by Elle Ray | Apr 28, 2020 | Agency Advice
Everyone Reacts Differently to Isolation
As most managers, contractors and partners know, everyone responds to different motivators. For some, it’s money. Others thrive on praise. Still other workers prefer to be left alone and successfully thrive in their independence.
Juggling all the various motivational styles is a major task in the best of times, but when you’re trying to keep at-home workers on task, your skills demand a little more creativity and a bigger toolbox of tricks. Keeping at-home workers productive is both an art and a science.
Learn the Wiles of Their Ways
The first step in effectively managing at-home workers is to learn:
- How they first react to a new work environment
- Whether they adjust appropriately
- How quickly they adapt to changes
- What motivates them to stay on task
The worker who is vigilant with deadlines and always on time for meetings may in fact turn into an entirely different creature when away from the office. Some people need a time clock and a place to go before they can don their working caps. Some require an overseer who’ll notice if they slack off. While these employees may perform admirably during working hours in the office, they may flounder without the schedules and supervision.
Then you have those staff members who turn into hyper-vigilant workers when they lose the safety net of the office. These people may really shine as at-home workers, as they draw on their well-honed self-discipline. When they are given the freedom to create their own schedules and working environments, their creativity and productivity flourish.
You’ll quickly learn how each of your partners and employees reacts when placed in a work-at-home situation. To get a handle on the new arrangement, give your entire staff a project with a one-day turnaround time and see how they respond. Then, keep communications open and check in to find out how they’re doing with the project.
Tips for Motivating At-Home Workers
Once you’ve deduced the various styles of at-home workers you have to manage, you can devise ways to keep them motivated for however long the situation lasts. You may even discover that for those who excel as at-home workers, continuing to allow them to work from home may be best for them and for you in the long run.
For those who need a little extra push and too easily give in to the distractions of home, try giving them a little push with motivational techniques geared toward their specific needs. Make sure, however, that you give those great at-home workers the same (or even better) benefits and rewards that you offer the needier workers. A few ideas that might work for your staff:
- Recognize their efforts regularly. Send short emails and texts of gratitude and praise. Tell them how important they are to the continuing success of the company.
- Make it very clear that your virtual door is open. Respond to questions as soon as possible. Answer your phone when they call. Let them know when you’ll be available.
- Offer bonuses or gifts for beating deadlines.
- Arrange for video meetings. Talking while looking at people makes the work seem more real. Too much isolation encourages minds to drift and lose focus.
- Ask for suggestions for making the at-home workers more productive. Take their feedback seriously and incorporate their ideas whenever possible.
- Walk your talk. An effective leader doesn’t ask her staff to do anything she wouldn’t do. Whether you’re quarantined for health reasons, moving your company to a permanent virtual workspace or just trying out different ways to save your business money, you need to find your own motivations and put them to use. And let others see your progress too.
When All Else Fails
While threats are not the most positive form of motivation, there are those at-home workers who respond to nothing less. Fear can be a great motivator for some people. And fear of losing their jobs may be just the final straw that gets them moving.
The problem with that style of motivation is that once the threat has passed, slackers tend to revert back to their former work habits and you often find yourself back in the same quandary about how to get your project completed on time and how to keep justifying the relationship. When positive motivations, warnings and threats land you in the same dilemma over and over, it may just be time to cut your losses and part ways.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Apr 21, 2020 | Agency Advice
What You Need to Know to Get Work Done
With all the changes in the world, more and more people are finding themselves having to work from home. It’s one thing if you’re a freelancer — you’re already used to the work-from-home routine. But if you’re a manager accustomed to directing your team within the same building, well, things have changed quite a bit, and you may suddenly be adrift in a sea of Zoom video conferences.
Managing a remote team isn’t the same as managing a team in the next office. Even face-to-face, managing people presents challenges that require all your intellect and intuition. When you have a remote team, new problems seem to pop up every day, leaving you searching for answers or guidance.
Ray Access Is Here to Help
A small business focused on providing the best content to its clients, Ray Access was founded by two partners in Asheville, NC, but it employs contract writers from across the country. Even before the pandemic caused almost every business to lock down and self-isolate, the content writing industry didn’t require proximity. As long as a writer produced well-researched, well-written copy, it didn’t matter where that writer was located.
As a result, the partners have learned a thing or two about managing a remote team. If you’re looking for help with your own team, you may benefit from our experience. First, some background:
- We rely on email for communication. While we make it work for us, your experience may require a more sophisticated tool. There are a number of web-based project management tools, such as Basecamp and Trello (which does not constitute an endorsement). Each has its pros and cons.
- We pay our writers per project, not per hour If you pay by the hour, it presents different issues when managing a remote team. But you have to be willing to trust your team to work when they say they’re working while tracking how long it takes them to complete tasks.
Tips for Managing a Remote Team
The first thing you need to do is to set expectations. While we always look for exemplary work, we value communication with our team. We feel it’s better to have too much than too little. We therefore encourage our writers to ask questions regarding their assignments to get clarification when necessary. There are no such things as stupid questions.
When we hire a new writer, we send a contract, a W9 form and a document that establishes our non-negotiable guidelines, which include:
- Requiring our writers to respond to email requests and assignments within 24 hours. That sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed how often this becomes an issue. By establishing this expectation up front, we feel empowered to enforce it.
- Setting and honoring deadlines. We’re a deadline-driven business, so we set deadlines for every assignment. We used to provide just the date, but we discovered that writers sometimes waited until 6:00 AM the next day to deliver an assignment. Now our deadlines are at 5:00 PM Eastern time on the date provided. Lesson learned.
- Establishing reasons for dismissal. Missing deadlines, being incommunicado or turning in shoddy work are all included in this section. Setting these expectations up front establishes a baseline for remote working behavior.
Team-Building Tips
When managing a remote team that’s house-bound for the first time, you face additional challenges. Ensure your team members have an appropriate space, the necessary equipment and a powerful enough internet connection to do the work. Provide any training they may need, whether for your project management tool or the video conferencing technology. Then give them the time to get accustomed to the new way of working. Don’t expect every team member to adapt at the same speed.
Regarding video conferencing, set the protocol early. That means showing up to meetings on time, sticking to the agenda, and reporting progress efficiently. You’ll experience some glitches early on as your team gets used to the technology, but that’s all part of managing a remote team. Another part is keeping your team motivated, which you can accomplish by:
- Providing work-from-home tips, such as using noise-cancelling headphones
- Making sure everyone gets a chance to contribute at meetings
- Letting team members share their challenges and successes while working from home
- Having food delivered to their homes on meeting day (or any day!)
Trust in Allah, But Tie Up Your Camel
At Ray Access, we give our writers the space they need to complete their assignments. We don’t check in unless there’s a problem. Our writers are pros; we trust them to do the work. We do coach new writers until they’ve gained our trust, and we do sometimes send an assignment back with notes for a revision, but we’ve hired our team because we know what they’re capable of.
When you’re managing a remote team, cross your T’s and dot your I’s. Be as clear as you can be in your communication, whether by email, phone or video chat. Realize that it’s not going to be the same as managing in-person. But give your team the space they need to perform. If they’re motivated, they’ll likely succeed — and may actually thrive — in this new environment.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or talk about your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters, and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Apr 14, 2020 | Agency Advice
Take Advantage of Streaming Technology
Some trends in business come in hot and soon after flop like a 10-pound river trout on the end of a hook. Remember keyword-stuffing and auto-blogging? Everyone thought they’d cracked the Google code for good. How about the Tide pod and ice bucket challenges? They seemed like a good idea at the time.
One idea whose time has come isn’t going anywhere — live streaming. First employed in 1993 by a group of Xerox employees trying out a new use for the internet, the technology was grabbed by Microsoft in 1995, which then started RealNetwork and the advent of RealPlayer live videos. YouTube didn’t run its first live streaming show until 2008.
Not only is live streaming getting more play than ever, it’s picking up steam as the whole world relies on the streaming technology to maintain connections during the coronavirus pandemic. By the time you read this, everyone from your local Realtor to your grandmother has been introduced to live streaming and has begun using the technology for commercial and social interactions.
Take Advantage of the Surge
Now that live streaming has gone mainstream, small business owners and corporate conglomerates alike can take advantage of its benefits to:
- Connect with customers and employees in real time
- Promote new and existing products and services
- Disseminate company news and announcements
- Build trust, as business leaders can enter the conversation directly
- Develop loyalty among employees who appreciate your efforts to communicate directly
- Save valuable resources by using Wi-Fi infrastructure that you already have in operation
- Use the existing technology in smartphones and computers that most of your target audience already owns
Millions of people have learned to successfully access live streaming platforms to talk directly with friends, families and customers. They’ve realize the ease with which the technology works. Once the social distancing rules that dominate the lives of populations all over the world ease, it’s a given that live stream users will be open to continuing to use video streaming for more and more communications and commercial interactions.
Ways to Use Live Streaming for Your Business
Anyone can create a live streaming program with just a smartphone and an internet connection. There’s a multitude of easy-to-use platforms available online, many of which are free. At the same time, expect a surge of live streaming companies, freelancers and marketing companies featuring live stream options to ramp up and appear on your radar.
Depending on your intended audience and your professional reputation, you can benefit by hiring professionals to run your live streaming programs. They can set up the coding necessary to provide safe and secure connections on the back end while filming your event with a polished presentation on the front end. Common events ripe for live streaming in business include:
- Board meetings
- Stakeholder and shareholder events
- Grand openings
- New product or service rollouts
- Staff training
- Employee and company-wide announcements
Benefits of Live Streaming
The biggest benefit of live streamed meetings and training sessions is the savings in costs for travel, food and lodging for participants who have to come in from other locations. Additionally, everyone involved saves time by avoiding travel, which reduces the time off of work. Participants appreciate the extra time they have to be with their families, too.
Whether you announce your live stream publicly or send invitations to a select few, you control the message and its delivery. A live streaming production can be as minimal or creative as you want. And if you’re a photographer or videographer with top-of-the-line equipment, this might be your chance to expand your business by offering:
- Corporate meetings and training sessions
- Destination weddings
- Amateur sporting events
- Church services and events
- Concerts and live performances
- Marketing promotions
No matter how you employ live streaming technology, be assured that this is not a trend that’s going to fade any time soon. While Ray Access doesn’t offer these services, we can recommend businesses that do. Contact us for a referral. We do this for our clients not because we make anything, but because we want our clients to succeed.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business to succeed. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or talk about your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters, and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Mar 17, 2020 | Agency Advice
How to Mitigate the Fallout of Missing a Deadline
If you’re in business to deliver products or services, chances are you’ve heard at least some of the reasons for missing a deadline, including these gems. There may be a few legitimate reasons to miss a deadline, but in the long run, keeping your word is much more important to your business than excuses. Missing even one deadline damages your company’s reputation if you don’t make amends.
So while you must do everything in your power to avoid missed deadlines, you also have to know how to deal with the consequences when it does occasionally happen. Missed deadlines can sometimes be unavoidable, especially if you over-promise your deliverables and then a key employee gets sick or the scope of the project changes. Learn what to do next to handle the situation.
Lots of Moving Parts
If you’re the leader of a web development team, a project manager or an agency owner, you have to manage — and trust — others to do their jobs and do them well. Usually, your office may run like clockwork, pumping out great work on a tight schedule. But one incident — which can include not just an illness, but a defection or retirement — can throw your office into chaos.
Everything on your schedule usually trickles down and affects everything else. If you miss one deadline, every other project in the works or in the pipeline suddenly becomes in danger of being delivered late. Missed deadlines should be unacceptable to you and your business. Consistently missing deadlines is a recipe for a loss of work and a negative reputation.
Don’t Point Fingers
If you missed a deadline, don’t point someone out as the cause. Blaming others, even if you’re correct, does nothing to rectify the current situation. Instead, follow these steps to get the work done and delivered as quickly as possible, while you placate your client:
- Assess what work still needs to be done. Regardless whether it’s a lot or a little, this work should be your company’s priority until it’s completed.
- Immediately assign the work to someone you know will make it happen, including yourself. In other words, “get ‘er done” and get it done with the highest level of quality possible.
- Meanwhile, communicate with the client that the work has been delayed as soon as you know you won’t make the deadline. Own up to the problem and take responsibility. Again, don’t point fingers or make excuses.
- Offer to make it up to the client in any number of ways, such as a discount off the top of the current project, a valuable free extra or a deep discount on a future purchase. If your company is to blame for the delay, make sure your client understands that you value the business and will do what it takes to make it right.
- Deliver the work as soon as you can, making doubly sure that it’s correct, accurate, complete and of the highest quality. Don’t disappoint a client you’ve already made wait for your product or service.
Honest and forthright communication is always the best approach. Don’t wait for the client to contact you, asking about the product or service. Reach out and alert them as soon as you know you’re going to experience any missed deadlines. Customers appreciate the personal touch in these instances. Even if they’re initially angry, you often can overcome this with a sincere desire to make it right and clear communication that you can always provide in a timely manner.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business to succeed. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters, and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Mar 10, 2020 | Agency Advice
Here’s How to Manage Your Deadline Junkies
Not all junkies use drugs. Junkies, loosely defined, refers to anyone addicted to a substance, like food or drugs, or to a habit, like exercising or driving fast. Junkies live for the thrill, the rush of adrenaline that comes from practicing their addiction. And there is no greater addiction for deadline junkies than madly working and hitting their deadlines just in the nick of time.
Deadline junkies share certain characteristics, such as:
- Obsessive planning around various deadlines
- Procrastinating because they know they can
- Waiting until the last minute to complete tasks
- Using deadlines as motivation
- Feeling energized as the due date approaches
- Functioning best when the clock is ticking
- Stressing out over interruptions at deadline time
Deadline Junkies’ Pros and Cons
If you’re a deadline junkie, you’re very aware of that big red circle on your calendar that indicates when a project is due. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always follow your timelines; it sometimes interferes with your carefully laid-out plans. While some people get sick with worry about the stress of a deadline — and the potential threats to getting it done on time — deadline junkies feed off that stress.
Deadline junkies don’t miss their marks. Others who don’t respect the deadline as much as a junkie, however, too often dismiss due dates as mere suggestions. A deadline junkie engraves those dates in stone, and God help the person who gets in the way.
Creativity vs. Completion
There are those who claim that creativity goes out the window when the deadline becomes more important than the quality of the finished project. But deadline junkies argue back that their muse lives in those shades of static electricity that seem to emanate from their brains as deadlines loom. While some proclaim that their creativity doesn’t work on a schedule, deadline junkies declare that their senses become even more heightened at just the thought of making a deadline.
They don’t wait for the “mood to strike;” they’re sure it will strike when they need it most. Stress for deadline junkies is intimately intertwined with the creative process. Without a deadline, they flounder and find it difficult to focus. On the other hand, they sometimes are so devoted to the due date that they become closed to options and new ideas.
Finding a Balance
Your clients always appreciate your commitment to meet their deadlines, and they usually don’t really care about how much stress you endured to meet their timetables. But what if they could get an even better product because you’re more focused on the quality of your work than on its due date?
If you believe you fall under the spell of the calendar and find that you regularly wait until the last minute to complete projects — especially because you live for the adrenaline rush — there are ways to manage your condition and still reap the benefits that deadline junkies live for. To find a balance between waiting until you’re in the mood and living on the edge, consider these tips:
- Set deadlines with built-in room to spare. You’d be surprised how you can feel the excitement of meeting a self-imposed deadline and still have the time to make adjustments, add additional input and make your completed project even better.
- Choose deliverables that don’t require your ultimate best to make a client happy. Use those projects to get your “fix.” Place other projects that may require more thoughtfulness outside of the harried, adrenaline-inducing deadline process. Work on them when you feel particularly creative.
- Break a project up into shorter mini-deadlines so you can experience the rush of hitting the mark while building in time for each stage, time for collaboration with others who may not share your passion for deadlines and time to just take it easy as you reach the finish line.
- Manage employees accordingly. If you have some that enjoy the thrill of the deadline and understand its importance, then by all means, give them space to work. If you have other, more laid-back employees, check in on their progress and make adjustments to their workload when necessary.
- Tame your inner beast with relaxation techniques like deep breathing or slow walks outdoors so that the stress you bring on yourself at deadline time doesn’t interfere with the quality of work you produce. Prepare for deadlines with sufficient sleep and healthy meals. Let others know when you’re on deadline and won’t appreciate interruptions.
- Partner with a peer who doesn’t share your addiction to adrenaline rushes. Give each other permission to poke and prod when necessary. Make sure it’s OK to point out when the other’s character is out-of-whack so you can meet a deadline and not lose your clients’ trust. You want them to know that you have their best interests in mind at all times — deadline or not.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business to succeed. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters, and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Mar 3, 2020 | Agency Advice
How to Keep Your Online Reputation Positive
Every business has a reputation, including yours. The question isn’t so much what your reputation is, but rather how well you manage it. The online world presents an opportunity and a challenge. If you ignore it, you’re just setting your business up to fail. So you need to develop a plan for your online reputation management.
Thanks to Google My Business, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp and all those other online review sites, anyone anywhere can leave a review or recommendation for your business. Good reviews are of course golden. But a bad review can fester like an unwashed cut, bleeding your business of potential customers. Unless you can afford to pay a company to repair your reputation, it’s on you to practice sound online reputation management techniques.
How to Foster Positive Reviews
If your business is successful and growing, you have clients who love what you do. For web developers, web designers, online marketing agencies and website content writers, each project you complete is an opportunity to ask for a positive review. Make it easy for your clients by sending them the link (or links) to online review sites, where they can leave their glowing comments.
Whenever you deliver a finished project, you feel great at the accomplishment, and your clients are flush with excitement. It’s the perfect time to ask them to review your work in an online forum. You can even copy and paste the testimonial to your website and social media accounts. In fact, that’s a step you must take to spread the word.
How to Deal with Negative Reviews
At some point, however, someone may leave a negative review on social media or on one of the review sites. You have to deal with it. If you don’t, it becomes more than a nuisance; it becomes a liability, encouraging potential customers to choose your competition. Fortunately, there are strategies for dealing with negative reviews, such as:
- Reply to the negative reviewer, seeking to make it right. Whether the reviewer is right or wrong, if you publicly try to make amends, your business earns points when others see your response. But you must respond within 24 hours, which means monitoring your reviews. Online reputation management requires constant surveillance of your social media channels.
- Encourage your existing clients to flood the review site with positive reviews. You can never make a negative review disappear, but you can bury it in a sea of authentic positive reviews.
- If the negative reviewer is holding a grudge or trying to harm your business without a valid complaint, address the issue head-on. Ask for details. If none are forthcoming, explain to others that the negative experience couldn’t have happened (and why). Reputation-harming inaccuracies damage your business even if the claims are false.
You can use all of these strategies, as appropriate. Don’t just stop at one. The more active you are performing online reputation management, the more likely you’ll have a stellar reputation that draws customers to your website and your business.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business to succeed. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters, and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
