Thursday, July 23, 2009

How I Manage My Time

This is an excellent article by Donna Gunter. I adopted this long range planning a couple of years ago and it works well for me. My weeks are broken into the three categories she speaks of - Rest days, Business Development days and Profit-Generating days. My schedule looks like this:

Monday: Business Development
Tuesday - Thursday: Profit-generating
Friday - Sunday: Rest

I stick closely to this most weeks. And because I have a home office, I don't keep the regular "corporate hours".  I work an hour or two and take a break and as you saw, I don't work even 5 days a week. I'm trying to scale that back to even less days and still get stuff done! Ever heard of the 4-hour work week? I'm going to look into it.

Read on for the details as Donna writes below...

One of the primary issues about which my clients complain is that they never stop running their businesses. They say their day is an endless cycle of completing tasks for clients, having conversations with prospective clients, and networking to find clients. They know that they need to find some time to plan what they're doing and where they're going in their businesses, and the only time they manage to carve out for themselves to do this is late at night with a glass of wine in hand, on Saturday morning in the midst of a child's soccer game, or on a Sunday afternoon at the dining room table when the kids are working on school projects. How productive can anyone be in that kind of environment?

Normally, when you think of time management, you're told to put your tasks in 3 categories (A, B, and C) based on priority, with the As being the highest priority, and then do all the tasks the A list. Poof -- time management -- done! If it were only that easy!

The time management system that I'm currently using is a bigger-picture system, focusing on the overall plan of how you structure your time rather than on the actual tasks, although that does come into play. In this system, you have 3 kinds of days: Rest Days, Profit-Generating Days, and Business Development Days. You can set as many (or as few of these) as you like each week, as long as the total number adds up to 7 for a full week.

I've purchased a large laminated wall planner for the current year and a set of colored sticker dots to graphically represent on this calendar my Rest, Profit-Generating, and Business Development Days. I've found that having this hanging on the wall in front of me helps tremendously in my planning, and when presented with an opportunity, helps me determine how viable it is in relation to the time I have available.

On your Rest Days, you are free to do anything at all except work-related tasks. You can meditate, veg on the couch, spend time with friends and family, go for hike, or take a vacation. The goal on your Rest Days is to revitalize and rejuvenate your spirit and not think about business, work, or money. This is the first set of days I'd like you to plan for yourself. Yep, you heard me right. Repeat after me, "Pay yourself first." What works with money also works with time! Currently, for me, that translates into 2 Free Days per week. I then have a number of longer vacation periods kicking in and 3 and 4-day weekends. Remember, all work and no play makes Jill a cranky girl....

Next fill in your Business Development Days, which is the time when you're working ON your business, not IN your business. The Business Development Days are the most important days for a business owner because they're serve as your business management days, or time when you focus on finances, marketing, sales, resources, and personnel.

Let me repeat -- this is the most important day of your week. You can't grow and market your business while you're doing the actual work of the business, so devote at least one day per week to developing and overseeing your business. Even if you're a solo entrepreneur, Business Development Days are vital to your success. Your business will not be able to grow and prosper without regularly scheduled business development time. My business development day is sacred, and I guard it like the Hope Diamond. Only in extreme emergencies do I let other things interrupt my Business Development Day.

The most compelling reason that Business Development Days are vital to your existence is because without that time, you don't have any of the third kind of day, the Profit-Generating Days.

Whatever is left of the week are Profit-Generating Days, or the time when you're actually working in your business, doing the work of the business. These are the days that you're working with clients, answering their problems and concerns, or conducting other activities in which you're directly generating revenue. In some businesses this time might be called "billable hours."

So, my current schedule is as follows:

  • Saturday and Sunday: Rest Days
  • Monday and Tuesday: Profit-Generating Days
  • Wednesday: Business Development Day
  • Thursday and Friday: Profit-Generating Days

I started this type of long-range planning several years ago, and have found it to be incredibly empowering. I guess I'd fallen into the M-F, 9-5 rut again without realizing it, and spent all that time working with clients rather than spending any time on the business development side and taking a long, hard look at what I really wanted out of my business. What was helpful to me was realizing that I'm not going to always be 100% faithful to this system, as opportunities arise that I can't control. However, I know if I commit to being 80-90% faithful to the system, I'll do just fine.

Start planning time for your business development today. Buy your calendar, set aside some time to map out your year, and begin to experience the power of actually being in the driver's seat of your business.

More info about Donna: Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses by demystifying the steps needed to successfully market a baby boomer business online. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at == > http://www.TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com

Thursday, July 16, 2009

How to Get Free One Way Backlinks Virally

As many of you know, one way backlinks is one of the best and most effective ways to get high positions in search engines resulting in targeted traffic to your site. But getting quality one way links is a big job.

Free Traffic System is a system that helps you to get an unlimited number of one way, top quality links. Free Traffic System has integrated a concept of viral marketing, rewarding its members with bonus one way links. I use the free version - it's a good place to start. There is also a pro version (paid) that will allow you the opportunity to increase the number of backlinks you can receive from each article you post.

Before getting to the viral part of the project, I'll explain exactly where you are getting these backlinks. The backlinks are built inside real blog posts, not in the footer or blogroll - in the very body of a blog post. This is a natural way to build one way links, because you give real unique content to your visitors in the blog posts, and search engines will always welcome it - search engines were created to help people in finding quality information in the Internet. When you submit an article, you can choose up to 30 related and relevant blogs. The blog owners can grab your article(s) for adding content to their blogs thus creating a backlink to your site from the article you created. These are backlinks from relevant blog sites that belong to real people in different niches. It's a natural and smart way to build backlinks for free.You submit one article to Free Traffic System and it converts into up to 60 top quality one way backlinks!

The viral part of Free Traffic System is simple - you get rewarded for referring others.You get a BONUS backlink on every 3rd post that your referral makes. This means you get bonus backlinks on article No 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, etc. of all people who got into the system via your referral. [Inside the system you get to choose your sites and related keywords so that your backlinks appear in relevant blog categories.]

Every article can be republished on up to 30 blog sites in the Free Traffic System, this means that one article with your bonus link equals to 30 backlinks from Free Traffic System. 2 articles = 60 bonus backlinks, 3 articles = 90 bonus backlinks. And this is in addition to the unlimited backlinks that you can build yourself by submitting your own articles.

The final perk of the viral strategy: If you add at least one WordPress blog to Free Traffic System, you will instantly increase the number of bonus backlinks by 7%.

So, you get 3 ways to build backlinks virally:

1. Free backlinks that you build yourself by submitting articles
2. Viral bonus backlinks for referring others
3. Viral bonus backlinks for adding your WordPress blog(s) to Free Traffic System

With this free backlink building power, targeted traffic from search engines becomes just a matter of time. And like with everything else you do to marketing your business online, it comes with consistent effort.

Get more information and details here.

Ciao for now, Paula

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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

10 Questions to Ask Yourself : Should Your Business Tweet?

David Berkowitz of Social Media Insider puts good thought into 10 ways to decide whether your business should Tweet.

There's certainly a lot of talk when it comes to Twitter and I'm still figuring out the best way to use it!.

Many small business owners have asked me if they should be using Twitter. Of course, my first question to them is "Are your customers using this medium?" If they are, then they will probably be open to you communicating with them via Twitter. Read David's entire article here.

You can also read a few more tips on my site.
Ciao for now!
Paula