Do Good, Feel Good

by Elle Ray | Nov 18, 2019 | Agency Advice

Doing Good Deeds Delivers Health Benefits

Every day, you work hard to fulfill your passion — whether it’s successfully building your business, making lots of money or making the next big discovery that changes the world. You may spend hours coding a new website to perfection or rewriting a blog until it sings. Working hard brings significant rewards. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t spend so much energy on it.

Most things in life have at their core a selfish nature. If it doesn’t give you some sort of reward, then it’s difficult to muster up the will power to finish … or even start. The same concept applies to doing good deeds. When you do good things for others, you feel good. You receive a ton of benefits that are measurable, from physical health benefits to a greater sense of mental well-being and a sense of purpose.

Yeah, But…

As an internet entrepreneur or a website developer, you’re under an enormous amount of pressure to beat the competition, stay on top of pressing projects and keep up with all the changes that come to the industry at lightning speed. All that takes time.
So … when you’re presented with the opportunity to do a little good for someone else, it’s easy to agree with the concept, but even easier to slough it off with excuses, such as:

• I’m too busy.
• There aren’t enough hours in the day.
• I’ve done enough already.
• I need more me-time.
• No one gave me anything.

The “yeah, but” tendency grows and multiplies until you find yourself not only missing out on the health benefits that altruism affords, but actually creating more stress in your life. Guilt builds, leading to a lack of empathy and compassion. The next thing you know, you’re dealing with hoarding and isolation in a lifestyle of greed.

Selfish and Good

In actuality, you can be selfish and still do plenty of good in the world. Researchers hold that being selfish may be one of the most important ingredients in a life filled with random acts of kindness. Being selfish and doing good are not exclusive. When you start reaping all the health benefits of being a giving, altruistic human being, you want more of that good stuff — and the cycle continues.

Consider some of the proven health benefits of living with an intention to do good deeds and treat others with kindness every day:

• Physiological health benefits occur when your brain senses that you’re happy. Witnessing a smile on another’s face or receiving gratitude for a small kindness makes your brain pop with happiness — guaranteed.
• Stress is greatly reduced when you put things into perspective. Helping someone less fortunate than yourself fills you with a sense of gratitude, and you get no greater health benefits than when you reduce stress, a major cause of most diseases.
• Work flows much better when you aren’t caught up in the stress caused by focusing on the negative aspects of your day. A positive state of mind begets positive outcomes. This is yet another selfish motive for going good.
• Happiness and optimism are contagious. So if you have any influence over employees or clients, you can expect to receive a whole lot more cooperation when you’re all feeling good.
• Live longer. Health benefits extend far beyond today. A life spent doing good for others means that you can continue doing those things that you love to do for much longer.

Leave it to Oprah to sum it up:

“If you want to feel good, you have to go out and do some good.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words that 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, with cross-links and thorough internet research.

The Power of the Compliment

by Elle Ray | Nov 11, 2019 | Agency Advice

Reap Rewards with a Sincere Compliment

The fifth principle for successful website creators is:

Give compliments freely and often.

It’s one of the least expensive and most effective tools you can employ to:

• Create loyalty among your employees and clients
• Build goodwill
• Feel good about your work and your place in the industry
• Motivate your staff
• Receive personal and professional rewards in return
• Increase sales
• Make friends and influence people

The personal and professional rewards of freely handing out compliments on a regular basis can’t even be measured — that’s how enormous their impact can be. Leo Buscaglia infers how huge it is, though:

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

Good as Gold

A compliment can have an effect on people that’s similar to how they respond to receiving cash. In fact, a study cited by The Scripps Research Institute calls praise a “social reward” that actually boosts productivity and enhances motivation, just like any other treasured prize. While some may argue that those personal and professional rewards are just manipulation techniques, when a compliment is sincere, it’s taken as genuine.

And isn’t all marketing and employee motivation tactics just various forms of manipulation? Getting others to feel good about themselves, about you and your work, and about the world in general is never a bad thing. Two intentions can co-exist: buy from me and feel good about me are two seemingly different ideas, yet they go together as seamlessly as checking and savings. You can take that to the bank!

Keep It Real — And Positive

For those involved in website creation, from designers and coders to content writers and graphic artists, the notion that “it’s all good” doesn’t always fly. But if you get in the practice of seeking personal and professional rewards by handing out genuine compliments, you just may find that some of it is good. Look hard enough — and granted, sometimes it takes effort — and you can find something in everyone to praise.

In the 21st century, you need to be careful about how you sling your brand of praise. For example, men and women must be careful about complimenting the opposite sex on how they look, lest you be charged with harassment. And put-downs disguised as compliments, like “you look good for your age” are non-starters. But that still leaves a whole lot of room for handing out personal and professional rewards like swag at a tech conference.

Consider, for example, a few well-placed compliments that easily apply to many of the people you encounter in business:

• “Good job on that recent project.”
• “You have a great sense of humor.”
• “That was really effective the way you handled that disgruntled client.”
• “You pick out the best gifts.”
• “I really appreciate the way you stepped up.”
• “Your directions were really clear.”
• “Your business model translates really well online.”
• “Your enthusiasm is infectious.”
• “We appreciate the trust you’ve placed in us.”
• “I like your confidence.”
• “You’re so responsive.”
• “Great shoes!”

The list truly can go on and on, but you get the idea. You can be personal without tripping over those sensitive topics that make people uncomfortable.

Feed the Hungry

In the stressed-out world of high-tech, where competition is fiercer than ever and new challenges appear daily, people are starving for honest appreciation. A commendation for a job well done, recognition for effective communication and business ethics, admiration for well-honed skills, regard for a specific task well done, appreciation for style and substance — all are signs of respect that go a long way toward changing the world, or at least easing the pressures of the day.

And it costs you nothing. Paradoxically, when you give a compliment, you reap your own set of personal and professional rewards. In addition to boosting productivity at your agency, you give your clients a reason to come back and tell their friends about you.

It feels good to do good, to be nice and to add a little sugar to the recipe of the day. You feed your own soul when you take just a tiny bit of effort to look for the good in everyone and tell them so. Mark Twain may have said it best:

“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words that 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, with cross-links and thorough internet research.

How Stress Affects Your Work

by Elle Ray | Oct 21, 2019 | Agency Advice

Avoid the Effects of Stress on Your Work

Stress takes its toll in so many ways. It affects your physical and mental health, as well as your relationships, emotions and finances. If you’re like many people, coping with the stressors that invade your serenity each day often have their own consequences. Using drugs and alcohol to cope or relying on spending, gambling and overeating to ease the discomfort of stress just end up causing even more problems — and additional stress. It’s a spiral that just leads down.

When the place you spend the majority of your time is the main source of your stress, you may be headed for a major burnout episode if you don’t deal with it. According to the American Institute of Stress, “83 percent of U.S. workers suffer from work-related stress.” And the effects of stress on your work extend far beyond your own personal consequences:

• Workplace stress causes about one million people to miss work every day
• Businesses lose roughly $300 billion annually due to stress on the job
• Depression is one of the main effects of stress and the cause of those missed days, accounting for about $51 billion from absenteeism and another $26 billion for treatment
• Nearly 120,000 deaths are attributed to workplace stress every year
• About $190 billion in healthcare is spent on treating on-the-job, stress-related conditions
• Less than half of all employees believe that their employers even care

More Effects of Stress on Your Work

Work-related stress is understandable, especially when you’re a web developer, internet content provider or project manager. The flurry of changes you’re expected to deal with on a daily basis is dizzying:

• Tight deadlines with no room for mistakes
• Delays of others that impact your ability to complete your job
• Unreasonable customers who keep changing their minds
• Demanding bosses who don’t seem willing to give you the support you need
• Rapidly changing technology and algorithms that affect every project
• Competition only too willing to undercut your efforts

And if you happen to be the owner of a small content or tech company, you bring your own set of perfectly realistic stressors to work on a daily basis:

• Slow paying clients
• Demanding workers
• Employee turnover (especially in a wide-open job market)
• Personal finances
• Slow periods
• Pressures when all the jobs come in at once

Dealing with Stress at Work

In an ideal world, you can offset daily stress with a work-life balancing act that includes nutrition, exercise, fun and love. But it’s not an ideal world. To keep the effects of stress on your work to a minimum, you need to develop a new set of tips and tactics before you:

• Blow up and quit
• Fire everyone around you and end up doing all the work alone
• Make so many mistakes that you lose clients
• Tell off an important client in the heat of a moment

Every nuanced trick to deal with the effects of stress on your work won’t be effective for you personally. But a few tactics will work, allowing you to chill out and remember why you started your own business in the first place or why you went into the world of web design, web development or digital marketing. It’s OK to pick and choose or mix and match. Just do something to stop the madness that stress creates, such as:

• Always sleep on important decisions. Decisions made under duress or when you feel the tension of a stress headache coming on rarely lead to the best choices.
• Unplug at least one day every other week (or more). That means letting everything wait. By putting work in its place, you realize that while it’s important, your life and happiness rate just as high as any subjective deadline.
• Make lists to prioritize tasks that must be done today versus those items that can wait. As you go through your day, check off items that you’ve accomplished. Do one thing at a time and you may find that you suddenly have more time available! You can be productive when you’re focused and not rushed.
• Treat yourself and your employees after every success. It’s easy to rush from one project to the next without celebrating the victories. And soon enough, that win gets lost in the shuffle of the next stressor.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words that 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, with cross-links and thorough internet research.

How Stress Affects Web Developers

by Elle Ray | Oct 7, 2019 | Agency Advice

Is Content Marketing Stress Catching Up to You?

It’s well-documented by medical and psychological professionals that too much stress harms your health. And while a little stress never hurt anyone and may even save your life in the right circumstances, chronic stress delivers some dangerous long-term consequences. And for web developers and content marketing pros who face stress on a daily basis, those consequences can come with a pretty high price tag.

Back when humans still struggled to survive their environment, a saber-toothed tiger attack stressed the body to respond with flight, fight or freeze. This built-in survival instinct is the reason humans aren’t extinct today. And that same response can still save your skin save you should ever find yourself down a dark alley in Detroit at night.

Danger, Danger!

Your body doesn’t know the difference between an imminent attack by a tiger or the looming deadlines of a website going live. It’s going to react with the same stress responses that makes your:

• Heart rate increase and blood pressure rise
• Muscles tense and breathing become rapid
• Adrenaline pump and senses heighten

The real danger for content marketing creatives and technical workers lies in your response to these bodily changes. Stress in technical careers is particularly high. Left unabated, they’ll take a pound of flesh as payment. There are many reasons why web developers, content providers, coders and project managers undergo such high levels of stress, including:>/p>

• Rapidly changing algorithms and tech tools you’re expected to master
• Understaffing and employee turnover
• Client pressure
• Approaching deadlines
• Security issues
• Lack of support
• High demand

The Irony for Web Developers

The reasons you got into the content marketing field may be the same reasons you’re thinking of chucking it all now to go dig ditches instead. While you love the challenges inherent in working in the internet industry, the pace is brutal. And while you like being in demand for your skills, sometimes, you just want to be invisible, even if for a long weekend.

The more clients you have, the more deadlines you have to meet. If you work in the corporate tech arena, you’re lucky if the big dogs even understand the support you need to give them what they want. And if you’re among the top web developers in your field, there are all those untalented wonks you’re constantly training — until you resort to the last resort as many web developers do and say “never mind, I’ll just do it myself.”

Mind over Matter Management

There’s little you can do about the rapid-fire changes in the tech industry. New devices, apps and algorithms come at you so fast, you barely have time to finish your morning cuppa java. The trick to avoiding burn-out (or a heart attack) is to manage those things you can control — which usually means YOU, the only thing you total control over in any situation. You control how you react to and think about the changes, the pressure, the competition and the completion of each project.

You control your health and how you take care of your body, soul and mind. You control the pace at which you’re willing to work. You say when it’s time for a break, a vacation, a little less screen time. You are in demand, so you aren’t the one who has to worry about job security.

Tips for Web Developers to Manage Stress

Like the flyer who first puts the oxygen mask on herself to save less-able passengers, you’ve got to take care of yourself to avoid the consequences of chronic stress that range from headaches and back pain to insomnia and anxiety. Tips that work for all humans to reduce the risks of too much stress are good for you too.

So take these tips to heart. They may work for you, while encouraging you to take your content marketing skills to the next level. Plus, you get to enjoy your life, staying healthy and keeping your job, by:

• Get physical. Most gyms are open from early morning until late at night, some even 24/7. Make it a regular habit to go. Ask for a gym membership as a non-negotiable term of your employment.
• Peace out. Find your happy place, preferably one that doesn’t require you to stare at a screen. Join an Ashram or do yoga. Walk a labyrinth. Build a little, calm altar that allows for peaceful, quiet meditation. Anything you can do to stay centered and calm pays dividends in your stress levels.
• Laugh out loud. Check out the local comedy club on a regular basis. Subscribe to a joke-a-day blog. Watch funny movies. Learn to tell jokes. When something strikes your funny bone, laugh as if no one’s watching.
• Just hang. Spending time with friends and family provide a wonderful break from the stress that solitary web developers must endure. Seek those people who make you laugh, who let you feel relaxed and who bring you fulfillment.
• Dance to be free. Get a hobby. Learn a new dance technique. Garden, paint, play music, whatever. Do anything unrelated to content marketing to free your brain and your break your concentration. This technique also sharpens your creativity.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words that 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, with cross-links and thorough internet research.

Creativity and Sales

by Elle Ray | Sep 24, 2019 | Agency Advice

Businesses Can’t Have One Without the Other

Some say that creativity and sales go together about as well as barefoot hiking and fire ants. No matter how you try it, someone’s gonna feel pain. After all, creativity requires that you break through boundaries and let your imagination soar to produce something pure and unique. The process of sales involves contracts and signatures and an exchange of money for goods or services.

The two hardly seem to exist within the same reality. And yet, not only do they coexist, but they’re so entangled that one cannot successfully exist without the other. The question then becomes: How can creatives build up enough sales to sustain their work?

The Art of Sales

Sales training experts tell you that sales is an art form in and of itself that requires:

• Ingenuity
• Creativity
• Communication skills
• Persuasiveness
• Personality
• Perseverance

Lo and behold, those are many of the same qualities required of an artist. But just as an artist may be loath to talk about the features and benefits of her work, so the professional salesperson may just as soon cut off her hair as sit in solitude to write a poem or paint a picture.

The fact is that in order to pay the bills and have enough money to buy more paint, the graphic artist must sell her work, the writer must get published and the sculptor must subsist on more than clay. Inventors, architects and designers need solitude to fuel the creative process, while salespeople need more people with whom to interact. Then dare we say that embracing the similarities between the arts of creativity and sales — instead of thinking of them as frenemies — just may be the ticket to a long, successful career as an independent creative.

Twain the Two Shall Meet

Linda has had successful careers in both sales of consumer goods and creative endeavors as a writer. But she really dislikes mixing the two. To grow Ray Access into a successful content provider business, we’ve had to put on the sales hat or rely on others to sell our services. There comes a time when it just takes too much energy to be constantly switching hats — and the matching shoes and outfits. So we let others carry that mantle. We prefer to produce than peddle, though we must say we like the income as much as any high-powered, competitive sales pro.

Perhaps the best solution for mixing creativity and sales is to go the way of the corporate model that keeps creatives locked away to do their things, while the sales stars hit the streets. Let the project managers keep them both aligned and free from the day-to-day bothers of the others. And even if we don’t go all LLC or S-Corp on our businesses, we can at least realize that we need help from each other.

Respecting the Process

As a creative, you may prefer a life of poverty mixed with glimpses of success before you’d ever consider designing to sell. As a go-getter who loves the art of the deal, solitary confinement equals a jail sentence. On the other hand, if you’ve mastered the ability to move between the worlds of creativity and sales, you can probably tell us all about your success at your next IPO or catered launch party.

At the very least, creatives and sales professionals need each other to survive. A sales pro wouldn’t have anything to sell if it weren’t for the creatives who designed the services and products they hawk. And creatives would end up smothered in a room full of beautiful art if it weren’t for the diligent efforts of the salesperson.

Whether you deign to remain a solopreneur, partner up with another creative or seek a spot in a corporate creative environment, you do need to respect the work of the sales artisans who draw on their own brand of creativity daily for the good of the whole — including the creatives. Mutual respect is required to make creativity and sales work harmoniously — if not side by side, then at least in the same realm of reality.

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.

Why Do Web Developers Need Content?

by Elle Ray | Jul 30, 2019 | Agency Advice

Content for Developers Make or Break a Site

Website developers create websites, blogs and plug-ins for newsletters, shopping carts and other electronic business necessities. They use different platforms and styles to build their sites, but it often falls within the purview of a web developer to come up with color schemes and designs.

An effective website is made up of many essential pieces. Because of the very nature of websites, content for developers often comes from other sources, such as:

• Graphic designers
• Photographers
• Writers and editors
• Marketing consultants
• SEO specialists
• Videographers
• The clients themselves

In-House or Outsourced?

Any large web development company often employs professionals with the key skills needed to create a website. you may be able to keep a staff prepared to deliver all the necessary components required for a complete package. Outsourcing content for developers to niche, third-party operations like Ray Access, which only provides writing and editing, is a simple and efficient way to handle your company’s needs.

Keeping all the tasks in-house means that your development team must include more project managers and supervisors, forcing a bigger payroll. But you may not always have enough work to keep everyone busy on a full-time basis. When you outsource content for developers, you only have to call on the third-party vendors when you need them. And once you find a third-party provider you trust, the need for oversight disappears.

Benefits of Outsourcing Content for Developers

In addition to the payroll and supervisory positions web developers can avoid when they outsource, web developers receive an abundance of other benefits they may not really appreciate until they’ve tried the outsourcing business model.

Features and benefits that niche firms offer in the form of content for developers include, but certainly aren’t limited to:

• Being able to set firm deadlines that third-party vendors adhere to. Contractors know the value of meeting deadlines, especially if they want to keep getting more work from that developer. After all, having projects slowed down waiting for content in one form or another is one of the banes of the developer’s existence.
• Relying on professionals that keep up-to-date on best practices of their particular specialty. Contractors must know their area of expertise. So that means web development companies don’t have to bother with continual in-house training. Content for developers designed by specialists follows current design trends, and those change quickly in the online environment.
• Taking responsibility off the client is an advantage that most customers appreciate. Building relationships with content providers means developers can confidently offer a complete package to clients without having to hire and train a team to do the work, or at least that part of it.
• Paying for content is rolled into the final quote developers give to clients. In this way, the customer knows what the total budget consists of for a final, ready-to-go-live site. Additionally, the practice of outsourcing content for developers gives the developers a cushion onto which they can add a percentage, increasing their own profit margins.

Massaging the Message

Most website designers and developers understand that an effective website is more than just a pretty face. A site can have the flashiest graphics and hottest new interactive features, but if customers can’t find what they’re looking for or if they don’t understand quickly what makes that business special, then that website is nothing more than eye candy.

You must seriously consider the content you use on a site to bolster its effectiveness. Messaging should be a top priority, allowing the site plan, design and content to fit seamlessly together in the final presentation. When a company’s customers visit its website and the content answers questions and makes searching for information easy, the web developer’s clients make sales. And when those clients need to revamp their site, the developers who’ve spent time and energy building a strong outsourced team will get that call!

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.