The Blogging Toolbox includes the MyInstantGlossary module that allows you to build a custom computer glossary to fit your needs.

• Define terms
• Define synonyms
• Add an Opinion

Define Terms

The whole goal of writing an article, ad or blog post is to communicate. If people are puzzled and confused by terms you use, they are likely to quickly leave your site and go elsewhere for information. Obviously, you want to write in the simplest terms possible and avoid jargon. Nevertheless, there are times readers might think they know what a word or expression means, but how you are using it is slightly different.

Blogging Toolbox enables you to define terms the way you use them in the context of this post. For instance, soft sell sales can mean to come across more gently even though you are still focused solely on closing the sale, a hard sell technique. Or, soft sell can mean a relationship selling technique of building the relationship first, uncovering the prospects’ needs the helping customers buy. In the second meaning, you serve first so they come to know, like and trust you.

Define Synonyms

On Internet searches, singular forms, e.g. “glossary” and plural forms, e.g. “glossaries” are two different searches. Past tense and present tenses are distinct from each other, e.g. “searched” versus “searches.” Another use would be to cover misspellings and different spellings. “Aberle” is different from “Aberly,” which is the most common misspelling of my name. Different spellings include especially hyphenated words as opposed to non-hyphenated.

A Recap of the Uses for Synonyms

• Singular and plural forms of the word
• Past tense and present tense of a verb
• Misspellings of your name
• Different spellings

Add an Opinion

You can put your own spin on a word’s definition or use though you will have happier readers if it is obvious to readers that this is your opinion. Nevertheless, an opinion can add color and interest to a term’s definition.

Benefits of Using Blogging Toolbox’s MyInstantGlossary Feature

• You build a stronger relationship with visitors because you show you understand them and their needs
• The glossary gives you an automatic internal link to that keyword
• Because your definition is relevant to the visitors’ original searches, creating your custom glossary should improve your page views per visitor and average time on site

While MyInstantBlog.com has a free version of this tool, some of the features described above are limited in the free version. For instance, there is a cap of 25 terms in the glossary. Additionally, the synonym feature requires the Pro version. This is such a powerful tool for developing stronger relationships; the Pro version is worth the investment.

Using MyInstantGlossary to add your own custom computer glossary to your posts your prospects you care about them and really want to help them understand. The side benefits to you are that the automatic internal links, longer average time on site and increased page views per visitor will improve your search engine ranking too. Whether you get the full Blogging Toolbox or settle for only the MyInstantGlossary module, start creating your custom glossaries now.

Finding Fulfillment through Your Business,

               John

John R. Aberle

Your Retiree Business, Brought to you by Aberle Enterprises

P.S. Start building stronger relationships with your prospects by creating a custom computer glossary using MyInstantGlossary, one of the eight powerful tools in Blogging Toolbox

Without a strategy, your marketing efforts will only by accident contribute to your overall business goals. You need to decide first on what you want to accomplish with your efforts then focus every marketing activity towards that objective.

You Need a Better Strategy than “Get Sales”

By the way, “get more sales” is not a strategy because it provides no direction, no way to concentrate your activity towards an attainable goal. It’s possible to get more sales from people for whom your product isn’t a good match. Then you will get bad reviews, bad word-of-mouth – which can be a killer for a small business, and customer support nightmares.

Benefits from Developing a Marketing Strategy

In contrast to a “throw enough mud against the wall and some of it will stick” approach to marketing, a clear strategy will ensure the following:

• You marketing materials reinforce one another
• You maximize your impact with the least investment of time and money
• You reach people who are most likely to care about the value you can add to their lives
• You speak or write to the viewpoint of your ideal customer profile so they can relate

Learning to Create Strategic Goals

People who truly understand goal setting realize that you need to set your goal and work backwards from there to determine the steps that you will need in order to achieve that goal. In this case, a strategic goal would be to dominate a search category with Google, Bing, and Yahoo! for a keyword that is core to your long range goal.

To maximize your customers’ lifetime values, you want a marketing strategy that ensures you develop long term relationships with your customers. Google+ Hangout as part of Gina Gaudio-Graves’ Link Triangulation Strategy just naturally enables you to engage your customers like nothing I have seen before. Engagement is key to creating strong relationships.

The Gap between Knowing about Something and Using It Profitably

The challenge you may face, though, lies in the fact that there is a vast difference between understanding the concept intellectually and applying it. Applying a marketing strategy profitably requires a goal, a plan, and focus.

You might have the strategic goal of being the dominant restaurant supply company in America for Asian gourmet foods. Your marketing tactics then are anything you feel needs to be done to become recognized as the dominant source, such as the following:

Possible Marketing Tactics

• Google+ Hangout
• YouTube
• BlogTalkRadio
• Blogging
• Social Networking
• Pay-per-click
• Offline Advertising
• Postcard Mailings
• Media Interviews

Google+ Hangout with Live Streaming Revolutionizes Customer Engagement

One of the most exciting new services available to small business owners and sales managers as well as to entrepreneurs is Google+ Hangout combined with live streaming to YouTube  and then tying it into BlogTalkRadio. Applying this will take a lot of research and trial and error if you go it alone.

Smart marketers will invest a small amount to save weeks to shortcut the learning curve. This weekend, Ken Krell, an Internet marketer with years of  success putting on great online summits, and my mentor, Gina Gaudio-Graves, the JV Queen and founder of Directions U, are putting on a weekend workshop actually using Google+ Hangout and live streaming to YouTube.

The Triple Power Play Traffic & Conversions Weekend Workshop will train you to develop your marketing strategy for these new tools. They will show you how to use them effectively to build customer engagement, the key to strong relationships with customers.

Shortcut your efforts to master Google+ Hangouts and the Link Triangulation Strategy by learning from people who understand this new technology and its new opportunities. Register now to learn step-by-step how to create and implement your own Google+ Hangout Marketing Strategy so you can engage and build stronger communities.

Make the connection with prospects using link triangulation,

               John

John R. Aberle, Aberle Enterprises

P.S. While I encourage you to attend live, if you miss it, the

Triple Power Play Traffic & Conversions Weekend Workshop

is being recorded so you can download the sessions later.

More by this author:

Triple Power Play Uses Google+ Hangout as 1/3^rd of Traffic & Conversions Strategy

What Unique Opportunities Does Google+ Hangout Offer Brick and Mortar Small Businesses?

As a consultant, I have worked with over 170 brick and mortar small business clients. Most small business owners I’ve met are like Frank. Outside their own areas of expertise, they find it hard to envision how to apply new technology. They stick with what they know.

If your reaction to Google+ Hangout, is something like, “Oh, my god, it’s another Google scheme. I haven’t adjusted yet to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. How do I stay on top of all these changes and why do I need them?”, you are not alone. . Marketing experts call this marketing myopia.

In the case of Google+ Hangout, it is complicated further because brick and mortar small business owners rarely get on the Internet during business hours. If it’s not something you do all of the time, then it is hard to imagine how Google+ Hangout, free or not,  should be part of your brick and mortar small business’ marketing strategy.

To establish your small business as a leader in a marketplace of rapid change, you need to adapt and act before everyone in the herd figures out that the grass really is greener and rushes over to the other side. The surest way to figure out when and how to use new technology is to find someone with proven ability in understanding market trends and in how to use them to grown traffic, i.e. visitors to your small business’ site, and to get conversions, i.e. sales.

While I have a suggestion for you, first, here are some reasons and examples for your consideration:

Reasons to Use Google+ Hangouts with Live Streaming

• Build customer communities – Airstream, Harley Davidson and Southwest Airlines did this before Google+ Hangouts
• Reduce travel expenses
• Face-to-face meetings on the fly
• More personal engagement than an email or blog post
• Get instantaneous feedback from the ten in the Hangout and by comments from those on the Live Stream

Brick and Mortar Small Business Uses for Google+ Hangouts

• Customer feedback meetings
  • New product development ideas
  • Satisfaction feedback with new products releases
• Employee meetings with virtual assistants or remote employees
• New product announcements
• Customer training
• Expert panel discussions
• Vendor meetings with specialists
• Emergency board meetings
• Sales calls and sales demonstrations

Brick and Mortar Non-Business Uses for Google+ Hangouts

• Family meeting on holidays
• State board meetings for churches, non-profits and associations
• Book club interviews with famous writers
• Online class small group discussions
• Masterminds with people around the world

Frank broadened his horizons about the unique opportunities Google+ Hangout offers his business.  The above listed a variety of ways small businesses can apply these in a brick and mortar company. Use them to spark your imagination to benefit you. Check out the Triple Power Play Traffic & Conversions Weekend Workshop. Get the training to use Google+ Hangout and Live Streaming to make your small business a leader in your marketplace.

Building your profits through strong relationships,

        John

John R. Aberle, John R. Aberle, Aberle Enterprises

P.S.  Go now to see the Triple Power Play strategy workshop preview.

More by this author:

Triple Power Play Uses Google+ Hangout as 1/3rd of Traffic & Conversions Strategy

Other Resources:

Google Hangouts Expert Yifat Cohen Breakthrough Directions

It reminds me of Frank who had an opportunity about 20 years ago to invest in a new technology related to digital telephones. He lacked the vision at that time to see the need because America already had cell phones. These original cell phones were analog devices instead of digital, but Frank didn’t understand the competitive edge digital would have so it was a missed opportunity.

Fast forward 20 years – most people today call their digital phones cell phones because they aren’t even aware of the old analog phones. It’s challenging to stay on top of all of the changes in the world today because of how fast new things are flying at you.

Missed Opportunities Abound

How many regrets do you have about a missed opportunity that could have made your small business soar ahead of your competition? How many major businesses have you seen go by the wayside in your life? Just look at the rash of airline mergers. How about Yahoo! and Bing learning to play nice so as to remain competitive with Google? Do you remember MySpace.com? Facebook has made them an ‘also ran.’

Opportunity to Learn from Experts at Internet Marketing Strategy

Here’s an opportunity to gain an edge on your competitors before most of them even realize that this technology is available. If they are like Frank, they won’t even realize the importance when you tell them about the technology. Gina Gaudio-Graves, my Internet marketing mentor for 2.5 years is partnering with Ken Krell to present their Triple Power Play Traffic & Conversions workshop in a couple of weeks.

Key to Conversions

First things first – the key to getting sales, known as conversions in Internet marketing, is developing a relationship with your visitors. You do this by engaging them. Help them to know, like and trust you by speaking about what they care about. Best of all, listen to them.

Google+ Hangout Is Only the First Third

Google has recently come out with Google+ Hangout. It’s free. And it enables people to see you or your screen and lets you interact with them by live streaming the hangout. What’s really cool is that when you live stream to YouTube, it saves the session there. But there is more to engaging your audience than some clever new technology.

There is even more to making these new tools get you great search engine rankings. As I indicated, the main thing is to serve your community or prospects well. But to get the traffic to serve more people will take direction from those with the expertise to recognize the opportunity and to show you how to apply it to your small or entrepreneurial business.

Link Triangulation

It’s the combination of how to use these with the link triangulation system to most effectively generate backlinks that is so amazing. Google, in particular, uses backlinks as part of their determining your value to searchers, page rank (PR) and your authority status, which starts at a PR 5.

White Hat Strategy and Tactics

Link triangulation techniques are honest, ‘white hat tools’ that work with the intentions of the search engines especially to provide information in a way that serves their searchers. A lot of Internet marketers teach ways to game the system so as to get lots of traffic. Then when Google, Yahoo! and Bing change their algorithms (the formulas for how they will rank sites and posts), your money is blown because the black hat techniques quit working.

White hat training will continue to perform because it is based on serving the searchers. I know from 2.5 years of experience with Gina Gaudio-Graves and prior online conferences with Ken Krell that you will get tremendous value out of their weekend workshop, March 23^rd and 24^th. To be sure you know enough to apply this training, they will follow up with a Q&A (questions and answers) call on the Saturday, April 6^th.

Are Google+ Hangout and this link triangulation system going to be another missed opportunity for your small business? Or, will you get the training now and apply this mostly free approach to get a jump on your competitors? You can sign up now at Triple Power Play Traffic & Conversion Workshop to develop your own traffic & conversions strategy.

Building your profits through strong relationships,

        John

John R. Aberle, John R. Aberle, Aberle Enterprises

P.S.  Go now to see the Triple Power Play strategy workshop preview.

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” (Zig Ziglar’s Favorite Quotations)

Today I teach sales people, managers and small business owners and executives, to ask themselves before trying to convince someone to buy or to buy into your project, “What’s in it for me?” or WIIFM. Zig obviously knew this piece of wisdom in what he said there, i.e. “help enough other people get what they want.”

This is the essence of relationship selling. Help people come to know, like and trust you so they will tell you what they want. Then help them get what it is they want. In other words, “help customers buy.” The rewards are so much greater than just one sale.

Remember, people love to buy. They also love to be part of something greater than themselves. But they hate and resent being pushed, tricked or otherwise manipulated. So figure out what they want and how you can help them get it.

To find personal fulfillment in your retiree business or other small business help customers buy. As this inspirational quote from Zig Ziglar points out, it’s worth the effort to “help enough other people get what they want” because then “you can have everything in life you want.”.

To receive inspirational quotes, tips and training to grow your small business, especially Your Retiree Business, get your free eCourse, “9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide” now. 

Finding Personal Fulfillment through Your Retiree Business,

                John

 John R. Aberle

Your Retiree Business brought to you by Aberle Enterprises

More by this author:

Inspirational Quotes: Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve

Lifestyle Celebrations: John R. Aberle’s Outing to the Aquarium of the Pacific for His Birthday

Other Inspirational Quotes

Until You Make Peace with Who You Are

“All dreams spin out from the same web.” - Hopi

Seven Categories for Planning a Full Life

To live a full life, you need more than financial goals. You need to live a well-rounded life. Combining many different lists of what types of goals to plan, the following seven areas will serve you well:

• Personal including personal growth, education, hobbies and activities
• Health, such as conditioning, weight
• Family & Close Relationships – involvement with family activities, vacations, phone calls
• Spiritual – contemplations/meditation/ prayer daily, reading spiritual works, classes, church
• Social – activities with friends, involvement in a social or service organization like Rotary
• Business and/or career  – involvement in business or industry association, career related training, writing a book, public speaking for your business, new product or service, new alliance
• Financial – sales, profits, personal income, investments

Feelings Fuel Your Drive

Feeling is the most important because it adds the fuel and fire needed to power your engine and drive. Put feeling into your visualizations of reaching your dreams and goals.

In particular, with your financial goals, you will need to do some extra work. For most of us, material goals are lifeless until you put them into context with how you intend to use them – what emotions will you feel when you achieve them? This list has feelings that infuse your visualization with positive energy:

• Love
• Gratitude
• Sense of Accomplishment
• Relief
• Pride
• Serenity
• Contentment
• Joy
• Freedom
• Healthy
• Energized
• Satisfaction

Be Present in Your Visualizations

In your imagination, visualize your accomplishment as though you are in the middle of it instead of looking at yourself like you were in a movie.

Use All of Your Senses

When using visualization, use as many senses as you can. Besides sight and feeling, add in smell and hearing. Be patient with yourself. These are skills that you can develop though they may take time.

Clarity

Saturday, classmates in the DU Bachelor’s Program shared reviews of what they accomplished in 2012. One of the most common achievements was gaining greater clarity on their businesses. To maximize your success at reaching your dreams and goals, you need to be really clear about what you want to accomplish and why. Interestingly, don’t worry about the how at this point.

Reward Yourself

Use little rewards for each victory along the way. My mentor, Gina Gaudio-Graves, recommends gold stars next to the goal achieved or step completed.

Start with 5 Year Goals

The most effective approach I’ve found is to start with setting five year goals and dreams. Then work backwards. Where do I need to be each year to get to that level? A five year goal is big enough to be more inspirational.  Still, for right now, if that is too much effort, then just do goals for this year. You do have to work at it though.

Once you finish planning your five year goals and work backwards to get your 2013 goals, then it is time to figure out what you can do or what you still need to be able to fulfill your plans. Avoid overwhelming yourself by taking one small step or baby step at a time.

You can manifest your dreams and achieve your goals using these goal setting ideas. However, you need to be clear on what they are. To live a full life, fill out your objectives for all seven categories. Remember to visualize your achieving your goal as though you are surrounded by it, experiencing it as fully as possible. When you plan first, sense it fully, then take action, you will be amazed at what you accomplish by New Year’s Eve 2013.

To receive information regularly on how to develop and apply strategy to your small business, get your free ecourse, “9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide” now. (Http://www.askjra.com/optin)

Building your profits through strong relationships,

John

John R. Aberle

Your Retiree Business sponsored by Aberle Enterprises

First Person: Goal Setting for Small Business

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve learned that disappointment is natural when you didn’t achieve all of the goals you’d wanted to do in this past year. However, I’ve learned too to celebrate what you did accomplish.

• The Chinese proverb tells you that a journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step
• Likewise, putting together a 1,000 piece puzzle takes patience and persistence

With this in mind, I’ve reviewed my accomplishments in 2012:

• 90 articles posted by Yahoo! Contributor Network
• 48 reviews posted on Examiner.com
• 1st ebook, How Relationship Selling Rewards Small Businesses, published on Kindle
• Classes – at least 441 hours attended
• 16 blog posts on http://www.AberleEnterprises.com
• Including 7 Small Business Productivity Tips videos
• Briefly got involved in deal site marketing
• Most importantly, I finally found my niche: Your Retiree Business
• I’ve made several major realizations thanks to Robert and Terri TallTree’s Miracle Mindshift Month, Gina Gaudio-Graves’ DU Bachelor’s Program and Andrea Woolf of http://igniteyourlifebook.com/. (I misstated her site on this video.)

For me, 2013 is already forming up to be a very busy year with even more forward motion. I plan my first teleseminar on Your Retiree Business in late January or early February.

Make commitments to yourself to accomplish those dreams, desires and goals closest to your heart and beingness as that is how you will find the motivation to keep going after the initial way of excitement and enthusiasm dies away. You need this when your relationship with your goals for the New Year moves from the ‘honeymoon’ or ‘newlywed’ phase to remaining happily married when the reality of day-to-day living sets in.

To receive information regularly on how to develop and apply strategy to your small business, get your free ecourse, “9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide” now.

http://aberleenterprises.com/about-us/sign-up-form/  (Http://www.askjra.com/optin)

Finding Fulfillment through Your Business,

John

John R. Aberle

Your Retiree Business, brought to you by Aberle Enterprises

Http://www.AberleEnterprises.com

I love taking pictures of beautiful and exotic creatures and plants. I had moved close to the stage to take pictures when this little beauty flew over to visit. I like to think he recognized my charm and abundant love. Dorothy insists it was only that he was begging for a dollar so he could get a treat.

Table of Contents in Microsoft Word to

Organize Your Documents

As I mentioned before, I share these Small Business Productivity Tips because I have found them helpful in my small business. They improve organization and make tasks easier as well as take less time to do.  I love automating processes. As a small business owner, executive, or employee, if you create lengthy documents, you will love the ease of making a table of contents.

Why Use a Table of Contents in Your Small Business’ Documents

• It shows your prospective reader what major topics your document will cover.
• A table of contents shows the hierarchical structure of your document, which means it shows what you consider most important and the supporting points you have under each major point.
• This structure makes it easier for your readers to scan for the content they want.
• It also makes it easier to understand it than lengthy paragraphs do.
• Furthermore, a table of contents shows that you are a professional who knows how to structure a document, book or ebook
• I use them too for lengthy notes, like those I take on a 2 hour training call.
  • I can review what we covered and
  • I can jump to a specific discussion – while I can use search, sometimes I don’t recall the exact phrase or name or spelling I used or whether I used abbreviations. Without a table of contents often search becomes a lengthy process

 

The beauty of creating a table of contents in Microsoft Word is that once you created your headings, as taught in SBPT #7, you have the elements needed to swiftly and easily put one in place. By the way, you need the Headings (H tags) defined in Styles, not custom styles. You can, however, redefine each heading level.

Steps for Creating a Table of Contents

1. Write your document
2. Add headings and subheadings
3. Go to the References tab on the ribbon bar
4. At the left end of the ribbon bar, click on Table of Contents
5. Choose type of table you want
   1. Automatic Table 1
   2. Automatic Table 2
   3. Manual Table

      I prefer the manual table because I use Heading 4 a lot and want them to show in the table.

      Example of Content for a Sample Table of Contents

NOTE: The different lines in a table of contents created this way work as hyperlinks to the specific content you want to jump to. In Microsoft Word, hold the <Ctrl> key while you click on the line.

By the way, this post is a transcript of the video as I read it to create the video.

This post on Small Business Productivity Tips: Organize Your Documents with a Table of Contents showed you how easy it is using Microsoft Word Style headings to create a table of contents for lengthy documents. This service enables your readers can get an overview of what is contained as well as to jump to specific points.

To receive tips, not only Small Business Productivity Tips, but tips on all aspects of your small business, join our community. We will send you your free eCourse, “9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide” – request yours now.   (Http://www.askjra.com/optin)

Building your profits through strong relationships,

        John

John R. Aberle, Aberle Enterprises

More by this author

• Small Business Tips – What Makes a Good Website?

• Using Microsoft Word Styles to Save Time and Add Emphasis to Your Documents

• Small Business Productivity Tips: SnagIt

More by this author on Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Voices

• First Person: The Value of a Small Business Filing System

• First Person: The Value of an Organization Chart Template

• Can You Create Your Own Small Business Website Without a Website Designer?

This video is the SBPT-007 – Small Business Productivity Tips: MS Word Styles Video that uses the content in this post.

Note: In this video I state that it is the 6th lesson in this series. It is actually the 7th.

 

Reasons to Use Style Sheets in Your Small Business

• Quickly add different levels of emphasis to title, headings and subheadings
• Create table of contents in seconds based on your headings (another lesson)
• Easy to change color, fonts and font sizes of the pre-defined style sheets
• Easy to create bullets and to change them (a future lesson)
• Create your own style

Examples of Using Styles for Different Levels of Emphasis

The H1, H2, H3 and H4 tags are collectively called heading tags and are used in HTML documents to provide the different style headings shown here. Keep in mind that you can change or customize these headings to different colors, fonts and font sizes as well as other formatting.

This is Heading 1 (H1)

This is Heading2 (H2)

This is Heading 3 (H3)

This is Heading 4 (H4)

This is Strong. “Strong” is the terminology used in HTML to tell the program you want it boldfaced.

This is Normal (The original Normal was Calibri 11. I preferred Times New Roman 12 so I modified it.)

Easy to change color, fonts and font sizes of the pre-defined style sheets

In demonstrating how easy it is to change the color, the fonts and font sizes, I created the custom style below:  John’s Bernard MT Condensed.

Create your own style

Let’s create a new style, John’s Bernard MT Condensed. In this demonstration, I changed the color to orange, the font to Bernard MT Condensed and font size to 18. Notice how I also changed one other dimension. I centered it.

Where to save your template

• Microsoft Word saves it automatically in Normal where it also saves any changes you made to  AutoCorrect so you don’t have to figure out where to save it.

To receive tips, not only Small Business Productivity Tips, but tips on all aspects of your small business, join our community. We will send you your free eCourse, “9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide” – request yours now. 

Building your profits through strong relationships,

        John

John R. Aberle, Aberle Enterprises

More Small Business Productivity Tips by this author

• Small Business Productivity Tips – Do You Really Need to Use Checklists in Your Small Business?
• Small Business Productivity Tips: Microsoft Word Templates Save Time
• Small Business Productivity Tips on AutoCorrect

More by this author on Yahoo! Finace and Yahoo! Voices.

•  Tips For Your Small Business Website – What Makes a Good One
• First Person: 10 Small Business Website Gimmicks That Don’t Work 
• How I learned to handle burnout and recover my motivation

I placed this inspirational quote by W. Clement Stone on the photo of divers at the Aquarium of the Pacific doing a presentation for their audience. This picture is one of those I shot for John Aberle’s Birthday Outing to the Aquarium of the Pacific.

I love this quote because it opens the potential to manifest our dreams. I think the challenge lies in how big is your ability to truly “believe.” Will it pull you through the tough times to find the solutions?

To receive inspirational quotes regularly to inspire you in growing your small business, get your free ecourse, “9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide” now.  

Building your profits through strong relationships,

        John

John R. Aberle, John R. Aberle, Aberle Enterprises

A couple decades ago, American manufacturing finally caught on that they needed to improve their quality or be left behind in the world market. The Quality Movement started producing quality standards, like ISO-900x and QSO. Part of a manufacturer achieving their quality certification involved developing written systems and checklists to make sure that everyone doing a job knew what to do on that job.

While you may not think that you use checklists now, you probably do, just not in a checklist format.

This is the Video that the content here comes from.

Miscellaneous Checklists I Use in My Life and Business

• Travel
• New blog installation
• Promotional activities
  • Promoting my new book, How Relationship Selling Rewards Small Businesses
  • Promoting my Yahoo! Contributor Network articles
• To evaluate how likely a sale is from this prospect
• To confirm the right materials are sent out to prospects in the right order and timing
• Checklist of what should be in certain files
  • Alpha files for employees
  • Alpha files for customer orders
  • New Hire Packets
  • List for any company property issued – ensure it is returned when employee leaves
• Resource book
  • Steps of what to do in an emergency

Reasons to Use Checklists^[1]

• Avoid customer complaints
• Cut out waste caused by errors
• More efficient use of time
• Improve quality
• Safety – prevent missing vital step
• Focus your attention
• Avoid duplication
• Improve self-confidence and reduce stress for new duties

How Do You Create a Checklist?

• Brainstorm everything you can think of that you will need
• Do a process flow to be sure that your steps flow naturally from one to the other.
• List the steps out in the order they need to be done
• Test it to be sure you have everything covered
• Add to your checklist over time as you discover steps that were unclear or forgotten

Do you really need to use checklists in your small business? If you care about your customer satisfaction, the safety of your employees, and the reputation of your company, most likely you do need to use checklists in your small business. Look around and you will find places where checklists can really improve your operations. You will be glad you did.

To receive tips, not only Small Business Productivity Tips, but tips on all aspects of your small business, join our community. We will send you your free eCourse, “9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide” – request yours now.  (http://www.askjra.com/optin)

Building your profits through strong relationships,

        John

John R. Aberle, Aberle Enterprises

P.S. People in my community (email list) will receive access to the Vacation Checklist shown in the video as an unadvertised bonus.

More by this author on Yahoo!’s sites:

YCN-087 – First Person: How Checklists Improve Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Profits

YCN-040 – First Person: The Value of a Small Business Filing System

YCN-073 – First Person: The Value of Small Business Systems

Celebrations are core to me to actually living a lifestyle as opposed to living to work. As a writer, speaker, consultant and coach, I find it easy to get focused on work and not take time to savor life. Pam Ochoa and her boys, Zak and Spencer gave Dorothy and Martha, Dorothy’s sister, and me this outing with them to experience the Aquarium of the Pacific for my birthday. What a treat! Additionally, we got to ride the Metro Blue Line, which I have wanted to do for years. This day was an excellent adventure. Thanks, Pam!

El Torito has new Halibut Fish Fajitas and both Dorothy’s favorite flan and my favorite chicken tortilla soup – thanks, El Torito for free meal for my birthday!

So they ignored the training and just relied on building relationships. Then they discovered that there is a way to train sales reps to do business like they have for eight years. It’s called relationship selling and it’s all about heart centered selling.

If you can relate to Mary Ann and Chet, then relationship selling is for you too. This morning I finally accomplished a lifelong dream of having a book published. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing notified me that my book, How Relationship Selling Rewards Small Businesses is available on the Kindle section of Amazon.

Introductory Pricing

I set the initial price at $.99. I will be raising that price in three weeks to its permanent price. This book is a labor of love for my readers.

If you want your questions answered about how to apply heart centered, relationships selling techniques, take advantage of this $.99 introductory price now on How Relationship Selling Rewards Small Businesses . Please share this news with your small business friends.

Building your profits through strong relationships,

John

John R. Aberle, Aberle Enterprises
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