Maybe you are an entrepreneur just starting out. Perhaps you are a veteran small business owner. In either case, you probably recognize that with a deeper understanding of the data which drives your business, you will be more productive, your systems will be more efficient, and your business will be more successful.

This is true whether you are selling xylophones or zebras, physical products or virtual services. Understanding how people interact with your website or blog is crucial for the longevity and profitability of your business. That is exactly what Google Analytics offers.

Google is the largest search engine in the world, responsible for up to 90% of all web searches depending on what estimates you refer to. 40,000 search queries are processed every second by Google. This means that the traffic coming from Google to your website, whether paid or generic, can provide you with the best possible view of important business metrics.

Google Analytics is a Google product. It is a web-based application that reveals important traffic and behavior patterns in relationship to your online business. The free service has evolved since 2005 to answer, among other questions, the following:
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• How many unique and repeat visitors go to your site/blog each month?
• Which countries is your traffic coming from?
• Which websites, blogs and search engines are referring your visitors?
• Do your visitors access your business on their smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop PC?
• Which web browser do they use?
• Which pages of your site attract the most traffic?
• What type of content engages your prospects and keeps them on your site, and what kinds of content have them leaving in a hurry?
• Which of your marketing campaigns and strategies are the most and least effective?

Understanding the answers to those and other important traffic questions is extremely powerful. Google has created an intelligent and free piece of software which integrates perfectly with your website to reveal important information you need for optimizing your site to grow your business.

Until next time...

Have a great day,
Susanne

Check out my upcoming workshops here!

There are two operating types of small businesses. I call them the collective operation and independent operation.

The collective operation business resembles a beehive and requires the help of others from the very beginning. The queen bee (owner) works to give birth to and grow the business while the worker bees (employees) complete the various day-to-day tasks necessary to keep the business operational. Collective operations include restaurants, doctors, day spas and etcetera. While it is technically possible for one person to be a cosmetologist, massage therapist, nail technician, esthetician and make up artist, it is highly unlikely a day spa will be successfully operational with only one person.

The independent operation business can be started and run by a single person. The independent owner must become a jack of all trades. Strategy, administration, marketing, service, bookkeeping all starts and stops with the owner. Independent operations can include coaches, financial planners, direct sales, caterers and etcetera. The independent operator can be reasonably successful as a solo-professional, however there is usually an income ceiling based on the time available to work.

Many small business owners, if possible, start as an independent operator. It generally makes sense when you have more time than money to do as much as you can do well when your client roster is small. What if you want to grow your independent operation into a collective?

You may notice I said you can do what you do WELL. Yes, you can google how to create a business plan and fill in a template, however if you have never managed a business before you may not have any idea where to get usable data to put on that template. If that is the case, you should take a hands-on business planning workshop or hire a business planning coach to walk you through process step by step.

When should you consider hiring someone to help you? It may be from the beginning as in the case of tasks you do not do well. You do not need to hire an employee for single tasks. If you need to learn accounting software that you will manage initially, hire a short-term trainer. You may discover that you really dislike the data entry necessary to use that accounting software. Instead of hiring an employee to work two hours per week, outsource the task to a freelance bookkeeper.

What if you love accounting and marketing and you have a relatively successful business? Do you need to hire someone to help you? It depends. Do you have tasks you dread doing? Are you working more hours than you should be? Has it been years since you have given yourself a raise?

If you answered yes to any of those three questions, you need help. During the course of a week, track your working hours and the tasks you do each day. Do you log into social media for a 15-minute “business check” and then get distracted for another hour by personal posts? When you are focusing on completing client tasks are emails and phone calls interrupting you? Track all your work in a seven-day period. If you work evenings and weekends, notate it.

Next, total the time you spend on each category. Create categories such as social media, client work, bookkeeping, phone calls, email, networking and etcetera. Once you have that divided list, check to see if there are systems you can implement to become more efficient before you decide to get help. If emails, phone calls and social media notifications keep interrupting your tasks, shut off the notifications and set “answer times”. Devote up to your first 30 minutes each day to checking and responding to requests made after business hours. Set another answer time right after lunch and again before you finish for the day.

After you check your systems, review the hours it actually takes you to do your client work and adjust your rates if necessary. If it takes you an average of two hours to do a one-hour, in-home massage after you add in travel and clean-up time instead of the one and one-half hour you set your rates to when you started, raise your rates to encompass the extra half hour. An in-home massage is a premium service and your travel time needs to be billed at the same rate as your massage time.

The last step to take before you move past this initial list is to determine which tasks could be completely removed from your business schedule. Not all marketing platforms work for all businesses. Perhaps you are solely a government contractor. Regular Facebook posts are not likely to ever help you get a contract, however reaching out and establishing some LinkedIn connections that will let you know when jobs are up for bid could morph into business if you have a competitive bid. Drop Facebook from your work schedule and only use LinkedIn.

How do you know if your marketing is effective? Set tracking metrics and check them! I have a client with a very tiny email list who compared the purchases her customers made the year before she started her email campaigns to the year after she started. Email is her primary marketing platform. She saw a big enough increase in sales to warrant continuing. She checks her numbers each year to make sure her sales are not dropping, and her open rates are consistent. If her open rates and sales dropped, she may consider another marketing method.

Go ahead and get started auditing your business hours. This will enable you to set a strong base as you start your journey from independent operator to a collective, so you can grow your business.

Until next time…

Have a great day,
Susanne

Check out my upcoming workshops here!

Once upon a time someone said to someone else, “Look at me! I can do ten tasks at one time. I can talk on the phone, send an email, write a business proposal, help my child with their homework, cook supper, do laundry, sweep the floor and I can do it all perfectly.” Someone else believed someone and thus the Multitasking Myth was born.

Okay, it may not have happened exactly like that, but I am sure it was close. I confess to being the queen of working on way too many projects at the same time, however I do not work on all those projects at the same time. “What? You just contradicted yourself Susanne.” you may be thinking. Let me explain why that is not true.

Think about how your brain works. You are writing your newsletter and your phone rings. It is your mother inviting you to go shopping. You sort of listen to her as you continue writing your newsletter. As your mother wraps up the conversation, you realize that somewhere in the conversation with a distracted “Uh-huh” you agreed to take her and four of her friends to the outlet mall on Saturday. When you hang up and read your newsletter you realize what you wrote while “talking” to your mother does not make much sense and is full of misspelled words.

Our brains are not wired to work effectively on more than one task at a time. Although you may have several tasks to do on any given day, prioritizing and blocking similar tasks together enables you to work more productively.

I am currently creating new marketing images for 100+ blogs, updating materials for 18 workshops, writing bi-weekly blogs, writing my third children’s book, rebranding and probably five or six other projects that did not immediately pop into my head. I am at various points on each project from the one page I have written in my children’s book to the 50+ new marketing images I have created for my blogs.

I set time aside to work on each project individually, without distractions. I work on my children’s books on Sundays because I do that as a hobby. Since I have had some very severe health issues since February, I have spent a whole lot of Sundays in bed, not working on my book. (Hence, the one page.)

When I write a new blog (today) I create a marketing image to use to promote it. Since I already have the program I use open and I am in that mind set, I open six past blogs and create images to go with them. It will probably take me until August to finish my 100+ blogs, but I am not in a hurry and this system is working for me.

I have several clients for whom I manage email marketing. Mondays and Tuesdays are email days for my business. Because I edit and program emails one client after another I stay in the email mindset and finish quicker. I will be recording a video series near the end of the summer. I am creating the subjects and outlines now so I can record all the videos in just a day or two.

Take a look at how you structure your days. Are you trying to do all your tasks at the same time? Prioritize your projects and schedule the time to give them distraction-free attention.

Until next time…

Have a great day,
Susanne

​​Check out my upcoming workshops here!

Dictionary.com defines habit as “an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary”. In other words, a habit is something you do repeatedly and regularly without even thinking about doing it.

Developing successful habits for work, school, your business or your life is necessary if you want your career or happiness to grow. Your habits directly affect how you are perceived as an employee or an expert in your field and how your relationships progress. Some habits are good, some habits are bad. Some habits are completely neutral. Removing bad habits and replacing them with good habits takes time and persistence. Bad habits can affect your career and happiness.

Do you remember the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland? He was always hurrying because he was late. Think about the mistakes you make when you are hurrying and then think about how you feel when you let down your coworkers, clients or family because you can not seem to be on time on a consistent basis. This does not mean the occasional tardiness due to unforeseen circumstances is a problem. It means chronic lateness is a sign you do not value the person you are meeting and will in turn cause them not to value you.

Have you ever had a boss that micromanaged every task you did? I am going to raise my hand here. I AM that boss. It is so hard for me to let go. It is not that I do not trust others to do it right. I KNOW it will not be right because they do it differently than I do. The problem with micromanaging is that it takes time from the tasks you need to be doing. This does not mean you give assignments without any training or oversight. It means you need to trust your employees to do it right.

Are you a procrastination pro? Have you ever said, “Why do today what I can put off until tomorrow?” Some people love the adrenaline rush of cramming everything in at the last minute. Do you feel like you do your best work when you rush? What happens when you do not leave enough time to finish your project? How do you feel when the adrenaline (or caffeine) subsides?

How do you identify your bad habits from your good habits? In your personal life, you most likely already know what your bad habits are. In your work life, it might be more difficult to tell. One way to determine if you have a bad habit that needs to be changed is to ask others. Then you can work on changing them to good habits. Good habits are often recognized when you are getting the results you want from a certain aspect of your life, for example, your business is growing.

It is very hard to break old habits and form new habits because our behavior is ingrained into our neural pathways. Habits can be initially triggered by a goal such as a relaxing retirement. Over time that goal fades so the habit needs to become an automatic behavior. Repetition is the key to changing a habit. 

Start small and focus on one habit at a time. Forming a new habit is a lot of work and takes conditioning for it to become automatic. Trying to take on too many changes at once can overwhelm you. Start with one, even a small one, before moving on to another.

Give yourself time to develop your self-discipline. One way to do this is to create a visual map of what you want to achieve. For example, you want to be debt free. Create a visual map of what you need to do to be debt free. Include images and words that describe your desired outcome. This map reminds you of why you want to form that new positive habit.

Can you imagine how great it would feel if you could change all those old, bad habits into positive good habits quickly? There is no magic wand or easy button. Changing bad habits and creating new ones takes motivation on your part. You will have to self-motivate to do what it takes to make the changes you want. But in the end, it will be worth it.

Until next time…

Have a great day,
Susanne

​Check out my upcoming workshops here!

​My adult daughter has a group of “best friends”. They are actively working to decrease self-negativity in their conversations. If someone says a line such as, “I am stupid.” while in the group, she is rewarded with playful arm punches as a reminder that words can hurt.

Megan recently told one of her friends, “I am unhappy with my body and I want to lose ten pounds of fat.” After her friend punched her, she protested because she did not feel her statement was self-demeaning. She stated a fact and expressed her proposed solution. She did not say, “I am a fat pig and completely useless.”

My daughter is thin, so most people would wonder why she would want to lose ten pounds of fat. Do I think she could lose ten pounds of fat? Yes… she keeps stealing all my chocolate and has some small “love handles”. Someone seeing her in any clothes other than a bikini might think she has a warped body image, however she enjoys competing in beauty pageants and she does some modeling where her chocolate weight will be noticed and judged.

Acknowledging your weaknesses and working to improve them is not negative, however when people think of self-improvement, they often focus their attention on their weaknesses. This can quickly lead you down the rabbit hole of beating yourself up about past failures or make you feel like you have too many weaknesses to overcome.

While negative self-improvement can send you in a downward spiral, unrealistic positivity is just as damaging.

Unrealistic positivity is when you ignore your weaknesses even if they are severely hindering your progress. Megan also belongs to a few “positivity” groups on Facebook. When she asks for ideas to help her overcome a weakness she is often met with ostrich advice or advice that does not offer a solution.

She recently posted in a group, “I am very creative and start lots of projects, however I have trouble completing them. How do I overcome this bad habit?” The advice ranged from, “It is not a bad habit; just accept it as part of you.” to “Team up with or hire someone who is good at follow through.”

Megan just finally graduated from a 1-year massage program after four years. Her lack of follow up IS a bad habit. She feels the weight of those unfinished projects and it affects her positivity. She is working very hard this year to complete several projects and massage school was the first project on her list. I am proud of her for pulling her head out of the sand and saying, “You can not expect others to do tasks they are not required to do.” Yes, the massage school was partially to blame for the extra time, however her lack of follow through probably added two of those four years.

The advice to team up with or hire someone who is good at follow through is not necessarily bad, however as she starts her massage business once she gets her license, she will be starting without clients and it may take a year or two to have a consistent enough cash flow to realistically hire an assistant. She needs to find ways to keep herself motivated in the start-up phase and that is why she was asking for help.

Megan also asked one of the groups for tips on getting rid of negativity and instead of replies such as, “I turn on my favorite jam when I feel negative.” or “I hit the gym and do 20 minutes as fast as I can on the stair master.” she received replies such as, “It is all mindset, just change your thoughts.” Of course, none of the mindset replies offered any suggestions as to how someone would actually change their mindset.

It is important to stay positive, focus on your strengths and work through or around (not ignore) your weaknesses.

Positivity alone is not enough to drive success. You can create an excellent vision for your personal life or business and stand in front of your mirror and recite your vision each day. What do you have a year later? A perfectly memorized vision and an awareness of where every freckle on your face is located.

You can recite, “I will lose 10 pounds of fat.” every day until you are blue in the face, however if you never work out or stop eating all your mom’s chocolate chances are in a year you will be reciting, “I will lose 15 pounds of fat.”

Add action steps and be proactive with your positivity and you will start to see your vision come to life.

Until next time…

Have a great day
Susanne

Check out my upcoming workshops here!