiliate program? If you begin to think this way, you’ll see that your needs go beyond just a place to store contacts and a tool to e-mail them.
Secure Your Domain
January 17, 2007
We all have ideas that come and go and as an entrepreneur, these ideas tend to come more often and they tend to stick around… You won’t find them leaving your brain as quickly as you would have hoped they would.
Since we have this innate characteristic of building new things and creating, it is only natural that we will eventually stumble across the next BIG idea. You know the kind I’m talking about… It’s not just something that comes up and you think, “Yeah, I could do that…†but it’s something that you think of that makes you think, “Wow! I NEED to do this!†When you get an idea like this, what is the first thing you do? Tell a friend? Tell a colleague perhaps? The first thing I recommend doing is registering an applicable domain name.
Tracking Your Time Efficiently
January 13, 2007
In your business you should be tracking the time you spend on client work.
I just have to share with you this new tool a fellow VA shared with me . It’s called MyHours and it simply is the greatest software to track your billable hours. I signed up for a free MyHours account (which they state will be going to a paid system at some point… I’m kind of keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll forget about that little note they’ve made on their website…) and I started using it immediately.
Be Available for Your Clients
December 7, 2006
My clients have grown to love the fact that I’m available quickly. If they e-mail me, chances are great that I’ll be sitting at my PC ready for their e-mail and in most cases; I have an e-mail back to them within five-ten minutes. My clients have always commented on this ability of mine and how much they appreciate my responsiveness and timeliness. So, how can you achieve this for your own business? It’s easy!
Be Available.
Okay, I know you are probably thinking “Duh, you just said that†but I wanted to be sure you really got it. If you want your clients to appreciate your responsiveness, be available at your computer at various intervals during the day and have your e-mail open – ready to accept new inbound mail. Set yourself up a schedule if you have other priorities and try to check in with your e-mail once an hour. If time does not allow that, set your own goal – maybe you want to respond within 24 hours or 48 hours. State this turn around time on your website and stick to it!
Setting Goals for Your Business
December 5, 2006
Goal setting isn’t just for large companies, it’s for all companies. Goal setting allows you to see the bigger picture that is your business and allows you to determine the direction you want to lead your business.
When goal setting, you want to keep a few important things in mind:
1. Make your goal reasonable.
Too many times I have seen a business owner say – “My goal is to make one million dollars this year.†Okay, so I haven’t seen it that often but I know it exists out there. Setting a goal such as earning a million dollars in one year is unrealistic for most small business owners. I’m not saying that it doesn’t exist but it’s just not all that realistic in the grand scheme of things. Instead, you might want to set a goal such as – “I want to increase my revenue by 10%.†Something like that may be much more attainable and you will avoid possible disappointment if you do not reach your goal.
Learning How to Say No
December 3, 2006
We’ve all suffered from this before: the inability to just say no. It happens in our professional lives and in our personal lives. Most times, this inability to use two letters from the standard alphabet causes unwanted stress, a to do list that is longer than the Great Wall of China and can eventually lead to *gasp* insanity!
Saying no can be easy when you know HOW to say no. Let’s look at a very common scenario that happens every day in the workplace:
A client e-mails you and says, “I’ve got a project I need you to do today, do you have time†and you have work piled up to your eyeballs.
Website Design Mistakes - How to Avoid Them
December 1, 2006
I find myself browsing through approximately 50-75 sites per day. The reason I spend so much time browsing is to keep up with what is hot, what is popular and which websites are ranking high in the search engines according to specific keywords. I also browse through this many sites so that I can check to see who is out there that I may want to form a partnership, link exchange, joint venture, etc. with.
When I spend my time going through these websites, I’m sometimes speechless at what I come across. I often ask myself, “Do these people have 20/20 vision? Are they seeing something I don’t? Is this a new trend in website marketing?” I wanted to share with you some of the things I’ve come across in hopes that you can use this list as a checklist for what you DO NOT want to do on your own site.