A Time to Laugh

by Elle Ray | Aug 11, 2019 | Small Business Advice

When Humor at Work Is an Appropriate Thing

Too often, you may think that work has to be all professional and reserved. Clients may not take you seriously, or so you think. Humor has its place, you tell yourself, and that place is after business hours.

But you’ve forgotten about the saying: “Laugh and the world laughs with you.” As small business owners, we consider humor at work to be life-saving. A balance of humor and seriousness is the key to success. We often choose to laugh instead of cry when the going gets rough.

Introduce humor at work to take the edge off

For entrepreneurs and business people in general, humor at work breaks the spell of seriousness. It refuses to allow you to take yourself too sternly. If you’re not having fun, if you’re not at least enjoying your work, then it’s time to leave and find a career path that does delight you. Life is much too short to spend eight, 10 or 12 hours a day in misery!

Well-Documented Laugh Tracks

Famous — and successful — leaders throughout time have extolled the virtues of humor at work:

“A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
“A good laugh makes any interview, or any conversation, so much better.” — Barbara Walters
“It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously.” — Oscar Wilde
“No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Next to power without honor, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humor.” — Eric Sevareid

Unfortunately, in an age that’s super-charged with political correctness, being funny, cracking jokes or letting your wit shine can be a tricky proposition. You don’t want to offend, but real humor very often does just that — at least in the eyes of serious, overly-sensitive clients and co-workers.

Why Humor at Work Works

The culture of your workplace and your business overall plays a key role in the amount and kind of humor at work that feels comfortable. As an owner, you obviously set the tone for the company, so be careful if you catch yourself getting too serious as your business grows, when you make more hires and as your client base diversifies.

Instead, laugh every day. You and everyone around you will be grateful you keep it light. There really are some good foundational aspects to this whole funny business side of work too. Consider that your sense of humor may actually go even further by:

Relieving stress. Nothing busts up stress like a good belly laugh.
Boosting creativity. When you’re relaxed, your creative juices flow more easily.
Building goodwill. People do business with people they like. And if you can make them laugh or even smile, you have a much better chance of making friends.
Creating a positive atmosphere. There’s less tension in an environment where people don’t have to constantly worry about busting out with a joke.
Being unique. While your competitors may be burrowing down in serious number-crunching, you and your team are laughing all the way to the bank.

Oh No You Didn’t

It’s tempting to begin taking yourself too seriously as your bank account fattens. Instead, maintain your sense of humor at work so you don’t turn into old Mr. Potter, guarding his money and alienating the entire town of Bedford Falls. Let co-workers and employees see your funny side. Take your clients and staff by surprise every once in a while by busting loose on your own foibles and laughing at yourself.

People trust others who can laugh at themselves. They don’t worry as much about making a mistake, which in turn boosts morale better than any pizza party can. And if you aren’t sure whether to try to bring a little more humor to work today, remember: indecision is the key to flexibility.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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