Monthly Archives: January 2015

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 20 – WORK LIFE BALANCE TIPS PART 2

POSTED BY Angela January 20, 2015 IN Blog | No Comments

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 20 – WORK LIFE BALANCE TIPS PART 2

How much are you worth? Are the extra hours that you pack into your business worth your cost in terms of results, in terms of your bottom line profits? Have you worked that out yet, i.e. how much your time is really worth at the end of the day when you are tired, stressed, against the clock? Your break even point is what you should focus on instead of trying to get more done. So work life balance tips part 2 is all about your efficiency and your cost to your business.

It is so easy to make mistakes when you are stressed and tired, so is it really worth taking the chance and risking having to do the whole thing again the next day when you have even less time to spare? I suggested doing a time and motion study, yeh, right, and if you do this you will get a much better idea about how long things take to do well. Better to not attempt a task than to do it badly.

Today, I am suggesting that you might actually work out how much your time costs your company in terms of your profits. Look at the money management, your financial accounting. Dividing hours worked per week into profits made per week is a very simple task, and we know that nothing is ever quite that simple. How many staff, outsourcers and others have an input into your profits generated each week, and what per cent do they contribute towards that profit? It could be a tricky calculation.

How much salary do you draw each year, each week? Perhaps your hourly rate would make more sense when thinking about the results at the end of each extra hour you have worked.

What are the costs then, in terms of extra output, extra items sold, keeping the store, office or room open, equipment running, lights blazing? Just a few thoughts today to make you ponder on efficiency and costs versus extra output.

Work life balance and work life balance tips are all about the journey and whether it remains enjoyable for all involved. When it just becomes a hassle then maybe other viewpoints may need to be considered. Quality of life, for example, or happiness at work and happiness at home. As time goes by, no amount of extra goodies and rewards can make up for lost time, time spent together in meaningful relaxation or play is worth more than money in the bank.

See the life balance wheel and think about your whole life today. Link below.

Life Balance Wheel

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 19 – WORK LIFE BALANCE TIPS FOR HEALTH

POSTED BY Angela January 19, 2015 IN Blog | No Comments

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BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 19 – WORK LIFE BALANCE TIPS FOR HEALTH

Do you wake up in the morning feeling tired and stressed out, find it hard to face work? Chances are, you are burning out and need to take a break! Can’t spare the time, you say? Oh yes you can. It happened to me and my own doctor said that if I didn’t organise myself a break in my work schedules I was a candidate for a heart attack! Yes, that stopped me in my tracks and within a week I had organised myself a holiday and these work life balance tips will set you right too.

Don’t wait until everything falls apart. You owe it to yourself to take care of yourself. You owe it to you family to still be there for them – you owe it to your customers who rely on you to be fresh and eager to help them day after day.

How can you do that, you ask? Easy, learn to think more about the jobs you are doing and make sure that you are doing them well. Discover how long each task takes you to do, and be realistic about what you can manage to get through in a day. Often we are too engrossed in ‘getting our business up and running fast’, or ‘beating our competitors off the mark’, or ‘making more money to spend so the family won’t complain about you not being around for them’. Nonsense. Your health is more important than that! Your health is more important than anything else, because without it your business is doomed to fail.

Follow today’s bst, and try out a few of the tips mentioned so you can beat the odds, stay fit and healthy, have your family love you instead of resenting you or your business. Get a grip, plan a break and return to your business fresh, happy, relaxed and useful.

Work life balance tips are not just something for the others out there, the fastidious, studious, academic. It is for all businesspeople who want to be successful, so pay attention to it now and enjoy your business and your life.

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 18 – CUSTOMER FEEDBACK METHODS

POSTED BY Angela January 18, 2015 IN Blog | No Comments

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BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 18 – CUSTOMER FEEDBACK METHODS

Do you chug along busy as a bee and happy as a pig wallowing in the mud? Are you a born worrier, spending endless hours fretting over every little detail? Somewhere in between is a sensible, confident business person who knows that however busy they are, however scared they are, they need to be very aware about their customer needs and to gather as much knowledge about their business using customer feedback methods.

Today, I start with repeating my mantra, feedback, feedback, feedback. You need to have a method of gathering information about your products and services in order to make sure that you are giving customer satisfaction and that you are reaching the maximum number of customers.

There are many different methods you can use, from surveys to asking questions on social media sites, to chatting to customers face to face, and so on. You can invest in a mobile marketing app, offering a gift or discount for questions answered, you could start a customer club where you can eavesdrop on customer chat online via a chat group, blog or free membership site, and from time to time, offering rewards to your customers for loyalty and ideas about how their customer response can be improved, or unmet needs satisfied product wise.

Sometimes just the simplest and cheapest methods work the best. If you have face to face contact with your customers then why not just spend a few moments asking them about your products and services and if, in an idea world, there is something else that you can do to make their experience or your product even better for them. It can be done without raising their expectations by telling them that you are asking all your customers that you meet what their thoughts are so you can evaluate how well you are doing and what future changes you might make.

Your customer feedback methods are only limited by your willingness to recognise how important this element of your business is, and overcome any reluctance to discover for yourself how you are meeting your customers needs. After all, not only do you owe it to your customers to take on this task, but to yourself, for without this information you may be robbing yourself of the chance to attract many more customers.

EXPERT MASS MEDIA COMMUNICATION BY ALDWYN ALTUNEY

POSTED BY Angela January 18, 2015 IN Business Management, business skills, Internet Marketing, Podcast | No Comments

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EXPERT MASS MEDIA COMMUNICATION BY ALDWYN ALTUNEY

If you want to do something well, then one should learn from the experts. Aldwyn Altuney is an outstanding expert mass media communication guru and Photojournalist who has worked in traditional media including newspapers, magazines, TV and radio around Australia and around the world for about 20 years.

She has interviewed stars such as Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Harry (Blondie), Alby Mangels, Jimmy Barnes, Jimeoin and Miley Robins, among others.

She received High Distinctions in a BA in Communications (MEDIA) degree from the University of Canberra (UC) in 1994, where she majored in TV Production and Photojournalism.

Not only that, but Aldwyn has worked as a Freelance writer for interstate and National Magazines, is founder of Animal Action Events, raising about $15,000 for various animal charities since 2007 and gaining millions of dollars of free media exposure for the humane treatment of animals worldwide.

She is an Actress in theatre, short films, TV advertisements and feature films, has worked as en Editor, Writer, MC and Voice Over artist. Wow, and double WOW.

In my interview, Aldwyn discusses her history in the field of media communication and her vast and varied experience, not only as a photojournalist, but some of the consultancy work she has undertaken and exposure that she has obtained for her clients.

It is obvious from this interview that whatever she takes on, whether personal projects such as the Animal Action Day mass media awareness and fundraising for animal welfare, winning the Gold Coast Table Tennis Championships Women’s Open Singles title back in 2006 and her ongoing loyalty to this sport since she was a winner at 10 years old, surfing, swimming and cycling, and her adorable cat Tiger, to client’s mass media communication projects, writing, co-editing or performing plays, exhibiting her photographs, or her role as ‘Media Queen’, (more later) her knowledge, energy and dedication makes her the perfect person to give advice, support and lend her know-how to your projects too.
It is obvious from this interview that whatever she takes on, whether personal projects such as the Animal Action Day mass media awareness and fundraising for animal welfare, winning the Gold Coast Table Tennis Championships Women’s Open Singles title back in 2006 and her ongoing loyalty to this sport since she was a winner at 10 years old, surfing, swimming and cycling, and her adorable cat Tiger, to client’s mass media communication projects, writing, co-editing or performing plays, exhibiting her photographs, or her role as ‘Media Queen’, (more later) her knowledge, energy and dedication makes her the perfect person to give advice, support and lend her know-how to your projects too.

Over the last few years Aldwyn has turned her attention to delivering advice via world wide webinars, working closely with her (and my own) mentor Steven Essa to whom she pays tribute on this podcast.

I know from personal experience that her Mass Media Mastery programme is a fantastic source of valuable inside information where one can learn the skills of obtaining media exposure from the very best of experts, Aldwyn.

Aldwyn offers free information via Facebook in the form of webinars on how to get mass media exposure and where you too can learn about expert mass media communication plus how you can use this to improve your branding, increase customer attraction and interest in your work, your business and your products and services. Find out more about Mass Media Mastery and Aldwyn, the ‘Media Queen’ at:

http://www.facebook.com/massmediaqueen

http://www.facebook.com/massmediamastery

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 17 – HEALTH AND FITNESS

POSTED BY Angela January 17, 2015 IN Blog | No Comments

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BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 17 – HEALTH AND FITNESS

Who is the most important person in your business, why you are! So, are you taking care of your greatest asset and looking after your health and fitness? You owe it to yourself to make sure that you are fit and healthy, rested, refreshed and that you adopt healthy habits in terms of work schedules, time off for good behaviour and spending time relaxing with friends and family. If you don’t do this, and look to your own health and fitness as well as the health and fitness of your business, you are likely to burn out, dry up or just be too stressed to cope.

Firstly, think about whether you get enough sleep. When you are asleep your body does all of its healing and mending, the stitching together of strained muscles, the rewiring of brain connections and nerve damage and the general internal needlework that renews you and prepares you for the next day. If you do not get enough sleep then the work is only partly done. I know this to my own costs. When I was young and full of energy I would get so engrossed in my work that I did not notice the time speeding by. I would often work 12-14 hours without breaking for rest, and when I finally dragged myself off to private quarters I was totally shattered with a worn out body and a mind that just would not switch off.

I used to give counselling and therapy to business people, men and women, who suffered from burn out and I would give them very good advice, but not take it myself. Eventually things had to move on to a healthier time plan, and it was a very good lesson, well learned. Managing your time well is imperative if you want to be at your best and get the best out of your colleagues, employees, outsourcers, and yourself.

Time for relaxation and time spent enjoying yourself (even if your business is one of the most enjoyable things that you do) means that you have a complete break from your business and it gives your brain time to work unconsciously on outstanding issues. Solutions may just pop into you mind when you do get back to work because you have had time to refresh and renew bodily, physically and mentally.

Do a spot of research into your own work patterns by timing each job you do every day and write it down. So this for a full week and you will get a better idea about how long jobs take you, what moves your business forward, what are the time wasters and what are the things you do when you fill time to avoid more important tasks. You will learn so much by doing this regularly and then allocating special time for planning your business, attending to interruptions and queries, making phone calls (keep an answer machine on for a few days and monitor calls, phoning back when you decide to make your phone calls). Let it be known the times you are available for phone calls and stick to that. Let others know the times that you are available for queries or feedback and stick to it. You may find that you need to have meetings online between groups of staff or all the people working on a project and this will save time over dealing with people one at a time, and you can use Skype for this, GoToMeeting.com or look up other project management software to use.

The health and fitness of your business is tied to your own health and fitness and using techniques to cope with stress and using techniques to cope with work scheduling and time management is the secret to healthy key personnel and healthy business productivity.

From time to time you can find information on our website to download and here is a link to a related article:

10 Quick Ways To Improve Your Life

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 16 – TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

POSTED BY Angela January 16, 2015 IN Blog | No Comments

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BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 16 – TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

When was the last time you had time off to just have fun, enjoy being with your partner, your family and friends? What? Not enough time? Too busy attending to your business? Do you realise that life balance is important too, because without some time for relaxation and time out you are likely to get stale, stressed, bad tempered, and risk falling out with those family members and friends that help support you and your life. So time management techniques become more and more important the busier you are and the more your business grows.

Time management techniques don’t have to be boring or dull. In fact, it is quite an exciting challenge to spend a day timing your actions and finding out exactly how the time flies, whilst you are having fun . . . or not!

In this BST I start to look at ways that you can benefit from monitoring your time management using simple techniques to keep track of daily tasks. I look at what is important and what moves you on forward towards achieving the goals that you choose.

Setting goals and achieving them is what will move you forward in your business, and it will help you survive when all around you is failing. It also gives you a far better insight into how long it should take to achieve tasks so that when you are delegating them to others you have realistic knowledge about how long the jobs should take to achieve, instead of getting stressed out because jobs are taking longer than anticipated. This way, you have evidence that will tell you if your staff are taking too long, maybe because they are uncertain as to what exactly you want from them or how to go about doing the job. Assuming that you have clarified this beforehand, you will then be a better judge as to how efficient your staff really are. Using time management techniques can save you time in the long run, and help you move forward quicker.

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 15 – ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE FOR BUSINESS II

POSTED BY Angela January 15, 2015 IN Blog | No Comments

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BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 15 – ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE IN BUSINESS II

Once again we are talking about accounting and finance in business part II and today Angela Saunders is mentioning the important aspects of business accounting that can be very important to you as you decide to grow your business.

Angela suggest ways that you can learn more about your business accounts, and bearing in mind that this is a short daily reminder blog series, the points raised are useful to beginners.

If you want to know more about ways that you can develop your knowledge about accounts practices then you should follow this link and consider Angela’s Business Mastery Plan which is designed to help you put together a valuable business plan that will help you to do some interesting accounting that will, in turn, bring you rewards when you want to expand your business or use strategic planning to identify areas of expansion or development.

Here’s the link: http://internetcoachingschool.com/webinarmagic/register.php?wid=4574

Organising your business finance and getting involved, especially in the early days and at times that pressures are off you, will ensure that you can easily and effortlessly hand accounting and finance for business when things get tougher and you face difficult decisions and are put into the situation where you need to make choices.

Don’t miss this episode today!

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 14 – ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE FOR BUSINESS

POSTED BY Angela January 14, 2015 IN Blog | No Comments

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BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 14 – ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE FOR BUSINESS

Do you hate to be involved in business accounting and finance? Is it just a boring part of your business that you leave to anyone else? Do you leave your receipts lying around and unentered into your accounts software or manual books? Well, you shouldn’t because your accounting and finance for business is where your business survival and power of your business lies.

Of course some of you will wonder if I have gone mad when you read the first paragraph of this blog post. Have you ever realised that if you did think that then you are some of the few people who realise how to make your business successful and succeed?

I learned at an early stage of building my first major business (a property development programme that turned a 6 bed-sit house into a 28 bedroom licensed hotel) the importance of meticulous business accounting and dedication to correct financial planning through the support and advice of consultants from the Small Firms Service which existed at that time to help small businesses survive, here in the UK.

If you want your business to develop and expand then you owe it to yourself to learn as much as you can about business accounting and finance, and how to manage the same to your best advantage, for herein lies the tale of your business future.

I hope that this Business Skills Tips leads to you wanting to know more about business financial planning and how you can take your business to the next level.

Good luck to all, see you tomorrow.

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 13 – POSITIONING II MEDIA AND MARKETING

POSTED BY Angela January 13, 2015 IN Blog | No Comments

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BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 13 – POSITIONING II MEDIA AND MARKETING

This morning I am looking at positioning II Media and Marketing and how you can get your USP information out there in the world and use this to spread the word about your products and services, and about your story, your route that brought you to where you are today. The releasing of that information will carry your story and that of your products and services out into the market, using media and marketing techniques that still work in 2015.

People love to read the stories in the newspaper. It is the stories in the newspaper that make up the news. Not all of the stories are about celebrities and their often damaged lives. Often the biggest stories that carry the most meaning to the average reading is about the incidents in the lives of ordinary people like us. Using this understanding, you may begin to realise that you have a story to tell. Perhaps it is linked to something going on around us in the world now. Why not tell people about your story and how that connects to the news item. Now that is really news!

As well as that, you can put together a short article about how this story is relevant today. How your struggle, learning and understanding, fight to survive or win through against the odds, or how you turned an idea into something that helps people, advances ideas or products or services that people need, how your products or services that you offer makes other peoples lives enhanced, may help other people feel better about themselves, encourage them to move forward. Go tell your story and put it out there. Submit your article to article directories. Link that to your website. Every business today however you think it not relevant, needs a website in order to tell the world about your treasures.

Market yourself and use positioning to do that. It is a reality of life today in business that you need to get the word about yourself and your business out there. Positioning II Media and Marketing should be your tool.

BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 12 – POSITIONING BUSINESS AND PRODUCTS

POSTED BY Angela January 12, 2015 IN Blog | No Comments

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BUSINESS SKILLS TIPS 12 – POSITIONING BUSINESS AND PRODUCTS

Yesterday I was talking about your unique selling point, and at risk to becoming too boring I wanted to look deeper today into the marketing strategy of positioning business and products. The concept of positioning relates to where you place your presence and your products in relation to others in the market, i.e. competitors, and how you use that to build your brand, get noticed and sell more product.

The term is used in Advertising and has been so for at least 30 years. However, it is just as relevant today as it ever was. Hence my insistence that you fully understand what it means to ‘position’ yourself and your business / products. You can gain great advantage by doing so.

Yesterday I mentioned a book which had great influence on me. I repeat the paragraph about this book here again because I feel that it still works now in 2015.

“Years ago I read a truly valuable book called Positioning – The Battle For Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout which is all about the world of Advertising and how to use less words to create more of an impact, even piggy backing on the 1st class position of your competitors. Marketing strategy is a minefield if you do not have good information to guide you. It is a worthwhile read even though it has been changed from the original for our era.”

So now, if you care to, do a little research into where your products stand in relation to other people’s. Ask yourself, can I put into practice any of the marketing or advertising ideas mentioned in this book? How would I use the position in the market of other competitors to gain leverage in the market? Is there someone who markets their products using a feature that applies to mine, and maybe I can borrow an expression which is recognised as being part of their campaign but alter it to add a statement of my own? Just an idea.

I think Angela positioning business and products understanding shows how important this is in gaining market share and building customer loyalty or increased sales.