Project management is among a top skill to master in any business; especially one wanting to grow.
Why?
Because without project management, business owners will unnecessarily run into common issues:
You often get derailed by "the unexpected.”
It’s inevitable.
You get interrupted an unexpected number of times daily. Those interruptions come at unexpected times. They each take an unexpected amount of time with which to deal.
That’s why it’s "the unexpected."
These interruptions kill your flow, destroy your focus, and force you to work on the urgent instead of the important.
So how do you deter, prevent, and deal with the problems these unexpected interruptions incur?
I was shocked, hurt, and felt like my idea had been stolen. Though I had the idea first, Nintendo would be the star. Nintendo would make $millions. It took years before I was old enough to recognize the important lesson in this experience...
Are you second-guessing your next great idea? Are you downplaying the value you could provide to others? Are you upset that you found a competitor in the market who seems to be offering everything you want to (and seems to be finding great success doing it)?
It might be time to step back and realize a few important things.
You are only as productive as your environment. So let’s get your main work environment, your office, as productive as possible.
Here are 19 tiny changes (with affiliate links to products that I’ve personally used to enhance my productivity) that can do exactly that. Try one, or try them all. The more changes, the more you’ll find you have the clarity, focus, time, and energy to work on what matters.
In the early ‘90s, when personal computers could only beep and boop, you had to buy a sound card to hear realistic sound effects or music. By all measures, Creative Labs, Inc. was the undisputed king of PC sound cards, selling their Soundblaster hardware to video game enthusiasts across the country.
Soundblaster touted 16-bit audio (later 32-bit) and multiple channels of sound as their “drool-factor.” But when I first picked up a sound card from the shelves of Circuit City (remember that store?), I was interested in it’s hidden secret: Dr. Sbaitso.
Dr. Sbaitso may not have been the first chatbot ever created, but he was the first chatbot with whom I ever spoke. Hearing his canned digital voice tickled my geek feathers. But it wasn’t all kittens and unicorns. Dr. Sbaitso had an unrecoverable problem...
He was quite possibly the worlds worst chatbot posing as an even worse clinical psychologist.
Dr. Sbaitso... you were cool, but not very helpful.
More recently, chatbot have entered into consumers lives and minds with force. And for good reason. In an age where instantaneous communication is valued over human interaction, getting the answers you need from a chatbot makes good business sense.
Given my historical interactions with Dr. Sbaitso (and equally dissapointing interactions with Amazon Alexa’s chat service), I doubted chatbots would have a positive influence on business owners. Then I came across this comprehensive infographic...
Check it out and let me know in the comments below if and how you think chatbots can help your business succeed in 2018 and beyond!
(Posted with permission from Josh Wardini, 16Best.com)
How many times do other companies reach out to you via social media or a messaging service?
It’s probably several times a day, right?
How many times a day do you pursue social media interactions with friends, family, and loved ones?
Dozens? Hundreds? More?
The combined time you spend sending and receiving social messages from everyone and ever company is growing at a crazy rate. No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of time... and that makes it very difficult for other messages to reach through to you and get your attention.
Now, imagine you are leading a marketing effort for your company. How on earth do you reach through to your customers? Customers who are inundated with messages from friends, family, loved ones, and other companies. Customers who are swimming in "noise."
If you've been trying to market your message to your customers recently, you know how difficult it is to cut through that noise. It's becoming a monumental task to attract anyone's attention!
It's time to change what you know about your customers and how to communicate with them.
Here are some best practices explaining how to effectively use social media in a modern way that cuts through the noise, get's your customers attention, and makes an impact:
Technology isn’t just improving the lives of consumers, it’s changing the ways in which businesses perform and operate. Technology is emerging that caters to consumers, making everything from technical support to the payment process more seamless and efficient.
The question is, as a small business owner, how can you effectively use this technology to better serve your customers?
Take a look at the following technological breakthroughs. They are a great way to engage audiences, while also increasing your collaborative abilities and security infrastructure.
In short, here are the technologies that small businesses can’t live without in 2018:
It’s no secret, you’re pressed for time.
You wear multiple hats, share multiple responsibilities, and have more things to do than there are hours in the day.
Maybe you’ve even committed to being more productive or focused in the new year.
Superhuman productivity you say? I’ll take two helpings of that.
After all, with so many demands on your time, being able to accomplish your goals while still saving time for family, self-improvement, and relaxation sounds like a dream.
But where do we start?
There are literally thousands of productivity tips and apps on the Internet… every one claiming to give you that dream.
This isn’t “yet another productivity tip.”
This is a way to organize your learning, clean up your computer, educate yourself using spare moments in your day (like driving), and literally read your news and articles twice as fast as you can today.
Superhuman. Productivity.
Let’s get focused. Let’s get productive. Let’s stop procrastinating. And let’s download an app to help.
Apple's keynote less than 48 hours ago lit the Internet ablaze with renewed talk of the time honored (no pun intended) wristwatch. The Apple Watch is a stunning device with a high-tech take on a historically classical instrument. It looks to have been designed with astrology, horology, and watchmaking front and center. The keynote showcased feature upon feature, advertising dozens of ways it would simplify life and deepen interpersonal connections. Through the lights and magic however, Apple could not (perhaps did not) hide their pride... Pride in the most intense focus on the intersection of design and craftsmanship in any product to date.
