Do you want to use blogging as part of your small business’ marketing strategy, but unsure where to start and how to blog effectively?
Here are 3 hot tipsto improve your small business blog. So you too can share your brands, services, knowledge and skills in an informative way, while optimising your visibility across various platforms.
First let’s discuss – Why blog?
It’s proven that marketers who prioritize blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI. That’s a big deal.
There are some key benefits of blogging:
1) Blogging is important in business to engage with customers on a personal level. Blogging is an inbound marketing method that builds a long-lasting relationship and a loyal customer base. People buy from people, and they need to know like and trust you before they will do this.
2) It builds your brand, helping you to position yourself as an industry influencer, while creating key pieces of content for your business, addressing customers frequently asked questions, pain points and demonstrating your unique value proposition.
3) It improves your search engine optimisation (SEO) – This simply means it increases your chances of organically (not using paid advertising) being seen in search engines like Google.
TIP 1 – Know your business mission/vision.
Do you have a crystal clear vision of why you’re in business? How you operate and present the brand? And who you want to do business with? If you answered “yes” to this question, fabulous! If not, then it’s likely you need to write or re-write your mission statement. But what has this got to do with blogging?
Your mission statement can offer inspiration and guidance for your business’s content and brand voice. It communicates the direction and values of your organisation. Clear and inspired mission statements communicate to customers, investors and employees the solution you will provide to them by identifying the problem you solve.
Let’s look at a couple of examples.
IKEA
Our vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. The Brand states “our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.
There is no uncertainty who IKEA’s audience is, nor the problem they solve for their customers. I mean… who here doesn’t own a piece of Ikea furniture? Their blogs can address sustainability, design, who the designers are, feng shui, product benefits and so much more.
VERSATILE MARKETING
Our mission is to provide caring, flexible and customised virtual business management and outsourced marketing support services to established small to medium business owners. We offer our clients a collaborative, behind the scenes secret weapon, providing the trust, structure, tools, and expertise that allows business owners to confidently outsource their work. We do this to create the space for our clients to increase productivity, reduce overwhelm and scale their business.
Before I plan out my content for the next quarter, and before I write the blog I ask myself one question… How does this help my audience/customer avatar?
I look to my mission which addresses my customer avatars pain points:
Do they feel they can confidently outsource?
How can they increase their productivity?
How do we help to reduce the feeling of overwhelm?
What can we do to help to scale their business?
Does the tone show care, demonstrate trust, look structured and share useful tools and expertise?
If I answered YES to any of these, then the blog is aligned to the business mission. By addressing my audience’s needs and pain points, I’m providing them with a solution, and hopefully information valuable to them. The blog will also reveal my business brand and unique value proposition (with hope!).
TIP 2 – Dedicate time to blog.
Did you know that according to WordPress, nearly 409 million people view more than 20 billion web pages each month? So clearly blogging is a clever and relatively inexpensive marketing tool, which helps level up small business in the online world.
But a successful blogging requires time, commitment to blog consistently, and some strategic planning. According to a survey of more than a thousand bloggers, a typical blog post takes nearly four hours to create.
As a blog takes some strategic planning, it’s important to allocate and block out time in your calendar to draft blogs with purpose. There’s no point writing a sub-standard piece of prose to keep your web page current… it needs to be useful, well written and speaking directly to your audience.
Or if you have no time to allocate a minimum of 4 hours a month, then consider outsourcing your blogging. We would love to assist you!
TIP 3 – Consider the blog structure.
They say ‘content is King’, which is fair, it IS important, but you don’t want to let it down by having it be too text heavy. Readers absorb content quickly these days, if it doesn’t capture their attention with a catchy heading, and easy to digest content, it doesn’t matter how amazing the content is, it will not be consumed. So you don’t just need the king, but the whole royal family!
The aim is to make it as easy to read as possible. Here are some ways to do this:
1. How easy is it to read?
Did you know it’s best to write at an 8th grade reading level? Leave out the jargon, abbreviations, complicated words and long sentences. Writing a blog at a simple reading level isn’t to insult anyone’s intelligence, it simply helps make your point quickly, efficiently, and effectively. I use the Hemingwayapp, which is free, to ensure my writing isn’t a challenge to read.
2. How visually engaging is the post?
There are several ways to make your blog visually engaging and easy to read, here are a few:
Images We read with our eyes first, so we tend to look at images before we read the text. A feature image is vital – it will be the visual that will be seen on your website before someone clicks into your blog, or on socials and other platforms. For WordPress, the optimal featured image size is 1200 x 628 pixels. Consider adding high quality, clean and simple, consistently sized images every 400 words or so, into your blog. Ensure the image supports the written content. The image should have a purpose and add to the written content. Ensure the images are consistently sized. Consider an infographic, or a picture enhancing the tone or feeling you’re talking about. Compress the images to optimise SEO and name them with keywords and descriptive titles.
Headings Are you put off by big blocks of text? If you answered ‘yes’, you’re not alone. Short paragraphs, separated by headings are easy to digest. So break them up with headings and sub-headings.Heading 1 is for your blog post title. Heading 2 for the next sub-heading. Then if you nest other sub-headings under that, you’d use Heading 3 and so on. This not only helps with readability, but with SEO.
Lists and bullet points By breaking your content into lists or bullet points, they become easier to digest, creating more white space on the page. This blog is a case in point – pun intended.
Links and statistics By placing inbound hyperlinks to your blog, it adds diversity to the text. What I mean by that is; firstly, a hyperlink is a different colour on the page, so visually it will draw the reader in. More than that, someone can read further on a particular topic that interests them by following the link to either another blog post or page on your website, or to a third party site.You can see in this blog post, when I reference statistics, there is a link to the source. This is polite, and ethically the right approach to acknowledge your sources. It also adds credibility and shows your audience that you refer to other industry leaders and information relevant to the topic.
When you’re writing your blog, or outsourcing it, it’s important to remember that blog writing isn’t simply putting words on a page. There’s actually a lot to consider when planning content and drafting a blog. We didn’t even really touch on the importance of SEO. So prepare your time accordingly, write the content so it’s easy to digest and relevant to your service offerings, while adding value to your existing and potential customers. Blogging is an awesome way to build trust with your target audience, and increase your visibility.
Looking for someone to plan content and write your blogs for you?
Deb and her team at Versatile Marketing support small service-based Allied Health and Wellness businesses with copywriting and outsourced marketing support. Book in a complimentary consultation today, so we can become your behind the scenes secret weapon.
Why organic social media is a vital component of content marketing
Spring is here! It’s my favourite season, why? Because it’s a season of new beginnings. Dove’s are nesting romantically in the tree behind me. The air is crisp, buds are in bloom and the earth seems to come to life again with frivolity.
Just like nature, the energy in the air, coupled with the reduced chill factor, increases motivation to make headway on our business marketing projects.
Your customers already love what you sell, so remove that hint of hesitation from their minds by maintaining a consistent marketing message and enabling them to know, like and trust you.
You can do this by being consistently visible and regularly sharing your business-to-client journey and client-to-business journey on your social media platforms. So let’s explore the benefits of organic social media.
What is organic social media?
If a social media strategy does not pay for advertising, but uses the free social media tools, this is organic social media.
Organic socials rely on audience interaction and engaging posts and videos to connect with the audience. Any post on a page with no financial boost or ad is considered ‘organic’, it will only reach customers through the platform’s ever-changing algorithm (try to keep up).
The purpose of organic social media is to build a community of loyal followers and customers, by posting relevant content and interacting with those who communicate with your brand.
Benefits of organic social media
Sure, social media has copped some negative press and the platforms are pushing now more than ever for paid advertising, with the algorithm effecting organic reach. As such, it’s important to note organic social media is a long-term game. But for all the negative news, and the ever-changing algorithm, the benefits of posting organic social content remains enormous, vital in fact!
Here’s why:
1. We’re a social bunch
Did you know last year, there were more than 3.81 billion active social media users worldwide? Big number right? In January 2020, Australia had 18 million social media users. Social media is the way of the future, it’s now more than ever how we connect, share, engage and communicate with other brands.
So many of us are on several social media platforms. In Australia, we’re a sociable bunch. According to Yellow Social Media report 2020 31% of us check our profiles across a variety of platforms more than 10 times a day and 79% check at least once a day. You wouldn’t want to miss this opportunity to market to such a prevalent audience. Unsurprisingly, Facebook, You Tube and Instagram lead the popularity contest, but if you’re a business to business fortune 500 company, LinkedIn is the platform of choice.
2. Authentic connections
Social media provides a brilliant and free platform for small business owners to compete with their larger competitors, to even out the playing field. Why? Because larger organisations often miss a key element that makes social media so powerful… authentic connections. When you’re a small business it is easier to share your brand voice, to show your audience who you are and give them an opportunity to relate to you. You can do this by highlighting your brand’s values, unique qualities, culture, projects and passions.
As Sprout Social explains, “The majority of consumers say their loyalty to a brand increases when they feel connected, and more than half (57% say that they’ll increase their spending with a brand and buy from that brand over a competitor (76%) when they feel connected.”
Trevor Young from PR Warrior, media still works best for businesses that are willing to put in the time and effort to: regularly publish relevant content that’s helpful/ engaging/thought-provoking/entertaining. Using social media to build empathy and connection with your customers.”
Organic socials provide a brilliant opportunity to engage customers at every stage of their buying journey. So they get to know, like and trust you, for your products, services, ethics, personality, branding and so much more.
3. Cost-effective long-term solution
Paid advertising has its time and place in the social media realm, but it would fall flat without an organic strategy in place. Why? Because firstly you need to understand what content your audience like and who they are in order to run an effective ad campaign.
While an ad will most definitely reach more people…will they be engaged if they then look at your social media platforms and see inconsistent, irrelevant or no content?
Further, people don’t appreciate being sold to constantly. By seeing a variety of content like:
Business updates
Tips
Blogs, articles, books
Industry information
Reviews
Behind the scenes images
Facebook lives, videos, podcasts, webinars
Entertaining and inspiring content
It provides an opportunity for your audience to become a loyal advocate of your brand. Once engaged they’ll hopefully even be willing to share your brands message and of course purchase from you.
So before you buy followers (please don’t do this), it’s important to have a quality and engaged audience, a smaller group of people who fit your avatars is better than a multitude of followers who do not engage and show no interest. Over time, engaged communities develop strong loyalty, which paid advertising alone will never be able to attain.
Yellow Social Media Report 2020 backs this up, with over half of respondents saying they are more likely to trust brands if they interact positively with customers on social media, make their content engaging and relevant, and keep it regularly updated.
Businesses seem to be on the right path here, with 63% using social media to engage in two-way conversations with customers and connections, while almost half the businesses canvassed (45%) claim to monitor or update their social media at least once a day, with 80% doing it weekly.
4. Organic compliments paid advertising
While many smaller business’ may struggle to justify the costs of paid advertising in the current climate, it’s a great pairing with an organic strategy. If you’re wanting to use paid advertising, it should never exist without an organic presence.
If you don’t have an existing presence, the algorithm will be less generous when you pay for your advertising, as the platform wants you to build authentic connections and relationships. Also you will end up paying more per click.
Further, as mentioned above, if your audience comes to review your page after your advertising has connected with them, they will look for your content, reviews, and the vibe of your brand to make the final decision whether to purchase or not.
5. Customer service
Customers want to know they are heard, there is nothing more frustrating than being transferred to 10 different departments, after buying a product or service, when you need to ask a question or explain something that isn’t working as it should.
Organic social media provides a space for consumers to connect immediately and receive a speedy response to their inquiry, either directly within a post or via private message (PM), or several other linked contact methods. Genuine customer care is possible with real time feedback and connection, changing the way businesses can act and respond to their customers. As you can see, there are a multitude of benefits when it comes to an organic social media strategy. Social media is a complex, time-consuming beast, but it is definitely worth the effort to build your brand and remain visible in a crowded marketplace. Having a social media strategy and content plan will assist you with these efforts and of course it’s advantageous to outsource your social media to a trusted specialist.
As it so happens, Versatile VA provides social media management support for small business’ in Australia. So feel free to connect today for a free discovery call, to learn how we can help support your business with organic social media strategy, planning, content creation and scheduling. After all spring is the perfect time for business growth.
Why you need a service agreement in your business toolkit
You’ve landed a new client and excited to get stuck into providing your awesome service. As a business owner, it’s tempting to forget formalities of service contracts, and seal a deal with a simple handshake, to get on with the work. After all time is money.
Yet, it only takes a slight misunderstanding or miscommunication for a healthy business arrangement to go sour. This is not beneficial for either party. Consider the impact to your business brand. A client service agreement is an important legal document, which defines the business relationship, reducing uncertainty and providing protection between your business and its clients.
As a law graduate who previously worked as a National Contracts Manager, this topic is something I’m passionate about sharing with you. Having the foundations of your business firmly grounded (like your standard operating procedures, business plan and contracts), will allow you to confidently scale and communicate effectively and with ease.
Often people don’t formalise agreements because of the perception that legal contracts are expensive and confusing to understand.
So, this blog will explain not only why it’s prudent business practice to have a service contract, but also how you can obtain one for your business, with the ease and at low cost.
How I met Michelle?
When I first started my Virtual Assistant business and drafted my service contract, I wanted a virtual lawyer to review it for me, I wanted someone who genuinely cared about customers as much as I did. I was also looking for someone who had strong ethics, and who didn’t want to confuse the ‘lay’ person with complicated unnecessary legalese. A business owner friend suggested I contact Michelle.
I’m so glad I did. Michelle Whitehead (who amongst other talents is a Lawyer who graduated with first class honors, offered a simple and fast turnaround for my contract review. I further engaged her to advise me around a new interstate client concerning some primary contract terms. I became so impressed by Michelle’s service, I decided to become an affiliate for her contracts that care. She is my only affiliate to date as I do not choose affiliates lightly.
I interviewed Michelle to share with you some insights around legal contracts. Some watch outs and why contracts are a necessity for businesses of all sizes.
Why do small business owners need service contracts as part of their business toolkit?
“The more clarity and certainty you provide for your clients and those you work with, and the firmer your borders are – in writing, with their signature or acknowledgement that they have read it – the less likely people are to question it, push the boundaries, or try to argue their way out of agreed commitments.
By giving them a contract, you have empowered them to take responsibility for the obligations they have agreed to. It also strongly sets your intentions (visualising the clients you want to work with), so you attract clients who respect those boundaries! There are four situations where I think a client agreement is a necessity – and this goes for pretty much every type of client relationship:
where there is a lot of money invested in the transaction
when a lot of time is invested in the transaction
where there’s a significant risk of harm to the client if misunderstandings arise (personal, physical, financial, emotional); or
where having a client agreement would make either of you feel more comfortable.”
What are some risks by not having contracts in place?
Michelle explains:
“Your contract gives your clients certainty, so they know what to expect. Without one, there is more likelihood that they will feel anxious about working with you.
If you don’t have important policies (such as your payment terms, refund policy, cancellation policy, missed and late appointments’ policy) clearly spelled out and provided to your clients in advance, you won’t be able to rely on them or enforce them when things don’t go according to plan.
If your contract doesn’t set out what you are responsible for and where your responsibility ends, you risk having to deal with scope creep, where your clients keep expecting more and more from you, and you risk liability for foreseeable dangers that they need to be warned about, so they can make informed decisions. Intellectual property ownership and confidentiality requirements can have far-reaching commercial consequences if not dealt with and agreed on upfront.
Finally, if your contract doesn’t have a strong alternative dispute resolution strategy, you risk being sued when there’s a problem, instead of keeping court action as a last resort in case you can’t work things out between you after making a genuine effort to do so.”
How can I get some assistance with setting up service agreements?
“To ensure all Australian business owners have access to professional documents, I’ve created a range of affordable DIY options for many commonly used legal documents and I’m creating more all the time. These are not generic one-size-fits-all templates. They are comprehensive worksheets that walk you step by step through the process of writing your own legal documents from scratch. If you’re not confident in your ability to get this done, I offer a range of accountability and editorial support services to make sure you can cross this important task off your to-do list.”
Why did you create Contracts that Care™?
“I created my Contracts that Care™ DIY Packs to meet the needs of intelligent, creative entrepreneurs. These businesswomen and men wanted to give their clients the certainty and confidence that comes from strong boundaries and solid foundations. But they did not want to tie them up with barbed wire. I wanted to create highly customisable documents that would be suitable for diverse businesses that did not fit in traditional boxes, and that would allow my clients to take ownership of their legals, instead of feeling alienated from them.”
What makes your contracts stand out from the rest?
“Through my DIY Packs (and in my custom drafting work) I prioritise writing contracts in language that feels natural and comfortable – the same language that my clients use for their marketing – so their clients are more likely to read and understand them.
My aim is to support my clients in creating contracts that come from the heart of their business and which do such a good job of managing the relationship between my clients and their clients that misunderstandings and problems are less likely to eventuate.
My clients often tell me how much they love their contracts, which is not something lawyers often hear. My DIY Packs are also unique in that, instead of being one-size-fits-all templates, they are questionnaire worksheets which guide you through every step of the contract creation process. In addition, I provide a range of support services, from the free 1-hour Accountability Action Session that comes with every DIY Pack, to my Review, Done for You and VIP upgrades.”
So, if your business is lacking the safety of a well drafted, client service agreement or possibly a different type of contract, like Website T&Cs, Privacy Policy, & sub-contract agreement, then don’t delay.
Manage priorities, not time.
Larry Winget.
HOT TIP – Michelle’s DIY contracts will be going up in price in the new financial year. Save yourself more than once by clicking this link. If you purchase a DIY pack (without navigating out) you will be supporting my small business, at no additional cost to you. From me to you, a big thank you in advance.
Do you want to get your business out of your head?
Regardless of the size of your business, standard operating procedures are an essential ingredient for successful outcomes. SOPs make running a business simpler for all involved, from contractors and staff to directors and government bodies, and most importantly clients/customers. They assist with providing quality, productive, consistent outcomes, efficient work practices, and training materials or friendly reminders to the small business owner juggling multiple tasks. They are a key ingredient to help scale your business.
So let’s look deeper into the what, when and why when it comes to creating SOPs.
What are Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)?
I mentioned that every business needs an SOP. And yes, it’s true. But what exactly is an SOP and why do you need one? An SOP is essentially a step-by-step guide for executing recurring tasks in your business.
It specifies when, how and why you do a particular function in your business. E.g how to perform a particular process, or how a system is to be used.
Examples of Standard Operating Procedures
For a small business SOPs might cover areas like:
New customer/client onboarding: This will show the steps you take to bring on board a new customer/client.
Updating your website: Branding guidelines, steps for uploading information, links, videos and photos, programs integrations, updates, changes to company policy or public notices to customers/clients, compliance updates etc.
Sales calls: a guide to handling the tricky sales calls
Invoicing and bookkeeping: steps from sending an invoice and the variables in pricing, to receipting payments, entering customers into the financial management system, reconciling accounts, and running reports.
Blog management: Instructions on how or where to draft the post, searching for keywords, posting on your website, style and format of posting, frequency and time of posting, how to promote new blog posts
Once you have a collection of procedures for different business activities, you could compile them into a user manual for yourself or any contractor or employee you bring into the business to handle specific business functions.
7 Benefits of Standard Operating Procedures
As a small business, following standardised operating procedures can save you time and allow you (and your team) to be more productive. They reduce errors, and improve compliance with industry guidelines. Here are 7 reasons why every small business should have SOPs:
1. Setting standards and structure within your business
A successful business can act quickly on leads and opportunities, this can be done effectively if the relevant operational information is easily locatable, relatable and transferable.
2. Reducing error rate
Having a documented procedure provides a brilliant level of quality control. There is no ambiguity or creative divergence, a simple and concise process to follow. Train new employees or Virtual Assistants and other contractors knowing that a consistent approach will be followed.
3. Saving time
We all want our businesses to operate smoothly, and I’m not going to lie, SOPs take time to implement. This time, often many small business owners struggle to allocate. However, it can be done gradually, as you are doing the work, document as you go. Consider it a short-term time investment, for a long term gain. If left undocumented, your stress levels and time wasted trying to find how you wrote a particular sales pitch, or where you saved that file you urgently need, will continually hold you back from structure, efficiency, clarity and growth.
4. Preparing for delegating / outsourcing
Once you’ve drafted and tested your SOP, you can outsource work to a virtual assistant with ease. Or write that job description with clarity about the core tasks and skills required for the role. Outsourcing frees you up to go on that holiday you’ve been planning, or to do the higher level tasks to build the business.
5. Assisting with training
If you have a written SOP manual it can be used as a tool to help train and onboard VA’s, or a new employee. It will ensure consistency, and provide a starting point to introduce the business. It also serves as a reference tool when the information overload hits. While making it clearer where the responsibilities for each task lies.
6. Supporting high level customer service
Your customers/clients won’t see your SOPs, but they’ll certainly benefit from, and feel the positive impacts of you following them. They ensure each team member has clarity around expected outcomes. Customer service like ending with a positive phrase at the end of a phone call e.g. “Thankyou, for calling, is there anything else we can do for you today?” Or possibly its following an internal escalation process, to ensure the right person is handling the level of customer interaction, suitable to their role.
7. Leading a path to regular reviews, efficiencies and continuous improvement
By systemising or documenting your processes, you can then visually see where they fit together. This will likely lead to streamlining any processes which may overlap or seem superfluous. It may highlight areas where automation can replace repeated tasks. Because after all, maximising efficiency within your business is a genius move.
How do you document Standard Operating Procedures?
There are various ways you can document SOPs:
From formal templates, with document registers
Video demonstrating a process
Steps in a checklist on a program like Trello
Another option is to ask your VA to type the processes piecemeal as you are training/providing processes to them.
When it comes to documenting, no one size fits all. Find what works best for your business systems and resources.
To start you off, I’ve added a link to a free template you can use at the bottom of this blog. Feel free to adapt it and make it your own. I use this template with links to processes (e.g. on-boarding, marketing, blog writing, website etc) stored in Trello.
TOP TIP: Ensure consistency with your procedures. Font size, H1,H2, colours etc… This will (with hope) become your business handbook, and once all compiled, you’ll want it to appear uniform and professional.
When and where to start?
There’s no time like the present! Why not start writing your SOPs next time you do the actual task?
The other option is to start with the processes which you dislike the most, or the processes which take the most amount of your time, or are not frequently used but challenging or hard to remember. Simply open the template supplied below and start recording your processes. Save it to your SOP library. This is the beginning of your handbook or manual. It’s prudent to get someone else to test it and provide feedback. Update as required, and review every 6-12 months.
By documenting your processes and procedures, not only will a weight lift, as you start paying yourself forward. You’ll be more organised, reduce errors, make brilliant use of your time, be able to outsource or delegate and scale effectively, therefore increasing profitability and productivity. Sounds great doesn’t it?
If you’d like to talk about preparing your business to outsource, planning out your socials and blogs or if you’re ready to outsource your digital content marketing or administration, please feel free to contact Deb for an obligation free consultation.
CEO mindset: Vision with action is the key to growth
Starting a business takes grit and determination. As time passes, many business owners focus on automation and efficient systems implementation. Business begins to flow smoothly, which is awesome! A smooth-running engine can feel adequate. It can be tempting to rest on your laurels and continue as you always have. However, a CEO wouldn’t stop there. CEO mindset is what sets the most successful entrepreneurs and business owners apart from the rest!
Assuming you want your business to grow, your mindset is key. So, let’s take a look at CEO mindset and what practical tweaks you can produce today, (no matter if you’re in your first year of business or a well seasoned business), to transform into tomorrow’s successful outcomes.
Beliefs and behaviours of an effecive CEO
When I think back to my previous corporate life. There are certain thought patterns, beliefs and behaviours each CEO displayed. Traits like:
Strategic decision-making
Being a visionary rather than being bogged down in the nitty gritty daily operations
Strong communication skills
Realistic optimism
Brilliant listening skills
Reading people effectively
A willingness to take calculated risks.
Understanding the value the business produces
Here are a few practical ways you can introduce a CEO mindset for your small business.
Vision and mission
Have a Vision and plan of what you want to achieve, and how you’re planning to achieve it. Your mission statement is a perfect starting block.
But what is a Mission / Vision Statement?
It’s a summary of an organisations core purpose, focus and goals. While the mission is the ‘what’ and ‘how’, the vision statement is the ‘why’.
Combined, they should be a guiding beacon supporting you as an owner in all areas of your business. From sales pitches, to social media marketing, to the way you engage with your customers or clients. If you’re consistently making decisions inline with your ultimate goals, it will assist with developing a strong brand and differentiate you from your competition.
Your mission statement should also guide all those who join your organisation when it begins to scale. From contractors to employees at all levels. As author Simon Sinek said,
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
As the CEO is the ultimate decision maker, when it comes to setting a company’s vision. It’s important to plan ahead. Where do you want to be in five, ten, or 15 years? A CEO will consider all stakeholders, and have a clear understanding what enables the business to generate value.
Planning
Set aside time to plan out your vision and mission – long-term planning. Regularly block off time in your calendar and mark it ‘planning’, this is important for the success and health of your business. Then you can batch plan your quarterly blogs and socials. You know you can market yourself online, to build your brand, but unless you know your long-term goals, these approaches may not be well aligned.
Continuous learning and development
Focus on learning new skills and mindset approaches, as Jim Rhon shares:
Everyday stand guard at the door of your mind.
So, read or study and then apply that to your business or personal life which will in turn positively impact your business.
Mentor
CEOs rely on subject matter experts to advise them on vital company information, data and issues. They often have a team of advisors and need to report to a Board of Directors to remain accountable and provide guidance. CEO mindset: Consider how you too could benefit from a business advisor, accountability partners and subject matter experts to guide you in various areas of the business.
Physical movement and mindset work
Tony Robbins, is someone I admire, he uses deep practice incantations, along with physical movement to ensure he is in the right headspace. He says
…the more you do something with focus, trying to do it as well as you can, you [build up the fatty layer of insulation around your nervous system called myelin] in your brain.
This will enable your focus and positive attitudes to be sustained.
Robbins also practices mindfulness techniques. For example, saying 3 things he’s grateful for that day. Whilst the incantations are still a work in progress for me, the gratitude statements have formed part of my daily routine, and I am better for it. Who inspires you? And how can you learn from them to continuously develop and grow?
Upskill
Staying focused on continuous learning and development, for example how to coach employees effectively. This skill is so important as when eventually, the business grows to a point where you must learn to manage the people who manage systems and processes, you will be prepared and ready to become a genuine CEO. So as a business owner, be flexible and adaptive to learn new skills as your role changes.
Systemise and outsource
CEOs look to the future. So why not implement processes and systems that will be needed in the future? If you only focus on the here and now, you may end up with only short-term plans and results, but lacking business direction.
So introduce a company handbook, even if it’s just you! Or have an outsourcing strategy before you’re ready to outsource. Set up your processes and procedures, with the mindset someone will need to use them one day, hopefully soon!
You can have a CEO mindset no matter what stage you are at in your business. Whether you’re about to launch or a well seasoned business owner. Focus on one area at a time and put your CEO hat on. For example, for my business, I’ll own up! I’ve been neglecting my financial management. Which we can all agree is far from ideal for a small business owner. While my accountant is not concerned, as I’m following the compliance requirements. I haven’t paid enough attention to doing it well and efficiently, because I don’t know HOW to do it well, and I don’t LOVE doing it. So I’ve avoided it.
I’m currently using a free accounting software, why? Because it’s intuitive and everything I need for now. But … while it does suit my business as it stands at this moment, fast-forward 2 years, or possibly even 6-12 months, and it’s unlikely to be sustainable. Its free features are incredible, but it also means some processing requirements are more cumbersome and consequently time-consuming.
To put my CEO mindset hat on, I know I need to look at the current issues and the future, I need to:
Source and receive training from a tax agent or book keeper who is familiar with this software, how to set it up properly, so it’s compliant and simple to report to ATO.
Look and plan for the future. I intend to grow the business, this software will soon not be fit for my business. So, I’m researching and seeking guidance on the best financial software systems for my business and budget for the next 5 years.
Take steps to learn bookkeeping for my business. Not because it is a service, I want to offer my clients. But because it is a skill as a small business owner, that I need to know!
Know how to administer it myself, so I can make educated decisions and clearly define the tasks required.
Outsource it to a bookkeeper with aligned business ethics, and effective communication skills.
Have a think about your business. What areas are you ready to learn about, or outsource or both?
Reduce stress
Finally, if you look at where the pressure is: assess how you can remove it?
Notice it, observe it with no judgement, not saying I’m a ‘failure” or ‘should’ instead step outside of yourself and assess what you need. What takes the pressure off for you? A holistic balance is a key ingredient for a happy and healthy business owner.
So actively partake in activities which reduce stress, help you stay centered, and keep you positively focused. Continuously learn new skills, simplify some areas, Batch plan your quarterly blogs and socials, outsource if needed. Plan ahead in alignment with your vision and mission, and act on those plans.
TIP 2 – Dedicate time to blog.
TIP 2 – Dedicate time to blog.
What is organic social media?
2. Authentic connections
5. Customer service
What are some risks by not having contracts in place?
