There is a common misperception of Twitter and other social media channels being an easy way to market yourself and your business. Unfortunately, even though it’s free, it’s not always as easy as you might think.

Growing a Twitter following requires time and patience. More importantly it takes effort. It requires a commitment to engaging with other people on a regular basis.

Just because you happen to be engaging online, doesn’t mean the connection is any less real than one you would make at a networking event or social gathering.

But just how do you go about encouraging steady growth so that you aren’t hitting a wall of frustration when your follower count doesn’t seem to be increasing as rapidly as you’d hoped?

Quality VS Quantity

The first thing to remember is that it’s not necessarily numbers that count. It’s the quality of those connections. There are many gimmicks and methods available to increase Twitter numbers (some of which are against the Twitter TOS in fact, so you have to be extremely careful), but it’s been my experience that most of them aren’t worth the time.

Sure you might gain more followers, but they probably won’t be quality followers. They might even be fake followers that will provide absolutely no value to your network whatsoever.

What’s the point in having 20,000 followers if only a handful of them bother to actually read Tweets, engage in conversation, and help share your message in the form of RTs? It’s far better to have a few hundred or a thousand followers actually taking time to read, respond and interact with you.

At the end of the day, those are the people who will actually care about what you have to offer. Everyone else is just inflation.

Follow Others Relevant to You and Your Interests

Twitter doesn’t have to be just about business or your industry. You can engage with people that share similar personal interests as well, and that ultimately makes for a well-rounded Twitter following that you can be both professional as well as a little more personal with.

Twellow is a great source for finding Tweeps you may have things in common with to follow. In many cases when you follow someone, as a courtesy they will follow you back. So by following relevant people, you can also gain a potential new follower yourself. Just don’t expect a follow back and get your nose bent when it doesn’t happen.

There are some people that simply will not follow you back unless they know you very well or know of you. That’s not necessarily an insult it’s just a testament to their commitment to keeping their Twitter following as uncluttered and engaged as they can.

Maintain Your Account

Speaking of clutter… perform regular maintenance activities on your Twitter account, especially as your following grows larger. There are tools that help you to do it; one of my favorites is Tweepi.

Some tools are better or more feature rich than others, but it really boils down to personal preference and budget.

Maintenance activities you might perform are unfollowing those Twitter users you followed that offer little in the way of engagement, or that Tweet constant spam type content. Or maybe they are never on Twitter anyway. Kind of pointless to follow them if they are never online, right?

Tweepi also lets you follow new people, let’s you unfollow those who have not followed you back should you wish to, and recently released a new feature allowing you to force undesirable Tweeps that may be following you, to unfollow.

So if you’ve got a porn star or two following you and you just can’t stand it, you can very politely send them on their way.

Remember That Conversation Counts

Tweet often, but remember to leave room for conversation and responding to others. The ideal tweet length, including link, is usually between 100 to 120 characters. This leaves space for 20 to 40 characters of free space where others may wish to add their own comments to the retweet. Ask questions, @reply people directly, use things like #hashtags effectively, and don’t Tweet links or boring quotes 24/7.

Social media is often called the handshake of our generation. It’s the new way to connect, relate, and converse with people you wouldn’t be able to reach any other way. But if you can’t make the effort to talk to people and implement the same social niceties you would deploy if you were face to face, why should they make the effort for you?

Do you have any Twitter tips or tricks you’d like to add? Share your thoughts below.

Click here to download the book.

I believe anyone who provides a valuable service should get paid for the value they deliver.

In January 2003, I was running a small design firm when I finally snapped. I was using Microsoft Word to bill my clients when I accidently saved over an invoice. The frustration of billing my clients overwhelmed me, and so did the thought of using accounting software—so I built my own solution.

Building my own product company quickly became a passion, but passion projects don’t pay…at least not on day one. To keep the lights on I moved into my parents’ basement for 3.5 years to save money and I completely revamped how I ran my design firm to the point where I worked 19 days in one year and generated over $200,000 to fund my side project. How did I do that? This book will show you—and help you do it too.

Thinking back, my ability to work so little and produce so much income had a lot to do with how I priced and positioned my services, something most small business owners struggle with. So I sat down with Donald Cowper—a best-selling author who joined FreshBooks as our small business writer last year—to try and capture the essence of things. The result is this book—a business fable designed to share the lessons I learned the hard way, so you don’t have to.

This book will take you one hour to read, and you can read it for free. But a free book about pricing, that’s ironic, no? Yes. So here’s the twist: I hope that once you have read this book you will find it so valuable you will WANT to pay for it to recognize its value. Should you feel that way, please do two things. First, share it with others so they can benefit too. Second, go to FreshBooks.com/BreakingtheTimeBarrier where you can pay what you believe this book is worth to you and your business…it could be one dollar, could be $5000—you decide.

With that, enjoy.
—Mike

Mike McDerment
Co-founder & CEO FreshBooks

P.S: Bestselling authors Tim Ferriss, Michael Gerber and Daniel Pink believe the hour you’ll spend reading this book is well worth it. Click here to download the book.

Service providers sometimes find it tough to actually sell their services, especially when it comes to selling them online. The services offered may, in fact, be the best in the industry, or even in high demand, but people just aren’t clicking to buy. Why is that?

Most often the issue is something simple: it’s the website copy. The copy is failing to give potential clients clarity on just what the service provider can do for them and how it will benefit them.

It’s much easier if you’re selling your services face-to-face, since you’re working from a real conversation with the client where you can build rapport, and then probe for their pain points. From there, you can make best-fit suggestions for each client, and then even up-sell to offer a more complete solution. But when you rely on your website to generate leads or sales, your copy needs to do the face-time for you. So, where to begin?

Where Websites Go Wrong

For starters, many businesses will offer either too many service options, or too few. It’s easy for service businesses to fall into the trap of offering an extensive, laundry list of “things you can do” for clients and leave it at that. The common mentality is that the more options there are, the better, since there’s “something for everyone” on your list.

Unfortunately, this is not the way to secure more business. Have you ever been out for dinner at a restaurant when a huge menu arrives at the table? If you’re anything like me, then you’re probably pretty overwhelmed or maybe even confused by all the choices. When you do finally make a decision, you’re left with a bit of doubt, wondering if you missed something better or if you really made the right choice. This is not the experience you want your customers to have.

On the other hand, you also don’t want to offer so few options that a client is left wondering how you can meet their unique needs with only a handful of “for everyone” options. You will need to find the right balance with this. A few tests on your website response rate when running with different service lists may be necessary to find that “sweet spot” you’re looking for.

Group Similar or Complimentary Services

In addition to finding the right number of offerings, you may want to consider grouping your services into packages.

This is much better than listing your services one-by-one.  Ideally, a well-presented package will offer the most value to your client. They will be able to locate different types of services quickly, and see which services belong together so they can choose the most complete solution possible.

Once you have grouped packages, take a few moments to explain how your service works and point out the benefits it offers. Speak directly to your client’s pain points. If you run a spa that offers sensitive skin treatments bundled as a package, then make sure you address the discomfort that your potential client may experience with their skin, and how your services will ease that pain. It’s also great to point out how the different services combined together create the ideal solution.

Your packages are acting as your “recommendations” and your clients will appreciate the experience of taking advice from an expert service provider. It’s comforting to be in good hands, after all.

Remember, outside of grouped offerings, you can always offer an a la carte menu for things that happen to fall outside the scope of a package, or for small one-off type projects. You can also use the a la carte menu to pull add-ons from. If a client is enjoying your service already, they will likely be open to additional offerings you have that may offer them even more value.

Do a Bit of Gardening

Weed out services that no longer serve your clients well or that you just don’t enjoy providing. There’s nothing worse than offering a service to a client that you don’t feel good about doing or that takes up more time or resources than it’s worth.

Take stock of the services that have drawn the most business, or have attracted your best clients, and invest time into marketing these more effectively. You can use an online data tool, like Google Analytics, to determine which areas of your website receive the most action (clicks, page views, time spent on the page, etc.). This information will help you make decisions about what to keep and what to cut based on past traffic trends. You can also use this tool to regularly monitor how your website updates impact these numbers.

Consider Strategic Partnering

Sometimes there are aspects to a specific service you offer that you love, but other aspects that you don’t. Or perhaps you’d like to pursue the path of becoming a specialist in a certain aspect of your business.

Instead of doing away with the service altogether, consider outsourcing the parts you are less keen on. Or consider partnering with a complimentary service provider and building your packages together. You provide parts a, b, and c, and then your partner provides parts d, e, and f.  It’s a win-win for you both since you’re able to service clients you would have otherwise turned away. And you still get to love what you’re doing at the same time.

Be Very Specific

There’s nothing worse than the dreaded scope creep. You offer several services together, but aren’t clear about what you will and won’t do within those offerings. Before you know it, you’re like a hamster in a wheel, trying to keep up with all the additional things your client expects.

And you have a hard time saying no, because clear expectations and deliverables weren’t firmly laid out within your package description. This creates a negative experience for both you and the client. It’s always much better to be crystal clear about what is actually included and then you have wiggle room leftover to pleasantly surprise a client with a free add-on. You can never go wrong with over-delivering on a client’s expectations.

Remember, there’s no exact science to packaging your services. What works well for one service business may not work at all for another. But what’s important is working to find the right balance for your business and organizing your offerings in a way that makes it easy for clients to find what they need and be excited about your services. If you keep this in mind when packaging your offerings, you will be raking in the sales in no time.

For the past few years, companies have been cutting costs aggressively to maintain healthy profits in a slow-moving economy. This is for everyone, from the biggest multinational conglomerate to the small pizza shop on the corner.

When money’s tight business owners are smart to find ways to lower costs, but the question is always what is wise to cut and what is a vital investment in a company’s future. How do you prioritize? Here is our list of 3 expenses that should be cut and 4 that should never be touched – and why.

3 Expenses to Trim

1. Paper and Ink

More and more businesses are going paperless, but it’s hard to break the habit. Look into ways to convert your processes from paper-based to digital-based. Train yourself to get used to looking at documents on-screen and back away from the idea that you have to file away documents that are just taking up physical space. Look into online data storage. Send contracts or quotes to clients using online services. You can even have clients sign digital documents using popular services like RightSignature. When you do need to print paperwork, cut costs by refilling used ink cartridges (easily done at nearby office-supply stores) and using double-sided printouts.

2. Credit Expenses

The easiest expense to trim is interest rates on business line of credits, loans, and credit cards. A new business card with introductory 0% APR on balance transfers can help cut down on interest costs. Additionally, the cash back rewards that these cards offer make them even more valuable. For other financing options, to keep interest rates relatively low, look into periodically renegotiating with your lender.

3. Personnel

People are any business’s greatest asset, but we’ve all experienced times when people feel like a business’s greatest liability. For most positions, as small business owner, you’re in the driver’s seat during this slow economy. Keep close tabs on who is adding value and who is taking it away, and make sure the people you have are keeping you on the track to growth.

4 Expenses Not to Trim

1. Security

Safety is important for any business, whether we’re talking virtual or physical. Threats of fraud and theft will never go away, so it’s important to invest in protecting your business. Trying to cut costs in this area will put your company at undue risk and end up costing a lot more in the long run if a bad guy strikes.

2. Accounting

Getting paid should be a top priority since cash flow is critical to the survival of small businesses. Invest in an easy to use accounting program like FreshBooks, that’s designed especially for small business. Since it’s easy it will save you time, keep you organized and ensure you are being paid on time. With the day to day organization under control, go ahead and invest in a great accountant to assist with the really important accounting things such as complicated tax preparation, tax law compliance, and strategic planning.

3. Advertising and Marketing

If you cut your advertising budget, you will most likely cut sales. Advertising is a key investment in your company’s future, so cutbacks in your ads could mean a step back in your business growth. Rather than thinking about cutting back your advertising budget, evaluate whether where you put your ad dollars is being put to most-efficient use, and make adjustments when necessary. Referral programs are relatively inexpensive compared to traditional advertising methods. If your customers are happy campers, consider ramping up a program that makes it much easier for customers to refer people in their network to you.

4. Personnel

Again, businesses are people, and you need to make sure you have the best people in your company. While the job market is competitive, pushing your best people too far could turn them into your worst people – or worse yet, turn them into your competition’s newest hire. Good performance needs to be rewarded, because that will translate into good performance in the future.

About the author: Daniela Baker is a blogger at CreditDonkey, where entrepreneurs can compare business credit card offers to find the right one for their business. Learn more by visiting their website or following them on Twitter @CreditDonkey

Starting your own company is difficult, there’s no doubt about that. But the more we small business owners overcomplicate our own tasks and issues, the less likely it is that we will reach our goals. Simplifying your daily tasks, long-term goals, and overall business ethics might be the answer to the question “How am I going to get all of this done?”

Determine Your Big Rocks

When there’s too much work to be done, overwhelming yourself with a long to-do list is the worst (and most unproductive) thing you can do. Take a moment to recognize what your business’s big rocks are. A term coined by Steven Covey and introduced to me by Leo Babauta, “big rocks” are major tasks you don’t want but need to accomplish by the end of the workweek. Who are your biggest clients or customers? What are the most difficult or time-consuming projects that need to be completed? Most importantly, step back and decide what is most important to you. Don’t make a laundry list of tasks to be done; there shouldn’t be more than a handful. The next step? Get those things done first.

Take your big rock list, post it where you can see it and won’t forget about it, and work until they are all cleared off. Ask your employees (if you have them) to do the same. Review them together. Celebrate their completion together. It might seem like a basic action, but when you pick what is most important to your success, then work solely on those few tasks, your efficiency improves greatly. In the end, that’s the diet and exercise of productivity. It’s the only thing that works.

Build Margin

While you’re attacking those big rocks, it is just as vital to your business (and health) to create margin for yourself and employees. According to author Richard Swenson, margin is the room around the edges. It gives you some flexibility for the things you love and the amazing opportunities that appear without warning.

To help create margin and increase productivity, reflect on not just the big rocks at hand, but all of your projects and client tasks. Think about the longevity of your relationship with each client.  Factor in the enjoyment you receive from working with each and every client. What percentage of your bottom line do they contribute? Gauging all of these factors makes it easier for you to prioritize tasks.

Create deadlines for important tasks. Make the most time-intensive and frustrating tasks part of your big rock group, breaking them up into smaller chunks with deadlines. Creating deadlines allows you to have a more effective workflow. A better workflow gives you more time for creative pursuits, which are invaluable in a small business industry that thrives on imagination.

Bring an Outsider to the Inside

It’s often hard to read the label when you’re on the inside of the bottle. When you’re struggling to maintain an efficient work environment and your to-do list is growing by bounding leaps, it may be time to consider bringing in a new team member or temporary help. A fresh set of eyes might determine what issues your company is experiencing — ones that you don’t see because you’re deep in the trenches of work. Sometimes a leap of faith is required to hire new staff, even someone working part-time. But increased efficiency in workflow will pay for itself in the end.

Bringing in someone who can sort, triage, and organize for you is beneficial, especially if you are the CEO or hold a similar position — particularly if you are the creative mind in your organization. You must protect your energy, sense of play, and margin. The primary point of contact for your business should have these organizational skills. Hiring someone to deal with something as simple as a company email account can streamline your work. A small act of simplification can benefit the workflow of the entire business.

Start at the End

When creating a small business, you should start with its end in mind. Having a solid idea of the framework, purpose, and values of your organization, along with your long-term goals, makes it much easier to make decisions today.  Each decision, big or small, must be made with the purpose and values of your organization in mind.

Devise a plan — whether it’s a two-year plan or a 20-year plan — and make all choices with it in mind. When you add new employees, take on new clients, or create a new branch, do it so you can better achieve a goal. Don’t complicate it; do what you need to do now so tomorrow is successful.

Planning, structuring, and simplifying your workdays (and workweeks) makes your problems seem much smaller. Identifying your big rocks enables you to determine what to get done first, and when it comes time to do that work, it can feel freeing. Allow yourself to get your important tasks done, and it will give you and your business an open and exciting opportunity to grow.

 Tim Miles is the owner of The Imagination Advisory Group, a communication firm that advises owner-operated companies. He wrote a bestselling book about life and how we live it — and work and how we work it — called “Good Company.” Follow Tim’s thoughts on his daily blog, The Daily Blur.  This article was written with the assistance of Lynn Peisker, the Executive Sister and Chief Plate Spinner at the Immagination Advisory Group.

Hiring remote workers may seem like the Holy Grail for small business productivity at first glance. Your team can avoid the daily commute to work. You can reduce overhead costs such as office space and equipment. These are some obvious perks of doing business this way. But you’ve probably also heard about what happens when things seem too good to be true, right?

In truth, there are many benefits to managing a remote team, but there are also some unexpected challenges that you may not realize until much later on.

Here are 3 productivity pitfalls that plague remote team managers and how to avoid them:

Productivity plummets because your “team” doesn’t feel like a team.

It’s natural to think that productivity will increase when your workers are no longer sitting around the water cooler gossiping (celebrity dance show recap, anyone?). But personal relationships can enhance the overall work experience more than you might realize. Have you ever had a job you hated, but you couldn’t stand the thought of leaving your friends (also known as coworkers)? The office provides a place for you to make personal connections with your peers, employers and supervisors, providing a morale boost that can help increase productivity.

How to avoid this pitfall:

Set up a virtual water cooler; a place where your remote workers can go to chat with each other about current projects and get to know each other. Get it started with a casual meeting that everyone attends. Ask everyone to introduce themselves and to share something non-work-related with the group.

Communication breakdowns cause you to become a raging micromanager.

Picture this: You assign a super-important task to one of your remote workers and haven’t heard anything in a few hours. It’s crucial that the project is done right and done on time, so you call or email to find out whether she’s on track. A few hours before the deadline, you’re bursting at the seams. Will she be ready on time? So you call again, delaying the project further and communicating that you have little faith in this person’s ability to meet deadlines. Essentially, you’ve become a raging micromanager that no one wants to work with.

How to avoid this pitfall:

Let technology do the micromanaging for you. Set your team up to work through a project management program that will allow them to post updates, track time and keep you informed about every step of the process. This way, there’s no need to interrupt someone’s work unless you see there’s a problem.

Lack of trust leaves too much responsibility on your shoulders.

When you’re sitting face-to-face with someone every day, it’s a lot easier to build trust than with someone you’ve never even met in person. That’s why many people find it harder to delegate the things that really should be delegated to a remote team member. They end up holding on to too many tasks themselves, taking them away from what should be their key focus as business owner. Also, should there be an emergency or something unexpected that pops up, there is no one primed or ready to jump in and keep the ship afloat. Tasks critical to the business are left unfinished or they’re left to less-experienced team members, putting the business at risk.

How to avoid this pitfall:

Set up an effective succession plan. This means recognizing that everyone must be replaceable - even you. This is especially true if you’d like to continue growing your business. There are two possible paths with this that you may want to consider. First, you could bring on a management trainee who you can groom to take over your role eventually, but who offers support to you and your team in the mean time. Albeit, this strategy is much more difficult to accomplish remotely, it does provide a solid end-solution.  This type of planning also allows you to transfer knowledge and skills, in prioritized stages, increasing the chances of a best-fit successor down the line.

You may also wish to take another, much different route- one where you hire remotely located folks to focus only on key aspects of your business. Since your specialists can live pretty much anywhere, your pool of candidates is unlimited and you can truly source the best of the best. These specialists will, with time, come to know more about this area of the business or industry than even you- allowing for the team’s collaborative results to truly surpass your expectations for success.

About the author: Dave Churchville is the founder of MyClientSpot.com, online project management and time tracking software for creative teams. Dave has over 20 years of experience leading and managing technology and business projects in settings ranging from tiny startups to large corporations, and now as an entrepreneur. Dave is also the author of the 4 Weeks to a More Connected Business ecourse.

Jackie banged her fists against her desk in frustration, staring at her inbox and stressing over the fact that she still hasn’t received a response to any of the email queries she sent out last week.

She sent out no less than 50 queries last month, with an additional 30 so far this month, and she’s only managed to obtain “just” enough business to keep her floating along for another two weeks or so.

Sighing, she idly tapped her teeth, wondering what her next step should be. Maybe she should pack it in and go back to her old job. Freelancing is a lot harder than she thought it’d be when she first started.

Jackie grimaced and shook her head decisively. No. She wasn’t giving up yet. Picking up the phone, she dialed Sherry’s number. Sherry was a successful freelancer in the same line of work, and had been mentoring her since she started.

Maybe she’d be able to give her some insight into this problem, too.

After a couple of rings, Sherry picked up. “Hello?” she said.

“Sherry… its Jackie… I need your help again!” Jackie laughs, halfway worried Sherry was going to be totally sick of her and hang up on her. Thankfully, she didn’t. 

“Hey Jackie!” Sherry said. “No problem, what’s going on?”

Jackie quickly filled her in and outlined what she was doing, as well as the results she was getting from it, ending with an almost tearful “And my rent is due next week!”

Sherry asked her to email a sample of one of the queries she had sent out, so Jackie sent one over while they were on the phone.

Sherry was quiet for a few minutes as she read. Then she said “OK… I know what you can do to improve your response rate, and it’s really simple, so calm down.”

“My initial thoughts are that you’re all over the place with this email, and it’s not really clear why your recipient should even bother reading it. Some simple copy tweaks should help you.”

Sherry proceeded to give Jackie several suggestions on improvements to make, while Jackie quickly scribbled notes. It was like a light bulb went off for Jackie, and she realized not only would this help her with her sales pitches, this was awesome information for her fledgling newsletter list too.

Fast forward three weeks, and Jackie almost danced with glee in her desk chair. Opening her email, she saw 5 new messages, all asking for samples of her work. Jackie clapped her hands together with a huge grin and said, “Thank you, Sherry!”

Does that scenario sound familiar to you?

It should, it’s all too common of a problem today.

Email is fast becoming one of the noisiest places on the web. And despite so called “permission marketing” with people willingly sharing their email with their favorite businesses, these businesses often wind up falling short in what they deliver.

Which, in turn, makes people no longer want to read their emails; they are soon relegated to the deleted file, or even worse, they wind up in SPAM.

There does seem to be an art to writing effective emails, but that doesn’t mean you can’t master that art. The simple tips below should help start you off on the right track.

Vital- Know Your Why

Why are you sending that particular email, of that particular “type”, to that particular audience?

• Are you writing a sales email to pitch a new product or service?
• Are you writing an information-rich newsletter, building a relationship with your audience?
• Are you writing something that’s a bit of a hybrid of the two?

If you don’t know your why, you certainly can’t write an email that holds value for your reader. And delivering value is essential in building a relationship, especially through something like email that can feel so “impersonal” for many.

Remember- Your Subject Line is a Headline

This is something many people tend to forget, but your subject line is crucial. It’s what initially captures the attention and interest of the email recipient. If it’s not intriguing, it will no doubt wind up in the virtual trash bin.

However, the even more crucial aspect of any good subject or headline is that your email content live up to the expectation that your subject line creates.

There’s nothing worse than following a captivating headline into an email that falls flat in the content or value department.

Even worse are the headlines that trick you into opening them, but then offer nothing but a hard sales pitch, screaming “buy me now!”

Practice Brevity- People are Busy

Just as you appreciate a short but succinct email that “hits the spot” so to speak… so do your readers. While a longer email is not always a bad thing, it really boils down to knowing your audience well.

However, as a general rule, busy people are busy people, and most don’t have time to read a massively long email, even if they want to.

Worst case scenario is you wind up in the trash bin. The best case scenario is that they save your email to “read later” and then never really get around to doing it.

A message that no one reads is a message that has zero chance of achieving its goal.

Don’t Meander Along- Stick to a Point

An effective email will stick to one point and have one focus.

Just like any written medium, running off on tangents or focusing on too many things at once simply confuses your reader, stresses them out, and turns them off.

Focus your message around one key offer, or one key idea, and lead with the most important and impactful information first. Minor details can be filled in later in the message.

Another great strategy that seems to work well for Chris Brogan is to let your reader know right off the bat if your email is a pitch or if it is just sharing information. Then invite them to continue reading, or not, and leave the ball in their court.

Those interested in hearing your offer will continue reading, those not interested will delete the email, and ultimately any response you get to your offer will be much more valuable.

Deliver Value- Whatever That Looks Like

Every audience is different. It’s up to you to figure out what your audience views as “valuable”. When you do, deliver it.

You might even need to ask them what they want from you. That’s OK, too. It means you’re opening up the lines of communication and making your readers aware that you are a person on the other side of that email, and their feedback is important to you.

Whatever you have to do to get the information, figure out what your readers prize most from you, and then deliver that to them consistently, respectfully, and in a way that resonates the most with them.

That’s what will encourage people to open your emails week after week.

Be Genuine- People Respect It

Someone that allows you access to their email is basically inviting you into a part of their lives. It’s like giving someone your home phone number… you don’t give it out to just anyone.

So when you’re genuine and honest in your communications to your readers, you build trust. People like people they trust. People do business with people they trust. People refer people they trust.

It’s really that simple.

Why would you jeopardize the possibilities of your email marketing efforts being anything less than genuine?

Following these simple steps when crafting your next round of business emails will ensure your message is actually read by your audience. With engaged readers on the other end, your inbox should be buzzing with replies in no time.

Networking can be a powerful way to build your business, but not when it doesn’t result in new leads or clients. That was the problem for Kyle, a web developer who spent a lot of time going to networking events and never seeing any benefit. Before giving up completely he sought my help.

After playing tennis one afternoon, Kyle and I hung out in the clubhouse to talk about his problem. Networking can be tough, and there are many ways to mess it up, so to get a better idea of where I could help Kyle, I asked him to fill me in on his efforts. He told me he’d learned from a seminar that networking should be about the other person, not you.

Falling down

“I’ve been following that advice,” Kyle said. “I’m always asking people how I can help them, but it hasn’t been working.”

After Kyle gave me a detailed rundown of a recent networking conversation he’d had, I could tell that while he was doing everything he could to make it about the other person, he was not doing one of the most important things.

To help him see where he was falling down, I changed the subject and asked him who—of the many people we knew in common—he most enjoyed hanging out with.

“Easy,” he said, “Rich.” I was hoping he would say that. Everyone who knew Rich loved him.

The most special person in the world

We then talked about Rich for a while, all his wonderful qualities—how funny he is, how caring and empathetic. How he’s always there for you. Then Kyle said another thing I was hoping he would say: “He always makes me feel awesome.”

“Me too,” I said. “I feel like the most special person in the world when I’m around him.”

I then told Kyle that it was no coincidence that Rich makes us both feel so special and that we both think he’s awesome. The two are directly related. How we feel about somebody is based on how they make us feel. Our judgment about somebody tends to have this very subjective element. I’m not saying Rich isn’t a fantastic person, but we wouldn’t think so highly of him if he didn’t make us feel great.

The rush of feeling great

“It’s also no coincidence,” I said, “that Rich is the best networker I know. And that’s because whenever someone meets Rich they want to see him again—to get that rush of feeling great about themselves.”

We could all become better networkers if we learn from Rich and focus on making everyone we meet feel great. “So,” I said to Kyle, “you were on the right track when you said that networking is about the other person. But you didn’t have the full answer, which is that it’s about how the other person feels.”

“So, I should start off by complimenting people to make them feel good?” Kyle asked.

Tricky territory

Now we were getting into tricky territory, because it’s important to avoid coming across as fake and smarmy, which of course won’t engender the positive feelings you’re hoping for. As I explained to Kyle, you want to make a genuine connection with another person. That’s what Rich does. And while there are lots of ways Rich makes people feel good, three of them stand out.

1. Listen

In Rich’s first conversation with someone, the other person does most of the talking. I would guess about three times as much. That’s because Rich is asking questions and listening to the answers. But he’s not asking questions like a robot or like he’s interrogating someone. He’s asking questions that show he really cares and wants to know more about the person. And he’s really listening, not pretending to listen, which is clear to the other person when Rich makes references to things they said earlier. He also expresses empathy and understanding, rather than offering opinions or solutions, which is what a lot of people tend to do.

For example if someone tells him they’ve been flying all over the place for the past few weeks, Rich might comment about how exhausting that sounds, or ask about how the jet lag has affected them. What he doesn’t do is try to solve the problem by suggesting something like videoconferencing to cut down on air travel.

When you listen to someone in the caring way Rich does, you make them feel good because most people enjoy talking about themselves and feeling understood.

2. Compliment

Yes, compliments can make someone feel good, but they’ll backfire if the person thinks you’re paying them one to achieve some objective. So give a compliment if it comes from a good place and won’t be perceived as insincere. By watching Rich, I’ve picked up some good advice, which is to make the compliment a small one and to make it about something you actually know about the person, which is easy to do when you follow the first tip about listening. For example, to the frequent flyer, Rich might remark on the person’s stamina. Or, he might invite them to compliment themselves by asking them how they get the energy to keep up that pace.

3. Ask for help

Another powerful way to make people feel good is to ask for help. When I told Kyle this, he looked at me with disbelief, saying that it went against what he’d learned in his networking seminar.

“I’m supposed to offer my help, not ask for theirs,” Kyle said.

I nodded, changing the subject. “Hey, your forehand was awesome today. Do you mind showing me how you get such powerful topspin?”

“Sure,” he said with a big smile as he started pulling his racket out of his bag.

Before he got going, I asked him how my request for help made him feel.

He looked at me and laughed once he figured out my ploy. “Yeah, I felt pretty awesome,” he said.

“Do you think you would have felt as awesome if I offered to help you with your serve?”

“Good point.”

“Unless it’s done in the right circumstances,” I said, “offering help can trigger a number of negative responses in people. Most people prefer to present an image of control and strength, especially in front of strangers, and when you offer to help you threaten that. You can come across like you think you’re above them, and nobody wants to feel like your underling. Offering help works well if the other person has asked for it or is open to receiving it. I know you mean well, but perhaps your offers for help haven’t been made with the right setup.

“Asking for help is a different story. Most people are flattered by it. Unlike offering help, which can make someone feel like you’re putting them down, asking for help lifts someone up. It makes them feel like they’ve got something special to offer others. More than that, they will want to spend more time with you. Ben Franklin discovered this counter intuitive truth, which is known as the Ben Franklin Effect.”

A piece of advice—when asking for help, focus on an area in which the person you’re asking has expertise. Here again, listening comes into play because it gives you the chance to learn about the other person’s special skills and talents. And—bonus—you’ll benefit from whatever help they give you.

A clearer objective

Kyle followed these networking tips. He liked having a clearer objective than he had before. Instead of a muddy “make it about the other person” his focus was “make the other person feel good.” He didn’t see an immediate impact on his business, but he did develop some ongoing relationships and over the course of a few months a handful of people became clients or referred him to good prospects. His business was at last seeing some big growth from his networking efforts.

The big takeaway: If you can make the person you want to network with feel great about themselves, they’ll think you’re great. And because they’ll want to relive how awesome you made them feel, the door will be open for you to develop the relationship further. So go out there and start spreading some good vibes. And keep in mind the secret that Ben Franklin observed—that asking for advice inspires people to like you.

If you want to share some of your own networking experiences, please let us know in the comments section below, or shoot me an email at donald (@) freshbooks (dot) com.

Author’s note: this post is based on a business owner I have coached. I’ve changed his name and some telling details.

For other stories like this—including one on how I once showed Kyle how positive thinking was ruining his sales—step into The Cowper Files.

Yesterday, Google announced that it was retiring its Checkout product effective November 20th 2013. With this announcement, they’ve recommended that users switch to FreshBooks to continue billing online. We’re honoured that Google has recommended us, so if you need stellar invoicing to integrate seamlessly with online payments, start a trial with FreshBooks and you’ll be up and running in no time.

And if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to our rockstar support team, available by phone or email to help you weekdays between 9am and 6pm EST. Drop us a line, we’d love to help.

Now that tax season is finally winding down, I bet you’re wondering how long you need to keep your tax records for? While it’s different depending on where you live, here’s the skinny for U.S., Canadian and UK residents:

U.S.

In the U.S., the amount of time you need to keep your tax records depends on whether or not you owe money to the IRS. Keep employment tax records for at least 4 years. If you owe money because you reported a false income, keep your records for 6 years. For all other amounts owed, keep your records for 3 years. If you are waiting for a credit or refund, keep your records for 3 years – 7 years if the credit is from bad debt deduction. If you don’t file a return or file a fraudulent return (not recommended!), keep your records indefinitely.

Canada

In Canada, you need to keep your tax records for at least six years. If you destroy or discard them before that window, you could be in danger during an audit. If you file an amended return after your original one, maintain your files for 6 years after the amendment.

UK

Surprisingly, you don’t have to hold onto tax records for long in the UK. Hold on to them for a full year after you file your returns, in case the HMRC asks to see your records. If you file after the January 31st deadline, keep them for a total of 15 months.

It’s easy to forget exactly how long you need to keep your business tax records for, so to get more detailed information visit the links above or bookmark this post for future reference.