Deadline Junkies

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.

Are You Charging Enough in Your Business?

by Elle Ray | Jan 28, 2020 | Agency Advice

Find the Sweet Spot in How Much to Charge

This topic may not seem in line with the theme of the month, which is “Give Compliments Freely,” but it really is. The conundrum of figuring out how much to charge for your work is full of innuendo and flat-out esteem issues. For if you can’t compliment yourself for a job well done and charge accordingly, then why should anyone else praise your efforts and pay you accordingly?

In a politically correct world, many assume that it’s just not polite to admire yourself too much. Self-adulation often is construed as egotism or self-aggrandizing behavior. In fact, it’s a necessary and healthy ingredient in the mix of a successful web designer, content writer, project manager or small business owner.

What the Market Will Bear

In the field of web development — and for everyone who works within the industry — fees for services vary widely. When you seek answers for how much to charge from an LA or NYC business, you’ll get a wildly different answer than from someone working in the middle of Missouri. Even within the same locale, fees for web content of every kind swing up and down like a monkey in the trees, at least based on our experience at Ray Access.

So while business schools always advise you to investigate the marketplace and base your fees on what that market will bear, that’s not always a reliable measuring stick when it comes to web development or content writing. For one thing, most of us can work from anywhere in the world. We have a writer, for instance, who lives in Costa Rica half the year; he says our rate of pay allows him to live like a king there, but barely covers his rent back home.

Your competition hails from around the world, too. Content writers in India, for example, charge much, much less than Ray Access for similar word counts — and Ray Access offers one of the lowest rates in the U.S. Granted, the quality is never as good, but some clients shop only for bargains. At the same time, great writers in Kansas can charge less than great writers in San Francisco merely by virtue of the cost of living at the different locations.

What You Can Bear

Instead, how much to charge for your web services should be based on two primary indicators:

1. How much do you need?
2. How valuable is your product or service?

Most website content developers and providers charge by the project. Clients have an easier time with their website budgets when they have a total cost projection in hand. And you aren’t plagued by a client bothering you about going over budget. Common wisdom then supposes that you should figure out how much to charge by first deciding how much you need to make per hour of hands-on work to pay your bills, including coverage for overhead.

It may take a little experience to get right, but the second step involves determining how long a certain project will take you. Multiply those hours by your needs and that’s the bottom line figure for how much to charge.

Show Your True Value

Putting your true value into the equation takes a bit more finesse, as well as an ability to negotiate effectively. A bottom line should be just that — the least amount you can receive and still stay in business. So if you have to earn an average of $50 an hour to live comfortably and continue to run your business effectively, then you really need to charge enough to cover that need or you’ll soon be out of business and looking for a guaranteed hourly wage.

How often, how much and how effectively you compliment yourself on the quality of your work comes into play as you figure out how much to charge — and feel good about it. You can fill your website with all the testimonials in the world, but if you don’t honestly believe that your work is valuable, then you’ll have difficulty building a nice profit into your fee structure.

Knowing how much to charge is a delicate balancing act that takes in all the variables. It’s not an easy answer and one that keeps many small business owners up at night. Experience and necessity, coupled with a healthy dose of self-approval, gets you to a place where you become comfortable with your rates — and clients will sense your determination and pay you accordingly.

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.

The Cost of a Mistake

by Elle Ray | Jan 14, 2020 | Agency Advice

Minimize the Cost of a Mistake by Preparing

You need to believe in your professional self. That means you need to know that the quality of your work is well worth the price you charge. This is a tenet of the Top 10 Principles for Successful Website Creators, as proposed by Ray Access in October 2019. And while perfection is the ideal in any endeavor, particularly in your professional work, it’s largely a pipe dream.

The cost of perfectionism is actually far worse than the cost of a mistake. According to an article in Psychology Today, being rigid and unforgiving leads to a host of personal and professional complications, including:

• Reduced problem-solving skills
• Depression
• Anger
• Insomnia
• Procrastination
• Anxiety
• High blood pressure

Stress Not

Stressing out over the cost of a mistake violates the first tenet of the Principles of Success philosophy: Take care of yourself first. While the cost of a mistake may hit you financially, the cost to your health, overall well-being and ability to carry on despite setbacks is far worse. As novelist Anne Lamott beautifully says:

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

Setting extraordinarily high expectations for yourself and your employees — or for that matter, anyone in your life — only leads to eventual disappointment. Humans are fallible and will make mistakes. The key to a healthy lifestyle and a successful business is not to let cost of a mistake stress you to the point of illness, but to find the lesson in the error. Learning how to handle a mistake is far more important than avoiding mistakes at all costs.

Get ‘Er Done

Perfectionists too often end up putting off important projects or missing deadlines because they stress about achieving that loftiest of goals. As a result, nothing gets done or it takes twice as long to complete. Instead of falling into this trap, try to temper your need for perfection. Minimize the cost of a mistake by taking positive steps to admit and correct an error, honor your promises to clients and learn from the process.

Part of never missing a deadline is about knowing when your work is good enough. That doesn’t mean you can skimp on quality; it means you must keep your deadline in mind as you work. Meeting a deadline, despite small potential mistakes, is more important than keeping a client waiting.

Expectations in American Culture

Being a perfectionist is wrapped up in the American culture. And while the cost of a very large mistake may cost you a client, you can save the client relationship by learning how to handle a mistake, large or small. This tactic may help the future of your career as well.

Pride and ego often are the first to feel the blow when you’re caught with a mistake. And those often are the main culprits behind handling the situation poorly. But your clients and staff don’t really care about your ego and care even less that it’s been damaged. They care about results. As professor Brené Brown said:

Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth; it’s a shield.

Make It Right

The cost of a mistake doesn’t have to mean the end of the world as you know it. It doesn’t have to translate into failure. The cost doesn’t even have to mean the end of a relationship. In fact, the strongest professional relationships are based on honesty and trust. Your best clients know that you’ll always do your best and take care of errors quickly and effectively.

Granted, it’s always best to take every precaution to avoid costly errors. Ray Access, for example, employs a stringent editing process before sending a finished project to a client. But instead of wallowing, giving up or beating your breast, take steps to rectify your error and reduce the cost of a mistake by:

• Admitting your mistake and taking responsibility for it
• Apologizing for the error
• Allowing your client to vent without getting upset yourself
• Giving your client time to think about a response
• Listening to that response without getting defensive
• Taking immediate action to fix the error — never at a charge!

Keep your clients happy. Let them know they can trust that you’ll do what you say. And make sure to follow up quickly when you make a mistake. Follow the sage advice of Benjamin Franklin to:

“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”

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.

The Rewards of a Better Product or Service

by Elle Ray | Dec 16, 2019 | Agency Advice

The Benefits of Being Better Lead to Satisfaction

You’d think that one of the most important benefits of being better than your competition is that you get more business. Clients, especially those that demand the best, recognize your value and flock to you for your services and products. As a result, you garner better reviews, gain more referrals and enjoy higher profits.

Or do you? Just because you believe you have the best product or service on the market — or in the world, for that matter — that doesn’t mean the marketplace agrees. Remember that customers don’t necessarily seek out the best every time they shop. Have you ever filled out an RFP? Haven’t you ever lost a big job because your prices were undercut by an inferior competitor?

The Real Benefits of Being Better

Feeling good about yourself and your offerings is an important aspect to consider when you’re seeking the rewards of success. You’re got to be able to sleep at night, knowing you’ve done your best and that you’re providing an exceptional service to your clients. More importantly, however, is the energy you exude that comes from passion. After all, no one achieves any level of reward by thinking great thoughts or having brilliant ideas when they have no follow up, no game or no action.

As business owners, web developers and project managers know, hard work wins the day. The most successful entrepreneurs — the creators of winning companies, people who believe in the benefits of being better — put enormous time and energy into developing their companies. Consider, for example, those who believed passionately in their skills and abilities to produce a better product and who ultimately reaped enormous rewards:

• Mark Zuckerberg didn’t come up with any new, unique ideas, but he committed the time and imagination to tweak and refine his products. He actually saw the benefits of being better instead of just dreaming about them.
• Steve Jobs was known for his all-consuming work ethic. He surrounded himself with employees who shared his desire to succeed through hard work.
• Bill Gates was never afraid to challenge his own perception of perfection. He stayed true to his commitment to being better, to making his already successful products and services even better.
• Vince Lombardi knew that the only way to true success was through hard work and dedication. He told his players that the benefits of being better come with wins and losses.

Perhaps Thomas Edison said it best when he extolled the virtues of a solid work ethic as the only way to reap the rewards and benefits of being better:

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment, and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.”

Smoother Business Practices

While business owners and project managers strive to achieve the rewards and benefits of being better — reaping the accolades and money that often comes with that distinction — other important benefits come with the power of passion and hard work, such as:

• Creativity abounds, which drives continuous improvement
• Knowledge and the need to know more spurs further innovation
• Intelligent decisions inevitably lead to effective marketing and increased sales
• Persistence carries the day even when motivation falters
• Confidence grows with each small success
• Winners who exhibit passion and values attract talented employees

Successful results bring in more referrals and attention than any amount of magic, luck or low prices. The true rewards of building a product or service come with time; they don’t appear overnight or in a vacuum. And whether you reach your ideal goals of success or not, you’ll sleep better at night, knowing you’ve reaped the true rewards of being the best you can be.

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.

How to Read Between the Business Lines

by Elle Ray | Dec 2, 2019 | Agency Advice

Aid Decision Making with Clear Communication

You well know that people don’t always say what they really mean. Very often, in fact, they’re two different things entirely. In many communication streams, both personal and professional, you have to pay close attention to learn the true meaning of the message.

You don’t want to make a decision based on false assumptions, mixed messages or misunderstandings. And when the decision making affects your work, it’s vital that you develop a keen sense of when you not only need to hear the messages being conveyed, but also read between the lines.

Are You Talking to Me?

In a world rife with the communication obstacles of political correctness (PC), many business professionals rely on words that don’t really convey their true intent. This is especially true in larger corporations, where every email and memo carries with it the risk of offending someone. And the last thing any business owner wants is a lawsuit.

Decision making based on veiled comments or misguided attempts to hold the business’s Human Resources PC line can lead to faulty conclusions and bad business deals. Others who may be offended by incorrect word choices and incomplete communications include:

• Managers
• Employees
• Vendors
• Customers

What Did You Mean by That?

A few years ago in The Business Journal, writer Terry Brock suggested that engineers and techies would do well to develop a program that allowed you to see what people are actually thinking when they speak or write — kind of like Google does when it asks, “Did you mean…?” The real message could blink on the speaker’s forehead.

However, that may only happen in a science fiction show. In real life, it’s best to learn how to read between the lines, taking into account many more aspects of a communication besides just the words. For example, look for clues in the:

• Timing. Are you getting a request from corporate the week before Christmas? Is a client asking for changes to his website the day before it’s supposed to go live? Is your best employee talking about leaving while he’s going through a bitter divorce? Taking into account the timing of the request affects your decision making on many fronts! But between the lines, it’s pretty safe to figure out the request comes fraught with haste, fear or stress.
• Body language. Communication is 85 percent tone of voice and body language and only 15 percent words. This makes person-to-person contact so vital in business whenever possible. You’ll glean much more from your communications if you can see the speaker’s fidgetiness, avoidance, excitement or anger attached to the words being spoken. Your decision making then becomes more on-the-money.
• Past interactions. If past performance is any indication of future proclivities, then you get a pretty good idea of what’s really going on. When considering various communications, remember what happened last time you got an order from that client, a direct memo from the home office or a standoffish comment from a staff member.
• Other factors. People don’t live in a bubble, but instead are complicated, multi-faceted creatures. Sometimes, truly understanding another person means you have to do a little digging. Perhaps social media can give you some clues. Discreetly asking around may give you some insight into the motivations of another.

Decision Making 2.0

Whether you need to decide which project to take on, what deadlines are reasonable, who you need to fire and who just needs a little coaching, or what kind of response is needed, you do your best decision making when you’ve collected as much information as possible. You may never get it right all the time, but you definitely increase your batting average. You may even find that decision making becomes a little less stressful when you’re armed with an amped-up skillset that lets you successfully read between the lines.

A few added tips to hone those skills include:

• Sleep on it. Before delving into vital decision making scenarios, wait a while to see if any new insights bubble up.
• Read it over. Don’t reply to emails when you have an emotional reaction. And read your reply a few times before hitting Send.
• Listen well. This is especially important during phone conversations when tone of voice conveys a lot of meaning to the words being spoken.
• Listen to your gut. If something feels “hinky” or not quite straight-up, it probably is. The situation, and your decision, requires further investigation. Trust your instincts and ask questions.
• Ask questions. The most straightforward, and very often the most useful, approach to getting at the truth is to just ask. You get nowhere fast when you rely on half-baked instructions or communications. The old adage, “garbage in — garbage out,” applies to even the best-intentioned communications that don’t really tell the whole story.

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.