TheCEOMamma Blog » Organization

5 Strategies for a Successful Presentation

Sylvia Browder — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:00:05 +0000

Are you a bundle of nerves at the mere thought of speaking in public? Do you experience wobbly knees, sweaty palms or an upset stomach? Well, you are not alone! The fear of public speaking ranks with death and an IRS audit for most of us.

Whether participating in a live event, teleclass or webinar, with practice and planning, you can overcome your fears and develop strong presentation skills. To help, here are 5 Strategies for a successful presentation… every time!

Prepare in Advance

Preparing for a presentation requires research, organization and planning. Each is vital to the success of a presentation. How do you prepare? Well…,

Learn about the audience and venue. This will enable you to make adjustments to meet their needs and prepare enough material such as; handouts, business cards brochures and giveaways. Knowing the facility’s size and layout is equally important.
Practice your presentation and fine tune as needed. Rehearse using a video recorder or ask a friend or family member to critique you.
Keep the content simple and comprehensible… and avoid using jargon!
Be a good keeper of time. Make sure you are not under or over the time allotted.

Day of:

Make sure you have some water at your table or podium. Nothing worse than having ‘dry mouth’ during a presentation.
If you’re using equipment such as a laptop, a projector, microphone or smart board, ALWAYS check to make sure everything is working properly.

Body Language

Your body language is critical in the message it conveys to an audience. Confidence will reflect in your posture. Make it a point to stand tall; with shoulders aligned properly. In addition, remember to use proper hand gestures.

Eye Contact

This is an easy way to build rapport with your audience. As you move through your presentation, you’ll make a greater impact when delivering key points by glancing at someone each time. As you move onto another point, shift your glance to the next person. This approach captures each person and engages them in your conversation.

Know Your Audience

Do you know your audience’s demographics? If not, you should! For example, my presentations are targeted towards women entrepreneurs. Since the length of time in business varies, I will customize each to fit their needs. 3 tips to better engage your audience:

Have a powerful opening and closing. Start your presentation with an ice breaker, an engaging story or thought provoking question. Close with a call to action – what should they do as a result of your presentation? This is also a great way to gain prospective clients.
Create an interactive atmosphere. Ask open-ended questions to encourage participation and share experiences.
End on a note that will send people away with something to remember.

Ask for Feedback

Provide your audience with an evaluation form to fill out. Allow anonymity to encourage open and honest answers. Use their responses to improve the quality of your presentation.

In conclusion, if you want a successful outcome, it is important to take the proper time and steps to prepare for your presentation!

About the Author Sylvia Browder

Sylvia Browder is CEO of Browder Consulting Group, a virtual small business consulting firm and is founder of National Association Women on the Rise, a membership association for aspiring and established women entrepreneurs. Other posts by Sylvia Browder >

Sylvia Browder

Sylvia Browder is CEO of Browder Consulting Group, a virtual small business consulting firm. In her role, she helps women in business grow and succeed. She is founder of National Association Women on the Rise, a membership association for aspiring and established women entrepreneurs. In addition, she is publisher of the popular Sylvia Browder’s Blog for Women Entrepreneurs.

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Women Entrepreneurs: Is Self-Sabotage Affecting Your Business?

CEOMamma — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:00:44 +0000

No matter how deep the desire is to be a successful woman entrepreneur, some of us may be far from that reality because of the unintentional self-sabotage we invite into our business each day.

If you have goals of being a successful woman in business but you are barely making any progress toward achieving those goals, it could very well be you are operating in a form of self-sabotage.

Lack of Focus

You may not realize it but you could possibly lack the focus needed to be an entrepreneur working for yourself. When you are not focused each day on getting the things done in your business that will earn you a profit, recognize you need to make a change.

You cannot continue to perform in the same manner wondering why nothing is changing. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is defined as insanity. Don’t allow lack of focus to stunt your growth. Lose the insanity and learn to gain the focus and clarity you need to be a success.

Distractions

Sometimes, a lack of focus comes from external distractions, especially if you work from home with small children. Having the constant demand of managing a household, caring for kids all while running a business can be a challenge but can be overcome when you learn to manage your time more efficiently.

Working from home is not easy but it can be done productively if you take the steps to plan your work around the needs of your household to be more effective in your business. Time management skills must be a top priority for entrepreneurs.

Disorganization

If your office or workspace is cluttered with stacks of papers, files and notes all over and it appears as if a tornado his recently hit, you are permitting self-sabotage in your business by way of disorganization. Sure, you may know where everything is and claim the dysfunction on your desk is a “system”, but subconsciously, clutter will prevent you from getting any real work done.

If you are content with your surroundings being in disarray, you may not have yet developed a mindset for entrepreneurial success. Seriously, do you expect to work in a mess? What do you think Oprah or Donald Trump’s office space looks like? I bet it’s not disorganized.

Being an entrepreneur is one thing, but being a successful business woman making real money from home is not a joke. Take your business serious, learn and master the skills needed to eliminate self-sabotage in your business. You must be determined to stop making excuses and manage every aspect of your life AND business.

There are many powerful women entrepreneurs who have children, are single, work a full-time job outside of the home and have TONS of things going on but they know how to get it done because they took the time to learn how to effectively manage it all.

You can do it too!

The question is…

How serious are you about achieving success in your life and business?

When you are ready, download my free audio:

Lose the Insanity and Take Back Your Life as I share with you FIVE Steps designed to help you regain Life Balance. You will discover how to:

Eliminate stress and overwhelm from the constant demands of your day
How to manage and prioritize the important things in your life and on your “To-Do” list
How to overcome distraction and regain your focus and clarity at home and work

And most importantly, you will rediscover your passion, strengths, life purpose and learn to create balance.

If you truly want to be a women entrepreneur and realize your not reaching the level of success you want in your business, it’s time for you to take ACTION and make a change. Get my free audio today and start getting your life and business on the right track!

CEOMamma

Tamyka Washington is a wife, mother to six, Founder/CEO of TheCEOMamma Network, marketing strategist, coach and mentor. Tamyka empowers new and seasoned women entrepreneurs to business breakthrough by blending powerful attraction marketing methods with effective social media strategies to establish a CREDIBLE brand and profitable freedom based business online. Visit here website below, to learn more:

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4 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Life

Sylvia Browder — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:00:26 +0000

By: Sylvia Browder

It’s a New Year and time to reflect on your life’s choices. Are you living the life you want? Do you feel stressed or out of balance? Since the mind, body and spirit are all interconnected; stress, poor health and negative energy all impact areas of your life. Tiffany Lymon, CEO of Pearls of Pursuit Coaching and Expert Advisor for National Association Women on the Rise, says, “Often times women, are dealing with competing internal and external pressure from the demand of balancing work, life, family and community, not to mention themselves – and these pressures can leave a woman feeling stretched, unappreciated and unfulfilled.”

Does this describe you? If so, here are 4 ways to rejuvenate your life.

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.” Johann Wolfgang Van Goethe

Rejuvenate Your Mind

By living your best life, reduce or eliminate the amount of stress you have present in your life. Meditation is an excellent healing tool that rejuvenates your mind; increase your inner strength and well being; and good for your body as well.

Rejuvenate Your Body

Your body is sacred and should be treated as such! It is what keeps us alive. It is important to treat your body right. Two important ways to care for your body:

Exercise: In essence, having an exercise regimen improves your quality of life. It’s a great way to control your weight; helps to prevent diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure; and strengthen and tone muscles which allow us to look and feel better. Most fitness experts suggest incorporating a daily exercise regimen into our lives.

Skin Care: Let’s face it, as we age, so will the appearance of our skin. This is not a reason not to have great looking skin. With so many anti-aging products on the market, it’s overwhelming to know which ones have safe ingredients that won’t harm your skin. There are simple and natural ways to have healthy and glowing skin at any age. Here are 4 natural tips:

Manage stress. Having stress in your life is inevitable. The key is identifying the source of stress and finding ways to take control of how it affects your life. By managing stress allow you to take charge and live a more balanced life.
Eat healthy foods. Having a balanced and healthy diet and avoiding junk foods is an important factor in maintaining good health.
Drink plenty of water daily. It is important to drink 8 glasses of water daily to slow down the aging process. By committing to this will keep your body fully hydrated and prevent dryness of skin.
Avoid the sun. This is very harmful to your skin. If you must be in the sun, protect your skin from over exposure by using sunscreen products.

Rejuvenate Your Spirit

Do you feel stuck or out of balance in your life? Do you long to deepen your spirituality? You are not alone. Everyone goes through trials and tribulations in life, but the question is how long does it take to get through them? In spite of all that might be going on, it is important to be in tune with your inner spirit. Here are 3 ways to release and relax:

Take care of you. Easy said, but not so easily done. Most of us spend a lot of time caring and nurturing others. By putting your needs first, will allow you to better care for others.
Let go. Yes, I said it! Let go of the need to ‘control’ everything in your life. By letting go of anxiety, worry, stress or fear that consumes you, will allow your inner spirit to flow through. You will begin to experience much more peace and happiness!
Live in the moment. By living in the now allows you to experience life directly! Look around you; enjoy the beauty of your surroundings; take a deep breath and exhale; and stop worrying about what if, instead, enjoy what is.

Rejuvenate Your Business

Now is a good time to think about your accomplishments. Is there room for improvement?
Here are 3 ideas to help you refuel.

Reflect. This is a perfect time to reflect on the successes and failures of your professional and personal life. Have you considered what changes you would like to implement this year? As women entrepreneurs, it is important to look for ways to improve work-life balance. Take some time to reflect on your business’s progress and make plans on how you want your business to grow.
Reorganize. What kind of clutter have you accumulated that is hindering you from functioning at your optimal best? Write down all the things that are cluttering your mind, distorting your life’s vision. Take each of the things on your list and ask yourself the following questions:

Why am I holding on to this clutter?
What purpose does it serve?
How do I rid myself of it?

Clutter can be distracting while adding to the chaos in our lives. Take time to reorganize your mind by simply ‘letting go’ and re-prioritizing the way you do things.

Refine. Have you considered refining your target market to increase your bottom line? We all know that the success of your business depends on making sales. To re-identify your target client, ask yourself the following questions:

Do you know who your customers will be?
Do you understand their needs and desires?
Do you know where they live?
Will you be offering the kind of products or services that they will buy?
Will your prices be competitive in quality and value?
Do you understand how your business compares with your competitors?
Will your business be conveniently located for the people you plan to serve?

By refining your target market, you are ensuring the success of your business!

In conclusion, by evaluating and making adjustments to every aspect of your life; mind, body spirit and business, you will be living at your optimal level.

About the Author: Sylvia Browder

Sylvia Browder

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5 Ways to Lose the Cruise and Speed Your Business Through 2011

Sylvia Browder — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:00:50 +0000

By: Sylvia Browder

Are you ready for a successful 2011? What will it take to design a powerful plan and actually implement it? Business owners know all too well that planning is essential. The fact is, you really can’t determine where you’re going if you can’t put together a plan of action. So, instead of being stuck on cruise control, here are 5 ways to speed your business through a successful new year.

Write a book and get it published! Writing a book can be time consuming but a very critical step in your success as an entrepreneur. It’s a great way to position yourself as an expert, thus, allowing you to create additional income streams and charge higher fees for your services. As an author, you will expand your exposure and add credibility. According to a recent survey the New York Times reported, 81% of people feel that they have a book in them and should write it. To get started writing your book, it’s important to establish a clear vision, topic and purpose for your book.

Conduct a SWOT Analysis. A SWOT Analysis is a great way to access the state of your business. When conducting a SWOT, you are analyzing your businesses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are the internal conditions of your business. According to experts, most small businesses are great at looking at the internal aspects but fail to look externally, which are the threats and opportunities. Taking a closer look, here are some key questions you must be able to answer when creating your SWOT:

Strength:

What do you do well? For example, review your sales, operations, marketing and management.
What are your core competencies?
What experience do you bring to the table?

Weaknesses:

Where do you lack resources? For example, evaluate areas such as customer service, marketing, accounting and business planning processes.
In what areas can you make improvements?
Where are you losing revenue?

Opportunities:

What new requests are your customers asking for? Can you fulfill their needs?
What are the technological advancements?
What are the economic trends that benefit you?

Threats:

What are the negative economic trends?
What are the negative political and social trends?
Where are your vulnerabilities?

If you aren’t sure how to get started, starting January 2011, National Association Women on the Rise (NAWR) will provide monthly tele-seminars and programs for women in business. Some topics include:

SWOT Analysis
Access to Capital
Certification
Public Relations
Personal Branding

Invest in a coach. It is important to align yourself with a professional coach to help you identify where you are NOW and where you want to be in areas of your life, such as; career, health and wellness, relationships, financial wealth and spiritually.

Working with a professional coach can help you in clarifying your vision, goals, values and purpose while supporting you in mapping out a strategy to achieve your dreams. For years, my focus has been on helping others rather than investing in a coach to help me overcome some weak areas of my life so that I can better serve my family and clients as well as develop and create a plan for my personal and professional goals.

One of the unique benefits of NAWR’s membership is access to professional group coaching. Having access to monthly group coaching is a phenomenal opportunity to gain increased confidence, goal achievement and increased awareness.

Each month a NAWR member can receive “hot seat” coaching during the group coaching session. A “hot seat” coaching opportunity is when a participant comes to the group session and brings an issue to the table that needs exploration, development and solutions.

Set SMART Goals. Goal setting is crucial if you want to remain successful and competitive. Once you identify what goals you want to implement for 2011, you will need to find a way to review and measure progress. Some goals will take time to achieve, so it is important to measure your progress regularly. Try implementing SMART Goals into your planning. SMART Goals is a simple tool used by businesses to formulate an actionable plan for results. SMART illustrates the 5 characteristics of an efficient objective:

S – specific

M – measurable

A – attainable

R – realistic

T – timely

A common reason for failure in completing goals is having too many on your plate. Determine what your priorities are and then focus on them. By prioritizing your goals, you are focusing on those that are important to the overall success of your company. The key to success in setting goals for your business is making sure they are attainable and measurable.

Create a stellar customer service strategy. Providing quality customer service is vital and should be an important part of your business model. What is quality customer service? It involves relationship building, establishing communication, building trust and resolving potential problems or conflicts.

Are you at the top of your customer service game? Do you have processes in place to handle customer complaints? How do you measure quality service? According to most consumer surveys, a typical business hears from about 4% of its unhappy customers; while 96% just go away and 91% will never come back.

Don’t sit on your morals! You should never get too comfortable, instead, regularly assess the strengths and weaknesses of the quality of your services, your processes and your customer approach. As a business owner, you should make it a practice to over deliver and under promise.

In conclusion, by incorporating these simple yet effective strategies into your plan, you can position your business for significant growth. Here’s looking at a great 2011!

About the Author: Sylvia Browder

Sylvia Browder

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Your Business Plan in 60 Minutes. Get Focused and Get Ahead

CEOMamma — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:28:48 +0000

Author: A.Michelle Blakeley

One of the quickest ways to re-group when you are overwhelmed in your business is to get back to your fundamentals. Being overwhelmed is a sign that there is a glitch in your system or worse, you lack a functional system. Something is off, and at the core it will be connected to your vision, purpose, priorities, target market, communication, management or some other business fundamental.

Going back to answering the “who, what, where, when, why and how” can provide you with interesting insight on where you started, where you are and where you want to be. It’s a quick way of seeing where you may have went wrong or deviated off course. When done properly, meaning digging deep, gaps and disparities will begin to appear. Take a close look at your business fundamentals by answering the “who, what, where, when, why and how” and see where priorities need to be re-aligned:

Who are you serving? Everyone is not the right answer. What is their demographic (age, gender, profession/occupation, income, hobby, etc.) You want to know who benefits the most from using your product or service. What is your industry background and how can those two elements cross paths? What does your ideal client look like and where can you find them?

What are you doing? What need are you fulfilling? The core purpose of your business should clearly answer this question in a short succinct paragraph.

Where are you? Are you in close proximity to your target market? Are you mingling in the same circles? If you are a virtual assistant, you don’t want to spend 90% of your marketing efforts and time networking and socializing with other virtual assistants. Go where your clients are and make it easier for them to find you.

When are you going to accomplish objectives and measure your results? You need to have timelines and deadlines. They help create a sense of urgency and they help provide checkpoints to ensure you are moving in the right direction. Without benchmarks and goals, how will you know your efforts are effective or efficient?

Why? What’s your story? Why are you doing what you do? What is your purpose? What is your passion? Know why you are doing what you are doing and understand how it relates to your principles and personal vision. Make sure it has meaning.

How are you making someone’s personal or professional life better or enhanced? How are you setting yourself apart from your competitors? No matter what you sell… product or service, it should be for the benefit of something or someone. It should be useful, relevant, time-saving, money-saving, better quality, better service, etc. Figure out what it is that puts you above the rest and maximize that strength. Remember, people do business with people they know, like and trust.

Having a written plan helps you to stay focused on your priorities and offset information overload. What doesn’t apply to achieving your objectives, you can quickly disregard.

Your business plan doesn’t need to be lengthy or burdensome. It simply needs to cover “Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.” Answering these questions can be overwhelming and sometimes confusing. Not knowing who to talk to and where to go for information can hinder your ability to lay a solid foundation for your business. If your doors are already open and you’ve hit a wall and found yourself in a hole, the best way to turn around is to stop digging. If you are struggling with developing a simple and appropriate plan for your business, STOP the pressure!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/your-business-plan-in-60-minutes-get-focused-and-get-ahead-3220164.html

About the Author

For over 18 years, Simplicity Mastered™ founder and CEO A. Michelle Blakeley has owned or managed small businesses and nonprofit organizations. Expert in her field, Blakeley personally guides her clients out of their Business Brain Freeze™ to streamline operations, increase return on investment, and attain quantifiable results. Forbes.com and FinancialPost.com each recommended her as one of 30 Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter, joining the experts who know that Blakeley is a master at growing small businesses … and doing it with “Simplicity.”

CEOMamma

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Getting Your Business in Order for Maximum Productivity

CEOMamma — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:15:13 +0000

The beginning of a new year is always the time of year when small business owners decide, they are going to “get it together”. All of those newly envisioned ideas and business plans flutter the minds of rejuvenated entrepreneurs ready to experience a boost in business revenue.

With all the dreaming however, structured planning must accompany your vision in order to move that vision in to action.

Here are a few tips to get you started with getting your business in order.

1. Write it Down – This should be a no-brainer but even though you have a goal and you know what you want to do, you still must write it down. Having your goals on paper, including deadlines and easily accessible for frequent viewing, will help you visualize what needs to be done and help you stay on track.

2. Create a Plan – Once you have your goals written down, you can now begin to create your plan…your Plan of Action! This will help you determine what needs to be done from start to finish in order to reach your goals. Your action plan is designed to assist you with time management and effective business building.

3. Implementation – Time to put your plan in to motion. It’s important to discipline yourself to work each step in your plan in order to get the results you desire. Staying on task and keeping your focus will give you the advantage of generating profits quicker and establishing a solid foundation for your business.

Step number three is usually the step many small business owners become challenged or overwhelmed with trying to figure out exactly how to begin this process.

Paying attention to the small details and having a step-by-step system to follow is how your implementation process will allow you to market and build your business effectively and with little mishap.

Your business marketing system, once properly set up, is what will help you stay organized and better able to manage your daily methods of business operation with little effort on your part – freeing up your time to focus more on the income producing activities of your business.

If you are unsure of how to set up your personal business marketing systems, I can help. From establishing your web presence to creating your follow-up system, I can show you how to design a marketing strategy that will help you effectively operate your business.

If you need help with this, see how I can help you.

Getting your business properly set up and organized (or re-organized) will surly help you increase your productivity, time management and income.

CEOMamma

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5 Tips for Effective Time Management and Business Productivity

CEOMamma — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:01:28 +0000

Recently, I had the privilege and honor of being the guest speaker for the Women on the Move Teleconference founded by Stylicia Bowden, in which I spoke on the topic of Time Management and Business Productivity. I received such great feedback that I decided to write this blog post to share on the topic.

Early on into building my first business, I quickly learned how important it was to be organized with managing my time and I started a system for myself based on how quickly and effectively I needed to get things done, not only in my business but with my family as well. Because for me, at the end of the day, I’m mom first and the reason I made the choice to start a business was so that I could always be available to my family and for my children.

So, I’m delighted to be able to share with you, how I have set up a system that helps me manage my time most efficiently so that I can get the most done during my days to build my businesses around my family without compromise.

The first thing I strongly encourage is that you first believe in yourself. No matter what your business is, no matter if you’re a brand new business owner, a seasoned business owner or whether you are just thinking about taking that initial step towards starting a business, you have to believe in you. In order for anything to manifest from your dreams, you have to first believe in your own vision. It’s important for you to connect with your subconscious and envision exactly where you want your business to go in order for you to take the necessary first steps to getting there.

So, that should be your first step, even if your not sure of HOW you will make it happen, write down your goals anyway. Over time, this can help you develop your own road map to success. But for now, just commit to getting started.

My favorite business motto is Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan this is something I use for every new project or idea I have with my business and it’s something I encourage you to adopt as well, Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan.

Here are my 5 tips to effective Time Management

Tip # 1 Develop your Daily Method of Operation This is when you will want to determine and write down each task you need to perform each of the days you work your business that are necessary, for the daily operation of your business. The first set of tasks should be your income producing activities. These are the things that bring money into your business, for example: sales/or follow up calls to clients, product/service inquires via email, product presentation activities, anything that you do in your business on a daily basis to generate income.

Your next set of tasks should be those that will build your business. These could be things like, blogging, article marketing and social networking. These will be the tasks that get your business in front of your audience and help you gain exposure. Write down everything, and don’t worry about when you will fit it all in yet, we’ll cover that next, this is just determining WHAT you have to do.

Tip #2 Design Your Schedule What I like to do is use a blank monthly calendar and fill it in for the month. You can also do this on a weekly basis, it’s all about what works best for you. I know some of you may work a regular job and have children so the first thing you will need to do is include that into your schedule. Mark down the days and times your work your regular job, when you go to school, mark down the kids appointments and extracurricular activities, include all your family and personal activities for the month as best as you can.

The goal here is to have a visual that will help you better carve out the time you can commit to working your business. You can even color code the different activities if you want. After you’ve done that, you can then go ahead and include the days and times you are available to work your business. This will give you a clear idea of how you can adjust your schedule to fit your lifestyle. You’ll know by a quick glance, on what days and times you are able to plan and execute certain tasks for your business. (You can download a free calendar at www.printablecalendar.ca )

Tip #3 Plan Your Tasks and Prioritize Your Activities The next thing you can do to ensure you have a productive business day is to work from a To Do List. You can use a regular sheet of notebook paper and simply write down the tasks you need to get done for that particular day. I suggest you prioritize your tasks, tackling the ones that are most time consuming and beneficial to your business and working down from there. For example, I write articles, blog posts and newsletters before I conduct any social networking or checking email.

I normally do my list for the next day at the end of my current business day so when I get to my desk the next morning, I’m ready to go. I know there are some of you who may work your business at night or only on weekends, so again, it’s all about what works for you. This is also the time you can revisit your daily method of operation list and begin to incorporate those activities onto your To Do List.

I also find it very helpful to designate a specific time frame for each task so that I’m not spending too much time on twitter or Facebook for instance, when I could be writing a post for my blog. As you complete your tasks, you can cross them off your list and move on to the next one. It is very important to prioritize and have a good understanding of which activities bring the most value and benefit to your business and your customers.

Tip #4 Goal Setting and Project Management One of the most important steps to managing your time and being productive is learning how to set goals. Setting long term and short term goals when working on a project can help you get more done while helping you stay organized and focused on completing small chunks at a time. That way it’s not so overwhelming and can curve procrastination.

When you are ready to start a new project, again, you will need to write down your idea, Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan. During my project planning, whether it is a marketing campaign or blog series I want to do, I usually work back words. I write down what my objective is, or what it is I’m going to accomplish, I will write down the steps it will take for me to complete my project and most important, a goal is never complete without a DEADLINE!!

When you set a deadline, you eliminate procrastination and put yourself in the mindset of completion. Now you can break it down into small tasks, spread that out over a period of time and complete your project in pieces. Setting goals helps you get important things done.

Tip #5 Achieving Business Productivity How to be productive is a huge concern with many entrepreneurs who understand the value of implementing social media into their business building. What applies to me also applies to each of you and that is we must be willing to be disciplined. When you take on the role of “being the boss” you have to live up to the title.

Think about this for a minute…What makes it okay, for you to get up, 5 days a week at 7am, to be at a JOB for 9am, work hard for 8 hours of your day, to put money in someone else’s pocket yet, you don’t dedicate that same drive and desire for your OWN business? As women in business, we have to step our game up and stop treating our business like a hobby. You have to be disciplined and it’s okay if you have to learn it, because it is a skill. That’s why I said in the beginning, you have to believe in yourself, trust your vision, go with your passion and MAKE IT HAPPEN!! We all have to start some where. If you don’t know how to implement a certain aspect in your business, LEARN IT. If you need advice or help, SEEK IT. You are the boss, be accountable to yourself.

There are great tools that can help you leverage your time online. One of my favorites is HootSuite for twitter. It allows me to manage multiple twitter accounts, my Facebook fan pages, my Facebook profile page and my RSS feeds. I can schedule updates across my networks and plug in my blog feeds for them to go out automatically.

WordPress also offers this option to schedule posts. Sometimes if I know I’m going to have a busy week, I will write 3 blog posts in one day for that particular week and schedule them to post on my blog on different days. Another great tool is using an auto responder, MailChimp is my favorite, it’s free and you can send out pre-scheduled messages to your entire mailing list. You can pretty much set it and forget it and have an email marketing campaign working for you on complete auto pilot. Each of these tools provide a way for you to track website traffic and statistics so you can better utilize the marketing strategies that are working great and tweak the ones that aren’t.

Another thing to help you stay productive in your business is to be aware of your habits that cause procrastination. One of my bad habits was having the need to keep checking my email and Facebook during my writing time. My plan would be to just skim through my messages and get down to work. But, before I knew it an hour would have went by and some how I ended up clicking a link somewhere and would be heavily involved in reading a blog post, then another and another.

So, to get the important work done, you need to learn how to eliminate your distractions while working. Close those social media tabs on your browser while you are working on something for your business, turn off the TV, the black berry, anything that can cause you to get distracted. Make a conscious effort, to do what is necessary to make the time you spend building your business most productive.

I teach women how to build a business with no-cost marketing because that’s how I built my business. I refused to let a limited income stop me from fulfilling my dreams and I want to tell you, that you can do the same thing. YES, you may have to work harder than your peers who may have a substantial marketing budget to start with. YES, you just might have to work longer hours then her, but that’s okay, because THIS is your business, your baby…make it happen! Be active in the growth of your business, always be willing to learn and be coachable. Find a mentor; connect with women who are where you want to be. Be a sponge, absorb everything they teach you.

You can not be afraid to ask for help, there are business women online who love to help other women reach their dreams and I just so happen to be one of them. You can only create greater opportunities for yourself and your business when you first learn how to align your vision with effective time management.

CEOMamma

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Using HootSuite To Manage Your Business

CEOMamma — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:12:52 +0000

Using Social Media is one of the fastest growing, easiest ways to market your business online today. Implementing the various social media platforms available into your marketing strategies can be a great way to generate exposure to your business. Although many debate the benefit of using these tools because the amount of time spent to obtain the desired results, one platform I highly recommend is HootSuite.

What is HootSuite? It is a twitter platform that gives you the ability to use and monitor multiple twitter accounts and social profiles, track and view link stats, pre-schedule posts and status updates, view your tweets, mentions and direct messages all at once. It also has other great features like monitoring your Facebook Fan Pages, feed your RSS to your stream and allows you to track certain search terms.

It’s easy to get started, simply create your user account and add your twitter account when prompted:

You can even add profiles from your social networking sites and Facebook Fan Pages.

Once you get to your dashboard, you can monitor the activity across each column.
(sent tweets, mentions, direct messages)

To add your RSS feeds, click on Settings at the bottom of your dashboard and then RSS/Atom

Easily schedule your tweets and status updates:

Have posts with links you would like to track? You can check your stats and see how many people have clicked your links. In the Stats section, select the twitter profile you wish to track. You can also view the stats for an individual post as well.

Using HootSuite is a great tool to help you utilize the time you spend on your business marketing campaigns more efficiently and allows you to be more productive. HootSuite has also recently launched WordPress integration, Trend Explanations and Image/URL Previews and has won Mashable’s 2009 Open Web Award. Plus, you can now use HootSuite on your iPhone.

CEOMamma

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Time Management = Business Productivity

CEOMamma — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:30:13 +0000

Being an entrepreneur requires an individual to be passionate about what they do, be a self-starter and highly motivated. Another very important trait a work from home entrepreneur should possess is the ability to Manage Time, and the skill to do it wisely.

How well do you manage your time?

Many home based business women have a difficult time finding the balance between caring for the needs of her family and finding time for her business tasks. While most mompreneurs are great at multi-tasking, the challenges usually arise when there is no actual set plan of action.

The key to resolving this issue is to first decide how often you will work your business. Sit down with a calendar or planner and determine which days of the week you are available to work. Next, decide the blocks of time you can commit to working your business on those marked days. If you are a work from home mom, be sure to factor in your family activities.

Great, now you have your schedule! On that schedule, choose the times you will spend blogging, networking, making phone calls, performing administrative tasks (yes, this is a very important task that you must include in your schedule) or whatever other income producing activities you need to do to build your business. Write them in.

If you work another job or you have a forever changing family schedule, maintain your sanity by completing a new business schedule at the end of the week, for the following week. This will help you stay on track. Even if your hours do change from week to week, the key is to be consistent.

Done! To manage your time efficiently and have a productive business, always plan your work and work your plan. Stick to it! Even if you work out of your home and have five kids bouncing off the walls (like me), you have to set boundaries. Your business is just that, a business. Treat it as such.

Is it going to be hard getting everyone to abide by your “work at home business hours”? Of course it is. Will each day bring a new challenge to balancing family and business? Absolutely, but it can be done. Even if your most used phrase is, “Wait a minute, Mommy is working”, the gratification comes from knowing that you are building your dream and providing a richly rewarded, sustaining future for your family.

Visit TheCEOMamma Community and connect with empowered women entrepreneurs living their dreams!

CEOMamma

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