What Would More Productivity Mean for Your Business?
Is your To-Do List growing every day? Have you actually noticed that some items on your list are so old that they no longer need to be done? Do you have so many items competing for your time that nothing gets completed? Small business owners often find themselves in this quandary – too many top priorities.
Is there a silver bullet? Well, not exactly; but some fresh thinking could bring you to what I call the “lightbulb moment” – that moment when the fog lifts revealing a solution like a clear path in front of you. It’s the moment when you say, “I can do this – why didn’t I think of it before?”
Before you can have such an enlightened moment, you first need to spend a little bit of that precious time in your day deciding what’s at the end of your rainbow – not a pot of gold but your ultimate expectation for your business. Based on that description, decide upon three major priorities to bring you closer to your final goal and identify no more than ten accomplishments that are reachable within the next 12 months that will advance one or more of your major priorities. You’ve just created your Plan for Success. Now discard everything else and focus like a laser on your plan.
How does this help you manage your To-Do List? When you revise your list to include only tasks that fit your new Plan, you’ll find each task has new meaning – something you can relate to a bigger picture. You will have a renewed sense of accomplishment. The tasks you handle will have new meaning. You’ll find you get more done in less time. And the ultimate reward is seeing how close you are to achieving that ultimate success.
Practical Time Management Tips to Use Right Now
These tips will boost your productivity and your health.
Smart devices are changing the way we live. Will your business grasp the opportunity?
Have you even had access to a telephone yellow pages book during recent years? When you are considering a major purchase – let’s say a kitchen appliance – do you spend time visiting store after store, talking to salespeople, comparing features and prices? It is very likely, since you are reading my online blog post, that you have done none of the above in quite some time. Most of us rely on Internet searches to locate people and places, to comparison shop and, in fact, to do most everything, these days.
“Google” is now a verb in our vocabulary, search engines are a way of life and laptops have replaced desktop computers for many of us – or so it seems. However, if you take a good, hard look around, you’ll find that laptops and notebook computers have mostly given way to the mobile phone as the latter becomes smarter and smarter. In fact, for many – as technology advances – reliance on search engines has been replaced by mobile apps?
There’s an App for that! You’ve heard the buzz. Pick up your cell phone and download an app for just about anything, making the need to go to the search engine less important. Searching for the nearest sushi place or finding out where gas is least expensive before you fill your tank is already commonplace. Even reading the next big novel, browsing websites for research or doing your grocery shopping can be done using mobile apps.
So wouldn’t it make sense for a business – any business large or small – to distribute an app to its target market so that customers and prospects can make use of it when the need arises? Perhaps an auto repair shop would distribute an app to customers to remind and allow scheduling for the next auto maintenance appointment. Maybe an insurance agent would offer an app to allow customers to update their policy, pay their bill or even file claim information without hassle.
For the small business owner who has had the foresight to include useful, relevant and plentiful content on their business website, the easiest form of app you could distribute would be one that allows a mobile user to quickly access that website content, find what they need and use your website’s features in the time it takes to ride the elevator to the 5th floor.
Having your customers and, even better, your prospects carrying your website in their pocket should certainly excite the marketer in you and get your creative juices flowing.
Have you thought about how your business could use mobile apps to stay in front of your market? Does your website already have a mobile version built in and available for use by mobile visitors?
Let us hear from you!
Looking back... Announcement - 2012: Gilman Group is Changing its Name!
As 2011 comes to a close and 2012 lights up the horizon, we are taking this opportunity to open a new chapter in the life of our company, as well.
For more than18 years, we’ve been known as the Gilman Group – doing retail website design and managed hosting for small/medium businesses and member-based organizations. We have watched the Internet grow and mature, and we have partnered with many fine people in our industry over the years. Our clients’ businesses have opened and closed and a few have moved on; but a surprising number of them still remain with us, and we are grateful for their support.
Effective January 2012, we will now officially be known as HoffmanWeb Solutions & Marketing – better reflecting what we provide our clients. Our services have evolved to focus on helping our clients USE their website to best advantage. We are all about being there for the long run – helping clients convert shoppers into customers and browsers into business dollars. Yes, we still design websites, but as our clients’ needs have changed so has the way we deliver our services. So we felt that a new name was in order.
So we hope you will browse our website, get to know us; and, if we can be of service, we hope you will let us know.