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Working Towards A Positive Business Culture

September 02, 2016
blog
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Working Towards a Positive Business Culture

No doubt you’ve heard the words ‘culture’ and ‘engagement’ floating around, but do you really know what they mean and why they’re important in every business, not just the big ones?

Culture, like everything in your business, is guided by a set of core values. They outline what is important to you and your employees and they manifest themselves in every facet of your business. It can be slow to establish, but once it’s in place, it can take a long time to change.

Employee engagement can be measured to how connected employees feel to their jobs. Engagement is a little different, it ebbs and flows – it can be there one day, but gone the next.

Unsurprisingly, engagement and culture feed off each other. When engagement is high, positive culture can be established and enhanced, but without a positive culture, engagement tends to be lower.

How do I know if my small business has ‘culture’?

Believe it or not, every business has a culture. Regardless of whether you’ve thought about it before or tried to work towards creating a certain kind of culture, your business has one already. Whether or not it is a positive culture remains to be seen. Use the three questions below to find a place to start working towards a positive business culture.

Think of 10 words to describe your business’ culture
How strong do you think this culture is?
Is this culture consistent?

What should I be focusing on to develop a positive business culture?

There are many different contributors to creating a great culture within your business. The best way to start is by working on a list of core values. These values are more than just a list to put in a folder and tuck it away and they’re more than inspirational quotes on the wall. This list of core values will be the driving force behind every action you take within the business.

If creating a list of values seems a bit too philosophical to get started, perhaps this list will give you some practical ideas to get started:

Physical Atmosphere

Everything from the number of windows in your workspace, right down to the colour of the coffee mugs can affect your employee’s levels of engagement. Other choices such as whether to have music playing aloud or letting each individual choose their own music through headphones; or whether to allow food to be eaten at desks or only within the break room can also affect the work environment.

Dress Code

The dress-code can be a double-edged sword. Valuing professionalism can often come at the cost of the comfort of employees, but valuing employee comfort can sometimes place your business’ professional appearance in peril. Outlining a dress code can be extremely important in ensuring your business is being portrayed in a way that aligns with your values.

Communication Styles

All businesses, regardless of how small, should outline how communication is to be carried out. If the tone during inter-employee conversations is informal, does this carry over into customer conversations? Thinking about whether this is the communication style that best reflects your business is important and adjustments must be made accordingly. Likewise, if there is a communication breakdown within your business, the damage repair could cost you. Outlining communication procedures and points of contact should be a priority to avoid mistakes and misunderstandings.

Big companies like Google, Apple and Netflix are some of the most desired places to work and their work culture is increasingly a reference point for many other companies.

Who’s to say small businesses can’t be as desirable as those big names? All it takes is spending some time thinking about your values, the things you want to internalise and the kind of environment you want to work in.

Want to set a great culture in your business? Then come along to Bxponential in October. At this free event you’ll hear Naomi Simson from RedBalloon – widely awarded as a Great Place To Work – talk about great culture, setting values and employee engagement. You’ll walk away with key resources and strategies you can implement in your business immediately. Book your free tickets here.

Strategies to Solve Stress in Small Business

April 30, 2016
blog, Change, Stress, Systems
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When you become a business owner, you no longer have one single job description. Instead, especially in the early days, you can be working lots of roles. With them come unforeseen challenges, often out of your control. As a result, stress can creep in – for the sake of your health, your business and your loved ones –

One way is identifying the common stressors so you can address them proactively – like the miners who relied upon the canaries to alert them of methane or carbon monoxide in the mines. The canary would die before the levels of the gas reached those hazardous to humans. In the same way (but not risking any of our feathered-friends) you need to identify your stress hazards in advance, be self-aware and manage them.

Stress for Business Owners Can Include:

A lack of control

We deal with customers, suppliers, late payers, government red tape, paperwork, team members, cash flow…the list goes on, and often it can feel as if you have little to no say. To help manage this, consider accepting that not all decisions will go your way and aim to have a positive outlook when they don’t. Appreciating your wins and accepting what you can’t control can help calm frustrating situations.

Reacting too soon

Often people react to situations without actually taking actions to better support them. Reactions are often emotionally driven and do not effectively support business decisions. To help ease the urge to react to something, take time to listen, analyse the situation, consider multiple responses to it and breathe. If it’s a good decision today, it will be a good decision tomorrow.

No time to do it all

Firstly, define what “doing it all” means. In all likelihood, what you want to get done couldn’t be achieved working 24/7 anyhow. So be kind to yourself. Acknowledge you can only do so much in one day. Accept that your health – including sleep, exercise and eating habits – contributes to your overall professional performance, allowing you to better manage your day-to-day stresses. Budgeting time to work out, allocating certain hours for family and / or friends only and choosing not to check emails during certain hours of the day are all proven ways to help manage a busy workload and eliminate stress.

Cash Flow

The largest small business stressor is cash flow uncertainty: what sales are coming in, knowing that bills and employees need to be paid. The first step is to look at improving systems and structures so you can feel more confident in your cash flow: shorten your receivables period; identify payment disputes fast; maintain great customer relations to minimise such disputes; look at ways to take payments up front; and watch your accounts payables closely.

Other small business stressors include

isolation and lack of social support
presenteeism where you continue to work even if you aren’t well, because if you are away the business doesn’t happen
long hours which may be even a bigger problem than in the corporate world
blurring of boundaries between home and work
business failure, which also carries a suicide risk

Systems and support go a long way to easing the stress burden on a small business. I recommend joining a business group where you can meet other owners and discover they are battling their share of stresses too. Often it is the ‘business success’ mask we assume when things are tough that can cause the greatest damage. That’s why at Bx we are so passionate about building a community of business owners who can learn and grow together through their shared experiences.

There’s loads of tools to get your website working harder and your marketing to get results. Bx coaching can help you find the right tools for your business and pave the way for your success. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program..

What is Networking: Work the Room the Right Way

April 15, 2016
blog, Networking
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Before I dive into the power of business networking, let me explain what networking is not: walking into a room of business owners, darting from person to person, giving away as many of your business cards as possible, gathering up as many as possible, returning to your office, then adding them all to your email newsletter list, firing off a generic newsletter and expecting a sale immediately. In metaphorical terms, that sort of networking is like piling your plate at the local ‘all you can eat’ buffet and not stopping to savour the food.

Networking is not about the number of business cards you gather, but the relationships you build. It is not how fast you can free yourself from the person you deem an unsuitable ‘lead’ for your business – but how fast you can discover how to help them. Great business networking is not measured by the dollar delivered to your business, but by the number of relationships you help others create.

I attend numerous different networking events every week. It is a critical part of our sales process and more than 35% of our clients come from networking events. As an active member of The Real Biz, BNI, the local Chamber of Commerce and the NSW Business Chamber, I consider networking to be critical to building a successful network.

Here are my top four reasons to network:

You increase your exposure to other people like yourself, with varying levels of experience and who all share a desire to help each other.
Referral sources are a significant lead generation source for most businesses.
You will build strong relationships with people you know, like and trust, who you will be able to rely on for advice on many areas of business, and where to go to get support and refer suppliers for your business.
It’s great to get out of your business and work on it, rather than in it, and networking is generally a great social tool.

Here are my top five networking tips:

Work the room − we often get in our comfort zone and hang around the same people. In a networking environment we need to do the opposite. Meet and talk to as many people as you can.
You are not in a networking environment to just swap business cards − you need to build relationships.
The people in the room are not your leads. Often I see people work the room like everyone there needs to do business with them. The problem is that this is very limited thinking. Instead, build the relationship by following up the initial meeting with a coffee chat. As you learn more about the other person’s business, think how you can refer them to people you know. In turn, they will hopefully do the same. The power of networking is not as much about the person you are meeting as it is the many people they already know and network with.
Have every business card saved in your contacts, connect with the contact on LinkedIn AND, most importantly, remember their name next time you meet.
Be on FORM – it’s a great acronym to remind you of ice-breaker questions when you meet people. F = Family (where are you from, are you married, kids, their ages?) O = Occupation (what kind of work do you do, how did you get into it? do you enjoy it?) R = Recreation (what do you do for fun? Hobbies? M = Message (move from the informal to the formal, setting up a coffee chat, working out how you can work together).

Networking is a vital element of your marketing mix – not the only element but an important one. I also suggest splitting it into hard, soft and social. Hard networking is structured with expected referral outcomes, as in a group like BNI. Soft networking is excellent for brand and relationship building yet without the targeted expectation of referrals. The Real Biz Group offers this type of model, as do Chambers of Commerce and State Business Chambers. Social is networking though social media groups that are built online according to business interests – these can include LinkedIn groups, or MeetUp groups.

Join me at one of my networking events, The Real Biz, meets every 2nd Thursday from 8am to 10am, at Buzzbar Espresso Mortdale, and my BNI Chapter meets every week on Wednesday from 7am to 8.45am at St George Motor Boat Club Sans Souci. There are also other BNI and Real Biz Meetings all across Australia, select the links to see where they meet.

Getting Ready to Change Starts with the Decision to do so

February 29, 2016
blog, Change, Success
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Dear readers, it’s time for some tough love. It’s the second month of the new year, and no doubt many of you have big plans for how you want this year to be different. This is the year you’re going to achieve new success, reach your financial goals and grow your business by x percent. Fantastic, I love the positivity and determination.

But, are you actually doing anything about it?

In the past year of coaching business owners, I’ve noticed an alarmingly common pattern. Clients come to me full of ideas and talk about how they want to achieve x, y and z. Yet, when it comes time to commit to attending coaching calls or personal development events and to putting new ideas and approaches into practice, there is resistance. “I don’t have time to make the webinar this month,” they say. “But we’ve always managed things this way,” comes the reply to an alternative suggestion.

Keep doing what you’ve always done, and you’ll keep getting the same results

Sorry guys, but success isn’t going to magically land in your lap. If you want to get different results, you need to be prepared to change your approach and try new ways of doing things. Ultimately, change is a choice. You need to decide to change direction or change what you are doing. You need to be willing to push through any barriers and discomfort that might be in your way.

Because ultimately, change is inevitable, whether you actively seek and embrace it or not. Your business is not operating in a vacuum. Competitors are constantly progressing and threatening your territory. Technology advances and enables new ways of doing things that you hadn’t imagined just a short time ago. By doing things the same way, at best your business will get the same results and stagnate; at worst, you will become irrelevant and eventually obsolete. Imagining the outcomes of not embracing change can sometimes be the motivator you need.

The three P’s of change

Instigating a change in our lives involves focusing on three key areas: the people around us and who we interact with; our psychology and the programming of our mind; and our physiology, including how we think, act and express ourselves.

People: Seek out mentors to learn from and be open to different ways of thinking. Spend time with people who display the attributes you wish to develop in yourself, and identify successful people whose behaviour and habits you can model from.
Psychology: Remember to take time to pause, stop and clear your mind. Focus on the right now, not the past and the future. Taking slow, deep breaths can help to bring you back to the moment, rather than worrying about what you should have done or should do later.
Physiology: Try visualising the behaviour and results that you want to achieve, and then articulate this as positive facts in the present tense. Physically, act and move the way you would if you were achieving what you wanted.

Are you ready to stop talking about making changes and start making them? With our Business for Life coaching program, we’re ready to help you beyond talking and into action. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

Failure is just a Stepping Stone to Success

February 15, 2016
blog, Failure, Success
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What do Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, JK Rowling, Henry Ford and Oprah Winfrey all have in common? Before achieving amazing levels of success in their respective fields, they all experienced varying levels of failure, including being fired, losing large amounts of money and dealing with countless rejections.

I get knocked down, and I get up again

So often in life, it’s not what happens to us that is important, but how we choose to react and respond. This lesson was reinforced for me in 2008 when I discovered that my business partner had fraudulently robbed the business of over $500K by taking money from the business, not paying taxes and so forth. He used the money to prop up his own failing businesses, and in the end went bankrupt anyway. I found myself with an enormous debt of nearly $750K by the time penalties and interest were applied and staring down two equally unappealing choices – declaring bankruptcy or trying to repay such a huge amount of money.

In the end, there really was no choice – my business, my problem, despite the circumstances of how we got there. So my wife and I sold our family home and did everything we could to pay down the debt. We struggled through the global financial crisis and devastating personal and family tragedies.

And then, after working and working, we made it through. At the beginning of 2015, I signed off on an amazing equity raise with one of our businesses. From a start-up IT business in 2006, it had grown to be the largest of its kind in Australia.

It’s not a failure if you learn from it

Nobody likes to fail, there’s no doubt that it’s an unpleasant life event. But the risk of failure should be acknowledged as an accepted part of taking a risk. An important part of moving beyond a failure – and hopefully using it as a stepping stone to a future success – is taking the time to analyse what went wrong and how you can learn from the experience.

It’s also really important to make sure your team know that the process of reviewing a failure isn’t about finding someone to blame. It’s about identifying the things that can be done differently in the future and using the experience to set plans and goals that will allow you to move forward. Matt Alderton, Bx, Business for Life, B-xponential

As Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” And that’s the most important element in turning a failure into a success – having the courage to move beyond the hit to your pride and to try something different. The only true failure comes when you give up trying.
Do you have a story to share about bouncing back from failure? Or are you struggling to dust yourself off and try again? We’d love to speak about how we could help your business to move beyond this blip into success. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

How to Hire New Employees to Help your Business Soar

February 10, 2016
blog, Hiring, New Employee, Planning, Recruitment, Success, Team Members
4 Comments

Taking on new employees can be a scary decision for many small businesses. There’s a sense of responsibility that comes with committing to pay someone on a regular basis and the worry that your business might not grow enough to support another team member.

And yes, there is no doubt that taking on a new employee is a balancing act. If you hire someone before they are needed, your profitability can take a hit. But on the flip side, if you don’t add a team member soon enough, how will your business grow?

Here’s some of our tips for taking the leap of faith to hire new team members so that your business can reach new heights.

When to hire new team members

It can be hard to know when it is the right time to hire a new team member. But ultimately, it all comes down to planning. If you have a plan for your business and the growth goals you want to achieve, that will help you to determine what resources you need to achieve that growth.

The immediate trigger for hiring a new employee is freeing up your own time as the business owner to retain your focus on high-level strategic decisions. For many businesses, including my own, a first hire is often a bookkeeper. This allows someone else to take on responsibility for day to day administrative tasks like invoicing and chasing bill payments, so that you can focus on reviewing the big picture and dedicating time to revenue-generating action.

By getting the right people on the bus – in the right seats (i.e. in the job roles that best suit their skills and experience) – you can concentrate on driving towards your ultimate destination. If you don’t know what that destination is, you need to take some time to plan and set goals for your business!

Don’t forget training

The other vital element in hiring employees is making sure that they have appropriate training. Just because somebody has experience in similar businesses doesn’t mean that you should leave them to sink or swim.

There are three key elements to any employee training program:

Induction Training: This includes practical training on your businesses systems and processes. It should also cover background on the business and any HR policies. For example, how do you answer the phone or greet customers? What is the procedure for taking an order? Induction training should cover all the basic elements that will allow a new employee to have the best possible start.
On-the-Job Training: Ideally, this is buddying up with another team member to explain any processes and procedures in more detail. In a café, this might mean watching the buddy serve a customer, then serving the next customer under supervision. Or in an office environment, this could take the shape of shadowing the buddy on a customer call.
Ongoing Training: Providing ongoing training in a variety of areas to build the skills of employees helps to keep your team engaged and interested. Many businesses are reluctant to train people due to the fear that they will take their new skills and leave for a better job, but ongoing training has been demonstrated to improve employee retention. Besides, what’s the alternative – you don’t train employees and they stay? Do you really want unskilled staff? Provide training in the areas of personal development, leadership, specific skills like selling and customer service, or any other areas that are relevant to your business.

Are you wanting to expand your team but don’t know if your business is ready? Or have you delayed hiring and felt your business struggle to cope as a result? We’d love to speak about how we could help your business to improve its performance. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

Plan like a Pro for your Best Year Ever

February 05, 2016
blog, Planning
0 Comments

There’s lots of quotes about planning that we’re sure you’ve all heard, like “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” And maybe right now you are rolling your eyes and thinking “I’m just so busy running around getting the day-to-day stuff done – I don’t have the time to plan.”

Well, here’s the tough love: not having the time to plan and focus on your business is EXACTLY why you do need to plan. Without a plan, it is impossible to prioritise your time and focus on what is important to you, your business and your life.

Put simply – you must plan for success.

Know and manage your priorities

Planning allows you to determine what is important. It helps you figure out the ‘big rocks’ – those important, must-do tasks, that will give you the greatest return for your time and drive your business forward. When you know what is important, you are less likely to fall into the trap of forsaking these tasks for what is urgent.

We recommend the priority matrix for managing distractions and regaining control of who and what gains your attention. Using a matrix of what is important and what is urgent, you end up with four quadrants.

Quadrant 1 – Urgent and important: These are the tasks you do straightaway

Quadrant 2 – Important but not urgent: These are the tasks that you plan when you will do them. Set a date and create an item for them in a task management

tool, such as Asana.

Quadrant 3 – Urgent but not important: These are the tasks that you delegate to someone else, freeing your time to focus on the important tasks. Again, use a task management tool to delegate and track progress of these tasks.

Quadrant 4 – Not urgent and not important: Dump these items. Delete the email, throw out the letter, or whatever, and keep moving forward.

A practical approach to planning

Each day, week, month, year, you need a plan to prioritise and manage your time. This is how we do it.

10 minutes at the beginning of each day
30 minutes to plan for the coming week, typically at the end of Friday
1 hour to plan for the coming month, during the last few days of the month
1 day planning for the coming quarter, during the last week of the current quarter
2 days planning for the year ahead, during the last few days of December
1 day every year reviewing life goals

We recommend that your three big goals for the year, quarter and month are written down and stuck somewhere visible. The more you see and absorb these goals, the more you will take action to achieve them.

Are you ready to take back control of your time and your business? Do you need help figuring out where your business is going and how you’re going to get there? We’d love to speak about how we could help your business to improve its performance. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

The Step you can Immediately Take to have a Better Attitude

January 07, 2016
Attitude, blog, Operations
0 Comments

Your attitude is the tipping point to success or failure

You may have heard the quote from motivational speaker Zig Ziglar – “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” Or perhaps this gem from Henry Ford – “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right.” Snappy little quotes? Yes, without a doubt. Trite quotes? Absolutely not.

Every day, life throws us challenges. Some of them are just mild inconveniences, others are life-changing events. Many of these events are completely beyond our control, whether they are good or bad. But while we can’t control what happens to us, we can absolutely control how we respond to them. Your response to life events is a choice; your attitude is your choice.

I had to learn this lesson the hard way when in 2008 my business partner fraudulently robbed us of over $500,000. He’d taken money out of the business, not paid taxes, and used the money to prop up his own failing business which ended up going bankrupt anyway. I was left with an enormous debt – nearly $750,000 once penalties and interest were applied – and facing the prospect of declaring bankruptcy myself.

If your attitude is positive and buoyant, so too will be the attitude of your team and followers. As a leader, your attitude is amplified by your followers.

I chose to do everything possible to pay back the debt. Despite the circumstances of how the debt was incurred, I decided the only option was to act with determination and integrity and face the debt head on. My wife and I sold our family home. We moved in with family and sold everything we could be to reduce the debt as much as possible.

The financial struggle was monumental, but it was the emotional battle that was beyond imagining. In addition to the money issues, life threw a series of other events at us – the death of beloved family members including my wife’s dad and a close family friend, a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy. It truly seemed that things could not get any more difficult. But every day, I would swing my legs out of bed, jump to my feet and greet life with positivity and enthusiasm. I knew that to overcome adversity, I had to hold my head up, smile in the face of it, and live in a space of positivity.

How to change your attitude

When somebody asks “How are you?” do you respond with a negative or a positive? I strongly encourage you to make the effort – and believe me I know that some days it really will be an effort – to respond in the positive, with something like “I’m great!” Your brain will hear these words, assume that these words are the truth and alight your body to act accordingly.

Think of your brain as a computer. If you input information into a computer, it will behave in a certain way. Your brain is the same; the information that goes into your brain will affect the way we think and feel, but it is your attitude towards these thoughts and feelings that determine how you act.

Why attitude matters for leadership

As a leader, your attitude and your energy is amplified by your followers. If your attitude and energy are positive, happy and buoyant, so too will be the attitude of your team and followers. Put simple, positive attracts positive.

Leaders with a great attitude get great results. Productivity is higher, morale is higher, and staff turnover is lower. Enthusiasm and positivity are contagious, but someone must start it. As a leader, you need to inject positive energy into your business so that energy can grow and spread.

Personal development plays a big role in developing a positive attitude. Through our Business for Life program, we’re helping business owners from across Australia to build a toolbox of skills that they can use to create and grow their businesses and lead more fulfilled lives. We’d love to chat about how we could help you. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

Could Outsourcing be the Secret to Accelerating Your Business Growth?

January 06, 2016
blog, Operations, Outsourcing
1 Comment

It’s a common problem that all business owners face at some point – how to get everything done in a limited amount of time without sacrificing their own quality of life. When your business is growing and you have more to do, but not necessarily more team members to help to do the work, it can be easy to become overwhelmed.

The answer to this problem is simple. As soon as your attention is being consumed away from sales and customer service, pause and think about where YOUR time is most valuable. For any business owner, that time is best spent on growing your customer base and nurturing leads. Any tasks that distract you from that focus are prime targets for outsourcing.

Outsourcing also allows business owners to manage growth in a scalable and cost effective manner. When a task – say bookkeeping – is taking your time away from more valuable tasks, but you don’t have the need for a permanent internal resource, outsourcing is the perfect interim solution to mana
ge this in-between period of business growth. After all, the cost of an employee is more than just their salary – you also need to factor in additional costs like insurance, superannuation, office space and IT infrastructure. Suddenly a contractor’s hourly rate can become a lot more reasonable! Then once your business has grown further, there may be a tipping point when it makes sense to create a dedicated internal role. Outsourcing allows you to dial this capacity up and down in a scalable way that meets the unique needs of your business.

What to outsource

Essentially, you should consider outsourcing any function that distracts your attention from sales and growing your business. Here’s a list of a few ideas to get you started:
– Bookkeeping
– Graphic design
– Data entry
– Rostering and payroll

– Email and calendar management
– Social media management
– Marketing

Depending on the skill set required, you can find excellent outsourcing solutions both within Australia and internationally. There are a number of websites, such as Upwork, that can connect you with a range of freelancers with different skills, as well as companies that specialise in managing these relationships for businesses. As well as searching online, don’t forget to ask your network for any recommendations and referrals.

10 tips to successfully manage outsourcing relationships

1. Define what you want to achieve and the required skills and resources

2. Know your desired results
3. Complete due diligence: ask to see portfolios and samples, check references and so forth
4. Know your budget, but don’t select only on price
5. Clearly communicate expectations – use written contracts to document scope of work and expected standards
6. Set realistic timeframes
7. Regularly monitor performance and set agreed performance milestones
8. Ensure copyright for any original work, such as design work, writing, computer code and so forth, is passed on to your business upon payment

9. Get legal advice to protect your business from any wrong doing by contractors
10. Start with small projects and increase the scope when your outsourcing partners have proven they can satisfactorily deliver

Have you used contractors to outsource non-core business functions? What benefits have you experienced as a result? If you are reluctant to outsource, what are the concerns that are stopping you? We’d love to speak about how we could help your business to improve its performance. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

Technology

Technology has begun to rule our lives, yes? My first mobile phone was a Nokia 1610 (in 1996!), there were no apps on it, no Facebook or other social media was around. Get this, email first started being used in the mid 1990’s! Now, I know I am sounding old here, but I’m only in my 30’s and I can still remember being at uni and in the workforce, and not using email, and not having Facebook! I can still remember having an alarm clock by my bed and reading a book before going to sleep!
With the rise of technology, our time is now dominated with an OPPORTUNITY to be connected at every instance of the day and night. To be purposeful and have the best day, week, month, year and life every – you need to be the master of your time, and therefore use technology and NOT let it use you!
Here are my top tech tips:
1. Email – this is a quick communication tool. It is not designed to rule your day.

• Check it maximum twice daily
• Don’t let your inbox be your to-do list. Don’t action items from your inbox, create a task instead.
• Create rules/ filters to file/ archive messages that clutter your inbox
• All actionable items in an email should be created as a task.

2. Embrace the Technology, it should increase your productivity, not take up your time

• Check out my blog on ‘The Top Tech Tips’.

3. Task Management – There are heaps of options for managing your tasks. Without a doubt, the hands-down best app I have seen and used for managing your tasks is…Asana. This has revolutionised our workplace and team communication. And even better at a base level it’s free!

4. Outsource – many people think that outsourcing is expensive, but if you know where to go it really isn’t. Here are some options for outsourcing and an idea of what this may cost:

• Bookkeeping – you may do all your accounts, or have people that do this in-house, but can some of it, or all of it be outsourced? The answer is probably yes. One of my businesses has been providing an outsourcing solution for all your bookkeeping needs, and provides bookkeeping solutions from around $100 per week. You can also check out Odesk, bookkeepers on Odesk usually work on an hourly rate of about $6-$15 per hour (depending on experience).
• Graphic Design – there are thousands of graphic designers on Upwork (formerly Odesk). Don’t pay a fortune, when you don’t have to. If you have a good idea of what you need, artwork can cost you from as little as $20!
• Data Entry – We get all our admin/ data entry work done for many of our businesses through Upwork (formerly Odesk). It’s not only cost effective, but is done professionally and quickly.
• Rostering & Payroll – one of my businesses is an online rostering and payroll company, we serve thousands of clients, who opt for a no-fuss, cloud based solution for their rostering & payroll for their businesses. What used to take them days a week, is approved in minutes and actually saves them money.
• Personal Assistants – one of the best things an entrepreneur or business owner can do is have someone manage their email. There are many options with outsourcing this, from using someone on Upwork (formerly Odesk), or using an affiliate company in Australia, such as Ms Virtual Assistant.

It is important to embrace technology to serve us, not let it distract, delay or reduce your productivity.

Do you have a story to share about Technology? We’d love to speak about how we could help your business to move forward with Technology and have great success. Call Bx on 1300 068 229 or find out about our Business for Life Program.

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