Efficiency, Productivity, and Ducks

Years ago, my boss at the time shared an interesting metaphor with me: his business was a duck. Seen from above water, it appeared to float gracefully toward its destination. However, a view from under the water revealed the duck’s awkwardly flapping feet, which writhed wildly in all directions. The lesson was simple: he wanted his customers to only see the view above water – that is, everything should appear to run smoothly, even if my peers and I were scrambling to make it happen.

You have probably heard this metaphor used before. While I appreciate its meaning, I refrain from using it in this context. Should we not strive to be smooth both above and under the water? Who says that the duck’s feet are not also graceful, calculated, and efficient?

I began to wonder, what sets apart a streamlined office from the chaotic “duck’s feet?” Here are a few tips that can help you and your employees run your business at its maximum potential.

• Dual monitors. The convenience and efficiency that come with using a second monitor will make you wonder how you ever survived without it. But it’s not just for pleasure – with the increased productivity, a second monitor quickly pays for itself.
• No more droning meetings. People have been griping about meetings as long as meetings have existed. It is common to feel as if “this doesn’t pertain to me,” and as a result many people lose focus. If you must draw your employees away from their work, make sure you have a clear goal planned for your meeting that you address concisely.
• Organize. While it may seem obvious that organization will make you more efficient, we forget to occasionally take a step back to assess our workspace. Do you know what all of those things on your desk are? How frequently do you use them? If you use them daily, leave them on or in your desk. If you use them once a week or less, you can put them in a nearby drawer or file.
• Stand up. Nothing good comes out of sitting still for 40 hours per week. Numerous studies have shown that standing at a waist-high desk not only will make you more productive, but it can also help you lose weight, strengthen your back, and even improve your disposition.

If you have any other tips on how you have made your office more efficient, feel free to share them in the comments below!

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest – the world of social media is exploding in popularity, and those that understand its mechanics are on their way to the top. Since the social media marketing boom, countless businesses have been hopping on the bandwagon. Over 900 million people have Facebook accounts, 140 million use Twitter, and 11.3 million use Pinterest – what unbelievable marketing resources, right?

Well, not necessarily. Social media sites may not be the miraculous fix-all that they seem to be. Using social media effectively requires that you know how your customers use it. Many companies spend thousands hiring consultants that can attract more Followers, Likes, and Pins, only to find that they don’t equate to revenue.

I’m not saying social media is useless. Having an online presence is crucial – people will see your business’ name more often, and associate a personality with it. This will help build your brand in the long-term. Also, customers love interacting with companies, and social media is a great platform for that. Lastly, having a large social media following comes with SEO benefits (Michael Gray wrote a fascinating blog post on this topic). Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest pages with regular activity can attract sales, signups, and views, just like any other medium. Social media sites are simply part of your marketing mix – they are not game-changers.

So how do you make the most of your social media? Personalize your marketing so it appears where your target market is looking. Where do they spend their time? Maybe they aren’t avid Facebook users – Twitter is more their domain. Twitter is a much better place for business-oriented social media. YouTube shouldn’t be forgotten either – it gets the second most searches of any site, after Google. But don’t limit yourself to the obvious – there are millions of blogs that draw in every imaginable niche market.

If there’s one thing to remember, it’s this: there are no “overnight successes.” iPod sales didn’t start taking off for three years. Amazon was created in 1994, but didn’t make a profit until 2001. Angry Birds was very successful, but Rovio made more than 30 games before it. The Beatles started playing in 1957, but didn’t top any charts until 1964. Your business will take time to build, and social media is simply there to support that process.

Do you agree? Or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts and personal social media stories in the comments below.

We all hope to reach that point when we realize that our small business is not so small anymore. But when the moment actually comes, it’s often a lot more stressful than we predicted. The time has come – you need some help. You’ll no longer be the boss of just yourself, but the boss of someone else too. So where do you start?

1. Determine your needs. How can another person help? Analyze the situation so that you know what duties they will fulfill, and how you will have to change your methods to make room for them. But take caution – don’t rush to hire help just because your sales are on the rise. Another employee is expensive, so take your time and be sure you can afford them. Assume that your new employee will accumulate as many expenses as you already do – and that’s in addition to their paycheck.
2. Start your search. Your best resource is networking. Ask for referrals from your friends and past co-workers. If you can get a referral, then part of the screening process is already done for you. Of course, there are many job searching sites such as Craigslist, Monster, and CareerBuilder that you can post your ad on.
3. Hire someone you can spend 40+ hours a week with. You are going to spend a lot of time and share a lot of responsible with your new hire, so you need to be able to work well alongside them. But hiring someone who is skilled is probably not the most important characteristic. Hiring the right attitude is crucial. Someone who is talented, knowledgeable but has an eagerness to learn and grow is key when searching for the right employee. Their working style should complement yours and their personality should mesh well with you and the group.
4. Do a trial run. Before you make an offer for a full-time position, you need to make sure you’ve found a good match. This experience will also allow you to learn more about what you need in an employee. There are a handful of ways you can create a trial period for your employee: you can hire your employee for part-time work, so they have a chance to gradually get a feel for your business. Or, you could hire an intern from a nearby college. If you like them, hire them when they graduate for part or full-time work. Another option is to hire a full-time employee for a probationary period. You need to check with your state employment office to see how long probationary periods are allowed to be, but they are typically 90 days. Lastly, a new, non-committal option is to hire a contractor or consultant to get specific work done for the business. oDesk is a popular option which allows you to verify their experience and even get reviews on contractors prior to hiring. The contractors can be hired hourly or project-based from anywhere from a few hours per week/month, to the entire length of a project, to on-going contract work.

Hopefully these tips will guide you through hiring for your growing business. If you have great hiring tips, please share them in the comments below.

“I have been at my desk for a half an hour and I have yet to start anything remotely productive.” If you have never said that to yourself, then please contact me so that I may study your time management secrets.

For everyone else, why do we do this? It seems to take a while to gather enough momentum to tackle tough projects. During this slow period, I try to complete as many menial tasks as I can so that I feel like I’m accomplishing something. The biggest of those is cleaning my email inbox.

It would require a lot of self-control and practice to stop myself from checking my email before getting started on work. Instead, I want to reduce the time spent perusing old emails. Thanh Pham, a writer of the time management and productivity blog Asian Efficiency, has given us a strategy to do just that. He refers to what he calls the Email Boomerang Effect – the more emails you send out, the more emails you will receive.

His strategy is simple – send fewer emails. We all know those people who abuse their email privileges. It’s not just the jokes, chain letters, and news articles. Pressing “reply to all” instead of “reply” or CC’ing people who don’t need to be CC’ed are common email faux pas as well.

Both sending and reading emails take up valuable minutes of your day. Cutting back on your sent emails will also reduce your received emails, and you’ll find your saved time adding up. All you have to do is ask yourself two questions before sending an email:

Is this ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY?
Is email the best medium for this message?

Confirm that only the people that need to see the message are receiving it, and that the message you’re sending is truly worth an email. “Thanks” and “I’ll send it when I get back to the office” are not (always) worth an email.

If you have email time saving tips, we would love to learn them. Please include them in the comments below!

Still not convinced that Software as a Service (SaaS) is the way for your business to go? Our team recently conducted research on why business owners prefer SaaS over traditional software. We surveyed 50 legal, consulting, accounting, creative, and tech firms to find out the greatest user benefits of SaaS. Firms were asked to list their top reasons for using SaaS. Here are the 6 most mentioned reasons:

• Accessible Anywhere – available on all computers via the Internet and mobile devices and even via desktop apps that do not require Internet access.
• Saves Time – firms can focus more on the business and less on back office work
• Increases Productivity – ability to work from anywhere at anytime and work more efficiently due to improved team collaboration
• Reduces Costs – reasonable monthly fees and cuts redundant business expenses
• Increases Security – if computer system failure occurs on a computer, users can be rest assured that they will never lose important documents since all data is continually backed-up on multiple servers.
• Access to latest software releases – Continual access to upgrades and the latest software version with no downtime.

You’ve already been using SaaS if you use Gmail, Google Documents, Google Calendar, Hotmail or even Facebook. Reviewers and users will tell you why leading-edge SaaS products like Salesforce, MailChimp, Bill4Time, iContact, Xero, Zoho Books, DropBox, Highrise CRM, HubSpot, Gist and more are among the best, most popular, and affordable choices for small businesses.

Download the full report: Switching to Software as a Service – The Convenience and Benefits of Cloud Based Applications, written by Bill4Time Co-Founder Jeremy Diviney.

What are your thoughts on using SaaS versus traditional software? If your business uses (or doesn’t use) SaaS products and you have something to say about it, feel free to share with us and our readers in the comments section below.