| Blitz
Ezine #278 ~~ January 8th, 2008
Manage your Time,Sending Christmas cards
The Blitz-Promotions News Letter
Issue no. 278, January 8th, 2008
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Blitz Comments
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We want to take a moment and wish you and your family a Happy New Year.
One helpful hint - I'm really bad at remembering that it's 2008 - especially when I'm writing checks. That's why I fill in the year on the checks until a few months into the New Year. Every day or two we talk some about promotion (as well as fun things too on our blog)
http://smallbizpromo.blogspot.com/
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In this Issue
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Managing your Time
Sending Christmas Cards
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Food for thought
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"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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Manage Your Time to Earn More In Less TimeBy Terry Dean
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People talk about the 80/20 rule quite a bit.
20% of your customers produce 80% of your profits.
80% of your problems come from 20% of the customers.
20% of your activities produce 80% of your results.
Let's talk about this in regard to how you're spending your
time. Since 80% of your activities only produce 20% of
your results, and the other 20% of your activities are
producing 80% of your results...wouldn't you be better off
concentrating only the 20%?
Let's say someone works 12 hour days. It's almost
unbelievable to me that people work that much, but I've
spoken with MANY who do so. Sure I could understand and
have done a 12 hour day right before a vacation or on the
last day of finishing a project. But working that long
every single day? That's the surefire recipe for a
breakdown, both physically and mentally.
Applying the 80/20 rule to their 12 hour days means the
80% is 9.6 hours and the 20% is 2.4 hours. If we cut
out the 80% that isn't producing very well for them, we
would only have 2.4 hour days. Now there's a schedule
I like.
Something I often suggest to my coaching clients is to
make an activity log for the next week. Every day,
simply list all the activities for the day and how long
it took you to do them. At the end of the week rate
each of those activities by how well it is building
your business.
You're going to find you're wasting way too long on
certain activities.
You may find like many of my clients these activities
include:
- Reading too many blogs (Limit the number you subscribe to)
- Subscribing to Internet marketing newsletters that only sell without providing good quality content.- Answering Email All Day (no more than twice per day and
shoot for once per day or less)
- Surfing the Forums (I can't think of a bigger waste of
time if you're not there for the purpose of generating
traffic by participating)
- Calling Someone Without a Specific Plan in mind (you can
waste an hour with no results - keep it short and planned)All of the above are activities people do to make them FEEL
like they're working instead of doing any real work.
They also consume your day.
What are you personally doing that is wasting your time?
What do you do to replace the real work of your business?
Usually these are activities that consume much of your
day...and don't show any real results at the end. They are
part of the 80% producing only 20% of the results.
Next ask yourself which activities really bring in the cash.
For example, for me, these cash producers include:
#1 - Writing (used for the blog, new products, and article
submissions
)#2 - Copywriting (sales copy for my sites, tests, and emails)
#3 - Product Development (recording videos and doing
interviews to create products)
#4 - Business Development (creating systems for others to do
the work - could also be listed as the real #1 cash producer
but I love the writing part the best)Where do I waste my time? I asked myself this question lately and had to answer I had
slacked on following my own email rule (answering no more than
twice per day max which I do for the coaching clients). So
I'm pushing myself strictly back to this.
I've also allowed myself to check the comments on my blog too
often. So for the time being I'm turning off blog comments. For me they are part of the 80% that's not really producing
the results.
Be honest with yourself...and figure out where you waste
your time. What parts of your business are the 20% producing
80% of the results? Which parts are the 80% only producing
20% of the results? What can you eliminate or outsource
immediately?
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Terry Dean helps business owners Earn More, Work Less, and
Enjoy Life. Receive his Special report, "10 Key Strategies
for Any Business Owner to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life"
along with three other special reports worth $109.80 for free
at http://www.theterrydean.com
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If you procrastinated - or just didn't send Christmas Cards last year.... could you have missed out on some extra business?
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5 Tips For Your Christmas Card MarketingMany people think Christmas card marketing is a waste of time and money. The way most people do it, they are probably right!A financial salesman told me once that never seemed to get any response from sending Christmas cards to his clients.
So one year he just stopped... and his clients called him up to work out whether he was still in business!
Would you like to get a real word of mouth marketing boost from sending cards out this holiday season?These 5 tips for your marketing will help you out:
1.) Find a way to measure the response. Don't be like the salesman I mentioned who was unable to know what was happening until it was too late. The card can include something that gets the person to interact with you so that you can measure this. For example they can contact you to get a gift that you can't send out to them in the mail. If all else fails then at least contact some of the people afterwards to check that the card arrived and get some measure of how many others they showed the card to. Which brings us to..
.2.) Get attention. Think about having your card stuck up on a wall with 100 other Christmas cards. Would you card be noticed, let alone singled out to be picked up and read?
Forget the fancy stuff. Stand across the other side of the room and work out if your card really gets attention. No matter how nice it is, if it fails this test them dump it and find another one.
3.) Personalization. People aren't surprised when they get the same card as someone else, but they tune out very quickly if it is not specifically addressed to them with their name inside the card. You can do this by hand, but there are also web-to-print services that can handle this for you, and even allow you to include a specific uniqute message inside the card as well as the person's name.
4.) Don't be pushy. If you have something to sell at Christmas then put it in a separate mailing. Keep the cards as a way of building upon the relationship you already have with someone so that they do business with you more often in the future, and send you referrals. You can keep it on a business level, but don't make your relationship with them conditional on them making a purchase on the spot
.5.) Put your own face on the card. Don't be bashful. This is good marketing. This is the time to build a relationship with customers who may have not seen you in a quite a while, if at all. You can always put in a picture of your whole team, but how ever you do it that feeling of connection is even greater if there is a face on the card.
They can also show you off to their friends and create great word of mouth for your business.
Want to discover the ways you can take your current customers and grow your existing business?
Martin Russell works with professionals, small businesses, consultants and other entrepreneurs to be successful with word of mouth marketing methods at...
http://www.WordofMouthMagic.com
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Links you can use -
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A good end of year / beginning of the year checklist for your website.
http://searchengineland.com/071213-070342.php
Make Gif animations.
http://www.gifup.com/
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Some Fun Links
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Paper toys - all you need is your imagination.
http://www.papertoys.com/ Learn the stars -
http://www.quietbay.net/Science/astronomy/nightsky/
Every Friday we talk about some fun things we do in our blog. Make sure to check it out.
http://smallbizpromo.blogspot.com/
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Useful links
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Ezine
Archives links to all our past issues (well most
of them) in one place.
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Next Issues
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Our
next issue will be February 5th, 2008
Tim
and Lisa Hamblin
Tisa Enterprises
PO Box 221
Hazard KY 41702
http://www.blitzpromotions.com
http://www.crochetnmore.com
http://www.webpageplanner.com
http://www.ineedlinks.com |
