Why systems? Systems allow a business to be run with consistency, and almost on automation. They give owners, manager and staff guidelines as to how each operation and task is to be performed. Now I understand that many business owners won’t like this idea … “we know what to do”, “we don’t need it written down”. That is most probably the case. Most small business owners do run on automation, but what happens when “you” can’t be there, or want the day off, or “let’s hope it doesn’t happen” you end up in hospital for a week or two? Oh, you’ve probably always got family or close friends you can call on, but how much easier would the job be for whoever you get in to take over, if you had the simplest things written down. And that’s all systems are.

One of the businesses I have is building websites. I’ve had customers phone our support asking about things (that have nothing to do with what we do for them) like “Peter can’t get his emails”. We always try to help whenever we can and give them suggestions, however I’ll bet that when the new staff member comes up with the same problem some months down the track, they’ll be phoning us again. That’s simply because they don’t have systems.

Empower your staff to write systems. In the example above it would not have taken too long for the staff member dealing with Peter’s emails to write a system on how they dealt with the problem. And it’s then there for next time it happens.

They are really quite simple to create and you don’t have to spend a lot of time of them.

A simple way is

Write down your departments:

• sales
• production
• accounting
• administration

then put sub-headings under each of these:

• sales

1. how to create an order
2. telephone script

• production

1. how to print business cards
2. how to bind on the DC10

• accounting

1. how to create an invoice
2. checklist for monthly tasks
3. how to do a bank reconciliation

• administration

1. what happens each day when the mail is collected
2. how to handle email enquiries

You get the drift?

As they’re created keep them in a folder. They’re also a great tool to have whenever you have a new staff member. So you’ve got Mary starting work today and you’re going to teach her what to do when the mail arrives. Just get out your system for Mail and there will be the step-by-step guide.

I’d love to hear about the systems you have in your business and how you use them. Please leave a reply here.

“Sure I can use a computer, but don’t give me that hard stuff to do!” Sound like you?

There are many people both young and old who don’t want to get onto the “computer bandwagon”. Are you one of them? Well it’s completely your choice. But if you’re in business, regardless of what your business is, you’d be better off if you did have some computer literacy.

Now you know, I’m not unique in using the computer to seek out information when I want to purchase. Your customers probably do exactly the same thing as I do. So how do I use the computer when I’m ready to purchase?

Look up opening hours of a business

Just yesterday I was at a conference at Q1 in Surfers Paradise, Queensland. Natalie and I were going to have breakfast before the conference started and use that time to go over our notes, so I looked up the Crema Expresso http://www.cremaespresso.com.au/our-locations at Q1 to see what time they opened. They opened at 6.30am. That was early enough for us. Would they have lost my business if their times were not on their website. They certainly would have. We would have chosen a place that was in the vicinity which we knew would be opened so we knew that we would be able to have breakfast before starting our work day. Are your opening hours on your website?

Check address of a business

Many of us remember the Yellow Pages slogan … “let your fingers do the walking”. I’m not sure if it’s still used, but …. well I guess people still let their fingers do the walking, but it’s on a keyboard now. Yes I will check the address of a business that I’m going to for the first time if I’m not sure where it is. It could be a doctor’s office, a shoe shop that someone has recommended to me, a shop where I can purchase specialty spices, the place where I”m going to park my car when I’m travelling interstate or overseas, etc. Is your address, and a map, on your website?

Check out the Menu of a Restaurant

My family and I love to eat out, and we’re always trying different restaurants, so we’re always going online to check out the menus. Do you have your menu on your website? You don’t have to be a restaurant to use this tip. Your menu could be a list of the brands you stock if you’re a clothing store or an electrical store. It could be a list of your services and how they could benefit your customer, or it could be a list of the speciality items you stock. Think about how you can help your customer or potential customer find you because of the goods that you sell.

Specialty Business

Optometrists – they’re all over the place. In every shopping centre. It’s easy to get an appointment and have a check-up. Well that’s true. I wear contact lenses and found that I was becoming unhappy with my lenses and what I was able to see. I booked in for an eye examination and the practitioner gave me a trial pair of contact lenses to see how they worked for me. They weren’t too bad, except my distance vision was annoying me. I’d sit at a table in a restaurant and the waiter, one table away, well his face would be blurred. Very annoying. I went back to the optometrist and told him of my discomfort. He suggested that the problem could be fixed with hard lenses. He told me that he could help with those, except that I would have to “sit in the chair” a lot because his company didn’t have the expensive equipment to get the perfect reading. I thought about this for a a few weeks. I decided that I would give hard lenses a try even though they have their drawbacks (expensive, difficult to adjust to, etc.) But should I be going to the company who didn’t have the proper equipment to test my eyes. The optometrist did assure me that I would end up with the correct lenses because he would continually get trial lenses until we found the ones that were right for me   … oh, really?

I needed to do a bit of investigation into this. So where did I go. The internet of course. I searched for a contact lens specialist, then I did a search for a contact lens specialist in my area. I would have travelled to get the right person, but fortunately I found him about a 15 minute drive from my home. Why did I choose this company. Well their website told me that they were independent so they were “able to choose the very best lens system for our patient’s needs, from whichever company may make it”. They had been practicing in the same location for over 20 years. There was information on each staff member and when I read about John Boyce (www.boyceoptometry.com/staff.html), it sounded like he had the expertise and the experience, and it explained how he keeps on the cutting edge of the industry.  I made an appointment, and John Boyce tested my vision and tested the overall health of my eyes. Then he explained it all to me, including the fact that hard lenses weren’t the best solution for me. I now have the best contact lenses I’ve ever had had. My expectations were well and truly delivered. Are you talking about your speciality on your website?

So what’s the lesson in this. People are out there looking for you and your business. They want the products you have, the service you offer, the expertise, the location, the unique opening hours, or the extra quick turnaround time …. or something else. You have to tell your story. You have to be in the places they are searching. Are you?

Have a good look at your website and read through each page to see how you could improve it. Organise to have a brainstorming sessions with your staff to discuss how you could make improvements. Ask your current customers what they would like to see on your website.

I’d love to have your feedback on what you have found works to bring in new customers to your business.

Many now will be thinking, “I can’t do that, my product isn’t right”. Well some products may not be right, but here is where we have to think outside the box.

The predictable businesses for this type of income are those who’s customers pay the same amount each week/month, such as personal trainers, web hosting companies, etc.

But if we do think outside the box you might find that you are able to do it in your business and at the same time, generate extra income for your business. For instance my dentist phones me every six months to remind me that it’s time for a checkup. Now, I’m sure you’ll understand that going to the dentist isn’t my favourite pastime. So do I call them straight back to make that appointment? No, you bet I don’t! It does cross my mind every now and then because I know that it’s something that I need to do. But if the dentist was charging me up front for that checkup do you think I might have returned that call to make the appointment. Most probably!  Do you think the dentist might have been doing me a favour to have me on direct debit. Most probably, because by now I would have had the checkup!

There are many companies who telemarket their previous customers every so often to see if they require their services again. A few that I can think of are carpet cleaners and pest control companies. They tend to call on a regular basis, but think of how much easier it would be for them if they set the client up on direct debit when they did the previous service so that every six months the customer was automatically paying for the service. It’s like automatic sales, and that’s cool!

Some of the business categories that could use direct debit include

• childcare
• clubs
• gyms
• music teachers
• gardeners
• home maintenance
• web designers
• pure water suppliers
• martial arts studio
• storage
• security
• dental procedures
• property management
• telecommunication
• dance studios
• internet service provider

In our business we have a number of customers on direct debit from those who pay for monthly webhosting, we have customers who are members of our membership site, The Ask Natalie Academy, plus we have customers who we coach in social media who are on regular payments. It’s easy. You just have to set it up once, then it’s done.

We’ve found it to be a more efficient way to manage our income, it improves our productivity and alleviates the need to chase unpaid invoices.

We use paymenthub.com.au and have found them to be excellent.

We’d love to know your thoughts on this and how you collect money in your business.

Bose SoundDock User Guide

Frustrating at the best of times, but we only use the “user manuals” when we’re wanting to use the product for something that we don’t usually do, or when something has gone wrong.  And this is the time that we want the user manual quickly. We could be in the middle of a job and getting short of time so it’s important that we find that user manual as quickly as possible.

The User Guide could be for anything for around the office or workplace. For instance

• iphone user guide
• telephone user guide
• vacuum cleaner user guide
• coffee machine user guide
• shredder user guide

… or products from a workshop

• drill user guide
• compressor user guide

…. or anything else …

When I purchase something new for the office (and I also use this method at home) I download the user guide from the manufacturer’s website. I store all the user guides in one file on my computer called … well I call it Product Operations Manuals. The files are always a pdf (well so far that is what I have found) so they are easy to read and use and are searchable. Tip: To search for anything in a pdf just click Control F on a PC or Command F on a Mac. Type in a word or sentence you’re looking for and that word or phrase will be highlighted show in the pdf.

This is very simple, but I’ve found it to be most useful.

Let me know what your best method is for handling User Guides around your office or workplace. I’d love your feedback.

1. MS Word formatting is linked to the default printer on your computer. This means that when you send the document to your client, and they have a different printer, the Word document will reformat itself. This potentially could make the document look awful with information in the incorrect places. Not too professional!
2. The fonts you use in the document will only look correct if the recipient has the same fonts on their computer. Strange thought? If you’re using the most common fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman there probably won’t be any problem with your document and it will show correctly, however if you use a font that the recipient does not have on their computer, then there are problems. For example, if you use a script font for your heading and a substitute font is used, your document could look very unprofessional.
3. Have you ever thought what could happen if you sent through a contract to a client which you required them to sign and return to you?  You know …. I like and trust people and would hope that others would do the right thing by me, but unfortunately in this world we have people who are unethical, unscrupulous and well … just plain nasty. What if you had one of those kinds as a client and you had sent through the Word document for them to sign and return to you … and they changed some wording on the document before they signed it and returned it to you? Not nice thoughts, but could happen.
4. The same goes for invoices which are in Word (or sometimes I get them as an Excel spreadsheet). The same thing could happen here. While you might have a copy of what you sent on your computer, numbers could be changed prior to the customer paying you. This is probably less likely to happen, however it is something I wanted to bring to your attention .. so that you’ll never be caught.
5. You’re sending a 20 page document to a professional print shop because you require 30 copies of this document for the workshop you’re running tomorrow. Just go back and look at items 1. and 2. This document will look great on your computer, and you’ll print one out to have a look and it will be all good. Send it to the printer and things could change. Now any printer worth their “salt” would check over a document prior to printing, however it could still look good ….. but there is something changed that you don’t like. A box has moved to another page that will look OK to the printer (they don’t know your product or topic), but it will make your document totally wrong. The printer prints it, you collect it, and you don’t notice the error until you’re already running the workshop.

So then, what should I send to my clients?

It’s easy. Create your file in whichever program you choose. Then when it’s ready, make your file into a PDF. A pdf is a Portable Document Format created by Adobe some years ago. It can be opened by anyone on any computer so long as they have Acrobat Reader which is a free download from Adobe.

Learn how to create your pdf here https://www.acrobat.com/createpdf/en/home.html

Get Adobe pdf reader here http://get.adobe.com/reader/

What type of file do you sent to your clients and associates?

Lovemarks – Kevin Roberts

Lovemarks

Kevin Roberts is the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, the worlds coolest advertising company. Lovemarks is not a “sit down and read” kind of book, it’s the type of book you can pick up and read in parts when you feel inspired. It is brimming with fantastic information on how many of the companies we love won our hearts and our business. A big plus, the book itself is pretty!  This is not a boring black and white business read. If you want to build a brand, not just a business – Lovemarks is a must read!

You can find a teaser of the book here! http://www.saatchikevin.com/Downloads/, or for a straight out purchase, get Lovemarks here.

The Dip – Seth Godin

The Dip

Seth Godin has a loyal following of fans all over the world. I would not say I am one of them.  Don’t get me wrong, I do like most of his stuff but I would not say I am a huge follower. This book however saved me from making a huge mistake!

The Dip talks about the taboo subject that no other business book dares to approach – when do I quit? If you are feeling like you are “in the dip” (at the bottom of a huge hole that you can’t see yourself climbing out of) this book is for you.

Get your copy of The Dip here.

PS The mistake I almost made was going back to full time work – I read this book two weeks before my business took off. It inspired me to get out of “the dip”!

Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office

Nice girls don’t get the corner office – Dr. Lois P Frankel

Yes, this is obviously one for the girls!  I read and re-read this book at least five times. I then forced it onto all of my friends to read. Dr. Frankel is a favorite of mine, I will read anything she has written.

This book is full of all the reasons why women screw themselves in work and in business (excuse the strong use of language!). Now I am really going to up the cheese factor by saying that this book is full of Oprah “aha moments”. The title is self-explanatory so I won’t give you any more information other than to say, “Go read it!”

Pick up your copy of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office here.

We’ve recently started using Google Docs in our business. So what is Google Docs and what are the benefits?

Google Docs is a web-based office suite. So it’s like Word, Excel and PowerPoint … and more. It’s online, and it’s free.

Who is using Google Docs?  Many individuals and business are using Google Docs.

It’s great for the education industry. Students and academics will use the program to collaborate on assignments and research projects. Teachers will use it to post notes, homework and assignment information. Students will use it for assignments, for working on group projects, for sharing notes and ideas around exam time, etc.

Friends could use Google Docs for planning a school function, sporting event or birthday party. It could be used by friends who want to share recipes, share gardening information or collaborate on story writing.

So what are businesses using Google Docs for, and how could it be beneficial to your business?

In our business we use it on a daily basis for many things such as:

• proof reading our newsletters
• using it to update to our ebooks – for instance when Facebook makes changes we need to update our book “The Ultimate Facebook Reference Guide”
• we keep a list of our blogging – in a spreadsheet we keep a list of all our blogs and at what stage they are at such as “in progress”, “completed” and “date posted”
• venue and pricing information for workshops

The great thing about Google Docs is it’s sharing ability. At Natalie Alaimo International, Natalie writes our weekly newsletter. She will write it in Google Docs and when she is finished, she will “share” the file with me. That’s super easy to do. Just click on the “share” button in the top right hand corner and share it with the person, or people you want to share it with. All you have to do is enter their email. Google Docs does the rest, including sending them an email to let them know that there is a document that has been shared with them.

So once Natalie has shared the newsletter with me and I receive the notification from Google, I log into Google Docs and proof read the newsletter. I can make any changes I want and when Natalie opens the document again, she will see the changes I have made. If all is OK our newsletter is all proofed and ready to go. However if I have changed something that is not quite right, Natalie is able to see the changes I have made. She can also go back and see exactly how the original document was. This makes proof reading so much easier than it was.

And what is the really best thing about Google Docs? You can use it from anywhere in the world. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. So you’ve created a document for your meeting tomorrow. You get to your meeting, 100 miles from your office … and you’ve forgotten to bring the printout of the document. No worries. Just log into Google Docs, right from where you are and your document is there, just as you left it.

Of course this is just the “tip of the iceberg” for Google Docs. Please share what you use Google Docs for in your life. We’d love to hear from you.

Years ago a good book was an absolute necessity when flying any distance, but today all kinds of entertainment is at our fingertips, literally. Music, movies, TV shows, documentaries, games, you name it, it’s there. Hours and hours of entertainment, more than anyone could watch, listen to, or play on the longest haul flight.

I’ve travelled twice to the USA in the past 12 months. Thirteen hours each way from Brisbane. That’s a total of 52 hours flying on the long haul flights. One of my passions is music so as soon as I possibly can on these flights I’ve got the headphones on and I’m rockin‘ to the music. Fabulous!  I love it. After the first international flight this year I decided it was time I bought my own headphones. The ones supplied by the airlines are … well ordinary, to say the least. Sure they do the job, but the effect could be far better with better headphones. Well time always seems to be so limited prior to leaving on a business trip or holiday … and you guessed it, the headphones were never purchased.

Natalie and I attended a three day conference in July at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas. I said to Natalie “I want to get some headphones before we leave. If you see a store let me know.” Walking through McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas on the first leg of our journey home, we turn a corner and hey presto, here’s a Bose store. Seemed like it was just waiting there for us. I only had to listen on the test headphones for a matter of seconds and I was sold. The salesman hadn’t even told us about the “noise reducing” feature …. and how cool was that when we were flying. One could justify the cost of these headphones for that feature alone. Yes I listened to music for the whole of the 13 hour flight home. Just fabulous, so glad I purchased them.

…. but I’m always looking for business tips, and there was one right inside the snazzy little container for the headphones. A Bose Courtesy Card for the QuietComfort 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones stating …

“Customers tell us they’re often asked about their Bose Quiet Comfort 15 headphones. For your convenience, this courtesy card is yours to pass along.”

Bose Courtesy Card

What a great idea is this? Do you have a product that you could introduce this feature into? Be innovative and stretch your imagination.

We’d love to hear your comments on how you introduced this tip into your business. Please let us know by commenting on this blog, or post on our Facebook page.

Have a look at the headphones and carry case here: http://worldwide.bose.com/axa/en_au/web/noise_cancelling_headphones/page.html

Oh, and I was asked about my headphones the very first time I used them!

I recently received a letter from our business bank, National Australia Bank introducing me to my “Dedicated Business Banker”. I’m not the best person around the filing cabinet so thought I would put his details into my Google Contacts. It’s easy to do and easy to find when I need it … and doesn’t get lost in the paper shuffle.

I added his name, phone and email address with great ease. Google has the option to add a picture in the contacts section so I thought I’d see if I could quickly (and accurately) find a picture of my “business banker”. Did a search and found that my business banker was on LinkedIn with a picture and stating that he was a business banker with the NAB, and in my area. This was the guy. You know, a lot of us imagine a business banker to be dressed formally in a suit. This guy had on some sports gear. Well I thought, I guess that’s OK so I grabbed the URL of the picture and added it in with his details.

On my initial search list was a person with the same name of Facebook. Had a quick look, and sure enough it was the same person. This, however, is where all credibility went out the door. Here is a picture of my “business banker” with a blond, over-tanned, scantily dressed female. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with blond, over-tanned, scantily dressed females if that’s how they want to be. And I would hold the same respect for them as I do for someone dressed like … well, the Queen!

I love the movers and shakers of the world and don’t have a problem with people who are controversial such as Mae West, Andy Warhol and Lady Gaga, but I guess the reason for me writing this is for us all to have a think about how we do portray ourselves to our customers, potential customer and business associates. How does your photo on Facebook and LinkedIn look? Social Media Guru, Natalie Alaimo from Natalie Alaimo International teaches us to have a professional photo taken for all our social media profiles.

While my “dedicated business banker” has every right to have whatever photo he chooses on Facebook, if it were my business and my livelihood, I’d be taking a good look at how I am portraying myself.

How do you look to your clients?

Do you know what your advertising money brings in? Well you should, and generally it’s not difficult to find out. All you have to do is track all your leads.

Well a lot of business owners will have already “zoned” out by now. “Oh, I don’t have time for that”, or “I don’t need to do that stuff”. Maybe there right. They know how much time they have, and they also know if they “need” to track their leads.

But if you want to be smart when spending your hard earned cash, then tracking your leads is one of the best ways you can either save money, or alternately spend more money to make more.

When you track your leads you will find out many things about your business. It’s easy for us in business to estimate where our business comes from, but in effect that estimate is probably a plain guess, and very often we’re guessing wrong. It’s very enlightening when you do track your leads to find out exactly where your enquiries come from, how much you are spending to get the enquiries, what your conversion rate is, and hence how much you make from your advertising dollar. Knowing this information then empowers you to put more money into the areas of your advertising that you are getting profitable business from, and less (or none) into areas that are not so good.

I’ve got an Enquiry & Job Leads Form. Download the form here. Adjust the form details to correspond with your business.

First 6 columns are relating to who is handling the enquiry and what is happening with the enquiry. The next 12 columns are for you to list your products and/or services. For instance with one of our companies, Natalie Alaimo International we list some of our products and services as

• Social Media Blueprint
• Facebook For Your Business Workshop
• The Ultimate Facebook Reference Guide – eBook
• Facebook For Your Business Video Series
• One-on-One Training

In the next 9 columns you list where your enquiry came from. Depending on the information you want to gain you might want to know how they contacted you, so you could use

• phone
• email
• web enquiry
• facebook enquiry
• networking function

…. or you may want to relate this to particular advertising campaigns you conduct, or both. It’s really what suits you and your business and the information you want to obtain from it.

Additional columns can be added such as a dollar value of each job, or a date column for when the enquiry was converted into a sale.

When a business tracks leads in this manner you can find out exactly where your income comes from.

Add formulas to the spread sheet so you can see the breakdown in your turnover. It might be that you are getting 70% from your existing customers, 5% from direct mail, 3% from referrals, 16% from your Facebook Page, 2% from Twitter, 1% from LinkedIn and 3% from walk-ins.

So from here you look at your Lead Sheet and calculate how much you have spent on the various expenses to conduct the marketing for direct mail, Facebook Pages, Twitter, etc. This will then make it clear to you which areas you should be spending more money in, and areas where you are wasting money.

Using a lead sheet is a very powerful tool in any business. How do you track your leads?