How can Planning a Vacation help you to plan a great Business Venture?

If you are starting out a new business…you may feel as though you cannot take a vacation, as it may be detrimental to your success. However, it seems planning and taking a vacation may be exactly what you need to do. People give a great deal of thought to planning their holidays, and this is something you can reflect when mapping out your ideas for a new business. Not only will comparing the planning of a holiday to the planning of your new business help you to get into the swing of things, the vacation itself will clear your mind and get you ready to defeat any problems which may be thrown at you. We do a lot of thinking on holiday; you may even come up with some new fantastic ideas! Here’s how to take inspiration from planning a holiday in order to help you plan a new business venture.

How Restaurants Can Use SMS Marketing to Increase Profit

Attracting customers to your restaurant requires more than simply letting them know you are there. By taking advantage of the increase in use of smartphones, you can create a relationship with your customers via SMS to ensure they keep coming back to you. Here are the great ways SMS Marketing can help:

Integrate the 'Selfie' into your Marketing Campaign...

The selfie divides opinions: although it is regarded by some as a 'fad' which will pass, it has very real long term value for marketers who are increasingly integrating the selfie into their marketing campaigns - in some cases the main part of the pitch being the taking of a selfie. The pastime’s emergence as a mobile-marketing tool highlights the importance of user-generated content in maximizing the impact and involvement in marketing campaigns.

How To Keep Your Customers Coming Back

You’ve worked hard in obtaining new customers and spreading the word about your small business. But once you’ve got these customers on board, it’s vital you keep them coming back. Normally, amazing customer service and continued engagement will bring them back for more. Here are 7 ways to keep customers coming back to your small business.

How To Have A Successful Monday...

Monday mornings are the most critical part of the working week. They set your mindset for the week ahead, and by kicking off the week positively - you are more likely to feel positive about the rest of the week. There are many things you can do to ensure you go into work feeling refreshed and prepared mentally and physically on a Monday...

How to use your SMS Marketing Campaign to Increase Customer Value...

When creating text messages for customer engagement, it is essential to create messages that will appeal specifically to each single customer. This can be a difficult task: nearly every customer wants something different, yet the aim is to make them all feel special and valued. By tailoring text messages to individuals, businesses have a better shot at attracting new customers through word of mouth referrals while keeping existing clients satisfied.

10 Ways to Improve your Productivity at Work

In a modern, busy world, everyone is looking for ways to work smart and do things more quickly. There are some very easy ways to ensure your productivity is at it’s finest, you won’t believe you didn’t think of them first!

• Define your Most Important Tasks. By taking a few moments to identify the things you must accomplish each day, preferably before the day starts, you will begin the day knowing what needs to be done, and hopefully feeling motivated to do it.
• Don’t multi-task. Scientists tell us that none of us are truly very good at multi-tasking. Working on one thing at a time will make you faster and less likely to make mistakes.
• Create a morning routine.  Defining and sticking to a morning routine can help to ensure a smooth start to the day. If you know you operate at your best when you have exercised and had a good breakfast, making those things a priority will positively affect the rest of your day.
• Edit your input streams. Edit your media streams to only contain the most valuable and important sources of information. This will avoid you getting side-tracked.
• Get to the point. When writing emails, get to the point quickly. A good limit is five sentences or less.
• Do important work. In the classic “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Steven Covey presents a matrix that divides our activities into four categories: urgent and important, not urgent but important, urgent and unimportant, and not urgent not important. Try and keep within the first two!
• Do similar tasks together. Choose to process your emails once or twice a day at a time that is convenient for you, rather than replying everytime you get a new one; as this can be time consuming. The same can be said for phone calls and meetings, if this is easy to do.
• Eliminate unnecessary tasks. Eliminate anything you can from your to do list; determine if any tasks don’t need to be done, or need to be delegated to a co-worker. By eliminating these tasks, you will already feel as if your to-do list is going down.
• Work offline. If you have difficulty avoiding the Internet’s distractions, work offline or take your work somewhere without an Internet connection. You will find you will focus a lot more on the task at hand.
• Do the thing you want to do the least, first. Prioritize those items you are most likely to procrastinate—your day will go much more smoothly when the phone call you’re dreading or the report you don’t want to write are finished and no longer weighing on your mind.
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