Happy New Year! A very apt tip for the New Year today. All about reviewing and setting your activites for the coming year. Review your marketing activities Set aside time each month to review your marketing activities. How many enquiries have you had in the previous month and from where have they come? Have a [...]

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Social networking If you have a profile on sites such as Ecademy and LinkedIn, it is easy to spend hours each day responding to requests to link. Set aside some time each week for social networking and respond to invitations then. Also, use this time to seek out new connections of your own, join and [...]

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Writing your blog The same advice applies when writing blogs. However, the advantage with blogs is that you can schedule your posts in advance. I am actually writing this on 30th October but you will be reading it weeks later!

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Writing your newsletter If you write a newsletter, be it weekly, monthly or whatever, try to write in blocks. It can be hard to find a quiet time to sit and write, but, when you do, you often feel like you could write for hours. Do it whenever you feel inspired, and then split the [...]

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Check and update your website Check that your website is up-to-date and current. Set aside time, perhaps once a month, to check all the information is current, and add anything new that your clients and prospects might find useful.

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Create checklists Have checklists for every process in your business. For example, when you take on a new client, have a checklist which prompts you to check that: you have received the signed contract, you have sent your Welcome Pack, you have set up an appropriate email address, and you have their stationery. This saves [...]

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Do your filing In addition to your client files, have files for everything related to running your business. Then, set aside time each week to file everything you have dealt with that week. I use the last half-hour on a Friday for this.

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Bookkeeping and invoicing I would recommend allowing time, twice a month, about two weeks apart, to pay all your bills, input all your expenses, raise all your invoices and check that payments have been made.

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Back up everything If you have ever deleted anything accidentally, or suffered a computer crash, you will probably not need to be told about this. Back everything up at least once a day. I use Carbonite, which automatically backs up my whole system every day at 6pm. So, if I lose something or my system [...]

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Create email templates If you answer an email to the same question more than once, create an email template so that the next time you are asked the question, you already have an email ready to send.

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