New media and internet marketing is daunting for many business owners. From PPC marketing to SNO marketing in Facebook and Twitter, many business owners run a mile from entering into an internet marketing campaign. Many who try to use these resources don’t do too well, mainly because the majority of information out there about internet and new media marketing is confusing or out of date. Don’t worry though, we’ve got you covered!

1 – Email marketing

Email marketing can be a bit touch and go, depending on how you handle it. It’s great to include those strategy if you have a list of email addresses on hand from past clients or those who have expressed interest in your business. Sending a well written, informative and promotional email to these folks can convert into extra business for your company.

Cold email marketing is very touchy. There are many companies out there who say they can sell you specific email addresses for you to promote to. However, buying email lists can be a complete waste of time as more often than not, these lists contain irrelevant email addresses. Marketing to irrelevant people isn’t going to win you friends or business.

Emails should be used to provide information about your company, give details about promotions and as a first point of contact. Always include contact details such as a phone number or additional email address where people can easily contact you.

Adding a well considered email marketing campaign to your promotional toolkit can help to boost business significantly.

2 – Get a website

This should really go without saying. Every successful business owns a website and uses the website to their advantage.

Website designs don’t need to be flashy, they need to contain information which sells your business and services. You also need to make sure that direct contact information, either with a link to your email address or a contact form, is placed on your website so potential clients can contact you with any questions you might have. These contact forms will also supply you with additional email addresses of those who fill the form in, so you can add these emails to your next email marketing campaign.

3 – Get found locally

Get your website optimized to include information relating to your website and areas your services cover. This is called geo specific optimization and should always be used for local businesses. Also, make sure your business is listed in Google places. Being listed in Google Places will allow local potential customers to find you easily.

4 – SNO – Facebook and Twitter

Facebook and Twitter are the two powerhouses when it comes to marketing your business online. Both these services allow you to interact with your followers and friends in order to promote your services further.

Twitter allows you to post in 140 characters or less. Within your tweet box, you can add a link to your website or relevant web page, as well as apply specific searchable terms with the hash tag (#) function. If, for example, you are a plumber offering services in Sydney, you can hash tag in the terms #plumber and #sydney. This means both terms will be easily searchable in Twitter and can prompt people looking for a plumber in Sydney to click on your tweet and ultimately link to your website.

Facebook allows you to create specific pages for your business. This is a great way to promote your website to your local audience. Facebook pages also allow you to update your status on your ‘wall’. Just as with Twitter, keep your news and promotional posts short and sweet.

5 – Online Web to Print Resources

Sign up and get yourself listed in local online resources such as your local yellow pages website. Adding your link on these sites will mean that you can easily be found online, as well being included into the newest print edition of the directory.

6 – Online Classifieds

Resources such as Craig’s List are not only free, but also a great way to drum up new customers. People who use online classifieds sites are there because they are looking for specific products or services. Capitalize on this by adding a classified ad to Craig’s List at least once a week (you can only add 4 posts in Craig’s List a week). This is one sure fire way to get more interest in your business and ultimately more clients.

7 – PPC advertising

Google offers a great, cost effective advertising service called Adwords. Often, Google will send businesses vouchers with upto $100 of free credit to try their service. Adwords places ads for your business on other relevant websites as well as at the side of search engine ranking lists. While the advertising does cost, the ROI is invaluable.

When embarking on a PPC campaign, make sure you set both daily budgets and cost per ad maximum budgets, and do not go over this amount no matter what! Too often, new businesses get burned by getting drawn into ‘bidding wars’ with their competitors who can afford to pay extortionate amounts of money per click. Some companies will raise their bid prices significantly if they see a new ad in the line up at position number 1. Don’t get drawn into a battle with them to keep the number 1 paid spot as they will win and you will go for broke. Stick to your budgets strictly, no matter what. Even 5 cents per click can send thousands of interested clients your way.

1 – Call around

Cold calling often has negative associations, however this can be one very effective form of marketing and promotion for your company.

As a priority, call old clients or those who have expressed interest in your services before. Always keep a good log of all those who have contacted you in the past, as even though they might not have hired you at the time, they might well be looking for someone to perform quality work for them now.

Once you have exhausted your old customer and enquiry list, grab the phone directory and start calling around people in your local area. Have a good spiel prepared and ready to go. Inform them of offers you currently have, or just ask if they require any of the services you offer. As a contractor, it might be wise to call people in older neighbourhoods and districts first as these will be most likely to require work on their property.

Keep a log and mark down those who might be interested in services at a later date, as well as those who are interested now or not interested at all. You can always recall these potential customers in a few months time and see if they are ready to work with you.

2 – The FAX machine isn’t dead…yet!

Faxing around other business locations in your area might also generate leads for you and is a good way of getting your name out to other local business owners.

Faxes should be attacked much the same way as a cold email. They should provide an introduction to offers you might have, a little about your business and also direct contact details.

While faxing is becoming a little out dated, the fax machine is still a valuable tool for promotion and marketing. Make sure you don’t overlook it.

3 – Texting and SMS

If you have access to past clients mobile phone numbers, you can always send them a quick text to let them know you are still about. You can also send frequent text messages with offers and exclusive deals you might have to offer.

These days, texting is the way to go in order to keep customers in the loop and also to add more to your list. Make sure that you utilize text messaging as a tool to market your business.

4 – The Good Old Fashioned Letter

Emails are great, but there is nothing like opening a nice letter. A personalized letter sent out directly to customers or potential customers is a great way to promote your business. It is true, people like receiving post in the mail over an email in an inbox any day. Take the time out to draw up a quick letter or newsletter which details offers or promotions you might have. A personalized letter might make the difference between a potential client choosing you or a competitor.

Make sure all letters or newsletters are written up on company headed paper and include salutations to the individual. The more personalized a letter feels, even if it’s from a generic postal campaign, the more likely you are to catch the eye of the recipient.

Never forget the power of the written word. A personalized letter will go a long way to helping build client lists, and also shows that you are willing to go the extra mile to impress potential customers.

Conventional Marketing strategies are still very important to consider in order to promote your business. While the majority of the world is online, there are still quite a few people who don’t use the internet in order to find contractors. In order to reach these people and spread the word about your business, you need to use ‘old school’, conventional marketing campaigns.

This lesson will teach you the best conventional marketing resources to use in order to promote your business.

1 – Print ads

Don’t overlook print based advertising when promoting your business. While the newspaper print industry might be dwindling, there are still some of us who like to sit down in the morning with a cup of coffee and read the local paper.

Most local newspapers offer advertising services to local businesses. These ads can cost anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars, depending on the size and location of the ad placement. While it can be expensive to advertise in local newspapers, it is still a very popular way for businesses to generate new customers.

In addition to the advertisements, many local areas offer either classified sections or specific classified newspapers. Often then classified papers are freely distributed throughout the local area. Ads in these resources can cost anything from a few cents to ten dollars, again depending on location in the print and the ad type. In addition to this, many local classified papers also put their content online for free. Using classified ad resources should be one of the top promotional priorities for a business to consider.

2 – Local Directories

Phone directories such as Yellow Pages are still very useful ways to generate additional business. These directories are delivered free to residents within all areas and will provide you with a year long static listing. This means that people looking for a contractor will be able to see your ad listed for an entire year. While not as popular as they once were, resources such as Yellow Pages and local business phone directories are still excellent resources to use to promote your business. Additionally, most of these resources will list your business online via their online searchable directories at no extra charge.

3 – Flyers, Leaflets and Pamphlets

Traditional ‘drop’ promotional materials such as flyers, leaflets and pamphlets are still excellent means of promoting and advertising your business. The great thing about these resources is that you can print up a load of them and drop them off all over your local town in popular stores and ‘hang out’ spots.

Additionally, you can circulate your leaflets via other means. When I was a kid, I had a paper round and was often asked by local business owners to pop one of their pamphlets into all of the papers which were to be delivered to certain parts of town. Trust me, make friends with your local paper deliverer and they will help you know end as I know from experience that businesses who asked us to insert their flyers into our papers got great business boosts.

An alternative to this is mail drops. If you have time, or know someone who does, go around and drop your leaflets into mail boxes all over town. This will get word of your business right into your potential client’s homes.

4 – Word of Mouth

This is always one of the best forms of promotion for any company. If you have a client who is happy with your work, ask them to pass on your details to friends and family members who might need your services. Positive customer promotion is always the best form of promotion, so make sure you work to impress your clients.

Like most people who own businesses, one of the first things you are likely to have done is to have spent time promoting and marketing your business. Once that first big load of clients has come through your door, you might have become overwhelmed and though “I’ll give up on the marketing for now, just until I have my work load under control”. So you put a halt on your promotions and marketing. Now you have your work established, no new customers are coming in.

It is time to put the promotional and marketing campaigns back in place. But, where do you start?

There are a lot of options out there which can help you to promote or market your business. These lesson plans will teach you all you need to know about marketing your business for the 21^st Century.

Continue with the planning and time table from the previous two weeks. Allocate specific task completion times and delegate more trivial tasks to other members of your staff. This will again free up a lot of time for you to work on more important tasks. The secret is, if someone else can handle it, let them!

Stay disciplined and make sure you stick to your time allocations. Also remain focused. Do not enter into two tasks at once as this will lead you back to fighting time throughout the day. The rule is complete one task before you move onto the next. Once you have mastered this, you will see that you are more productive for your business. The more focused and productive you are, the better your business will succeed.

Make sure you prioritize you tasks throughout the day. You can do this one of two ways:
1 – Get the trivial tasks out of the way first
2 – Work on completing the most vital tasks per day and worry about the trivial tasks in your cooling down time at the end of the day.
Whichever system works best for you is the one you should follow. Some business owners find that getting the mundane tasks out of the way first helps them to focus on more important tasks as they have nothing hanging over their heads. Others prefer to focus on getting those vital tasks completed first and cooling down with simple tasks before they head home.

At the end of this week, you need to look over your 4 weeks of spread sheets and see where you have improved. More often than not, you will find that you are completing everything that comes your way well and in record time. You will no longer be rushing to complete that important proposal or rushing to meet a deadline with substandard work.

See how well you have done since week one, when you were disorganized. Celebrate your success and build on it in the future.

From now on, stick to your task/time recordings and also planning/timetabling.

Well done!

You are now on the path to mastering the art of successful time management.

Build on last week’s success.

Using the analysis you completed at the end of last week to plan for the week ahead. If you still found last week that you were spending too much time on trivial tasks and too little time on important tasks, figure out a realistic time frame for task completion. Also, wrap up any run over tasks you have from last week as a priority.

Use the same system as you used in week 2 to build a goal list and daily time table. This time, stick strictly to the time frames you set. It takes a lot of discipline to ensure you don’t spend too long on tasks that take moments to complete.

In addition to building a time management plan this week, we also recommend that you start to delegate in order to free up your time to complete more important tasks. Many business owners spend much of their time working on tasks that others in the office can easily complete. Sometimes you can not be 100% hands on when it comes to competing tasks that you pay others for. Free up your time by passing on easy tasks to other members of staff and focus on the most important tasks for your business.

During weeks 2 and 3, you should still be compiling the spread sheet for time management you started in week 1. This will help you to understand where you have improved and also where you need further improvement in your time management skills.

By the end of this week, you will need to write another analysis which details how you have improved your time management skills this week. By now you should have eliminated excess time spent of trivial tasks and have a clear idea of how you need to structure you time to complete important tasks.

Your ultimate goal this week is to have no more than 2 days with run on tasks to complete the next day or week. If you master that, you will be well on your way to mastering the art of time management.

This week you will learn how to use the data from week one to plan a structured time table for work.

At the start of the week, make a brief list of tasks you would like to complete over the next five days. Factor in tasks which need to be completed daily and set yourself a weekly goal. This can be anything from completing a project which is close to deadline to being able to leave early on Friday afternoon.

Once you have your list of goals in order, you will need to make a daily time table for yourself. This will include:

1 – The task to complete
2 – Time allocated
3 – Did you stick to the time allocation?

Consider the spread sheet you completed last week. Did you spend too long on more trivial tasks or did you spend too little time on important tasks? Set realistic time frames to complete your daily tasks (we recommend adding no more than 7 tasks per day). If you found last week that you were spending an hour on a phone call which could have really taken no more than five minutes, set yourself a time frame to complete a call and stick to it.

As a priority, make sure you cover and complete all of the run over tasks you were unable to finish the week before. The sooner these tasks are completed, the sooner you can focus on sticking to your time tables.

One good way to keep track of your time and to ensure you don’t run over your allotted time per project is to set an alarm clock. While you might find this week that you run over time and that buzzer rings, this technique will train you to keep better track of your time.

Don’t skimp on your time taken to complete a task or rush through a project. Again, the key this week is to plan and allot realistic time frames. If you find that you constantly run over your time allocation, this means that you didn’t set a realistic time frame in the first place. Make note of all of the times you ran over your time allocations. You will likely still find that you are allotting too little time to complex tasks and focusing too heavily on trivial tasks.

By the middle of the week, you will find it much easier to allot specific time to projects and stick to these time frames. Also, make sure you give yourself a bit of lax time during the day where you can take care of important tasks which arise unexpectedly. We recommend that you allow for at least 30 minutes every day where you can take care of urgent matters which might arise.

With a time table in place and time allocations, you will find that you are not only able to complete more throughout the day, but also will have less run over tasks. Make sure that you stick to your time table strictly. Do not start one project without finishing one. This will ensure you stay focused and can make the most of your work day.

At the end of this week, go over your time table and check list. Did you spend too long on more trivial tasks? Did you spend enough time completing important tasks? How well did you handle your work time? Did you have more than two days where you had run on tasks to complete the next day?

Write a brief analysis of how you believe you managed your time this week and where you still need to improve your time management skills. This will be used next week when planning and time tabling your daily work scheme.

We recommend for this exercise that you put together a spread sheet which can be easily accessed and updated in order to record these five things:

1 – The task
2 – Time started
3 – Time you stopped
4 – Total amount of time taken
5 – Was the task completed?

At the end of the work day, you will be asked to total up all of the time taken results and record them on the spread sheet.

The spread sheet will help you to keep track on a daily basis of how well you manage your time and also how long it takes you to complete each task.

Over the course of your work week, you are to add every task you undertake into this spread sheet and keep a record of your time taken to complete each task. For example, if you complete an invoice, record this as a task. Take note of the time you start and the time you stop work on this specific task. Add up and keep track of the time it takes from the moment you start to the moment you finish this work.

This will allow you to keep track of all of the time it takes to complete routine tasks throughout the day. At the end of the week, you can look over each of your tasks and see where you are spending most of your time in relation to simple tasks. If you find that your time is inconsistent or that you take more than an hour to complete the most simple tasks, you will be able to dedicate specific time sets during the next week.

Also make note of tasks which you start but do not complete within the day. Even for business owners with perfect time management skills, there will occasionally be run on tasks. However, if you find that you have more than one run over tasks per day, this means that you are lacking focus and this will need to be worked on.

At the end of the week, total up all of your work time and list all incomplete projects. It is vital you do this as these will be your priority tasks for week 2.

Once you have a steady record of your time, you will be able to consider where you need to focus your efforts for the following weeks. Also, this will help you to see where you are losing valuable time on trivial tasks.

Good time management is a very specific skill set which most business owners find difficult to implement. Often, business owners take on more than they can handle throughout the day, causing tasks and projects to spill over as they do not factor in time for emergency situations which can arise.

If you find that you just can’t accomplish all you set out to do during the work day or week, or if you find that you constantly rush your work to meet important deadlines, you might well have a problem with your time management skills.

Don’t worry. We have established a four week plan to ensure you learn how to make the most of your work day. Once you master our plan, you will find that you are not only accomplishing more throughout the day, but also you will find that you spend less of your free time worrying about work and enjoying the finer things in life.

Over the next four pages, we will outline simple tasks you can complete to ensure you make the most of your work time. Even for the most disorganized business owner, following and sticking to the four week plan will help you to get your business on track.

Remember that as a TEAM, everyone must work well together. And in order for everyone in your business to communicate effectively they MUST know the importance if communication. When communication fails, problems like meeting the deadlines and other conflicts may arise. Although not all conflicts can be avoided, there are ways to solve them through good team communication.

Team communication is successful when all the members freely share their thoughts, suggestion and opinions and reversely, they listen to what others have to say. Respect for each others’ opinion and being sensitive to what you have to say is an important work ethic that one must possess in order to work well with the other members. It is really hard to work if you have something in mind that you cannot freely express.

Our private coaching clients have discovered the benefits of establishing good team communication channels in their business to achieve a more productive work place. Our members and private coaching clients all have access to techniques to help them to train their staff to have a good communication and improve the productivity and team morale in their business.

Here are 3 tips to Improving Team Communication: