Do you ever get overwhelmed with too much stuff to do? As a busy business owner and mom to five, I can speak from experience that life is a balancing act and any new tips to reduce task time and to create ‘extra time’ are welcome. The tips that follow are time saving ideas which work for me. I spend a lot of time in the car driving to appointments and to school, and waiting for children at sporting events. My most favorite tool is my iPhone 5 and my most favorite place to save time is in my car.

Read and see if you can apply any of these tips to your own busy life!

Administration

1)      Empty out your wallet one day per week and put business related receipts in one place. Or take pictures of your receipts and upload to iCloud (my bookkeeper tells me to do that!)

2)      Keep invoices online but have a hard copy stored in your office files.

3)      Keep a detailed calendar of ALL appointments and deadlines and set alerts.

Appointments

1)      Confirm appointments. Always. Do. This.

2)      Book back-to-back appointments. Now you have a way to stick to your allotted time!

3)       Have an agenda for the meetings. So you don’t chit-chat your way out of time.

iPhone/Android

1)      Use voice commands to dial phone numbers and dictate SMS messages.

2)      Use your smart phone to dictate blog ideas and to-do lists while in the car or while waiting.

3)      Check in online for events, the hair dresser and more! Do this with concert tickets and sporting events tickets, too.

Social Media

1)      Curation Tools like Feedly help me post to Twitter while on the go.

2)      I try to not schedule out of the office time on Mondays. By blocking time, I am really effcient and get more done.

3)      Take loads of pictures while meeting with clients and (potential) customers. Office building, meeting room, signs, parking area, friendly people, coffee being served, papers etc. Use these for social media posts.

Customer Service/Networking

1)      Scan business cards when you get them and immediately put phone numbers in your phone! (…then when someone calls you, you know who it is!)

2)      Send a follow up email right away & find the new connection on LinkedIn, too.

3)      Get cell phone numbers, not just office numbers, for quick (sms) updates on things happening in the business, as well as for confirming those all important meetings!

These are ideas that work for me. What are some ideas you have implemented to help you save time? I’d love to know! Leave me a comment.

Dorien

photo credit: bogenfreund via photopin cc

According to Facebook ’you can merge duplicate Pages that you manage. This option is only available for Pages that represent the same thing and have similar names. You can only merge the Page with fewer likes into the one with more likes’.

I’ve worked with several local Myrtle Beach companies who wanted to merge duplicate pages and have learned quite a bit along the way. But first, let us look at how people end up with duplicate pages. There are two main reasons for having duplicate pages:

1) The company owner or an employee initially set up their Facebook account as a personal profile but was using it for business. This is forbidden by Facebook. (read the Terms of Service here) In the last year or so, I’ve personally helped at least five businesses convert their personal profile to a page. (Most account holders realized their mistake and also made a page, thus inadvertently creating duplicate pages.)

2) Many local business owners with a physical location who did not create their own business page on Facebook, find multiple Facebook pages created by customer check-ins. One of my clients had six of those pages before she created her own page. Each check-in page had a slightly different spelling and some had many check-ins.

You have more than one Facebook Page…now what?

As stated above, Facebook gives you instructions on how to merge duplicate pages, from making sure the names match to where the ‘merge’ function can be found in your admin panel, but more often than not, merging isn’t as simple as it sounds or just plain doesn’t work. Here are some extra tips on trying to merge duplicate pages. I wish I’d had a list like this when I first started out.

1. Start with a plan! Find out how many ‘places’ pages were (inadvertently) created for your business. Do this by performing a Facebook search. (Tip: Sometimes the search on FB Mobile will reveal an extra page not seen on desk top. I recommend doing the search twice.) Write down how many check-ins and likes for each page. Claim all ‘places’ pages, one by one.
2. Start merging the ‘places’ pages. Most of these pages have little or no content besides the check-ins and are a nuisance. Merging those into one page will be helpful later on in the merging process and there’s no worry about losing content if there’s none on the pages.
3. As admin of two or more duplicate pages, start updating the information to get ready for the merge by duplicating all the public info on the pages (email addresses, website etc.), but keep the logo image slightly different. This way it’s easy to recognize with page you are working on – experience from working with one client with 4 duplicate pages taught me that!
4. Right before you are ready to merge, make sure ALL information and classifications are exactly the same. If one is listed as a local company and another is listed as a consulting business, even if they have the same name, the merge will not happen.

These little details have been helpful to me and my clients while we were in the process of merging.

Can you add anything to this? I’d love to know if you’ve been successful in merging pages!

photo credit: roland via photopin cc

Recurring Nightmares Anyone?

Have you ever had recurring nightmares? Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this.

When I was a kid, there was a period of months where I remember dreaming about snakes under the bed almost every night. It got so bad I wanted to move to my own room instead of sleeping in the same room as my brother. I have no idea how that makes sense unless he was the one putting them under my bed.

But my point is that I had trouble falling asleep. I was stressed.

Stress Used to Keep Me Awake

Later, in college, I didn’t have trouble falling asleep because I was scared of stuff. I struggled because my brain kept going. I kept thinking about stuff. There weren’t enough hours in the day. And I would come up with potential issues that might arise and then counter moves.

Yeah, crazy.

WordPress Security

Over the past week and a half, we’ve seen nothing but posts and alerts about serious security issues affecting the WordPress community. Now to be clear, none of these have been about the core WordPress product. It’s pretty secure.

But some plugins many people use (caching plugins that help your site speed up) had some vulnerabilities. I’m not a security expert so I can’t walk you thru the details. But I know that when the posts start appearing, people get nervous and stressed.

And that’s when I think about all those nights when I couldn’t fall asleep. I’ve been wondering if people have been like that these days. I think some people have.

But not me.

I go back to my daily routine of taking daytime naps. And I relax and sleep soundly at night.

My Passwords Used to Suck!

Partially it’s because I don’t have a password like I used to have. Years ago, and I mean a lot of years ago, I used to have a password like this: Lema18. And when a system prompted me to change it, you know what I did, don’t you? Lema19. Boom!

Actually, I think it was more like lema and then they told me I needed integers, so it became lema1. And then they said I needed a capital – and that’s how we got to Lema18. But that was years ago. I’m sure none of you are doing things like that. Right?

Today I use a pass phrase. You know,  words with spaces. Like this, but not this one: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of our country.

It’s easy for me to remember, and hard for someone else to guess. But like I said – it’s not that phrase.

Why I’m Sleeping at Night

There are two reasons I’ve been sleeping well at night.

WP Engine: I use a managed WordPress hosting company to take care of my site hosting. I like all the managed care providers and suggest you check them out. But for chrislema.com, I use WP Engine.

Why? Their support is fast. Their servers are faster. And I know when it comes to security, I know they’re on top of things. In fact, I think every managed hosting provider was on top of things quickly with regards to this latest issue. Which is why I recommend you pick a managed hosting provider.

Sucuri.net: Now, every site hosted at WP Engine (at a certain level) has malware remediation (cleaning up your site) as part of their package. But I still have my own account with Sucuri.net. Because with the account I have, I can add other sites for them to monitor.

They provide monitoring and clean up if you’re infected. And they’re in the process of rolling out a new product that will protect from the cloud. It’s in beta but when it goes live, I’ll let you know about it.

In Closing….

I’m not trying to scare you, but if you don’t have a plan…or if your plan is a free plugin you downloaded that has “Security” in the name…I’d strongly suggest you do a tiny bit of investigating to make sure you’re all set.

My recommendation? Two companies. Both amazing. Both excellent at what they do.

And both help me sleep at night.

This is a guest post by Williesha Morris. Williesha juggles the duties of a freelance writer and administrative consultant. That means she actually enjoys using Microsoft Office but also enjoys writing a good, juicy blog post. You can find her on Twitter.

7 Additional Twitter Rules To Adhere To

If you were to Google “7 Deadly Twitter Sins”, you get a lot obvious no-no’s, or at least, sins we ALL know we shouldn’t commit. Sins like ‘Oversharing’ and ‘Not engaging with your audience’. I decided to dig a bit deeper and I’ve compiled a list of some additional Twitter rules I like and personally adhere to. I hope these will fit in your rule book, too. Here we go.

1) Stop sharing the same stuff

How often do you tweet the exact same Tweet? Many people tweet a slightly rehashed version of the same tweet linking to the same content, over and over and over. Here’s a challenge: for every 10 tweets, only make one of them yours. That’s right. Just one. The rest must be high-quality retweets from others you follow.

When it comes to breaking news, at least acknowledge it. This identifies you as a real person, not just a robot. Double check your scheduled tweets to be sure you aren’t promoting something that flies in the face of what’s happening in the world when news breaks, like the Newtown shooting or the Boston bombings.

Twitter isn’t all about you (unless you are tweeting from a personal-only account, then do whatever you’d like.) Business accounts (or mixed ones like mine) should share meaningful content and provide links to interesting articles and information.

2) Read the links before you retweet

Retweeting a link the moment it is posted to Twitter is impossible unless you have superhuman reading abilities. There is no chance you actually read the article and now the whole world knows it.

Scanning doesn’t count. Make your content worth sharing by reading every word and ensuring this is something your followers actually need. It’s also necessary, to make sure it isn’t offensive or factually incorrect.

If you are busy, just ‘favorite’ the tweet and come back to it later. Your followers will appreciate you taking the time to share only the very best.

3) Attribute correctly before you share

This will take a little extra time, but the benefits are worth it. Say you’re reading an article on a large blog or news site. The piece rocks. The article speaks to you. You find the Twitter button and click.

Wait! Before you do that, make sure the attribution is correct.

Sometimes the attribution will be the sharing application or program the website is using, not the site itself. Or, even better, if the author is on Twitter, look up their handle and attribute to the author as well.

Another tip: Get rid of the ‘RT’ at the beginning of the tweet and move those attributions to the end. It makes for easier reading. Even if you just get a thank you or a retweet, you can congratulate yourself for doing something a little different.

4) Learn to say thank you in a social manner

The best way to thank someone for a retweet is to actually send them a direct message (They can only DM back if you follow them, too) or hit the @reply button and say thanks. I don’t understand why folks only retweet their retweets. It looks a little selfish and is redundant.

I suppose if you have a very large audience and want to recognize that person, it may make more sense to hit ‘RT’ as a thank you, but nothing can take the place of a real conversation. I don’t believe many people will immediately see a retweet of your own content and think: “Hmm, I should check out that person too!”

5) Stop cross-posting

I have actually unfollowed folks on Twitter who do nothing but tweet their Facebook posts. Why bother having both if you are really only using one? This happens when their Facebook Page is linked to their Twitter account and they never, ever tweet anything original. This type of automation hints of laziness. Use your automated posting program to separate your Facebook and Twitter posts by at least an hour and let them be (slightly) different.

6) Don’t follow someone just to get a follow back

Following someone and then unfollowing them because they haven’t responded or followed you back is bordering on spammy. Sometimes, Twitter users don’t get the chance to see who their new followers are for a bit.

In the meantime, nurture your relationships with folks you follow. Don’t follow someone whose interests or business doesn’t align with yours unless you have complimentary personalities and just like each other. Many times, you have to earn a follow back. And if you don’t get one, that’s okay too.

Don’t follow someone just because they have followed you. Evaluate everything on their Twitter page first – their tweets, the links they’ve posted on their bio page. If you don’t find value in what they are posting, you don’t have to follow them back. You. Don’t. Have. To.

7) Keep a few secret weapons to yourself

I have favored several tweets that I have yet to retweet. Why? Because the information is so scrumptious, I’m just not ready to share it with the world yet. And that’s okay, too. Keep the good stuff and utilize it for your own business. People do it all the time with images and stories; they wait for the perfect timing. Why not do that with tweets?

Mastering these Twitter tricks will be a step towards a meaningful social media experience with your followers (and potential followers)!

Williesha

What are some of your must-do Twitter tips? Do you agree with these seven Twitter rules? Please comment below and don’t forget to connect with me.

photo credit: clevercupcakes via photopin cc

Those of you that follow me on Twitter, Facebook and/or G+ already know that this past weekend I ran another ½ marathon. I *might* have posted an image or two, showing off medals and two happy running faces. Normally, you don’t really hear me talk about running too much, because running is just part of what I do and have done for the past six years. But this was a very special race. My twelve year old daughter ran it with me. Yes, a twelve year old ran a ½ marathon and she did it in spectacular fashion.

The race we chose as her ½ marathon debut was part of the ‘Run Like A Diva’ ½ marathon series. We chose this particular race as it was a women-only event as well as a hometown run. My experience told me to stay close to home: she could sleep in her own bed the night before the race, eat the right food and not sit in a car for hours afterwards cramping up her legs. As a young preteen, I wanted her to get a look at and get inspired by other female runners and I believe that mission was accomplished!

All this planning culminated in the most amazing running experience yesterday and a result of a 2:15 ½ marathon time; 15 minutes faster than our goal of 2:30. Was it hard? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes. Will she run again? Yes. So what did she learn and what did I, as her coach, learn? Here are the lessons to apply to life, running and running a business**.

1) Planning

The training we did for this April 28, 2013 race started in January with very casual 1 and 2 mile runs. My daughter wanted to run with me. It was her idea to run a 1/2 marathon and as she swims competitively, she also kind of understood what kind of training, commitment and sacrifices she would have to make in order to do so. We ran three times/week and we wrote out a training plan*. Not until March 3 did we complete our first 6 mile run, per our schedule. The longer training runs in March and April is where the hard work done. We did not skip more than one run (when it rained really hard) of our plan. We stuck with what we knew we must do and we felt very good crossing off each run on paper.

*Apply to business by writing out a business plan and completing all aspects.

2) Preparation & Equipment Check

My daughter learned about preparation in the days leading up to each long run: sleeping well, eating well, drinking enough water.  She learned about nutrition, proper running form and staying power. What worked for me in my six year running career, did not necessarily work for her teenage body and she had to learn to listen to her body, speak up and adjust what worked and what didn’t. We knew she needed new shoes when one of her feet started to hurt during the long runs. She needed breakfast while I run on an empty stomach. When it was time, I showed her how to pack her race bag 24 hours before the race and walked her through the ‘why’ of each item in her bag. We prepared for rain, sun and everything in between*.

*Apply to business by researching your market and your customer base and by being prepared for the unexpected.

3) Pacing

Once we started our race, we realized quickly that we were in the middle of the pack. Running a steady pace of 10 minute miles, we started to pass slower runners and faster runners ran past us. My daughter got excited and tried to speed up, but I kept our pace consistent with our planning* by using my GPS watch. This meant some runners passed us, we passed those same runners and then they passed us again and frankly it was very distracting. Our pace was consistent, theirs was not. Many runners ended up walking, not running, and we eventually passed all of those that were inconsistent in their pacing. The lesson being that we were running our own race at our own pace which brought us success.

*Apply to business by sticking with your business plan and referring back to it if needed. Do not get distracted by your competitors but stick with what you know works.

4) Motivation

Along the course, we met some of the most wonderful people cheering for us with some of the best (and very funny) signs. We loved ‘Smile If You Are Not Wearing Any Underwear’ and ‘Keep Running Random Stranger’. Initially, my daughter was a bit embarrassed by my vocal appreciation of the motivators along the race route. However, by mile four my daughter was smiling, waving and shouting ‘thanks’ to the spectators herself. The signs made us feel special and kept us running*.

The best sign? We read this at mile 6, broken up in three parts:

‘Don’t listen to the voice in your head tell you’
‘You can’t do this’
‘That voice is lying’

We chuckled and said to each other we would never hear that voice…

*Apply to business by providing excellent customer service, customer appreciation and team member motivation.

5) Refueling

We saw many, many runners skip the water stations. I told my daughter skipping water was not an option. We walked through each station, grabbed two cups of water each and drank at least one. She started to pour one on herself starting at mile 6 as it was starting to get hot on the course. We had also brought gels to refuel with and each time we took a gel or drank some water, we felt renewed and refreshed*.

*Apply to business by committing to staying up to date on industry news, taking classes or continuing education and to never stop learning and improving.

6) Digging Deep

By mile eleven my daughter hit the wall. That funny and inspirational sign we had seen at mile 6 became her nightmare. ‘I can’t do this’ was in her head, ‘I want to walk’ came out of her mouth. She then corrected herself and said ‘just talk to me’ and I did… I am not really sure what I said, but it kept her running and kept her mind full with something other than ‘I can’t do this’. Her legs were screaming to quit, but her mind took over and all our planning and training kicked in*. I became her beacon as she just tucked in behind me. I ran (read: dragged) her to mile 12.5 where we received pink boas and a crown. I then took out my camera and told her to ‘go’ while I took a few pictures from behind of her approaching the finish line. I was able to catch up right at the finish as we finished at 2:15:56 and 2:15:58.

*Apply to business by relying on your background, training, past experience, your gut and your support system.

7) Celebrate

No smiles were apparent on my daughters face in the first minute or so after finishing our race. She was breathing hard and her whole body hurt. We received our medals and walked through to the food tents. We drank some water and I handed her a banana and an oatmeal cookie. With the sweetness of the cookie hitting her mouth and the sugar hitting her system, she started to smile. She hugged me a few times and thanked me for pulling her through those last few miles and for training with her for three months. (Those of you reading this and have teenagers know that that was all the thanks I needed, ever). She ate a piece of bagel and started to look around at the other runners. She became animated, excited and finally allowed herself to enjoy it all. Our feet hurt and her stomach was queasy but when we looked at the race results and she learned she was second in her age group and would receive another medal, she was ecstatic. She finally agreed to a picture of the two of us and even allowed me to put it on Facebook, which she had refused before the race. Now that she had accomplished her goal, the world could know*.

*Apply to business by celebrating milestones and accomplishments, yours and of those around you on social media and in person.

I am so proud to call her my daughter. The lessons we both learned while training, the hours spent running and the experience we shared in the race is priceless.

My question to you is this. How have you been challenged in life? Have you ever done something you previously thought was impossible? If you haven’t, go do it. Now.

Step 1: Commit & Plan

Step 2: Train & Persevere

Step 3: Jump in & Do it

Dorien

Diva Daughter and Diva Mama

** This little runner also happens to be a life-long entrepreneur. She’s has had her own dog walking and pet sitting service for five years and recently added babysitting to her repertoire.