Disorganization is the nemesis of your business. It costs you time and money to not know when you’re supposed to complete a task, turn something in, or where you’ve placed a file. This isn’t “new news” to any business owner. But decluttering the business domain may seem an insurmountable task. Here are few quick tips for getting your disorder orderly and keeping it that way. Doing so will improve your professionalism, your bottom line and your sanity.

• Don’t try to do everything at once. Segment tasks over the course of a day, a week, or a month depending on the size and urgency of a task.
• Record tasks and completion of tasks. Whether this be physical writing, voice memos or digital notes is up to you. But record each and everything, no matter if it seems a hassle, so that you know you absolutely do have everything in a system you can reference.
• Keep only one calendar, and one that you will use. Calendar categories or color-coding are for separating/grouping notes. Don’t try to keep more than a single calendar or you’ll find yourself grossly overwhelmed and unsure of what you need to find where or just exactly if you have everything done or if you’ve missed something.
• Stay on track with the big and little picture.
• Scrutinize every effort made by asking yourself:  is it worth the time/money factor that you’re investing into it? Could you be doing something more productive or profitable instead or in the present moment?
• If you know  you need to make changes in your organizational system, take a step now. Don’t make it a to-do list item or a calendar action or another memo. Stop what else you’re doing and take some action now. You need to be in the works of creating your most organized business, and you, if you are suffering in your current situation.

These are just some quick tips. They don’t aim to tell you any one right way to be organized because there’s no one right way for everyone. Try to work with, and not against, yourself to get and stay organized.

Whatever type of business it is that you operate, it’s extremely likely that at some point, you’re going to need to raise an invoice.

If you’re part of a large organization, chances are you’ll have your own finance department to deal with the actual creation of the invoice and all you’ll have to do is pass over the details.

And if you’ve been running your small business for several years or have experience of working in a corporate environment where invoices are used, you’ll generally be able to create an invoice yourself from scratch.

But what about if you’re a small business owner who has only just setup their company and has no previous experience in raising invoices?

Fortunately, there’s no need to worry – an invoice can be created on a simple A4 piece of paper, divided up into 3 sections.

Header:  who is the invoice from?

The very first piece of information that the person receiving the invoice should see is the sending company’s name and full address, so that they know who the invoice is coming from, as well as a contact name and their telephone number.

In addition, the header should also include the date the invoice was raised and the invoice number (you don’t need to have any major numbering or identification system in place – a simply ’001′, ’002′, ’003′ and so on will suffice).

It’s also good practice to put the details of the company who is being invoiced here, although they can go into the body of the invoice or in an additional section in between both.

Body: what does the invoice relate to?

This is the part of the invoice that details what it is relating to and how much the invoice is for, therefore it’s imperative that you ensure that all of the information in here is correct and accurate.

The easiest way to set this part of the invoice up is to split it into four sections – description, NET amount, tax and total amount.

The first section, description, should detail everything that the invoice is requesting money for.  Whether it’s for an item or a service, give as much relevant information as possible – too much can be seen as unnecessary, but too little is simply careless and can, in some instances, be extremely problematic.

The second section should detail how much the invoice is for without tax; the third should state how much the tax is (if applicable) and the final section, total amount, is just that – the total amount of the invoice, which is the tax added to the NET amount.

Footer:  how can the invoice be paid?

As the reader of the invoice should by now understand who they invoice is from, what it relates to and how much it is for, it’s time for them to find out how they can pay it and what additional information they have to note.

The general rule is that the more payment options you provide, the quicker you’ll receive your money.  However, don’t feel obliged to explain that you accept check, bank transfer, PayPal and cash as payment if you would prefer to simply accept a check – just be aware that some businesses may find it easier to pay by a method you haven’t listed.

It’s important here that you either provide full details of how payment can be made (for example, who to address a check to or the e-mail address of your PayPal account) or provide details of just one option and explain that details of all other payment methods are available upon request.

Furthermore, it’s always advised that you include a sentence that states when you expect payment to be received by.  How long you give depends on you as an individual, but explaining that you should receive payment within 14 or 28 days is usually considered to be the norm.

Finally, include all of your contact details at the bottom of the invoice.  Although your address and contact number are at the top of the invoice, include your e-mail address, fax number and website – as with the payment methods, the more options you give the company to contact you, the quicker they’re likely to get in touch.

How you layout the invoice is entirely up to you, but it’s worthwhile keeping in mind that there’s no need to make it elaborate or extremely aesthetic pleasing.  As long as it includes the details mentioned here in a clear and concise manner, attractive aesthetics are purely secondary.

When small businesses, particularly those without a great deal of internet knowledge, hear the phrase Search Engine Optimization (or SEO), their natural reaction is more often than not to tense up, become clammy and start to panic at even the thought of learning about SEO – never mind implementing it.

However, whilst SEO is without doubt something that requires for a lot of in-depth knowledge and experience to be held to be able to implement it effectively, there are some basic things that everyone with a business website can carry out to ensure that their website starts to perform well in search engines.

1.  Content is king – although this phrase is becoming somewhat of a cliche amongst SEO experts and webmasters, primarily for the fact it’s a term that’s been used over and over again, it is still completely true.  Search engine rankings are based on, for the most part, the content that you have on your website and therefore to ensure that your website has the best chance of receiving a high ranking, its content needs to be of a high quality.

   Make sure there are no spelling or grammar errors, don’t overdo it with images and ensure that it’s in full and proper English (or whichever language you’re targeting).

2. Update it regularly – in the most basic of terms, the more you update your website, the better a search engine will think it is, as if you’re updating regularly, it’s likely that there’s a need to be doing it (i.e., regular visitors) and search engines will therefore generally look upon the fact that more updates means more traffic which means a high quality and popular website.

   If  you find it hard to update your website because it’s not setup to be updated regularly, consider adding a blog – you can update it as regularly as you want and assuming it’s tied into your main website (for example, www.yourwebsite/blog), then your business website will benefit.

3. Stick to a small set of keywords – as a business, you’ll no doubt have in your mind a few dozen keywords that you’d like to rank highly for in the search engines.  Whilst it can be tempting to try and rank highly for all of them, pick out some of the most appropriate ones for your business and work on these to start with. 

   Include them in your website’s copy, your blog posts, page titles – anywhere you can, as long as it sounds natural.

4. Visit your website as a customer – whilst search engines were once not overly intelligent and you could, with some basic procedures, trick them into thinking your website is better than it is.  These times are long behind us and most of today’s search engines are extremely sophisticated and intelligent, more so than most of us could ever begin to realise.

   When they send their spiders - pieces of software that trawl your website and send information back to the search engine to decide upon your ranking -  they are in effect customers and therefore it’s important that to gain a good understanding of what information is being sent back to the search engine, you visit your website as a customer.Look at the content and see if it’s attractive and appealing.  Work through the website’s navigation system to see if it’s easy to get around.  Move to pages that aren’t used much to see if they’re still functioning and aren’t out-of-date or inaccessible.

If anything’s not working properly or you’re not happy with something, change it – if it’s not working for you, it won’t be working for the search engine’s spiders.

Search Engine Optimization is something that can take a substantial amount of time to even grasp the basics of.  Whilst it’s always recommended that to ensure your business website performs well in search engines you hire a dedicated SEO consultant or company, these 4 points can all help to make sure that you’re business at least survives online and is ranking in some form in the search engines.

When working in a traditional 9 to 5 role, separating your business and personal lives isn’t a particularly difficult task.

You get up, commute to work, spend 8 hours working, commute home and then you’re free to enjoy your own time as you wish, until you repeat the same work process the following day.

When you work for yourself, however (whether that’s in a freelance role or you own your own business), separating your business time from your personal is arguably one of the most difficult things you’ll have to do.

Whilst it does generally get easier the longer you work for yourself, as you begin to carve out your own way of working, the first few months – or even years – can be particularly difficult and you’ll find you never fully switch off, doings things such as checking your e-mails whilst you’re laid in bed first thing on a morning and last thing at night.

And although it might seem like a great way to develop your business, it can in fact have a negative impact as you become too steeped in work, missing obvious mistakes, making errors and in the end, suffering from burnout.

Therefore, it’s imperative that you focus on your ability to make sure that your business and personal lives remain separate and these 3 points should all help you to do so.

1. Use a calendar – no matter whether it’s a cheap calendar that you received through the post or a free online variety, if you’re struggling to separate your business and personal lives, your first step should be to start using a calendar – and make sure your life revolves around it.Firstly, go through the coming 4 weeks and put aside time for actual work.  This could be simply a straight  block of 5 or 6 days a week with the time 9am through to 5pm set aside or if you prefer, it could be to several two or three hour slots each day.

   Now you have your working time down, you should pencil in some personal time.  It may seem a little strict, but you – and your friends and family – will appreciate it, as you can make arrangements knowing that the time you’ve put aside is solely for your personal life.

   From here, it’s simply a matter of jotting everything down, from work meetings to Doctors appointments.  Pencil everything in and stick to it.

2. Be strict with yourself – one of the best inventions for those in business is the smartphone, as they allow you to carry out a whole host of business related activities without being at a computer or in your office.Unfortunately, the freedom that they give you means you find yourself carrying out various work tasks in random places.  This is great if you’re on the train or stuck in a queue somewhere, but not a positive point if you’re laid in bed or at the table having dinner with your family.

   You might not think so initially, but by being strict with yourself and only working during the hours you’ve set aside in your calendar, you’ll find that your productivity actually increases during this time, as you’re a lot more focused and determined.

3. Make sure your clients know when you’re at – and not at – work – when first starting out in business, you tend to make yourself available 24 hours a day.  Sending e-mails in the early hours of the morning to taking phones calls when you’re eating lunch, combine this with online activity that marks your time (i.e., blog comments and forum posts) and it can seem to a client that you’re always available.Yes, this is great in one respect, as you are likely to be the first person to reply to a new client who is wanting to hire someone new, but in so many other aspects it’s a particularly poor business move.

   For example, if you’re working with a client and you take phone calls or reply to e-mails on a Saturday afternoon, they’re going to take this as the norm and expect you to do the same every weekend.

   And then there’s the fact about holidays – don’t ever go on holiday and not tell your clients, unless it’s completely unnecessary.  If you go away for a long weekend and a client tries to contact you but you’re not reachable, they’re likely to get annoyed as you’re usually contactable.  Tell them that you’re going away for a few days, however and whilst they may not like the fact (you’ve made a rod for your own back by being available all of the time, remember), they’re likely to understand, as everyone’s entitled to holidays.

Ensuring your business and personal lives remain separate is a lot harder that you might initially think – and not only in the physical sense, either.  It can be difficult to actually stop working, walk away from the office and start enjoying life, but it can be even more difficult to actually make that move mentally, as it’s easy to think that when you’re not working, you’re not earning.

What’s important to remember is that you need to have your own personal life.  You might want to throw yourself into work feet first and be completely dedicated to your business 24 hours a day, but if you don’t take some time out to spend with friends and family – or even just by yourself – your business will eventually suffer.

No matter what industry you operate in, there’s always the possibility of you coming into contact with an angry customer.

Whether it’s because you’ve done something wrong, the customer has got the wrong end of the stick on a matter or they’re simply having a bad day, dealing with angry customers is something that is never welcomed (as proof of this, take a look at telephone Customer Service departments – most pay the people who deal with problematic customers more than general customer advisors).

Fortunately, as awkward as it may be at the start, dealing with angry customers is something that can be carried out in an effective and positive way in five steps.

1. Stay calm – they very first point you have to always keep in mind is to stay calm.  When you’re confronted by an unsatisfied customer who is becoming angry, whether it’s in person, via telephone or by e-mail, it’s important that you take a few deep breaths and always think before you speak.It can be difficult to do this, especially if you’re not used to dealing with unsatisfied customers, but you’ll find it a whole lot easier to deal with them if you just take deep breaths and think positive throughout the whole conversation.
2. Don’t rise to them – whether you’re naturally a quiet person or not, if someone is shouting at you and using obscenities, there’s only so much you can take until your tolerance level disappears completely and you start rising to the person.Whatever you do, you have to ensure that you always, always act professional and never rise to them.  No matter how personal they direct their abuse, the whole situation will generally be diffused a lot quicker if you keep your head.
3. Remember, you’re in charge – this is the point that a lot of people fail to forget when dealing with an angry customer.  As the customer is likely to be forceful and dominant, it can make the person from the company that they’re speaking to be slightly taken aback and feel as though they’re back at school, being told off by a teacher.No matter how angry the customer may be, you have to always remember that you’re in charge.  They’re contacting to make a complaint and want an answer, which in its basic form is a simple question and answer scenario, with the person who provides the answer naturally being the one that the person asking the question looks up to.You shouldn’t be pompous or overly-confident about this fact, just keep in mind that the customer will – even if it’s in the back of their mind – expect you to take charge of the situation at some point, so make sure that you do.
4. Don’t back down if you’re sure you’re right – the phrase ‘the customer is always right’ should always be at the forefront of your customer service procedure, but that’s not to say that it’s a rule that is set in stone.The easiest way to resolve a situation where the customer is angry is to give in to them and give them exactly what they want.  However, not only could this cost you a lot of money, but if it turns out the customer is actually in the wrong, there’s a chance you’ll develop a reputation of giving in to customers, something which some customers will unfortunately use against you.There’s no need to come across as over-confident or self-righteous if you’re sure you are right, but if you are – and you’re 100% sure you are – stick to your guns.  Explain why the customer is not correct and take it from there.  They may voice their concerns officially in a written document and they may even threaten legal action, but as long as you’re certain you aren’t in the wrong, you can generally relax.
5. Arrange to contact them at a later date – if you get to the point in your conversation where you feel there isn’t going to be any resolution immediately, arrange to contact them after you’ve spoken to your colleagues.  Simply explain that you’ve taken down their concerns, you’ll take their contact details and once you’ve spoken to your colleagues, you’ll contact them and hopefully have a solution that will satisfy both you and them.Remember, even if you’re a freelancer, it doesn’t mean you can’t explain that you’ll contact them at a later date after you’ve spoken to your colleagues – you may not have any colleagues in the traditional sense, but you’re likely to have people in the same industry as you that you speak to that you could discuss the issue with.Carrying out this point – even if the customer is in the wrong – gives you time to think about a solution that will please everyone.  It may be a case of writing to them, stating that they are incorrect and explaining why or it could be a matter of an agreeing to, for instance, a partial refund if you believe it will diffuse the situation best, but this final step is the one that will give you the time to think about how best to resolve the situation.

As tempting as it can be to say to an angry customer that they’re wrong, you’re right and then end all forms of communication with them, this is never recommended as it can have a particularly detrimental effect on your business.

Whilst you should never have to put up with abusive customers, these 5 steps should be used to try and diffuse the situation in a way that will be of benefit to everyone.

I’m Jessie, and I’ll be helping you establish and maintain order for your business with monthly posts on organization and productivity.

If you’ve ever decided to be more organized and productive, you’ve encountered a veritable cornucopia of terminology that takes the right out of good advice. This post will touch on some of the most frequently buzzed about words and what they really mean for your business.

• Organized.

Organization means having a trusted, sustainable, and logical method of maintaining active and archive documents and materials. Organization is personal and is not one size fits all, so don’t look for advice on pre-built systems: look for ways to discover what best works for you.

• Productive.

Great-sounding word. But it can be as void of meaning as great for your business unless you’re focusing on high-quantitty production that doesn’t sacrifice quality. Think efficiency-you’ll get quality work done without a belaboring / less than profitable time commitment.

• Declutter.

This disorganized must be declutterers. This means going from unordered junk to using systems of organization. Big emphasis is also placed on getting rid of what has no relevance. This advice helps with the disorganized. If you just need to clean, not declutter, you need different advice.

These words just skim the surface of all the organizing buzzwords out there. What else have you encountered? Let’s talk about what it means for your business.

One of the hardest problems for anyone to deal with throughout life is being told you’re not good at what you’re doing.  Right from when you were in school and received your first sub-par grade along with a list of what needs improving, no matter how accepting you are of change, it’s difficult to take criticism on board in a positive manner.

If you’re struggling to deal with some criticism you’ve recently received or you simply want to prepare yourself should you receive some in the future, take a look through these five points that should help you deal with criticism effectively, without affecting your relationship with your client.

1. Just because you receive criticism, it doesn’t mean its right – as humans, we always focus on the negatives.  I’m a particularly optimistic guy and like to think the glass is overflowing, rather than simply being half full, but even I find it difficult to, for example, shake off those negative reviews when searching for a hotel.  Irrelevant of whether there are 100 positive reviews to 1 negative one, it’s difficult to forget the latter.

   What you have to remember, though, is that the masses are almost always right and therefore if you’ve pleased clients for years without any problems and you all of a sudden receive an e-mail full of criticisms for something you sent to a new client, chances are its just going to be a one off.

2. If you do receive criticism, though, don’t ignore it – the most important thing you can do is not to ignore any criticism you receive.  No matter how derogatory it is of your or company or how wrong you think it is, there must have been a reason for them to give the criticism.  Of course, this reason might have just been that the client was particularly picky or had unrealistic views, but it might have been that they had a bad experience somewhere down the line that you didn’t pick up on.
3. Don’t just accept it; act on it – if you’ve received some form of criticism, what’s your first instinct? Accept it and move on? Don’t accept it and sweep it under the carpet?  Both are tempting, but neither are right – you need to take the criticism on board, understand why the client has been critical and see if it’s an isolated incident or whether it’s something others could be critical of.Depending on the outcome from this, you need to decide whether changes are necessary or whether you just need to, for example, pay more attention to detail.
4. Always be polite in your reply – speak to any customer service experts and whilst they may all have their own processes, they one thing that they’ll all tell you is that when faced with a client who’s causing you some problems, always, always, always stay calm.  The same process needs to be applied when you receive criticism regarding your company or service.   Stay calm, don’t send back an immediate reply as chances are it’s going to be something that could damage your reputation and spend the time putting together a calm and collected response.What’s more, the reply doesn’t have to be so in-depth that it takes up several pages.  Simply state that you have received their correspondence, are sorry that they’ve not benefited from the first class service you strive to deliver and that you will look into the criticism in more detail.  From here, you can then take a more in-depth look at what the client has said and if need be, make changes to your service to improve your performance.
5. Everyone receives criticism – when you open your inbox and have a complaint from a client, although it might not seem it at the time, it’s important to keep in mind that everyone receives criticism.  No matter how big of a company they are or how well known they may be, chances are they’ll receive criticism of some form.

   This might not be particularly comforting at the time, but it does help you remember that just because you aren’t pleasing everyone doesn’t mean you can’t be a successful company.  In fact, criticism can actually be one of the components that helps you grow and develop as a business, as it allows you to become aware of your weaknesses and act on them.

Have you got an interesting story revolving around criticism of your company or service? Are you stuck wondering what to do after a recent critical e-mail from a client? We’d love to hear from you and where possible, we’ll offer as much advice as we can.

With August kicking off our official relaunch of BizAmmo’s small business blog, I’d like to introduce you to the two writers who will be helping me run the show.

Dan Smith — You might remember Dan from his previous posts here. Well, he’s back! And from now on Dan will post here every Tuesday with how-to articles for small business owners.

Jessie Haynes — Jessie used to write for me at my freelance writing blog (as did Dan). She’s a specialist in productivity and organization issues, and she’ll be sharing tips along those lines for entrepreneurs on the first Thursday of every month.

I hope you enjoy their upcoming content and make them feel welcome!

While this blog was recently being updated again after a long break, I’ve been pretty hands-off. We had a half-finished design, and it had been months since I personally posted to BizAmmo. That’s all changing.

BizAmmo.com is being officially relaunched. As you can see the new design is almost finished (just some minor tweaks to make as I find problems or come up with new ideas). I’ll also be posting more regularly, with a particular emphasis on topics like marketing and PR, online business, social media, and green business ideas.

While for the most part BizAmmo has been tutorial and news-based, you’ll see much more opinion and personality shining through moving forward. This is how I write everywhere else — NakedPR.com, AllFreelanceWriting.com, and SocialImplications.com for example. And I’ll be injecting much more of myself into BizAmmo moving forward as well.

Another upcoming change will be a collection of short e-books and reports that we’ll be releasing through the blog. But more on that later….

In the meantime, please just bear with me as I finish up some site changes and get things going again with new post series.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re in the position where you’re in a full time job that you don’t particularly like, have been offering a service outside of this employment on a self-employed basis for a while now and are contemplating making the move to being full time self-employed.

If this is you, then you’ve also probably thought about ditching your employment more than once and jumping straight into your self-employed work full time.

Sound familiar?

Well, firstly, kudos for not doing this.  It takes a lot of mental and physical energy to run both a full time and self-employed role alongside each other and the fact that you haven’t just thrown the towel in with the job from your employer is a great sign that you’re in the right frame of mind to operate your self-employed business on a full time basis.

If you feel that now is the right time to make the move, then there are several points that you need to take into consideration before you do anything.

How financially secure are you?

It’s generally considered that before you make the move to being full time self-employed, you need to be earning the same amount of money from your full time employment – assuming that this amount is approximately what you need to live off – for 3 months.

It is also a good idea that once this has happened, you work for an additional 3 months simply putting your full time employment salary into a savings account, proving that you can survive off your self-employed income alone.

By doing this, it means that you have a full 12 weeks worth of savings set aside should the worse come to the worse and you’re self-employed work dries up completely.  Although unlikely to happen, it gives you enough time to look at what options you have available and make a move to ensure that you start receiving an income once again.

What is the scope for your business to grow?

One of the first things you’ll notice when you go self-employed on a full time basis is the amount of time you have spare.  If you were working a 40 hour week for an employer previously, as well as your own work, you’re going to effectively have 40 hours extra available to work.  Obviously the fact that you’re going full time self-employed is so that you can stop working 60 or 70 hour weeks, but even still, you’ll find yourself with a lot of spare time on your hands.

As this will be apparent, have you thought about what the scope is for your business to grow and expand?

At the moment, you might feel that you’re doing nothing but working and you can’t take any more clients on or serve any more customers, but when you drop the 40 hours worth of work from your employer, is there enough demand for your services that you can fill this gap, even partially?

How reliable is the work?

When you leave you’re full time job, you’re not only leaving behind your desk, computer, colleagues and the pains of commuting, but you’re also leaving behind the security of receiving a regular salary.

You’re own self-employed work might pay well, but if it’s not reliable or regular, then you really need to think about your options.  This doesn’t mean necessarily giving up the idea, but maybe looking at how you can diversify your work so your income is a little more reliable.

How popular are you?

No one is saying that business is a popularity contest, but by having your name out there and known in the right circles, you’ll find things a whole lot easier than if you’re taking the leap into full time self-employed work.

You don’t necessarily have to have an address book full of industry contacts that you call friends, but by making sure that you’ve got a website or blog and a social media presence, you can ensure that you’re doing the basics of keeping your name a talking point in your industry.

Think about the lack of employed perks

Whilst working for yourself full time does bring with it a whole host of benefits, there are some drawbacks when compared to working for an employer.

For example, when you’re working in a salaried role, it’s likely that you might have had medical and dental insurance, as well as having your car’s fuel costs covered for any work related mileage.  Depending on the company you worked for, you might have even had the car paid for.

Go full time self-employed, however and you can forget about all of these perks, which can be a costly addition to your regular outgoings that you haven’t been used to paying and whilst they aren’t necessities, they are all strongly advised to have in place.

What’s your backup plan?

Whatever you’re doing in business, planning is key to your success and moving from full time employment to being full-time self-employed is no difference.  Having advertising plans, financial plans and business development plans in place are all important, but don’t forget a backup plan.

What are you going to do if things all go wrong?  What if work dries up and your left with only the 3 months worth of savings?

If you don’t have a solid backup plan, it might be worth considering whether your current employer can work with your goal of becoming full time self-employed by reducing your employed hours over a period of time, for example, or even letting you take a hiatus for a few months to see how things go with your own owrk.

Making the move from working for an employer full time to working for yourself full time is possible and thousands upon thousands of people do it each and every year.  However, it’s not as straightforward as you first may think and these points should all be considered before you make any lasting decisions.