Book Review: The Time Trap by Alec Mackenzie

The Time Trap is a classic book on time management that is in it’s 4th edition. It gives practical tips for prioritizing and how to be productive with the time you have. It also gives practical suggestions to help you deal with different “time traps”. These range from external issues such as problems with colleagues and overload of email to internal issues such as delegation and task overload.

The book begins with a great pull, asking the reader what he would do with 1 hour more to focus on a goal that you have? If you had an hour more every day available for pursuing your own life goals, how much more productive and beneficial/rewarding would your life be?

If you realize the importance of productivity in your work and day to day life but need some practical advice from experienced professionals, this book is a must for you.

A few points that I found particularly helpful:
1) First was their focus on goals/priorities/objectives which is something I had been doing in my own personal organization but it was good to have this reiterated by experienced professionals.

2) Big Three Priorities/tasks for the day:
This idea is that you should start your day determining 3 things that you MUST accomplish no matter what else you plan to do. Set this out first before you do anything in the day so you know the amount of time to be spent on these tasks.

3) Pareto Law – 20% of your tasks yield 80% of your results:
You need to read the book for the examples but the idea is to clear a lot of the small stuff at various points of your schedule in order to have prime focus on the big stuff.

4) The RED ZONE:
This was my favorite suggestion. The idea stems from the hustle and bustle of today. We are inundated with emails and small pesky interruptions all day long. A lot of interruptions are good. In the past before internet and cell phones people could plan their day from front to back without much variation from their objectives. Today, we usually have different priorities that move in and out of our schedule based on urgency and validity. So, it is important to have time during the day when you are available. But, the RED ZONE concept is to use approx. 2 hours of time per day to be totally focused on a project that you need to get done. Turn your phone off, tell your secretary that you shouldn’t be interrupted for your time in the RED ZONE. This will allow you maximum focus to get the big tasks completed without interruptions. It doesn’t have to be the FIRST part of your day, it needs to be the BEST time of your day.

Read the book for more great suggestions.

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What to Do With Your Website

Everyone needs a website. It is an unintimidating way to get referrals and interest without having to do anything personally. Also, it is important that you track your hits to know how effective your web presence is. Also, this will help you gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by how many hits (requests for more information) you receive on your website during different campaigns.

I would suggest for you to go one of two directions with your website design. Your first option would be to “keep it simple stupid”. In other words, place just the essential information on the website and nothing more. Remember, websites are not a marketing tool. They are a source of information and it will be most effective and you can get it done at a reasonable price because you can’t very well screw up bare bones website unless your incompetent, ha. The second option would be to “do it up”. If you plan to use your website for a lot of traffic and have a lot of 2 way interaction going on at the website, then you want to get an experienced web designer that knows how to create good navigation and an effective design. If you try to go cheap on a project of large magnitude you will most likely suffer in retaining web users from some malfunction in your website, which will cost you more in the long run than it would if you had just paid for the great service up front. You need a good designer and a good bit of site testing to measure the effectiveness. If you don’t test an extensive site, you won’t be able to measure how solid the site is. Only then should you present it to the public. Don’t make a large scale website investment without knowing who and how to address problems once the website is up and running. Because, there will be issues that need to be resolved on extensive sites, hopefully less than more.

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What Not to Do With Your Website

Why do people come to a company’s website? There are many answers to this question:
• Learning about a product or service
• To get support for products already purchased
• Obtain financial and business information about a company
• Communicate with the company
• Learn about job openings
• Scout out ideas for their own use
• Play games/have fun/waste time

For a small business that is focused on creating value and addressing customers needs quickly and efficiently, this should echo in your website design. Don’t think of your website as a marketing tool, instead, think of it as a way to present information. It is not a marketing method because those that come to your page are mainly those that have been directed there, they already know what they’re looking for or are there to further investigate a referral they’ve been given. The biggest problems for website visitors are: (1) complex website navigation (2) design extravagance and (3) overload of information.

First, if you have lots of information to put on the website or want to use a website as a tool for 2 way interaction with customers, it is very important that navigation is simple to follow. If customers can’t find what they’re looking for quickly, then, they are likely to get frustrated and leave. Remember, the internet is a place for interested customers to retrieve information about your product or service. If they feel you’re wasting their time they will leave and won’t come back. People don’t want to feel stupid or inept. They will go somewhere else where navigation isn’t as difficult.

I have seen some websites that were extremely creative, and that is cool for expressing your creativity, but sometimes people don’t interpret your creativity and this is failure on your part. Understand that I’m not talking about a little color or showing your brand on the website, I’m talking about getting extravagant with your pages. Making navigation a game or putting a whole bunch of “glitter” up that isn’t conducive to giving people what they are there for is costly and if done incorrectly is ineffective.

Finally, a website should have a max of 8 featured items per web page. Some people cram too much information on a page, don’t be one of them. This is equally frustrating to a web user. Overloading a first timer with an overabundance of information is most likely intimidating. When you do have lots of info, be sure to break it up into sections so people can pick and choose what is really important to them.

Know someone that needs to hear this information, please pass this along. If you need assistance getting leads, prospects, and clients cost effectively, please contact me:

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How SC Marketing Solutions Can Help You

SC Marketing Solutions offers cost effective marketing solutions for your small business.

SC Marketing Solutions is a marketing and advertising professional acting as an Independent Marketing Manager who speaks both creative and business languages. I want to help small business owners effectively reach their target market without overcharging. Well-placed time, effort, and initiative is what the advertising agencies have forgotten. While agencies focus on design aspects, I know that developing new relationship to create new business prospects requires a lot more. I will create advertising design that is vital to infiltrating new markets but the focus will remain on creating more prospects. I will handle your marketing jobs singlehandedly or coordinate larger jobs among my network of highly skilled creative professionals, but you can trust that your marketing is in good hands.

My process is to consult with businesses on how to effectively market for new business prospects in a 3-part process:
1) Assessing current business plan and pinpointing the company’s distinct competitive advantage(s).
2) With this information, I use my experience and resources to research and determine cost effective methods and approaches to marketing and advertising to reach your target market.
3) You and I then create short-term and long-term marketing and advertising goals and objectives in line with your company’s direction. With your approval, I create and implement marketing systems and processes that will develop brand recognition among your target market(s) and work to drive more business to you.

Know someone that needs to hear this information, please pass this along. If you need assistance getting leads, prospects, and clients cost effectively, please contact me:

Your confidentiality will not be compromised.

Outsourcing Advertising to Contractors (Series Article 7)

The last option for advertising and marketing is to outsource your marketing and advertising efforts to an outside consultant or freelance professional. This can be anywhere from designing the POP material to developing a full advertising campaign or marketing and advertising management.

There are many options available for customization of your project. When a company doesn’t have the time or money to invest in choosing the right advertising option they often resort to an inadequate solution, one that could have major consequences to their brand’s development. Their resolution will probably look something like one of these:

First, if money isn’t an issue, they will contact an advertising agency. This will hurt their opportunity to make more profit with other more cost effective and just as powerful advertising solutions.

Second, they will consult a designer to create a point of purchase brochure or flyer without taking time to determine if this is in line with the company’s goals and objectives. There can be many things wrong with this approach. It takes time and often educating the designer of these objectives. Any number of communication barriers can cause incorrect application of a goal and result in inadequate design and therefore actually detract from the purpose that ideally defines the company and is consistent with previous advertising in order to emit brand recognition at a glance. Even a nice design can communicate an undesired message.

Third, they may hire in-house professionals and although this may seem like a good option, this requires you offering more benefits and often limits your flexibility if you decide this person isn’t the best option. This may be a good option for a lot of companies but most likely small businesses don’t have enough work for keeping these individuals busy or motivated. You need this individual to be constantly thinking and developing your brand. Giving these individuals 8-5 time slots and guaranteeing them a paycheck regardless of their results probably isn’t the best option.

In order to develop a brand image that over time becomes recognizable to the buying market it is important to hire professionals willing to know and understand your company’s brand in addition to creating good design. Consistently capturing the brand’s essence in each and every advertising piece is going to make a big difference in recognition from consumers. Continuing to tap into cost effective solutions and thinking pro-actively for your brand will make the biggest difference on your bottom line of time and money. Advertising to this effect will capture your target market and broaden your reach. Having advertisers on a short leash (on contract) keeps professionals aware of their need to produce solutions rather than just fill an 8-5 time slot.

So, you might be asking, what about my investment of time in selecting the right consultant and how do I know I can develop trust with them?

What the right consultant looks like:

You need a designer that speaks not only creative but business language also. There are many designers that doesn’t understand the bottom line or how to communicate outside of their own creative universe. You need a designer that understands the importance of goals and objectives in implementing and fulfilling successful strategies. They must be able to do this while keeping the creative juices flowing and maintaining focus on a company’s competitive advantage. This individual should also understand the different methods available for advertisement. This individual should also have a network of other professionals that have expertise in other areas that are outside his or her own capabilities.

Developing trust:

Trust is something that must be earned. You may or may not trust the individual in the beginning. But, the cost advantages of taking a chance on contracting with an individual as opposed to the other options mentioned above will have much less risk. You can always break your ties without significant financial investment.

SWCMarketing:

SC Marketing is a marketing and advertising professional acting as an Independent Marketing Manager who speaks both creative and business languages. I want to help small business owners effectively reach their target market without overcharging. Well-placed time, effort, and initiative is what the advertising agencies have forgotten. While agencies focus on design aspects, I know that developing new relationship to create new business prospects requires a lot more. I will create advertising design that is vital to infiltrating new markets but the focus will remain on creating more prospects. I will handle your marketing jobs singlehandedly or coordinate larger jobs among my network of highly skilled creative professionals, but you can trust that your marketing is in good hands.

Shoot me an email and we can discuss how to develop and implement your greater competitive advantage. Depending on the scope of your project, I can put together a plan personally or work with my network of creative professionals to help propose your best advertising solutions and how to create a brand with lasting impact that will work for years to come.

Know someone that needs to hear this information, please pass this along. If you need assistance getting leads, prospects, and clients cost effectively, please contact me:

Your confidentiality will not be compromised.

Marketing and Advertising In-House (Series Article 7)

Hiring a marketing and advertising team or an individual to work full time in your office is always a possibility but for a small business is most likely not the most cost effective. The answer to this question is more based on the person that you hire. It is also how much need there is for advertising and marketing with your company.

There are a couple of negatives with hiring in house. The individual has to be disciplined, self-motivated, and proactive to continue doing their best work. Also, there is always more that can be done in marketing but not all of it is beneficial. The trick is hiring someone who knows the best value of their time and knows how to prioritize based on the company’s goals and objectives. You must hire someone who is aware of this keeping a working environment that doesn’t stifle their creativity.

As a small business, you may not have a need for 40 hours a week worth of advertising and marketing. Since advertising is more subjective, you also may not know how much advertising you really need to be effective. You need a knowledgeable and creative expert to be honest and help you with a good plan and solid direction for the future while keeping cost and time at the forefront of their mind.

There is one more advertising option for a tight economy that will be discussed tomorrow and that is outsourcing to individuals by contract. Come back for the conclusion!

Know someone that needs to hear this information, please pass this along. If you need assistance getting leads, prospects, and clients cost effectively, please contact me:

Your confidentiality will not be compromised.