business owner

5 Practical Tools to Automate Your Workflow

October 3, 2016 by Lidiya K 3,552 Comments

In every entrepreneur’s life comes a moment when the work that needs to be done increases to the extent where you need to prioritize. So identify the areas that matter the most and which only you can do, and outsource or automate the rest.

Luckily for you, innovative business owners have created products that help you free up some time and automate your workflow.

There are so many tools out there thanks to technology, and once you give a few a try and find the right ones for you and your business, you’ll be able to stop worrying about repetitive and tedious tasks, and focus more on what you do best.

Here are 5 such tools you’ll find useful:

1. Onlypult

As we all know, Instagram can become a powerful marketing machine and brand builder if used in the right way.

But instead of having to be there at the specific times of the day when it’s best to publish content, why not schedule these in advance and know they’ll appear just in time for your audience to see them? What’s more, there won’t be any annoying notifications, but non-push ones.

You can enjoy a 7-day free trial and see how much time it saves you and how easy it is to use. Learn more about Onlypult’s features here.

Also check out these 3 apps for analyzing Instagram data.

2. Calendly

That’s a tool designed to make scheduling appointments and meetings easier than ever.

All you do is set your availability and create custom links for specific clients. Then, each person who wants to contact you just picks a time period you’ve listed as free and creates an event in your calendar.

No need to send multiple emails, lose potential clients, make them wait or use the phone. Anyone using this particular scheduling software swears by its simplicity.

Start with a 14-day trial period and see how you’re able to get more work done and simplify communication with clients and staff.

3. Basecamp

Moving onto project management, which is another aspect of the business you must automate as early as possible.

Basecamp is one of the best options as the features it offers can solve almost anything you’re struggling with.

From organizing tasks, prioritizing and assigning each, to having a separate page and discussion for each topic and adding all the necessary files there for anyone involved in the project to see and use.

You also have the freedom to chat in real time and share and organize any type of files. Easily keep track of deadlines and set milestones, with the option to add people to each and notify them right away.

You’ll receive notifications about anything that concerns you, so no need to even think about a project when you’re not working on it.

4. 17hats

Sometimes, even if you automate some aspects of the business, you still end up wasting a lot of time doing administrative tasks.

For example, you may often need to remind clients to pay you, or spend time creating different responses, contracts or invoices.

What about tracking your expenses and trying to manage your money? Even if you have a bookkeeper, you still need to take care of some things. You may also get lost in spreadsheets and notes when tracking all the areas you should manage.

Not anymore. 17 hats’ purpose is to help you stop using tens of apps and let you stay sane and on top of your game.

It’s an all-in-one business management tool that takes care of client correspondence, tracking payments and getting paid on time without annoying the client, capturing leads, bookkeeping, and building templates for the documents you use the most so that you never repeat the same thing twice.

Use it free if you just want to test the basic options, and upgrade when you see the benefits.

5. SumoMe

A set of tools that comes in the form of a plugin for your WordPress site and helps you build an email list, grow your traffic and optimize through analytics.

You can install a scroll box, smart bar or welcome mat to invite visitors to join your newsletter.

The heatmap and Google analytics will give you information about where people are coming from and what they are doing once they land on your website.

To encourage them to share your content, you can add beautiful share buttons, or install the image sharer and highlighter.

All these are free to use, but there’s also a premium version with even more features.

Which tool will you give a try today to make your work easier?

Going from Employee to Entrepreneur: The Mindset Shift

September 19, 2016 by Lidiya K 3,202 Comments

Some of the most inspiring success stories out there are of people who left their corporate job after doing something they didn’t like for most of their life and being part of the system, just to do what they love, move to another place or work remotely while traveling the world.

All that is possible. You can create a lifestyle business. Starting something on the side first until you begin making money from it, and doing it only with the help of your laptop, is a sure way to design the life of your dreams and have all the time and freedom you’ve always dreamt about.

But there’s a mindset shift that goes together with this.

Some people become business owners, but in their head they are still employees. If they don’t have a strategy, if they don’t solve a real problem with their product or service and care about what they do, they just end up creating another job for themselves.

They still work long hours, deal with clients they don’t like, can’t delegate or automate things and thus can’t take a vacation anytime they want to.

The journey from an employee to entrepreneur starts on the inside first. You need to make the mental shift early on, to start creating systems that will one day replace you and still give you revenue, to become your own boss and know how you’ll manage your time once you have all of it for yourself.

So here are some tips on how to stop thinking like an employee:

Get clear about what you want

An awful thing is to work hard for years to create a business, just to realize that you aren’t ready or it’s not something you truly want.

Once you become an entrepreneur, you’ll have more responsibilities than ever. In the beginning, you’ll have to work more than the average, to go the extra mile every single day, to give it at least a year until you can see results.

Not everyone’s patient or strong enough for that. Some just prefer the illusion of security a 9 to 5 job gives.

So make sure you’re willing to make sacrifices for some time before you enjoy the benefits of working for yourself and being independent.

If you’re looking for inspiration and practical tips, check out this guide on how one woman left her 6-figure corporate job to pursue a better lifestyle. Inside you’ll also find 5 worksheets and 25 useful tools to get you started.

Overcome the mental barriers

A mindset shift requires you to get rid of the doubts. You must believe in yourself to such an extent that you should find the willpower to take action in the right direction every day.

Fear also gets in the way. It stops you from even giving something a try.

Work on letting go of these. Build momentum by defining why you want to change your life and become an entrepreneur and always keep this why in mind.

Find your niche

Don’t just start anything that seems profitable, choose a field you’re passionate about. That’s when you’ll do your best work, create products that make a difference and never get bored.

Define what you love doing, think about the things you’re good at and combine all this with what people are willing to pay for.

The Ultimate Guide to Uncover Your Passion and Create a Profit will help you find your true calling and turn it into your career.

Check out what competitors in the same niche are doing and what are the success factors. Make sure there’s a market for that, you don’t want to end up building something no one needs.

Do it on the side first

Start doing this long before you quit your job. Research takes time. First of all, get familiar with all the possible ways to make money from the Internet. That too is part of the mindset shift as you expand your horizons.

See what grabs your interest, what digital skills you’re willing to learn and how you can combine all that and turn it into something profitable.

You can also be a freelancer and still be your own boss, even if you don’t actually run a big business anytime soon.

If you’re a lawyer, writer, teacher, parent, or anything else, you already have experience and knowledge to share with people online. You just need the right medium for you. It may be video, creating courses, self-publishing eBooks on Amazon, having a podcast, running a blog, or else.

You’ll be slowly building your portfolio for some time and finding your first clients on sites that connect freelancers with employers. Once you begin making a decent income, feel free to quit your job and never look back again.

Create your personal brand

You’ll constantly be improving your skills, connecting with people, improving your online presence, networking and building relationships and growing your business. You can have a brand strategist like Brittney Fells help you along the way.

Becoming a lifelong learner is another part of the mindset shift that you’ll be making before you transform your current lifestyle.

Develop the habit of taking little actions a few times throughout the day that will help you build a name for yourself online.

What about you? What’s stopping you from making the mindset shift and starting to think like a boss?

Check out the preferred partners here at Womeneur for more inspiration or advice on anything biz-related from social media management and personal branding to copywriting and running your business successfully.

How To Manage Your Time When There Are Too Many Things to Do

August 8, 2016 by Lidiya K 3,078 Comments

Whether you’re working for someone else, are a freelancer, or already a business owner, there’s always one thing you seem to be struggling with – having enough time to get everything done.

Time management is a powerful skill and the foundation of being productive and balancing personal life and work. But how do we get better at it?

The main solution lies in working smarter instead of harder. Truth is there are some habits you can develop and techniques you can try that will help you get things done faster, save time and have more of it for yourself, be full of energy throughout the whole day and keep seeing progress without getting overwhelmed. Here are some of them:

1. See what can be eliminated.

If you take a closer look at your daily to-do list and your calendar, you’ll notice that not everything in there is essential.

Some of the things are just old activities you keep doing because it’s what you’re used to, others can be automated or delegated, and there are the things that simply don’t give you the results you want but you haven’t analyzed them to figure it out.

So now’s the perfect time. Take every item on your list and go through every activity or even tiny task or chore you dedicate time to. Ask yourself whether it’s really necessary. Think about removing it and see what’s the worst that can happen. Most of the times, nothing will really change. So cross this off your list and you’ll have more time to do the things that actually get you ahead in life.

2. Prioritize.

[bctt tweet=”Life is all about priorities” username=”womeneur”] But if you haven’t set aside any time to define these, then you’re living on autopilot and doing many random things too. That’s something that can ruin your chances for success, especially in business.

Prioritizing means arranging all the areas in your life in order of importance. For most people it’s family, for instance, but if they haven’t thought about it and included the family-related stuff on the top of their to-do list and planned them in advance, they can easily put work before that.

So, what is it that you care about the most?

It is personal development? Then make a step-by-step plan on what new habit to develop next, schedule some reading time daily, start meditating and journaling.

Is it improving your personal brand? Then add an hour of networking, building your portfolio and sharing valuable content on social media to your list and do this before checking email or other secondary things.

3. Define and remove distractions to focus better.

You’ll get things done faster and perform better if you concentrate easily and don’t get interrupted. So here’s what you can do about it:

Tell others not to bother you (enter the room, call or text you) while you’re doing your most important work for the day.

Forget about meetings. They are a huge distraction and nothing important is discussed there. What happens is that your workflow is interrupted and you need time to get back in the zone after that.

Block access to the Internet with a free software if you have to do some serious work offline.

Set some limits to using social media and browsing purposelessly. Don’t do it while working as notifications keep coming in all the time and you’re engaging your mind with unnecessary information.

When you notice you’re procrastinating, try this: Remember why you need to get this done and how good you’ll feel once you complete it. Break it down into smaller actions and make a list of the first 3 steps, each of which will take you less than 5 minutes. Now simply get to work on the first one. That will help you build momentum and keep going.

4. Assign a time to everything.

[bctt tweet=”Deadlines work wonders, so even if you don’t have one, set one” username=”womeneur”]

What’s more, have a fixed time of the day when you’ll start working on a task and plan out how long it will take. Then, once the time comes, you’ll find it easier to focus and actually get it done in the given time period.

5. Don’t strive for perfection.

Perfectionism is an enemy to productivity. So let go of the desire to get everything done and to be perfect. Know that your time is limited and there’s only so much you can do in 24 hours.

That’s when prioritizing comes in handy. Once you eliminate the non-essentials, you’ll have more time, but after prioritizing you’ll know where to start.

Define the 3 most important tasks for the day every morning, or even the night before, and get to work on them first. Only when you’re done can you move to less important stuff.

This way you’ll always be moving in the right direction and will feel accomplished before noon.

So, what about you? How do you manage your time and make sure everything important is done?

Womeneur Resources To Help With Time Management

4 Tips to Help You Focus on Your Business (After Your 9 to 5)

July 5, 2016 by Annette Burgess 147 Comments

Lately, those “take the jump” motivational videos have been making the rounds on various social media platforms. You’ve seen those video clips with the “all-in or nothing” kind of message.

I am not dogging the message. I watch them and get pumped, just like everyone else. But let’s face facts, most of us are works in progress and for whatever reasons, we cannot just stop showing up at our 9-to-5. Bills need to be paid, and a girl’s got to eat. But trust me when I say when the moment is right – I’m gone!

So what should we focus on so we don’t feel overwhelmed? How can we keep slaying the 9to5, and still build our business like a boss?

The following are four incredible tips that I think will make the most impact on your business despite (okay – with the help of) your 9to5.

Start thinking of your 9-to-5 as a blessing

Until recently, I always thought of my 9-to-5 as a big ol’ anchor holding me back from building my entrepreneurial empire. That couldn’t be further from the truth, the majority of my customers are from my 9to5.

Your 9-to-5 is the gasoline that will keep your dreams alive. So, it’s time to stop thinking of your 9to5 as something that is dragging you down, but as a partner that is holding you up until the time is right to leave. Use it to your advantage.

2. Align forces

[bctt tweet=”It’s super important to make getting your product or service in front of more people your top priority.” via=”no”]

Start reaching out to other businesses who reach a similar audience to see if they’d be interested in doing a marketing campaign. I have a skincare mini-franchise, I reached out to an up-and-coming make-up artist and we held an event for our customers. It was super successful!

Begin to spend your week strategizing between one and three ways in which you could market your brand, and map them out. Then pick one of these to implement the next week, and see what works. You’d be surprised!

3. Map it out

[bctt tweet=”There is no sugar-coating it: successful businesses are built on consistent imperative action taken daily. #womeneur” username=”womeneur”]

No busy work. No checking more email. No unnecessary phone calls. You only have so many hours to work on your side hustle outside of your 9to5 hours, so you have to make them count.

Start using Friday as your planning day for the week ahead. I still utilize Sunday to make sure the weekly plan that I created on Friday is a go. I’ve learned that these two days really clear up my headspace so I can be present with friends and family on the weekend.

By getting things planned out on Friday (and finalized on Sunday) you’re able to hit the ground running on Monday morning.

4. Be present online (Every. Day.)

It’s really easy to lose track of time while at your 9to5, but the power of being present online is incredible. I make sure to post on my favorite social media platforms at least twice a day. If you know you can’t do this at work, scheduling apps like Buffer or Hootsuite make it easier for you to be online when you can’t.

Utilize any online groups you might be in. Becoming known for what you do is powerful, and it can easily transition into referrals. The more referrals you get can mean more work, and more work means more money in your pocket.

Engage with others by answering questions as they come up in the groups, and adding advice when it’s appropriate. I make it a practice to give more than I promote.

Working a full-time job, while building a business is not an easy task, but we’re doing it. If you feel you need extra help to develop a business or marketing strategy, Womeneur has got your back.