Have you read EVERY book you bought?
Instead of shopping for more features, have you considered learning to use the tools you have to their full potential?
Have you read EVERY book you bought?
Sometimes, you need more gear. There is always more software or hardware out there that will help you do your job better, cleaner and more efficiently. But sometimes there are systems right under your nose (literally, at times) that you may not be using to its capacity. These ideas arise from conversations with clients and vendors that are aware of the technologies but just left it sitting in the box, unwrapped.
Unwrap those presents gathering dust (perhaps literally) and find new uses for the ones you’re already using!
Webcam
Many newer laptops have webcams built in. How much easier could it be? If you’re without a webcam, there are dozens on the market, many of which offer advanced features like autofocus. How can the webcam help you?
- Personal presence. When communicating occurs regularly online, putting a face (and a moving one at that) to your words and web presences will make your business more personable and real.
- More personal than email/telephone. Even the age-old telephone has it’s drawbacks. With video, you are communicating with more than just your voice.
- Use to clarify questions or concerns. Many times, a short video conference can help clear up matters quicker than a string of emails. Get to the point!
- Communicate with body language. Depending on who you ask, body language accounts for between 60 and 90 percent of communication.
- Budget Scanner. The webcam is not just for your face! In fact, I know one design company that uses it to scan animation sketches. Photograph receipts, inventory, and more.
Conference Calling
Conference calling is not new, and nor is video conferencing, but they are both surprisingly uncommon in small business usage. The savings and benefits are obvious …
- Save time and travel expenses. Video conferencing even works in bad weather! Using Skype, iChat or Google Talk you never need to venture out in weather that humans were never meant to endure anyhow.
- Bounce ideas between several parties. Get the whole team in on the conversation and save time (and email streams) going back and forth between parties.
- Eliminate middle man syndrome. You ask the team leader, team leader asks the subcontractor, subcontractor takes three days to reply to team leader, team leader gets back to you the following business day. Why not all meet at once, on camera and resolve issues right away?
- Sort your own mail. Your email software (Outlook, Mail, Thunderbird, etc) is able to redirect your mail to folders to enable you to prioritize how you read mail. Answer important emails first and leave the foreign Princely investment opportunities and lottery announcements for when you have more time. Or just delete them altogether. Group emails in categories or separate client emails so you can see instantly who is contacting you.
- Automatic reply. Autoresponders may seem impersonal, but they have their uses. For example, if an email came from an online order form,you can immediately confirm that the order was received, then follow up personally later.
Camera Phone
- Illustrate your ideas quickly. When you can’t put that image or scene in words, a quick snapshot does the trick.
- Receipts. If a vendor still requires the paper version, you can keep that in a box out of sight and out of mind, but many people will find the digital versions perfectly acceptable. The Apple Store, for example, will only issue a paper receipt if you ask for it; otherwise, your receipt can be emailed. How sensible and eco-friendly!
- Address Book contacts. A great reminder of who is in your massive contact list is a photograph of those you have already met. “Would you mind if I gave myself a reminder of our meeting? This will help jog my memory later on.” Offer a contact-list snapshot in return, out of courtesy.
- Another Poor-person’s scanner. Anything you may need to post on a blog, email or store digitally can be captured with your (probably little used) camera phone. Professional quality is not the issue here, just record keeping.
Your Bookshelf
Buying books is easy. Reading books is hard. Ok, it’s not that hard to read, but if you have ever bought a book and waited more than a week before reading it, you know that it takes a little more effort and determination to read the thing than to spend your afternoon with a latté in one hand and your head cocked to one side. Just so you know, here are the titles on MY shelf with bookmarks still in them:
- How to Master the Art of Selling, Tom Hopkins
- Art of Drawing Anatomy, David Sanmiguel
- Getting Noticed on Google, Ben Norman
- Think Big, Donald Trump
…plus a few Christmas present titles. I have work to do.
Most of these ideas and hints may seem obvious and elementary. Perhaps you are using them all anyway. Hopefully you have found one or two pointers that will help you save time and run your office and business more efficiently.
Excellent article. I appreciate you for posting that. I ask you accept my for my weak English talking, I am from France and it is somehat new to me.
Have you ever considered adding more videos to your blog posts to keep the readers more entertained? I mean I just read through the entire article of yours and it was quite good but since I’m more of a visual learner,I found that to be more helpful well let me know how it turns out. This is good…thanks for sharing
Saw your Blog bookmarked on Reddit.I love your site and marketing strategy.
hey cheif,The Donald is really getting into the Network Marketing world huh? His buddy Rich Dad Poor Dad probably talked
I really liked reading your post!. Quallity content. With such a valuable blog i believe you deserve to be ranking even higher in the search engines
. Check out the link in my name. That links to a tool that really helped me rank high in google. This way even more people can enjoy your posts and nothing beats a big audiance 