As I help develop productivity systems and procedures for entrepreneurs and small business owners, I’ve found myself developing another type of project management system – one I call the “self-direct project management system” – for business owners who need to share their projects with staff.While most small business owners run their own businesses, they often bring in others to work for them. For example, they might have a virtual assistant a few hours a week, or they might have a web development freelancer take care of their website, or they might outsource some of the preliminary work performed for a client deliverable, or they might have a couple of staff members. Even if you are a solopreneur running a sole proprietorship, you’ll still probably have some kind of “employee” or outsourced vendor at some point in the future. In all of these cases, it’s handy to have a system that is visible for each person so both they and you can see what is going on. That’s why I call it a “self-directed project management system”, because your staff can manage their own project management and you can keep an eye on everything.

(By the way, I’m going to use the term “employee” throughout this issue but be aware that I could mean employee, virtual assistant, freelancer, outsourced vendor, or whomever you might hire to do the work).

There are several project management programs out there and many of them are pretty good. If you wanted to just use one that already exists, and if you were willing to invest the money for it, you might consider some of the following, which I’ve used:

• BaseCamp
• Wrike
• Intervals
• Zoho Projects

I’ve tried these and there are good points and bad points about each one; it really depends on your business and your work style. Also, in a lot of cases, these only give limited access for free and you need to pay to create more projects or use more features.

One complaint I have with a couple of these systems is that there are too many bells and whistles for some entrepreneurs. Some of my clients want a really simple, straightforward system that is easy to use, easy to share, and easy to customize if necessary, and they don’t want to pay money for many of the extra features that they may not use. And that’s the system I’m going to show you in this issue of Tips In Ten.

The system I’m going to show you can be set up in moments, it only takes ten minutes a day to manage all of your projects, and it is free and really simple to use. Not only that, it is far more customizable to your business than the project management systems I’ve listed above. It’s very light, and although there are no bells and whistles, it works. (And I’ve discovered that something nice and simple that works is far better than something you pay for with lots of nice features that you never use.)

System Set-up (Duration: 10 minutes)
Setting up is really easy and only takes two minutes.

Sign into GoogleDocs and open a new spreadsheet. Save it as your Master Project Management Template.

Edit it like this: In the “A” column, write “Project” then “Goal” then “Measurable” (x 2) then “Task” (x 20 or so), as I’ve done below:

Save it and you’re done.

You’ve set it up in less time than it would take you to search for and buy a piece of project management software and try to figure it out!

Apply to roles (Duration: Varies. Only a few seconds per role)
When you bring someone on board in your business to get them working for you, just open the spreadsheet, click “File” and select “Make a Copy” (which is like “Save As”). When you’re prompted to name it, give it a name related to the project team or employee it is for.

If I was going to use this for a web developer/internet marketer I’ve hired, I would save it with that role as the name: “Web Dev and Internet Marketing”.

Then, just share it with that person by sending an invitation via email.

Creating projects (Duration: Typically less than 10 minutes)
When you’ve assigned and shared a project management document with a particular employee, you can quickly and easily add projects.

Step 1: List projects: Open the file for that role (“Web Dev and Internet Marketing” in the example I’ve given) and list the projects you want them to work on across the top (“Projects”) row. In the example I’m giving, let’s say that I want them to do 2 projects – design a new website and do some internet marketing.

Step 2: Write down your goal: I like giving people the big picture of whatever project they are working so I try to put down a goal for each project.

Step 3: List measurables: Measurables are important ways for people to know if they are being successful or not. Certainly not every project has a measurable – some are as simple as “just get it done” but I’ve suggested 3 spaces in case you want to put something in.

Step 4: List tasks: This is really easy to do. Just write the due date and the task in one cell and put them in order.

Other tips
Easy color coding: When your employees use this system, all they need to do is highlight the particular project they are working in one color (I’ve used yellow) and then highlight it in another color when they are done (I’ve used red). You might also want other colors for “on hold/waiting” but try to avoid introducing too many other colors into the system. Just keep it clean and simple.

Comments: If you need to give more instructions, just use the comments features (Insert > Comment) and type your comment for that field.

When finished: When a project is completely done, just delete the whole column to keep your space uncluttered.

Using the system (for employees)
All your employees have to do is open up the file when they do your work, highlight the project they are working on, and do the work.

Using the system (for you) (Duration: Typically just a few seconds per document)
Using this system is really easy and will rarely take a full ten minutes each day, even if you have several staff. Just sign in and check for the yellow-highlighted cells.

• Are they on track?
• Is the project they are working on going to land on your desk for review?

If there is a project with nothing highlighted in yellow, follow up – they’ve either forgotten to highlight it or haven’t started yet and a quick phone call or email will resolve that.

That’s it! It’s a nice, clean, simple system that allows your employees (even if it’s a distributed workforce of temporary freelancers) to manage their projects and for you to give some oversight to it.

Related posts:

1. Project Management in 10 Minutes
2. Project management best practice: The report
3. Project Management Success Requires Flexibility

Google isn’t the only search engine around but it is the biggest and most popular and that means it’s the search engine that 99.999999% of us tend to use in our searches and when we’re considering keywords for marketing. So when I say “search engines” I’m generally talking about Google (so if you use another search engine, be aware that there might be differences). Also, when I say “keywords” I could mean a single word or I could mean a phrase (which is sometimes called a “key phrase”).

When someone goes to Google to search for something, the words they type into the text box are the keywords that they are looking for. So you need to know what keywords you want to be searchable for and then you need to build your website and your external marketing to target those keywords. (Most of my readers know most of this already, of course, but I need to start somewhere).

Step 1: Imagine the possibilities (Duration: 10 minutes)

The first thing to do is to pull out a piece of paper or open a Word document and write down what you do in a couple of sentences. Write it the way you normally would, which is usually from your own perspective. (For example, I might write: “I am a coach who helps small business owners with productivity and social media and project management” or something along those lines).

Once you have that, try rewriting it a couple of times using different words. Bust out the thesaurus if you need to. If you can’t think of anything, imagine what your mom would write if she were to try to describe what you do to her friends. And, imagine what your top 5 customers would each write about you to a peer who they think might benefit from your services. You should end up with 3 or 4 total summaries (yours plus a couple of others). And it’s here that you can start to put together the keywords that are important for you.

Look over the list you’ve created and think about what an internet searcher would type in if they wanted to find your services online. It’s usually (but not always) a derivative of the words you used in the paragraphs you just wrote. For example, from the one sentence I wrote about myself earlier, I imagine that someone is going to search online for the keywords “productivity coach” or “social media coach” or “project manager”, so those might be keywords, as well as their synonyms (like “social networking consultant”).

Don’t worry if these don’t exactly describe your services perfectly. That’s not the point. The point is that you first need to find the possibilities; you can always narrow the list down later. Now that you have a list (hopefully a longer list than the few I’ve just listed as examples), you can move on to the next step.

Step 2: See what Google has to say about it (Duration: 10 minutes)

Go to Google’s keyword tool at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. This tool lets you type in a keyword and see a bunch of information about it. Now, you can type in all of your keywords at once and do a single search, and that might work fine if you do one thing. However, many of us (myself included) might want to target keywords for slightly different audiences (i.e. project management, social media, and productivity) so I prefer to separate the keywords out into individual categories (i.e. I’d put “project manager” in one and “social media coach” and “social networking consultant” into a second one and “productivity coach” into a third one) because they can be downloaded to your hard drive and I like to keep them in different files based on what I’m working on.

So, type in one (or all) of your keywords, then type in the “I’m-a-human-being” security word and click “get keyword ideas”.

You’ll end up with a big list of keywords and key phrases that people use when searching for services that are similar to yours. Some will be relevant to you, others won’t be, and some will be somewhere in between.

In this list you’ll also see the number of local searches for the phrase in the past month and the average global per-month searches for that phrase. At this point, I like to choose a “top 10″ keyword list for each of the original keywords I had found. There were 3 original “categories” of keywords – “productivity coach”, “social media coach”, and “project manager” so I have a list of about 30 (give or take) keywords – a top 10 preferred list for each one.

There isn’t a formula that will identify which keywords you might prefer. You don’t have to base it on search popularity: A keyword with hundreds of thousands of hits is obviously more popular and therefore might be more difficult to appear high on the rankings, but a small piece of a big pie can still be good. Likewise, a keyword with only a few dozen searches might not be as popular and will therefore probably be easier to get higher rankings, and a big piece of a small pie isn’t that bad, either.

Step 3: See it in context (Duration: 10 minutes per day over a couple of days)

Once you’ve found your top 10 keywords, start looking around the web at each one. (This might be a good project to outsource, by the way). Find out what the top 10 results on Google are for each of the 10 keywords. Yes, you’ll end up with 100 websites but you’ll also have a clear idea about where you fit. It’s not uncommon to find that a couple of the keywords just aren’t quite what you want to be searchable for. Or maybe the competition is so fierce somewhere that you don’t think you have a chance and therefore don’t want to bother trying to be searchable for that keyword. Or perhaps you see an area where the competition is fierce but you add real value.

This can take some time so break it up over a few days if you need to.

Step 4: Narrow (Duration: 10 minutes)

Now you need to narrow your list a bit. 10 keywords might be a bit much to be able to market effectively. Aim to narrow it down to a core list of 3-4 primary keywords that you want to be searchable for. This doesn’t mean that you’re going to ignore the other keywords, but it just means that you’re going to focus your energy on a few places where you can make the most difference rather than spreading yourself too thin and being ineffective at all of them.

Narrowing your list is pretty easy because of the information you collected in step 2 and step 3 but you may still need to do a bit more work to narrow further. Deepen your search to see what other search results there are beyond the first page of the Google search and expand your search to http://search.twitter.com to see how people are talking about your keywords there.

By the end of this effort, you should have a list of 3-4 (no more than 5, seriously!) keywords that you can then use.

• Embed them in your website and blog content
• Write articles about them and post them at an article distribution site
• Write guest blogs and articles for online magazines
• If possible, incorporate them into your URL
• Make sure they are in your bios
• Create a Google Profile with the information
• … and the list goes on and on.

There! You’ve done keyword research in just 10 minutes a day that you can use to set the course for an aggressive and effective marketing campaign.

Related posts:

1. Competitor Research in Just 10 Minutes per Day
2. Success with Informational Sites – Part 2
3. Mastering Google AdWords in 10 Minutes – Part 1

Although most of you already know what online article distribution is, I’ll give you a quick description here, just to make sure that we’re all on the same page: Article distribution is when you write an article and submit it to a site that posts the article online and makes it available for blog and ezine publishers to use. They might republish it on their website or in an email newsletter that they send to their subscribers.

In this Tips In Ten, I’m going to start talking about articles and article submission. This is the beginning of a series in which we need to cover several helpful sub-topics. So, by the end of the series, you’ll be able to create and submit articles like a superstar and it should only take you about ten minutes a day. (I’ll show you how). But we need to “lay some groundwork” and that’s what this Tips In Ten article is all about: “WHY article submissions?”

Reason #1: Positioning

In general, articles are about 300 words or more, but usually less than 1000 words; and often the average of 500 words is a good word count to aim for. In theory, they could be shorter than 300 words or longer than 1000 words but there’s the issue of practicality that needs to be considered: People may not read content that is longer than 1000 words and anything shorter than 300 might not allow you to cover the topic at hand.

In that space, you have the opportunity to show yourself to be an expert on the subject at hand. By writing high quality, compelling content on a topic, you’ll show your audience that you know what you’re talking about and that you not only have a command of the problem but that you also provide a solution.

And, multiple articles contribute even more to your positioning. By writing an entire series of articles on your subject, you’ll demonstrate your deep expertise, which will help you to win the respect of your audience… and more business from them.

So, how can you position yourself effectively? Identify topics that your audience wants to read about, and then write about those topics.

Reason #2: Higher traffic to your website

Website owners are always on the search to find more channels to generate traffic to their site or blog. Articles give you another channel.

People might search for a topic and not find your website or blog, but they could find an article by you which has been disseminated around the web. Think of it like a bricks-and-mortar business. If you only have one location, you only make money off the people who actually walk in your door. However, if you have several kiosks around town, you’ll increase the likelihood that people can see your brand and buy from you.

When writing your articles, write content that is helpful and compelling. That will increase the likelihood that it will be distributed around the web, creating more ways for people to find you.

So, how can you generate more traffic to your website? Think about writing articles that will be popular to your audience.

Reason #3: Back links

Google transformed the internet with their idea that any link to your website is a vote for your website… and the more votes a website has, the higher it will be placed in search results. In this one “rule”, Google made “back links” (that is, getting links to point back to your website) an extremely important part of an entrepreneur’s marketing plan.

Articles give you back links. When you write an article and submit it to an article distribution site, you get a back link. And, when that article is picked up by bloggers and syndicated around the web, you’ll get many more back links as each posting of your article points back to your website.

So, how can you get more back links? Think about writing articles that will be widely distributed.

Reason #4: Search engine optimization

The fourth reason to write articles is to improve your search engine optimization. We’ll talk more about this in future articles of Tips In Ten, but one of the ways that articles gives you search engine optimization is through anchor text. Anchor text is the text that is turned into a link. Here’s an example: My link is http://hireheathervilla.com. If you click on it, you end up at my website. But, I can use an anchor text like “Productivity Coach” and link to the same domain, like this: Productivity Coach. Google will still credit me with a back link (see #3) but they’ll also note that the link to my website is describing the website as “Productivity Coach”.

Now, doing this once or twice is okay but when you write several articles and they are widely disseminated around the web, Google will notice that many of the links pointing to that one site all refer to the same thing; that’s good for improving search engine rankings.

So, how can you improve your search engine optimization? Use your articles to link back to your website (I’ll show you how).

Reason #5: Cost effective marketing

Google AdWords costs you money every time someone clicks on your ad. It’s effective and ROI can be easily measured. But it still costs money and, depending on the keywords you’re bidding on, it can cost a lot of money. Other types of advertising and marketing also cost money. If you send out newsletters, you might need to pay for your list management and distribution service. If you advertise, you probably need to pay for ad design and placement.

Articles, however, are quite affordable. If you write them yourself, they cost you nothing but time. If you hire a writer to write them for you, you can have them written quite affordably. And distributing articles costs little or no money, too. Some article distribution sites will charge nothing and others might charge a modest sum. We’ll talk more about what these sites charge in an upcoming issue.

So, how can you generate more cost effective marketing? Write articles; lots of articles!

Reason #6: Clearer thought processes

While the reasons I’ve listed above are good, immediate, business-building reasons to write articles, I think there is another reason as well, which might not be as obvious: Clearer thought processes. If you write articles, you’re forced to think through what you want to say. In a way, articles are like laboratories where you can get your ideas down and test them out. If you write a hundred articles with fifty on one topic and fifty on another, and you start getting call after call from new clients because of one of the topics (but nothing from the other), you’ve just done some easy market testing. And, I’m willing to bet that your thinking evolved between the time that you wrote the first article and the time that you wrote the fiftieth article!

I do this all the time. I sit down and write content even if the ideas aren’t fully formed yet. During the writing process, many of those ideas crystallize. And, over the course of several articles, many of those ideas transform into something better.

So, how can you focus your thinking and improve your expertise and offerings? Write articles.

The purpose of this article is to set you up so that as I talk more about articles, you’ll be better prepared to take advantage of this huge opportunity.

Related posts:

1. Article Submissions in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 2
2. Bonus: Article Submissions in 10 Minutes
3. Article Submissions in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 3

First, let’s talk about “what” and “why”.

What

I don’t need to tell you that business lunches are lunches you eat while on business. But what I do want to tell you is this: They are made up of some important factors that are important to their success:

• They are typically uninterrupted (or, more accurately, less interrupted).
• They mix casual (“this is some weather we’re experiencing”) with business (“so, let’s talk about the service you’re receiving from us”).
• And there’s eating!

Why

Business lunches are valuable. Invaluable, I’d say. Lots of things happen over business lunch because two (or more) people sit down for an uninterrupted period of time to eat and talk. The mix of casual-plus-business and the eating-plus-conversation is an equation that results in sales, business ideas, new enterprises, problems solved, new jobs, new vendors, better business, and so much more.

But there are some problems:

We don’t always have the hour or hour-and-a-half that is needed for a business lunch. (If you do, that’s great. But many people I know simply don’t have that time). In fact, we want to experience the benefits of a business lunch but we’re stuck at our desks. Or, the kind of business we run doesn’t always benefit from a typical business lunch (because we sell digital products, for example).

I believe that entrepreneurs, freelancers, small business owners, and coaches can enjoy effective business lunches and I’m going to show you a few ways that you can spend 10 minutes to enjoy better business lunches.

Option 1: Spend ten minutes before lunch to prepare

If you are going out for a regular business lunch (and by “regular” I mean you’re expecting to spend an hour or an hour and a half at a restaurant), you should spend 10 minutes before lunch to prepare. It doesn’t matter whether you are the inviter or the invitee, take the time to prepare.

• Research the person you’re eating with or their business. For example, if a sales person has asked you to join them for lunch, take the time to learn more about them and their business. Or, if you are the sales person and you invited someone for lunch, take the time to learn about them.

• Write out at least one goal you want to achieve. Again, it doesn’t matter if you’re the initiator of the meal or not. If you are the initiator of the meal, you might have the goal of “closing the deal” or “gaining a client” by the end of the meal. But if you’ve been invited out for lunch, you can still have a goal. If you’re eating with a business mentor, your goal is easy: Learn something! If you’re eating with a sales person, your goal is a little more challenging but you should still find it. Perhaps your goal might be: “Get the lowest price possible for the product I’m about to commit to.”

• Make notes. You don’t have to bring them with you but if you make notes about what your goal is and how you are going to achieve it, you will be so prepared! For example, if your goal is to get the lowest price possible for the product that you’re about to commit to, try researching the product’s price, finding out what others are paying for it, determining how much you need of it on any given month, and what you can afford to pay. Leave your notes in your office but the act of writing the notes will help.

Option 2: Eat for ten minutes

Hey, we’re all busy. I’d love to be able to spend an hour to an hour and a half eating at a restaurant every day. But the truth is, none of us have the time (and it’s also hard on our wallets and our diets, right?). So, consider a faster option (which is less appropriate if you’re a sales person inviting someone out on a sales lunch but is more appropriate if this business lunch is a peer-to-peer lunch or if you’re eating with a business mentor):

• Pack a lunch and eat part of it at the park with the person you’re meeting. You can eat the rest of it on your own in the office, but simply meeting for a few minutes out of the office for some eating-plus-conversation will be good.

• Even a business lunch that includes juice and a salad at a local restaurant can be a quick (and healthy) way to benefit from a business lunch without the time (or cholesterol) commitment.

There are no rules saying your business lunch needs to be the ENTIRE lunch or an ENTIRE hour. I think you’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish when you get together for part of your lunch. Of course I’d suggest that you still have a goal in mind when you meet.

Again, if you’re a sales person, this might not be a great option since it could seem less classy to invite your prospect to bring their own sandwich and meet you in the park. But a business peer would likely embrace the idea of a faster lunch and a bit of fresh air during a busy day.

Option 3: Virtual lunch in ten minutes

Sometimes we can’t get away from our desks. That’s the reality of life in today’s business world. We might have to cover the phones or we might have a crazy day or we might only have a few minutes between meetings. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a few minutes break with a quick lunch while also getting the benefits of a business lunch:

• Schedule a chat/IM session with a friend with the expressed intention of making it a quick virtual business lunch. Like other business lunches, arrive with a goal and eat while you chat. (A joke about not typing while you have food in your hands seems like it might fit here).

• Participate in Business Lunch Club, which is a project I’ve co-created and it is designed exactly for this purpose: Business owners and professionals who are stuck at their desks can participate by adding “#blc” to their tweets and visiting businesslunchclub.com to see business lunch conversations, interviews, and seminars unfold. You can DM your peers for a side conversation or you can participate in the broader discussion… just be sure to add the hashtag #blc in order to participate.

These ideas won’t replace the traditional hour-long lunches that businesses thrive on. They are still important and valuable. But, entrepreneurs who want to benefit from business lunches but don’t always have the time commitment can still enjoy ten minute lunches that help to grow their businesses.

Bonus tip:

One important thing to state, if you don’t have ‘something’ that you have to do during your lunch time, take a rest. Sometimes that mid-day rest from work is what we need. Read a few chapters of a book or enjoy casual conversation by participating on Twitter with the Business Lunch Club.

Related posts:

1. Lunch 2.0 Launched! #BusinessLunchClub, #BizLunchClub, #BLC
2. Run a More Efficient, Profitable Business in 10 Minutes a Day
3. Tips to get more out of #businesslunchclub

There is a lot of advice out there about how to “do” social media. Most of the time, it is very tactical. For example, some tactical Twitter-related advice might be: “Here’s how to tweet”; “Here’s why you should retweet”; “Here’s how to use a hashtag”; etc. We need that kind of helpful advice. But on its own, it doesn’t provide all the guidance we need. We sometimes need a more strategic bigger picture.

So when I find strategic social media advice, I’m happy. Strategic advice doesn’t worry so much about the tactical mechanics of social media and instead focuses on the purpose and outcomes. When you adopt a strong strategic social media policy, the tactical aspects of your social marketing naturally grow out of them.

This article about how Starbucks embraced social media, How Starbucks Builds Meaningful Customer Engagement via Social Media, is a must read. It’s an excellent article that gives ten strategic (not tactical) ways that Startbucks used social media. You can (and should) read the full article but I’m going to highlight a couple of points and make them applicable to you:

Tip #2: “Social media fits within a larger digital strategy”. I’d also add a “part b” that says “Social media fits within a larger marketing strategy”. This is huge and I hope small business owners are paying attention. Social media marketing should not be your sole marketing effort. If you’ve got a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page, you’ve got a good start… NOT a full-on marketing strategy. You need other forms of marketing as well as digital strategies to help close the sale.

Tip #3: “Make it clear where to start”. In this tip, the article’s author talks about how Starbucks has different channels for Jobs (StarbucksJobs), Deals (Starbucks Deals), etc. Entrepreneurs might think that they are too small to include that kind of vertical delineation but they aren’t! Think about how you can create new social marketing identities like [yourbusiness]Deals, and [yourbusiness]Clients, and [yourbusiness]Products, and [yourbusiness]FreeAdvice, and more.

Tip #4: “Look around the corners”. Read this tip. If you don’t read any of the other tips in this article, please read this tip.

Tip #8: “Focus on four responses”. Entrepreneurs wonder how to use social media, particularly if they face criticism from vocal parties. This tip gives four potential responses (not JUST for criticism but it’s really useful for that purpose). This is worth printing off and posting on your wall so you remember it and consider the consequences before you ever respond.

Tip #10: “An economic meltdown is a terrible thing to waste”. Last year, while everyone else was pulling back on marketing efforts in order to save money during the recession, Starbucks was amping up its social media effort. That should be a lesson learned for all of us: When things slow down in the economy, that is not the time to pull back to save money; it’s the time to invest in marketing even more. And when you do, you’ll come out on the other side of the recession with a stronger business and a bigger customer base.

Read this great article about Starbucks and social media and adopt their strategic practices into your own small business.

Happy blogging!

Related posts:

1. What’s Your Social Media Plan?
2. “What should I do?” – New Series – Social Media Mindmeister
3. Recommended social media tool for your business

• You’ll be more successful when you identify a problem that your target market is facing… and you solve it.

• While many of your customers will leave happy, some will return the product or express dissatisfaction with the service – that’s a problem.

• You’ll also encounter problems each and every day – whether staff issues or accounts receivables challenges or vendor concerns – all of which can hold your business back from the success you desire.

• Even working on big projects, which requires a certain amount of project management, also requires a healthy dose of problem solving to navigate complex projects through to their successful completion.

With so many problems facing you, how do you run a successful business… and how do you do it enjoyably?

One of the first things you need to do is accept that there will be problems. Actually, don’t just accept it; embrace it. Realize that you WILL encounter problems in your work and determine that you won’t let them hold you back but you will over come. This is a simple mindset switch that can make all the difference in the world. (Compare it to the small business owners who try once, fail early, and become “guy-shy” after that, never willing to try again).

The next thing you need to do is learn to be creative. Yes, creativity is a learned skill and the more creative you are, the more proficient you will be at creative problem solving. The site jpb.com is a rich resource of creative ideas and solutions and content. One place to start on that site is this article: Ten Step for Boosting Creativity.
Third, and this is the point that inspired me to write an entire blog about problem solving, make problem solving fun. I was a consultant for a company who contracted several consultants at the same time. We all did our jobs and produced quality work, but the highlight for all of us – and some of the best quality we ever produced – was when the company put on a fun little competition pitting teams of consultants together to come up with creative solutions to their problem. I just read a blog this week at the Harvard Business School, How to Make Solving Problems Fun, that outlined some successes businesses had when they made problem solving fun among their staff. They rightly point out that money is highly valued but a fun prize for problem solving can even trump a monetary reward.

With a three step list like this, problems disappear: Every time they surface, you simply follow these steps toward a solution and then move on to the next problem. There WILL be problems, but that won’t be a problem for you!

Happy problem solving!

Related posts:

1. Solve Your Business Problems in Just 10 Minutes
2. Nine Tips for a More Successful Business
3. Project management best practice: The report

Exercise is something we all know we need but we often avoid or overlook until it’s too late. Our muscles aren’t just physical, though. We have mental “muscles” that need working out, too.

Recently, I read a great article Forbes by Dr. Douglas McKenna about this very thing. McKenna used to work for Microsoft and now runs his own coaching firm called Oceanside Institute. Thus, he brings a great balance of big business and small business sensibility to this concept.

You can read the full article, called “Exercise Your Self Control Muscle”,  but I will summarize it here for you.

McKenna says that self control is like a muscle and he gives a few tips to exercising this muscle for business owners. Self control, he says, is crucial for professional well-being. At first I thought he was just talking about things like avoiding Facebook until the workday is done or not responding in anger to an email, but he has far greater and more applicable advice than that. Self control, he says, has to do with our total control of self and what we make of each moment of the day.

1.    His first tip is “plan your time with depletion in mind”. In real exercise, you can do a lot more earlier in the workout but you get tired as you go and can’t do as much towards the end. It’s the same with self control. You need to give yourself a bit of a break and expect to have less self control towards the end of the day than you do at the beginning. I think this is a great tip and applicable to far more than just self control, but also to all kinds of productivity: Expect to do less later in the day than you do earlier in the day.

2.    His second tip is to standardize recurring tasks. Once again, this a great tip beyond self control and is a valuable productivity-enhancing tip. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of my readers that I embrace this idea whole-heartedly! Ultimately, you should do less so you can do more. (Yeah, it’s a paradox).

3.    Rest and refuel. Great advice to every small business owner who works 24/7 because they thing they have to. There may be periods of time when you do need to work 24/7 but try to keep those to a minimum and focus on giving a solid 8 hours of quality work and taking time for yourself. You’ll recharge just being around family and friends (and sleeping, of course) and that will make a huge difference. This is another paradox: You’ll get more done in 8 hours after some rest than you would get done by pushing yourself through 12 hours of work.

4.    Regular “workout” of this muscle is the key to making sure that you stay in control of your day… AND in control of your business. Like any other kind of exercise, you’ll gain the most benefits when you intentionally spend time working out every day.

Small business owners: Read the article, work out your self control muscle every day and take control of yourself (and your business).

Happy Blogging!

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But at the same time, trying to take time off for business owners is extremely difficult. With so much to do, it can be extremely difficult to break away at the end of the day. Twelve or fourteen hour workdays may soon become the norm as you try to keep your head above water. Success breeds success, leading you down an ever busier path. No matter how much you love your work, sooner or later you will begin to feel ready for a vacation.

When a business owner considers taking some time off they inevitably begin asking themselves:

• What will happen during your vacation?
• Will you be able to completely clear your schedule for a week or two?
• What happens if you do?
• Will you lose track of important clients, or possibly even lose work due to the inability to get things done in a timely manner?
• Will you lose out on future clients simply because you were unable to answer your email before someone else was hired instead?

There are no simple answers to these questions. Every business owner’s personal, vocational and financial picture is different. However, a basic truth holds for every person on Earth, whether or not that person is a business owner. We as human beings need down time. We need time to relax, spend time with loved ones, and have fun. Not allowing yourself some time off is a sure path to burnout.

Here are some tips on how to take time off for business owners

Begin by outsourcing as much as possible. A virtual assistant can transform the small business experience for the business owner who is struggling to keep up. Your virtual assistant can manage many of the day to day tasks of business management, from bookkeeping and accounting to answering phones and email. He or she can also manage your calendar, sending you reminders of important upcoming events. A VA can work as many or as few hours as you require, and those hours may change by the week, month or project. The cost of a VA is generally much less than that of recruiting, hiring, training and retaining an employee.
Plan your vacation well in advance. Work longer hours to get as far ahead as possible before you leave town. Let your clients know about your vacation well ahead of time. Plan realistic project deadlines that account for the time that you will be away.

Working during your vacation is a viable option, as long as your work hours are limited. There is little point in paying for a hotel room that you will sit in for days on end, working. However, setting aside an hour a day to check email and return phone calls, and perhaps one or two days a week to complete work tasks is a reasonable goal.

Let your VA work for you while you are on vacation. Arrange for him or her to answer your phone and respond to emails. Have anything that requires your attention forwarded to your voicemail or email for you to respond to at your leisure.

Balancing work and downtime can be difficult for any business owner. However, time off is essential to mental health and stability. Outsource those tasks that you do not need to personally handle and structure your schedule to allow for vacations. The peace of mind and refreshment of mind, body and spirit are worth the effort.

About the author: Heather Villa, MBA CMA MSM, is a Business Coach and Entrepreneur. She helps business owners achieve success in operations, productivity, project management, and social media. Read her other articles at http://hireheathervilla.com/resources/articles/ and visit http://heathervilla.com for more information.

Disclaimer: © 2009 Heather Villa. Permission is granted to repost this article. Article must be published in its entirety, including author bio, and all links must remain intact.

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I believe that many successful people seek help early: They realize they can’t do it all so they bring someone else on board. While I don’t know the exact details of the 3 people mentioned above, I do know many successful people and one of the things they have in common is that they have help: They have people to whom they can delegate work and they recognize that they can’t do it all themselves.

I don’t think that’s a new concept to business owners, but many small business owners who might be reading this might be thinking, “but I don’t have the revenue to support an employee, nor do I have the time or office space (or employee liability or software licenses or equipment or desire to post a job opening).

This is where another step comes in that I believe is the perfect step between the solopreneur and the growing multi-employee enterprise:

Assistants. And, specifically (thanks to today’s web-based interaction opportunities) virtual assistants.

Now, you might be wondering: “How can an assistant make any difference?” Here’s my answer: Assistants can be used in every aspect of a business organization to help with administrative work, bookkeeping, and customer support. By taking care of these tasks, the business owner has recaptured time that was formerly spent on important (but non-revenue-generating) tasks. Even though they are spending money on an assistant, they are still earning more money, making their time even more valuable.

As an example, consider the consultant who bills $100/hour and spends 4 hours a day consulting and 4 hours a day on marketing, administrative work, research, bookkeeping, scheduling, and more. While they might bill $100/hour, they only bill 4 of their 8 working hours; so their effective rate is only $50/hour. But when the consultant hires an assistant, they might pay that assistant $20 for 4 hours of work per day and the assistant does the marketing, administrative work, research, bookkeeping, and scheduling. This leaves the consultant spending $80 per day on an assistant, but they now have an additional 4 hours of potential billing time! They could do another 4 hours of consulting to earn an additional $400 per day, or they could do a couple more hours and hit the golf course.

But an assistant can do even more. If you find the right assistant, you can even give them some of your marketing, sales, and customer service work. In some cases, they can do some of your revenue generation for you (depending on the product or service you provide, of course).

This is the concept of “scaling”. Many small businesses stay small because they feel that it’s too big of a leap between solopreneur and multi-employee enterprise. But there IS an intermediate step: the virtual assistant. They’re affordable, skilled in many things, and you can scale up your virtual assistants by several iterations long before you ever hire your first employee.

And that is how you make the step forward.

About the author: Heather Villa, MBA CMA MSM, is a Business Coach and Entrepreneur. She helps business owners achieve success in operations, productivity, project management, and social media. Read her other articles at http://hireheathervilla.com/resources/articles/ and visit http://heathervilla.com for more information.

Disclaimer: © 2009 Heather Villa. Permission is granted to repost this article. Article must be published in its entirety, including author bio, and all links must remain intact.

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1. Have a plan. Start with goals, break those goals down into smaller objectives, and then break those objectives down into manageable tasks. Then perform each task with excellence. Revisit your objectives and goals often so that you can make sure you’re on track, and make course adjustments when necessary.

2. Have a contingency plan. Think about the various things that can happen. In some situations, there might be a “business as usual” plan and a “worst case scenario” plan. In other situations, there could be three or four (or more) potential outcomes. Make sure you know what could happen and plan for it.

3. Outsource. This is huge. You can’t do it all. You can delegate some, but chances are, you won’t be able to delegate all of it. Outsourcing is often a more affordable alternative because you don’t have to cover overhead and benefits and you only need to pay for the time you need. More businesses need to do more of this and when they do, they’ll see more profit.


4. Know your business. A good manager once told me, “You should never be surprised by what goes on in your department”. That was good advice and I took it to heart. Now that I run my own businesses, it’s even more important to know the business well.

5. Don’t work 24/7. It can be tempting to work around the clock, especially if you’re a small business owner with few or no employees. But taking periodic breaks, and forced downtime on the weekends, will actually make you more productive when you are working. Sure, you might occasionally need to burn the candle at both ends, but keep it rare and you’ll be surprised at your productivity.


6. Don’t be afraid to tell a client “no”. Clients ask for things. It’s easy to say “yes”, especially when we want the business. But clients can sometimes ask for too much. It’s rarely malicious. They either don’t understand what you do and don’t do, or they’re just watching their bottom line and trying to get a good deal. Consider the long term consequences of delivering on their request and be willing to say “no” if it makes sense.

7. Manage risk, manage risk, manage risk. Businesses are a delicate balance between risk and reward and you sometimes have to risk a little more to leverage your way into more business. But manage that risk as much as possible. Remember: if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is. Trust your instincts because you’ll be surprised at how accurate they are.

8. Be creative. The longer a business operates, and the larger it gets, the less creative a business becomes. It’s as if someone just sucks out all the creativity and replaces it with bureaucracy. Creativity is a powerful force in business and can open up new opportunities. Just remember: creativity only happens in the midst of failures. (Think: Edison and his hundreds of attempts at light bulbs).


9. Dust off that business plan and revisit it. If it seems irrelevant, you’re not pulling it off the shelf often enough and you’re letting the business lead you where it wants to go. Take control and work with the plan. If the plan is outdated, update it.

About the author: Heather Villa, MBA CMA MSM, is a Business Coach and Entrepreneur. She helps business owners achieve success in operations, productivity, project management, and social media. Read her other articles at http://hireheathervilla.com/resources/articles/ and visit http://heathervilla.com for more information.

Disclaimer: © 2009 Heather Villa. Permission is granted to repost this article. Article must be published in its entirety, including author bio, and all links must remain intact.

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