Upgrade your communications?

Photo by tylerdurden1

For any business endeavor that goes beyond a single person probably the biggest driver for success is clear communication.  The good news is there are some amazing new technologies / products coming out that can revolutionize how your team communicates.

If you think about it, that clear communication starts with the vision for the product, the service, the strategy, the plan and the approach.  Then the work starts and it’s critical that everyone is on the same page – they’re communicating status, they’re communicating issues and they’re communicating ideas, suggestions and next steps.  Finally,  someone in charge is communicating milestones, progress and what lies ahead.

Hopefully everything is clear, timely and to the point.  If not…something will get screwed up.

It’s amazing how much things have changed through the years.  At one point, everything was paper based (TPS Report anyone?).  Phone calls and face to face meetings were used to review all of that paper. Read More…

photo by marcomagrini 

Think about the huge number of problems that would go away if everyone was transparent and focused about who they were and what they’re doing.

I’m sure there are people out there that will say this is a naive view, but I believe that transparency can be a huge driver for success.  Yes there are bad people out there that will attempt to take advantage of you, but building your processes and communications around the bad apples instead of the rest of the world doesn’t make any sense.

What do I mean by transparency?

Let people know who you are.  Don’t hide behind a screen name, a business name or just being an anonymous presence.  (That’s not to say that you can’t be creative with screen names or business names, just make sure people can learn more about you somewhere else).

Transparency is about having an opinion and sharing it openly (this is an area I need to work on – I’m good with sharing the opinion, I just don’t always have a strong feeling on things).

Transparency is about having a sense of humor and / or a personality that can shine through in your stuff.  This can be a challenge in the heyday of Political Correctness and I’m not advocating that you do anything unprofessional, but there’s a lot of leeway between dry, boring and corporate and crossing the line. Read More…

photo by extranoise 

Blogging is a great way to promote your business.

There are a lot of great reasons why you should Blog for your business but the catch-22 is that blogging without any readers doesn’t make any noise in the forest (you know what I mean).

As I’ve discovered over time, although it’s pretty straightforward (not easy mind you, but straightforward) to blog consistently and with good intent.  However, getting people to find you and check out your blog (and subscribe) is a whole different ball o’ wax.

I would argue that quality (of readers and of postings) is way more important than quantity, but still everyone wants to grow their readership and more importantly become part of a blogging ‘community’ of similar interests.

That’s why I think Michael Martine at Remarkablogger came up with a great opportunity to Get Web Traffic. 

• Check out the aspiring bloggers on the comments list
• Sign up for their feeds if it’s something cool that you would enjoy
• Leave a comment and let ‘em know someone is reading them

But definitely make sure you check out Remarkablogger because he almost always has something worthwhile to say!  (also don’t forget to comment here!!!) 

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

photo by ePi.Longo 

I’ve been hearing from clients and business owners a lot recently that their biggest issue is that they need is more time in the day.

Unfortunately you can’t create time – technically you can’t even manage it, it marches on pretty much at the same pace (although subjectively it can certainly feel faster or slower).

Although you can’t create time, there are several things you can do to make that perceived time crunch much less of an issue.  Previously I talked about 10 Ways to Get More Done and covered some great ideas to help make you more productive but the focus for today is from an angle of simplicity.

I’m inspired by Leo Babauta – author of Zen Habits – here’s a post on 10 things you can do to simplify your life that I thought was compelling.

What can you do to ‘create more time’?  Below are some ideas to get you started.

Read More…