A lot of small business owners have a gut feeling that they should be using social media platforms to create a buzz and attract people, but they aren’t sure if they should expend the time.  First, let’s look at the reasons why businesspeople use Facebook:

• Consumer Brand building
• Personal branding
• Establishing yourself as a thought leader
• Creating a Facebook group as another touchpoint
• Advertising targeted to key demographics (this is not free – it’s pay per click).

Facebook is growing its offsite presence (it seems like an omnipresence) with ‘like’ thumbs-up buttons popping up on every website and blog, allowing users to ‘show interest’ in them and to share their message with Facebook friends at the same time. Within 3 weeks of the launch of this new ‘like’ feature, some brands were seeing traffic from the social site double (example IMDb.com, source ClickZ). So for consumer brands it works.

But for B2B, people who are looking for new opportunities and professional connections, they tend to use LinkedIn. It is easier to see if someone is credible and trustworthy, since most have their resume and recommendations from others.

But Should You Jump on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc?

There are no hard and fast rules to say you must have a presence on social platforms. If you’re flat out just following up the leads you have – why add to your stress with setting up social networking for business?

Don’t just jump in with the lemmings.  First develop a new Marketing Plan for business. See where your customers are coming from, what are they interested in, what is going to attract them?  From this information, your plan takes shape…including how best to attract, persuade and sell to your market.

You are probably going to need a central system to control your marketing communications and growing customer base.   Otherwise, with multiple databases and different lead campaigns, your worklife will become chaotic.  This is what I have found in many micro/small businesses.

So from Facebook or LinkedIn, Email marketing, Website leads, and offline leads, capture all this information together with a tool like Infusionsoft… so a step-by-step sales process can be easily set up, and you can go focus on the important work of building relationships.

When we think of automation, many different things come to mind.  Some people imagine computers, whilst others picture factory lines and robotic machinery.  Automation occurs everywhere. It’s in our alarm clocks, our ovens… our computer calendar reminders and even our wristwatches.  Automation is a part of modern life, working away without our noticing.

What about in business – do micro and small business owners need automation?

In any business, automation can easily be set up in a number of ways:

• Scheduling daily tasks in the computer calendar, with timers to remind you when a task is due.
• Using software programs that automatically run a program every month.
• Operating system is set to check for updates on a regular basis.

These are all examples of automation.

So how does a Small Business Owner utilise automation more to save time and make life easy?

Firstly, look at the tools you have available.  A calendar is a great way to set things up so that you’re keeping on track.  If you’ve created a schedule of your day and allocated time to do certain things, then set it up in Calendar (inside Outlook or Entourage), with alerts to remind you when to finish and start the next one.

Let’s face it – emails often distract us from our task at hand. If you don’t want to be distracted by emails, turn off the automatic downloading of emails or set it to download only twice a day.

You can also create different views or types of calendars for the different activities you have – very handy for those of us leading double lives!  Some calendars – such as Google Calendar – allow you to colour code your different calendars and activities, so that you have a visual representation of the different activities you’re doing.

Taking It One Step Further – Complete Business Automation

You can take things to another level in your business by actually automating processes, so that tasks normally done manually are done using technology.  This is where a system like Infusionsoft can put your business on Steroids (good ones) with marketing, sales, and billing automation – to name a few.

The best part about automation is that you control the set up – so it can be customised to your business and personal needs. Before setting it up, my advice is to find some smart tools and ensure you’ve identified all the processes that can be automated.  The benefits are well worth it.  And if you’d like some help with this, just give me a call.

If you’re a micro or small business owner you may be wondering if a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is worth the cost or time… It’s a fair question, one that is often debated online or in magazines, because small business is naturally less resourced. So today we look at the benefits of a CRM.

What is a CRM?
A CRM system – Customer Relationship Management – is a database that allows you to store information on your clients, prospects and other people related to your business.  The larger, fancier CRMs are more flexible and customisable, whereas the simpler, lower-priced ones are stock standard and hence have limitations.  Price follows functionality in this case.

What can it do for you?
I recall a client a couple of years ago who had a very profitable business, but was extremely inefficient in their processes and systems – so they hired me to sort things out.  What surprised me was that they had built a massively large database and huge client list using just Outlook, Word, Post-it notes and lists.  It’s no wonder they were in disarray!

Since they were adept at attracting business, imagine how much better off they were once they could view all their clients and sales details, and then follow-up with them all.

Ultimately you want a system that is going to make life easy for you.  So it should:

-       save you time
-       improve your productivity
-       streamline your processes
-       help you to make money

You might think that using those paper files, post-it notes, Outlook lists and Excel spreadsheets is safe – but it could be costing you dearly in time, not to mention efficiency.

Having all your client and contact information in the one central location is not just  ‘mandatory’ for big business; it’s essential for small business too.  As a solo business owner your time is precious – and you need to be able to access important information quickly.

Do your homework, set up a system, and reap the rewards.  Your time and business success is worth it.

Sometimes we are lured by funky new software, devices with apps, and online tools that sing to us with their promises of status, flexibility, connectedness, and new toys to play with.  Rather than make us more efficient, these devices can actually cause us to lose productivity if we don’t first examine what our business needs are, with an eye on desired results.

Many business owners believe that getting the latest gadgets and programs will help their business… but the reality is far from it!  You can spend thousands of dollars on the latest laptop, related software, and then some specific programs for your business needs.  The costs can mount up.  But do you really need this major upgrade?  Will you use all the functions?

Every day there are new applications created for the iPhone and iPad, but most of these are more time wasters than time savers…  Then there are the programs that profess to take your hassles away, manage your marketing or your data, or print labels seamlessly, or even manage your tasks better in a timely fashion.

Here’s a tip:  technology is a lot like the big sales at Myer and David Jones… it’s only a bargain or of value if YOU NEED IT!

Determine Your Real Needs First
In my line of work I am constantly seeing new applications and systems designed to do multiple things. The marketing campaigns for these are brilliant because they make the busy business owner think that they NEED it to make more money!  Occasionally that might actually be the case.

Yet without having identified the business needs first – you aren’t going to make many wise purchase decisions.

When I worked for large corporations like NAB and Australia Post, we spent a LOT of time in the initial stages of our projects to determine our needs.  This shouldn’t be any different in the small or medium business.

If you don’t do this initial analysis, you will end up being MORE frustrated with a new tool that doesn’t meet your needs.  Plus you may find that they bog you down with complexity rather than make you more efficient. Seems pointless if you’re aiming to create an efficient and leveraged business!

So my advice to you is… if you are considering a new app, tool, system or gadget – ensure you know exactly how it’s going to benefit your business.  Otherwise you could get the exact opposite of what you set out to achieve.

Remember: in business purchasing make wise, informed decisions, and if you don’t have the expertise or knowledge about something – ask someone who does.

Let’s face it: we all have days when things just don’t go our way. If we feel strong, we can manage how that affects us emotionally, and what we choose to do about it. But what about when something you’ve set up perfectly suddenly doesn’t work? Even automated technology can fail sometimes, causing us time and effort.

I don’t like to admit it – but it happened to me recently. A few days ago one of my websites failed – for no apparent reason. It also affected my emails attached to that domain name and caused me to lose about 3 days worth of emails, perhaps very important emails. After spending an hour on the phone to my web hosting company, I learnt that ‘someone’ had changed my name servers. It was a manual error, but we have no idea who did it – and as a result my website and emails had crashed, costing me potential business, some stress, and a couple of hours of my day to get it fixed.

The one thing about technology is that it works brilliantly to make our lives better, however it requires human input and intervention to make it work.

How can I avoid this happening again? I honestly don’t know. It’s one of those spanners that stopped the wheels… but it doesn’t have a clear answer, with nobody officially to blame.

This kind of thing happens rarely, and when it does – we just have to get it sorted quickly and with the least amount of fuss. There’s no point investigating who was at fault because the problem has now been solved. And there’s no process I can put in place to save it happening again.

So in my ‘outsourced’ world built on automation and efficient systems, even I succumb to problems that cause the wheels to stop.

When a spanner is thrown in your works, do you feel safe in the knowledge that the providers you’re using are doing the best they can? I believe that having trust in your providers and keeping calm is the fastest way to get on with the business of making money and having a life.

“I know I put that number somewhere here… I have to call that guy back, where is that bit of paper?”
“Where did I put that Project Alpha file? It’s somewhere in this computer!”
“Seriously, would those spammers stop sending emails about their Indian SEO service?”

If these types of comments or thoughts sound familiar, it might be time to look at your work style efficiency. We’re not all natural-born brilliant organisers, and the time we lose on these little things does add up. It’s time that is not billable, and it’s moments like these that distract you from your core tasks.

With a little bit of forethought these inefficient habits can be replaced by new habits and new software rules. Let the software do the work, not you.

5 Work Efficiency Tips

1. While on the phone with a client, bring up your CRM system and find the client’s name. You can still jot notes if you prefer, but ensure you enter the notes and date while the conversation is fresh in mind. Walah – already in the system, never to be lost.
2. Each project should have a folder in your main documents. Never save working files haphazardly and try not to have more than four tiers of folders.
3. For emails that come in, spam filters can only catch so much. Set up some Rules so that those with certain words will get deleted or sent to junk. (In Entourage, select Tools-Rules, usually select email (POP), then specify the words commonly found in the message of these spam emails; in Outlook select Tools-Create New Rule).  If you have new rules set up, I suggest you check your deleted items/junk folder every two days to ensure that those you want to see are not going there (then adjust rules if it’s catching the good emails).
4. All e-newsletters which you subscribe to can be set up to go to a Newsletters inbox folder, with a new folder and a rule (Entourage: Add criteria: subject contains: newsletters; Add action: move messages – select newsletters folder). Any new newsletters that come in can then be added with a right-click, Apply Rules (Newsletters).  Then you only see these low priority newsletters when you want to ‘research’ or ‘play’.
5. All your bulk emails should be handled by an automated Email Marketing system, thus freeing you up from sending and receiving various emails, dealing with subscribes, unsubscribes or bouncebacks, etc. This system is held “off-site”, but you can easily upload any existing contacts.

I hope these few tips have given you a good start on making your work time more efficient. Please speak to Aveline for further personalised advice and systems consultation.

As I come across a lot of different business types in the small business sector, I often notice similar problems crop up within the very heart of the business: sales & marketing.

SME owners without adequate systems often struggle to keep up with different enquiries from different sources, trying to remember who gets what and when. Prospects are at different stages of the sales cycle, and it usually falls on the SME owner to keep track of each prospect and send them the right information, to keep building trust one step at a time. Utilising a great sales & marketing process can mean the difference between having a successful business, or a busy job.

If this sounds familiar, it might be time to seek some assistance. As Greg Chapman says on Business Builders:

“By systematising your business, you make your business more efficient, reduce your costs, and ultimately, make your business run without you.”

If you are too busy, you dread opening your email, or your work style is haphazard at best… an integrated system like Infusionsoft that combines Automated Email Marketing, a powerful CRM that keeps all sales activities on track, and a helpful person to set it all up… could sound like business nirvana to you. After all, if you can make part of your business run without you, you get that most precious commodity of all back: TIME.

Hello and welcome to the first blog post for Infusionoz!  We’re in exciting times.  At least, we feel that we are!  And I hope you feel that way too.

I must share with you something that happened on the weekend that has got me thinking… and that has made me realise the ‘social media’ age that we are now living in and how important it is to be a part of it.

Last night I went to the Adam Hills live performance at the Powerhouse in Brisbane, seated just a few rows from the front (I love being up close so I can see expressions and the REAL person!!).  Adam came onto stage to a very excited crowd and within minutes he had discovered a man seated in the front row who looked a little like Santa.  Actually maybe a LOT like Santa! No kidding, and his name was Lex Cush.  Lex went along with Adam’s frivolity of wanting to take a picture of them both together and he then posted it on his blog page via his mobile phone, and then posted a tweet (on Twitter) to see who could come back with the funniest caption.

This might not sound that strange, however it was a live show and Adam was sitting on the edge of the stage with his mobile phone in hand, sending tweets and reading some back.  Not your usual stand-up comedy!  And it wasn’t just the photo of him and Lex that was posted either, as he found humour in some of the audience’s surnames (and admittedly it was VERY funny) so had to ID them and of course take more photos to post off.

After a little while Adam checked his mobile phone for responses and read out some tweets from around the world, with proposed captions for the picture of him and Lex, and we had a laugh.

What struck me as both funny and interesting is that one of the tweet replies came from a guy in the audience… who used his mobile to respond to Adam’s tweet.   As Adam remarked: “how funny that you’re communicating with me via a satellite and we’re about 15 metres apart”.

That is exactly the sign of our times:  tweeting, blog posting, re-tweeting, and using mobile phones to post comments and keep in contact with strangers all around the world, at any time, anywhere.

Not everyone is up with it though… it’s generally seen as a ‘young persons thing’.  Yet here was Adam Hills, an almost-40-yr-old sitting on stage with his blackberry taking photos, posting them and tweeting during his show.  Technology is available and accessible to anyone who wants it, and to anyone who chooses to get on board.

In business circles the traditional marketing channels are slowly being overtaken by our social media and technology advances in marketing automation such as Infusionsoft.  Those people who haven’t yet caught on are either looking in or choosing to let it go by.  I believe, to their detriment.

Regardless of what worked yesterday, we do know that things are always changing.  Traditional marketing of the past won’t bring the same results today or tomorrow, and with social media taking charge of the way we communicate – it’s something that simply can’t be ignored.

So with the memory of last night’s performance and Adam’s versatility with his tweeting and posting, I’m off to go tweeting myself.

Have a great week!

Aveline