Tips for Getting Through the Nasty Parts of Running a Business

by Elle Ray | Jun 25, 2019 | Small Business Advice

While Keeping Your Sanity and Ethics Intact

Running a business is as rewarding as it is challenging

Most days, there’s nothing better than running a business you can call your own. You make the rules. You call the shots. You get to do what you love each and every day — and get paid for it! Running a business and watching it grow is a little like having a child: it’s one of the most rewarding tasks you’ll ever take on — and one of the most challenging.

You can set up your company so that it runs as smooth as the apple juice running down your baby’s throat. And then something happens — as it always does; remember Murphy’s Law? The cogs that seem to jump into the smooth-running machinery are ever-present, always lurking, just waiting to throw you off with some nasty little piece of business that’s as integral to running a business as dirty diapers is to raising a child.

Why Can’t They Just Behave?

Running a business solo is one way to avoid the nasty business of dealing with employees. But you can only get so far when you’re doing all the work. Having people work for you is amazing in many ways; they allow you to grow and expand and even, maybe, take a day off now and then.

But getting other people to care about your clients and the future of your business can be difficult. It’s like trying to get your kids to realize that if they do their chores properly, the whole household runs smoother. Correcting mistakes, fixing mishaps and getting everyone to follow directions are challenges for both entrepreneurs and parents.

The hardest part of being in charge is letting someone go, especially when they beg for another chance. It’s doubly difficult when you really like them. But firing an employee is part and parcel of being the boss. It’s nasty business, but someone has to do it every once in a while. A few tips for making it a little easier include:

Keep track of the employee’s foibles, leaving little for them to disagree with.
Give them a warning, so that when they mess up again, they’re prepared for the axe.
Let an employee go early in the pay cycle, so they still have a paycheck coming as they look for a new job.
Stick to the facts. They aren’t bad people. And they don’t need to know how they’ve messed up your life temporarily or how truly bad their work is. They just need to know that you can’t afford to keep them on.

But We Had a Deal!

Poor-paying customers or clients that refuse to honor a contract pose another of the nastier sides of running a business. There’s an entire industry that collects bad debts because very few small businesses have their own collections department. And face it; most people are pretty good about paying what they owe — what they’ve agreed to. It’s that one percent, though, that can ruin your 99 percent love affair with being the boss.

You have options, although none of them is very much fun. When a client refuses to pay in a timely manner, the first thing you need to do is to stay on it. Don’t let matters slide. Regular calls, invoices and emails are in order. A few more tips that come from Nolo.com include:

Stay calm and don’t let calls or emails get too personal.
Maintain a tone of urgency.
Ask the client if she has financial problems and offer to work out a payment plan.
Offer to settle for a lower final payment. (This may be sound more appealing after about six months of non-payment.)
Hire a collections agency to send letters for you. For a flat fee, averaging about $30, they can send a few letters and make a few calls on your behalf, using their proven techniques.
Sell the debt to a collection agency as a last resort. They’ll pay you 50 percent of the total due (at the most). But, hey, sometimes, that’s better than nothing.

Give Me a Break

Running a business is not for the faint or weak of heart! You always end up doing things that you never really bargained for. In addition to those two nasty examples above that every small business owner eventually has to face, you know the other downsides of being the boss if you’ve been running a business for more than a few months:

You’re the last to get paid.
There’s no paid time off … and often little time off at all.
No one covers you when you’re sick.
Slow periods can leave you questioning yourself relentlessly.
The company bennies generally suck.

But oh, the freedom! And when it’s good, it’s very good. A big payday can make you forget all about that slow-paying customer or that incompetent you hired. Just like when you watch your kid walk down the aisle in a cap and gown — or better yet, when your offspring sends you money, the joy of running a business far outweighs the nastiness involved. That is, if you love roller coasters and parenting.

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.

Takeaways from WordCamp Asheville 2019

by Mark Bloom | Jun 17, 2019 | Small Business Advice

The WordCamp Lessons for Business Owners

Wordcamp lessons from 2019

To learn what WordCamp is, you first have to know about WordPress. WordPress is a website platform, originally used as a content management system for blogging. It’s come a long way since then; today, it’s one of the most popular platforms on which to build a website. It’s open-source and free, so it attracts a dedicated community. The Ray Access website is built on WordPress.

An extension of that community, WordCamp is a two-day, weekend conference that’s held locally in cities throughout the world, once a year at each location. On June 8 and 9, 2019, WordCamp Asheville took place on the campus of UNC Asheville. Ray Access was there to learn, to share and to network. Every year, we learn something worth the price of admission. Here are this year’s takeaways.

Biggest of the WordCamp Lessons

The most impactful and easy-to-implement of the WordCamp lessons of 2019 was the importance of Google My Business. Since Google owns the two most popular search engines on the planet (Google and YouTube), it makes business sense to appease the gods of search engine rankings. Multiple sessions touched on the need for Google My Business updates.

Ray Access has a Google My Business page, but it was largely left to fend for itself, since we considered it a tool for local-only marketing. Now that we know better, look for weekly posts to the listing. Yelp, Bing and other search engine listings are sure to follow.

The Need for Speed

Last year, the focus was on mobile-friendly WordCamp templates. It’s true that Google penalizes sites that aren’t mobile-friendly, but most up-to-date websites today follow that standard. The next step in accommodating search engines and visitors alike is load speed. WordCamp lessons don’t get simpler than that: make sure your website loads within four seconds. The trick, though, is how best to accomplish it.

Strategies abound. Plugins like Lazy Loader, JS Minimizer, WP SuperCache and Autoptomizer help your page load faster, but some may need tweaking for your specific site. There’s also the idea of a content delivery network, which shares your website images and other large files on a dispersed network, so visitors get the one that’s physically closer to where they are. Whatever you decide to do, do it soon, as Google penalizes slow-loading websites.

A Return to Basics

Finally, there’s a topic that’s both new and old at the same time. As writers and editors, the crew at Ray Access understand that the audience is the first critical piece of information needed when drafting any article, regardless of its purpose. In website terms, that involves not only the language you use, but also the experience you design. User experience or UX is a resurgent topic for all websites.

UX involves making your website easy for your target audience to navigate, find information and feel good about the experience. This science envelopes accessibility, language, design and development. It calls for clear calls-to-action and consistent labeling. It involves honesty — delivering on every promise without any bait-and-switch or other link-bait tactics.

How does your website compare? If it’s been a while since you’ve reviewed your site, contact Ray Access for a website assessment. It’s an inexpensive investment to determine the state of your website from a visitor’s point of view to get the most out of these WordCamp lessons.

The Difference Between an Amateur and a Professional Writer

by Mark Bloom | Jun 10, 2019 | Writing

Professional Writing Help for Your Business

Professional writing help gets you started and keeps you going

Anyone who can craft a sentence can be a writer. Anyone who can formulate an idea on the page can write a blog post. Yet there are a number of differences between an amateur writer and a professional, not the least of which is what the title suggests: a professional is paid for the work. If you want to join the ranks of the pros, here is some professional writing help in the form of tips and advice.

The most succinct difference between an amateur and professional writer has little to do with talent. But there is an enormous difference in terms of output. Professional writers write all the time, even when they’re not at the computer. It’s their job. Amateurs tend to write piece by piece as the muse hits them. Here’s the first bit of professional writing help that’ll turn you into a pro: show up every day to write.

How You Approach the Craft

Professional artists take their craft seriously. Painters, sculptors and even interior decorators spend time learning how to do what they do. They experiment. They take chances. They learn from their mistakes. They go back at it again and again as continuing education. Amateurs, on the other hand, are weekend artists or occasional creatives. It’s not their life’s focus.

Writing is the same. A professional writer doesn’t — and really can’t afford to — wait for the muse to arrive. There are deadlines, and the next project is always waiting. Professionals work hard to do the absolute best they can do for every project. An amateur, in contrast, may spend an inordinate amount of time on one project “to get it right.”

It has to do with your approach to the craft. Do you focus on goals or process? A professional writer understands that each project has a trajectory: a beginning, a middle and an end. Once you’ve developed a process that works for you, you can employ it for each and every project, regardless of the inherent differences.

How You Approach Success

Even amateur writers can enjoy successes. But they tend to view success as the goal, not a milepost. Professional writers understand that each success is just a feather in an already full cap. You can’t be a successful professional writer without a string of successes. It’s not that each success means less to a professional, but that’s not the end goal.

The opposite of success is failure, and how you approach that outcome is just as important as how you deal with success. Do you give up after a failure or do you consider every failure just another step toward your evolution as a writer? If you want to become a pro, the professional writing help you need is all mental; in other words, approach writing as a job.

Professional Writing Help for Amateurs

Amateur writers are well-served to learn the differences between where they are and where they want to be. Some of these differences include:

Amateurs often think they know everything they need to know. Professionals realize that they still have a lot to learn, and every project presents an opportunity.
Amateurs too often take criticism personally. It stops them in their tracks and cuts them to the quick. Professionals, on the other hand, actively seek criticism and recognize the difference between negative and positive criticism. (They ignore the former and value the latter.)
Amateurs want every word to be perfect, especially at the beginning of every project. Professionals know that it doesn’t matter where they start writing, since the initial beginning rarely makes it into the final cut.
Finally, professionals listen, while amateurs boast. Yes, this is a generalization, but professionals know that listening is the key to delivering the best results.

If you’re an amateur and find that the road to professionalism is too long for you to bother with and you need professional writing help now, contact your friends at Ray Access.

What to Do When Negativity Knocks

by Elle Ray | Jun 4, 2019 | Small Business Advice

Or How to Stay Positive When You Don’t Feel It

Stay positive even if you don't feel it

Most business owners know by now that you have to stay positive to make it in business. It’s been revealed that how you think affects your outcomes. See books such as Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking and Oprah’s favorite, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

But what can you do when you’re just not feeling it? When there just seems to be a black cloud hanging over your head that no amount of positive thinking can dispel? When you wake up and just know it’s all going to come crashing down?

Sometimes, those negative thoughts and feelings come unexpectedly, out of the blue, for no seemingly good reason. At other times, perhaps you’ve been sitting on the precipice of doom, with one bad move following another. No matter where they come from or how based in reality they are, it’s imperative to your health, happiness and success that you find a way to stay positive no matter what.

Start Questioning the Origin

It helps to look for a logical reason for why you can’t seem to stay positive, whether it’s just one negative day or several weeks’ worth of spreading darkness. Begin with some basic questions. You may find a common source of negativity, which may include:

Am I eating right? Low blood sugar and hunger are two culprits that can make it difficult to remain positive. Eat something nutritious and you suddenly may feel cheery right away.
Have I gotten sufficient sleep? A lack of a solid six-to-eight hours of sleep sets you up for a potential bout of depression that’s hard to overcome with positive thinking. Take steps to get enough sleep and the blues may just fade away on their own.
Did I do something immoral, illegal or unethical to bring about the bad karma that seems to be coming my way? If you’ve made a mistake, clean it up. If you owe someone an apology, do it and that black cloud may soon turn pink again.
Am I “shoulding” myself? No one’s perfect. As soon as you get over all the “shoulds” you think you need to have under control — I should have done more, I should have known better, I should have called him back right away, I should have asked someone first, I should (place anything here) — the sooner you can enjoy your life as a fallible human being once again.

Dig Deeper

Negativity and pessimism seem to be built into some people. Perhaps character flaws that you’ve lived with all your life are keeping you from the ability to stay positive and overcome the bouts of catastrophizing you may be going through. Those deep-seated beliefs most likely have been with you from childhood or developed as a survival mechanism to help you get through troubling times. Negative personalities share a number of characteristics, such as:

Blaming others for everything that goes wrong
Feeling like a victim with little or no control over outcomes
Personalizing everything so it’s always about you
Overgeneralizing so that situations always seem all good or all bad
Giving too much credence to your emotions instead of looking at the facts
A strong need to always be right, even if it’s to your own detriment

If you fall into any of these categories, it may be wise to invest in a good therapist to help you work out the kinks left over from childhood that aren’t serving you well anymore. Self-help books and groups where people help each other overcome negative thinking and behavior can be helpful.

Stay positive by being good to yourself

Moving On

No matter how much you change, sleep or eat, there still are going to be days when the black harbinger of doom sits on your bedpost just waiting for you to get up so he can tell you how bad it’s going be. To stay positive and deal with those now occasional days of darkness, fill your toolbox with tips to get and keep you on track so that you can put your thinking cap on straight. It’s really no secret that when you stay positive, you act positive to your best end. (And everyone around you benefits too.)

The next time you have trouble finding a way to stay positive, consider:

Turn it over and look at a situation (or your life) from a different perspective. For example, maybe you didn’t land that big client because a better one is in the wings. Or perhaps you realize that running on fumes for your business is actually jeopardizing your health, so you take action — and both get healthier.
Get moving physically. Take a walk outside, hit the gym hard or take in a dance class you’ve been meaning to attend. Exercise releases endorphins, those feel-good hormones you need to stay positive.
Take a risk. When you feel stuck in a rut, it can lead to some pretty negative reactions like: “Not that again,” or “I’m going to scream if I have to do that one more time.” Shake things up and buy into a new marketing campaign, let the Debbie-downers in your office go and hire some upbeat employees, call that big client who turned you down last year.
Remember the good times. When it seems like you’ve become a dumping ground for the world’s waste, it’s easy to jump on that garbage truck and continue the dumping on yourself. Turn it around by remembering your successes, your great talents and the people and circumstances that got you where you are today.
Take a break. As a small business owner, you may be notorious for skipping vacations, worried that the business won’t survive if you aren’t there to handle it. A vacation is in order when those negative days seem to be gathering more often than usual. And really try to unplug, leaving the day-to-day to others or freeing up your schedule even for a long weekend. Start planning the vacay now and the anticipation may be enough to allow you to stay positive right now, even before the jet has left the tarmac.

The Small Business Juggle

by Mark Bloom | May 27, 2019 | Small Business Advice

Trying to Fit in All of Your Small Business Tasks

Juggle your small business tasks to stay on top

Small business owners have to do everything themselves. If you own a small business, you’re not just doing all the work of your business — whether it’s washing boats, making jellies or writing blog posts — you’re also doing all the other small business tasks. Everything falls onto your shoulders when you own a small business. There’s no rest for the hopeful.

You may have started your business because you had an idea, you saw a need in the marketplace or you had a particular passion for a product or service you knew you could sell. But you may never have considered all the other small business tasks you now have to do:

Bookkeeping
Taxes
Marketing and advertising
Payroll
Hiring and firing
Facilities and equipment
Website
Time management
Customer acquisition

Small Businesses by the Numbers

According to Forbes Magazine, 80 percent of all new small businesses in the United States survive the first year, but only half make it past Year Five. Only a third make it to 10 years. Those are sobering numbers.

Given these statistics, it’s a wonder anyone starts a small business. Is it the allure of growing something out of nothing? Or do small business owners buy into the Microsoft model of building an international corporation out of their parents’ garage?

The Small Business Administration reports that 240,000 small businesses started in the third quarter of 2016 — the latest figures available. During the same period, though, 215,000 businesses closed. That’s a net gain of just 25,000 businesses or just over 10 percent.

Why Small Businesses Don’t Succeed

Because you have to do so much — all those small business tasks — to keep your business afloat, you may think that burnout is one of the reasons small businesses fail. Maybe you love what you do, but you still have to be a manager, accountant, advertising executive, search engine optimization (SEO) expert and information technology professional. It’s a lot to juggle.

But it’s not burnout that causes most small businesses to close their doors, according to the Forbes article. The top five reasons most businesses fail involve:

Not enough money to sustain the business
Not enough customers who want what you’re selling
Too much competition in your field
Wrong pricing point for your market
Wrong team or skill sets

If you fail at any one of these reasons, your company may fail. You’re already facing long odds to make it. Consider these common shortcomings and compare them to your own business.

Juggling small business tasks takes organization

How to Juggle Your Small Business Tasks

If you can solve the first four points above, your business has a fighting chance to last. Finding the right team is both an internal and external problem for small business owners. Knowing what you’re good at requires self-reflection and an objective assessment. Also, hiring the right people for the right job requires good judgment.

What sets successful small businesses apart is their willingness to admit what they can and can’t do. Hiring someone to do your books seems like a no-brainer when you have no head for numbers. Hiring someone to do your marketing is time-consuming even though it’s an investment in your business.

And if you’re not a writer, writing your website takes enormous effort away from your core business. But your website’s where business takes place. That’s where you persuade visitors to contact you. Landing pages and blog posts have major implications for the success of your business online. To increase your odds of success, learn to farm out those small business tasks, like content, to professional contractors, like Ray Access.

How to Get Your Press Release Noticed

by Elle Ray | May 21, 2019 | Press Releases

Smart Tips for Sending Out Your Press Release

The big day is coming: you’re finally ready for your grand opening! Or the founder of your company who’s lasted 44 years is retiring. Or you’re holding the biggest blow-out sale in your company’s history. Or you’re hosting a gala in support of a local charity.

All newsworthy, you think. So you knock out a press release — or hire professionals like Ray Access to write it for you — and send it to all the local media. You find the main fax and emails numbers and shoot it off, clearing your calendar for the interviews that are sure to follow when you get your press release noticed. After all, this is a big deal, big news.

In Whose World?

While the news you have to share is super important, it’s really only newsworthy to you, your employees and maybe a handful of customers. It’s really not eye-popping for everyone else. Most news that business owners think is worth at least a few inches on the local news blog or in the daily or weekly paper actually isn’t.

Tips to get your press release noticed

You probably won’t get your press release noticed if all you do is put out information about sales or good works that you do. That’s what advertising is for. And most media outlets, even small hometown blogs and publications, have a diverse audience — what’s hot for one reader is a big yawn for another. Finally, to get your press released noticed, you first must impress your primary target: the reporters and editors on whose desk your press release lands.

Tips to Get Your Press Release Noticed (and Written About)

If all you’re promoting is an event or close-out, send a notice to the calendar section of the paper or website. Save yourself the time and money of preparing and sending out a press release. Spend your resources on an ad if you think your sale is big enough. Place the news on your own blog or post it on your social media for your followers to find. Put the announcement in your next newsletter to let those on your email list know of the upcoming special event.

If you’d really like to get wider coverage and maybe even an article or interview out of the event, follow these tips to get your press release noticed:

Send it to a real person. Remember what you do when you get mail addressed to Occupant or letters aimed at To Whom It May Concern. Like many of us, you likely stick it, unopened, in the circular file. Take the time to find out which reporter covers your industry. Build relationships with these journalists so you have a contact when you want to get your press release noticed.
Tie your news into current events. Reporters are always looking for a local angle to a national story. For example, if you’re opening a new treatment center or holding an event to support a drug rehab, lead off with the fact that this event is tied into the opioid crisis, a huge story that’s been ongoing and probably won’t go away for a while.
Find a hook. Much like tying your announcement into national or local news, create a scenario that puts a different or quirky spin on a trend or ongoing controversy in your area. Have you given raises to your staff so that they now make living wages? That may tie into efforts to raise the minimum wage in your state.
Drop names. Do your best to get a celebrity to endorse your business. Better yet, ask that well-known person to attend your event as the guest of honor, main speaker or entertainment. TV news and radio personalities are always looking for a way to get their names and faces in front of the public. And their bosses appreciate the opportunities.
Pull a stunt. This trick is as old as the media industry and involves going big to draw attention to your business and your event. Get your press release noticed by announcing you will jump out of a plane, throwing a bag of money to the crowd gathered below. To honor your founder, let it be known that a diamond is hidden in one of the cupcakes you’ll be handing out to customers all day. What? Now that’s some fodder for water-cooler talk, and a pretty good bet that some creative journalist will either write about the event in advance or at least show up to put you and your company on the six o’clock news!

15 Creativity Hacks for You and Your Company

by Mark Bloom | May 13, 2019 | Small Business Advice

Tips to Improve Creativity and Your Business

Every small business owner finds a million and one things that have to be done every day. It’s a never-ending torrent of tasks. Since it’s often impossible to complete them all, your stress levels go through the roof. And if there are two things that are deadly to creativity, they are stress and endless busy work.

The first rule for using tips to improve creativity is to give yourself space and time.

If you’re looking for tips to improve creativity, you need look no further. But first, let’s examine why creativity is important in business. You need to understand why businesspeople even bother to be creative. After all, how can it help your bottom line?

Why Creativity Matters in Business

According to Tucker Marion, an associate professor at Northeastern University, “Companies who are creative are more successful.” Creativity spurs innovation, and innovation drives businesses to adapt to market changes and take advantage of new opportunities.

And it’s not just ad agencies or software development companies that value creativity. Retail stores are reinventing themselves. Medical practices are finding new ways to attract patients in an increasingly turbulent marketplace. Every business faces competition. Those that can out-think or out-maneuver its competitors are the ones that succeed.

Tips to Improve Creativity

There are some simple things you can do to enhance your creativity in your business. These tips to improve creativity are meant to help you, but not all of them will work for you specifically, depending on the size of your business and other factors. But don’t let that stop you from trying them! Tips for a more creative team include:

Hire more creative people. With the right interview questions, you can tease out the creative candidates. Try: “What’s the last valuable thing you learned?” or “How much would it cost to clean all the windows of this building?” or “What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?” When candidates have to think out of the box, you get an insight into their creative nature.
Create more diverse teams. Diversity doesn’t always mean differences in race, gender and age (although they help). It also can account for personality types and points of view. Differences lead to varying opinions on how to solve a problem. In a non-competitive group, ideas build on themselves to create innovation. Mix it up!
Value and incentivize creative efforts. It’s one thing to have a suggestion box, but it’s another to offer cash bonuses for ideas that are successfully implemented. When everyone has a say in making your business better, guess what? Your business gets better. This effort also increases employee engagement, retention and satisfaction, which lead to a more productive staff.
Explore ideas with an open mind. If you have a way for your employees to contribute, either privately or in a group setting, don’t discount any idea. If one doesn’t seem feasible, maybe there’s a germ of a worthwhile idea within it. Following tips to improve creativity means not saying, “No,” but saying, “Yes and…”
Enable flex hours and telecommuting. You can still hold your employees accountable for their productivity while letting them work flex hours or from home occasionally. Not all creative people thrive in a buttoned-down environment. Allow them to adjust their hours. As long they hit their goals and attend meetings, everything else can be negotiable.
Give your employees more space. This isn’t about physical space; sometimes, you can’t control that. But companies that constantly push their employees often lose them to burnout or attrition. If you value your employees, learn to trust them. Give them adequate downtime. Well-rested employees are more productive and more creative on the job.
Provide inspirational activities. Group activities and personal challenges get the brain racing. When you take your employees out of their regular routines, especially if it’s a surprise, genuine connections and real creativity often occurs.

You may also need tips to improve creativity in yourself, as the owner/operator of a small business. These tips include:

Step away from your desk. If you’re struggling to find creative answers to stubborn questions, banging your head against the wall doesn’t work. Instead, use these tips to improve creativity: Take a walk, preferably in nature. Stop trying so hard and just let your mind go blank. Go do a repetitive task like the laundry, stuffing envelopes, anything to get your mind off the problem.
Change your routine. Falling into a routine isn’t a bad thing. But routines turn your brain off. You don’t have to think when your muscles know what to do. When you wake, do things in a different order. Drive a different way to work. Mix it up every way you can.
Make a list … of bad ideas. Everyone has bad ideas. So get them out of the way by brainstorming all the poor ideas you can. This does two things: it gets them out of your mind and it forces you to think in a way you’re unfamiliar with, which is a great way to build your creative muscles. And you may even hit upon an idea with possibilities.
Ask yourself personal questions. The better you know yourself, the better you can find that creative zone that you need to run your company successfully. In your quiet moments of the day, even if it’s just before you go to bed at night or just after you get up in the morning, ask yourself when, where and how you’re most productive and creative.
Hang around creative people. Tips to improve creativity like this one are similar to others if you want to be a certain way. Want to think smarter? Hang around people smarter than you are. What to be a better basketball player? Hang around people who excel at the sport. Want to be more creative? Well, you get the idea.
Avoid reading your “masters.” When you’re trying to be creative, nothing can dampen your spirit more than reading what experts in your field have written. You may not be able to reach their heights, which fosters feelings of inadequacy. And that’s fatal to your creativity. Instead, read inspirational books and blogs.
Set aside “you time.” Email beckons. The latest TV show or online video looks fun. Social media’s always waiting. There’s the laundry, the dishes or the pets. Life generates plenty of distractions. If you really want tips to improve creativity, then set aside uninterruptible time to be creative.
Schedule regular time to be creative. Creativity doesn’t always obey a schedule. It doesn’t always come whenever you call. But if you set a time, you get in the habit of being creative. You may have to plow through days when nothing happens and the muse doesn’t show, but you’ll also have days when the faucet won’t turn off.

Tips to improve creativity mean nothing if you don’t put them to use. Take the tips that you think may work and try them. Take the others and try them too. You may hit on ideas that otherwise would remain buried. If you don’t have the time or the inclination to dig for creativity, contact the creatives at Ray Access.

Avoid Lazy Writing

by Elle Ray | May 5, 2019 | Writing

Remedies for Writing That’s Become Muddied

Every writer falls into it from time to time: lazy writing just to fill up a page. Filler words and trite phrases slip into your prose unsolicited. And they end up crowding out your message, making your writing clunky, passive and unclear.

Lazy writing disappoints your readers and turns them off.

The tendency to rely on useless filler words comes from academia. From high school essays through Ph.D. dissertations, writers are taught to string together extremely long sentences, as if that’s the primary purpose of writing. Well-meaning English teachers encourage students to fill pages with modifiers, clauses, determiners, adverbs and adjectives that don’t add anything to the meaning.

But you aren’t on campus anymore, Dorothy. Now you’re in the business world, where every word counts! Each nanosecond you waste on a useless filler word constitutes lazy writing, and readers won’t stand for it. With so many alternatives available, they’ll just go elsewhere. As a result, no one will get your message.

Clarity Is Queen

If content is king, then clarity is queen. As time condenses and people’s attention spans shorten, you have to make every word count. Clarity is the means by which you get right to the point in as few words as possible.

You’ve still got to fulfill your mission and get the meaning of your writing across. But doing it succinctly is the best path to the end. And it’s the only way your writing will be read.

Consider your readers. They consume blogs, websites, newsletters, memos and marketing copy on the fly. No busy professional sits down in the evening with an after-dinner drink to read your latest blog. No, they’re more likely to digest your business writing along with a morning muffin on a mobile device. So make it count and make it tight.

Down and Dirty Lazy Writing Tricks

The Content Marketing Institute reports that lazy writing is full of filler and fluff that bores readers, complicates ideas and dilutes your message. They even list words you can take out of your writing right now to make it better.

The Ray Access content experts agree with them all and strongly favor a few. And we’ve got a few of our own to add to the list. The experienced Ray Access editors remove the filler from lazy writing that creeps into any of our work. We recommend you avoid phrases such as:

In order to. There’s never an excuse for this phrase. Just use “to” and continue. Take it out; you’ll never miss it.
Can, may. Does your service help your customers? Or can it? When you write: “Our service can help you grow your business,” you’re using a modifier that negates your statement. Using “may” delivers the same result. Don’t unintentionally hurt your cause. Instead be direct and bold in your statement: “Our service helps you grow your business.”
As a matter of fact, moreover, not to mention. Don’t water your message down. Just say it. Lazy writing is full of these kinds of transitions. Get to the point without all the filler.
Are able to, is able to. Like using the filler word “can,” this phrase is just as useless. Instead of writing: “We are able to get your work out quickly,” write: “We get your work out quickly.” See how much stronger the statement becomes?
There are, there is. When it comes to lazy writing, this phrase often constitutes a major relapse in judgment. You can find better, more direct ways of starting any sentence. So don’t use “there are” or “there is.” Get right to the point. “There are more ways to do it” is a roundabout version of “We offer more ways to do it.” And then explain what they are.

Clean Up Your Act

One of the best tips we give writers is to write like you speak. You may have to clean it up a bit and get rid of the slang and shortcuts translated through your body language. But when you read your work out loud before submitting it (another good tip), it should sound like you: a person who knows what she’s talking about.

And if you just can’t help falling into those old lazy writing habits, leave the clutter for your cleaning lady, otherwise known as your editor! Call on Ray Access to clean up your writing, tackle those lazy sentences and take your message straight to your audience — clearly and on point. And you can save money while tightening up your writing, as we charge half-price for editing any of your writing projects!

Tell Your Story to Sell Your Wares

by Mark Bloom | Apr 30, 2019 | Content Marketing

Content Marketing and Storytelling in Business

Let me tell you a story. It’s a love story, in a way. Boy meets girl. There’s passion, perseverance, even a few twists and turns. It has a happy ending. It’s our story, the story of Ray Access. It’s the convergence of content marketing and storytelling.

Content marketing and storytelling come together at Ray Access

When Mark Bloom met Linda Ray, the idea of drawing people to look at your website was new. As writers, they saw the possibilities. As they browsed the internet, they saw the need. By the time they formed Ray Access, they had developed a passion for useful content and websites that actually added value to the world.

Blogging for a Better World

At first, they advertised themselves as business bloggers. Blogging adds volume to a website while providing a platform to share:

Tips and tricks about a business
Insider information about an industry
How-to instructions to help businesses help themselves
Content targeted specifically to a segment of their market
Links to great information others are putting out
Opinions about related topics

This reflects the purpose of content marketing and storytelling adds value to each of these areas. Good writing — content that connects with an audience quickly and communicates its message effectively — is what people online look for. Making it personal helps an article to connect to its readers. And that’s exactly what Ray Access did in its early years.

An Evolution in Content Marketing

But the world doesn’t stay the same; it continues to evolve, sometimes sweeping the rug out from under your best-laid plans. And that’s what happened to Ray Access. Despite a dearth of quality blogs, businesses weren’t clamoring for them in large enough numbers. The entire business model, the foundation of Ray Access, was in danger of crumbling, leaving Mark and Linda in tight spot.

Should they widen their marketing? Seek new avenues to draw new clients? All options were on the table. Just as prospects looked their grimmest, opportunity struck. It was a quirky circumstance, an unforeseen happenstance. Once of their existing clients asked if they do website content.

“Of Course We Write Website Content!”

You have to remember, those were trying times. The business was struggling. Both Mark and Linda questioned the earlier passion for their craft. They didn’t get to say “No” often at all. But website content has a different purpose from blog posts. Blog posts are all content marketing and storytelling. Website content has to convert visitors into customers. It has to persuade people to contact and order products and services.

The two writers dove into the effort to learn the nuances between blog posts and website content. Their passion for their work was rekindled. The business was saved.

And They Lived Happily Ever After?

Well, not exactly. As every small business owner understands, running a business takes hard work and luck. But the happy ending (for now) is that the business is still going and still growing. Mark and Linda are still together, partners in a business that is a product of their passion for writing and their belief in a better, more effective internet.

Now you know a little bit more about Ray Access. You know Mark and Linda better, and you know what drives them in their day-to-day work. Content marketing and storytelling do come together to serve a higher purpose. Take advantage of both by contacting Ray Access to let us provide you with that content magic to help you better connect with your audience.

Spring Cleaning for Business

by Elle Ray | Apr 22, 2019 | Small Business Advice

A Clean Space Helps Recharge Your Batteries

Do some spring cleaning ... for your business too!

You take your winter clothes out of the front closet, bring coats to the dry cleaners and sort out your spring and summer wardrobe. The house gets a thorough spring cleaning and you clear all the winter debris from your yard to prepare for new growth.

Spring cleaning is a rite of passage for those who love the freshness that the new season brings. And while you may take painstaking care of your home, have you spent an equal amount of time and energy giving your office and your business its share of attention? If you’re like most busy entrepreneurs, the answer often is “No.”

Clean Up and Breathe

One of the reasons that spring cleaning is a vital annual ritual is that it gives you the opportunity to rid your home of moldy spores that have been waiting for the temperatures to rise so they can be fruitful and multiply. Your office, where you spend so much of your time, needs the same disinfecting as your home.

So while you’re cleaning the walls and baseboards of your office as part of a yearly spring cleaning, don’t forget to sanitize your:

Keyboard and mouse, where the winter’s germs have surely found a place to settle
Bookshelves, where dust mites love to congregate behind the tomes and knick-knacks
Desk and all that’s accumulated there while you worked so hard all winter
Chair, on which you sat for endless hours, catching up and paying your dues while you waited for warmer weather to get you outdoors

Spring Cleaning for Windows

Don’t forget about the inside of your computer! That doesn’t mean you necessarily have to take apart your case and give your hard drive a good scrubbing (although people have done that). Instead, consider your files and all that they contain.

When you get the spring cleaning bug, take it to the next level and clean up your cookies, junk files and other temporary files that just get in the way. For example:

Go through your saved files and delete those items you’ll never need (or want) to look at again. Not only do useless files take up room on your hard drive, they add to the clutter that ends up slowing down your searches and ultimately, your mind. Sometimes, unneeded files take up time too, especially when you forget what’s in them and have to open them to trigger your memory.
Use an external hard drive or even a thumb drive to store those files that you might need in the future. By keeping them out of your main memory, you clear up storage and still keep them nearby — just in case.
Consider your client list and begin a purging process to get rid of those customers who aren’t adding sufficient benefits to your business or your bottom line. Spring cleaning is the ideal time to clear out from under those clients who are more pain than profit or who bring you down. One rotten strawberry can ruin the bushel; don’t let one negative client ruin the fun you’re having with your business.

Spruce Up for Spring

Just as you cut fresh flowers to grace your table, bring in some freshness to your office environment. Paint the walls. Put some new artwork up. Exchange your old, tired motivational posters for some new, bright ideas.

Move your desk to give yourself a fresh perspective. If possible, set your chair toward a window (newly cleaned of course). It reduces glare on your computer screen and opens your view, which in turn may open your mind to new ideas.

Get more great ideas from our small business advice section of our blog. Contact us for more information.

« Older Entries

Next Entries »