by Elle Ray | May 13, 2014 | Small Business Advice
We All Resist Doing What We Know We Should
We know we should exercise more, eat less, get more sleep, relax more often, play with the kids and take more vacations. As small business owners, we know we should clean our tools, make more cold calls, update our marketing brochure and write a weekly blog. But too often we just don’t do what we “should” do.
Procrastination, that devil of idleness, can lead to a whole host of issues. Never mind the weight gain and lost business opportunities. Forget the bags under your eyes and the slipping of your website ranking. Those are just the consequences. How about all that guilt and the negative messages we send ourselves about how we’re failing? Face it, no good comes of procrastinating on doing things that are good for us.
And yet at the same time, no good comes from the “shoulds.” Here are our tips for overcoming the dreaded “shoulds:”
Stop Talking
Stop the endless chatter about what you have to do and follow the old Nike saying: “just do it.” Too often, says author and sociologist Martha Beck, we kid ourselves into thinking we are making progress when all we’re really doing is adding more verbiage to our stories and our “shoulds.” We discuss, plan and talk about the issues in meeting after meeting, but we end up with the same results at the end of the day: nothing done and going home with more remorse to keep us tossing through the night.
Get Real
It takes a lot of courage to face the truth. Whether you’re afraid of failing, not sure how to move forward or just plain not interested in those things hanging out on your “should” plate, there’s a reason that you’re not getting the important stuff done. Instead of trying to force results, take a step back and figure out what is standing in your way and work on removing that obstacle. Take a class, delegate, accept the status quo or change directions. Get counseling if necessary, if that’s what it takes to get real. Do something to drop the sack of rocks in your “should” bag, and you’ll sleep like a baby.
Find Help
Business owners in general believe they are strong, confident and capable. Without those characteristics, they’d be working in a cubicle collecting a safe paycheck every week. But oftentimes, it’s those very same independent streaks that keep them stuck and full of “shoulds.”
It’s the really strong, confident leader who admits to not having all the answers. It’s the smart entrepreneur who asks for help. Join a support group, hire extra help or just read a helpful blog. Chances are that someone else has felt the same way as you do and carried similar fears and doubts to bed each night. The odds are pretty good that someone else has found solutions they are willing to share. All you have to do is ask.
Like us.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | May 5, 2014 | Website Content
Your Website Content Makes a Big Difference
More and more of our clients have been asking for website content. There’s good reason to upgrade your website content, especially if your website isn’t working for you. Our two unofficial mottos are:
- If your website isn’t making you money, it’s costing you money.
- If you’re ignoring your website, it’s likely ignoring you.
These aren’t just clever phrases; they underline our business philosophy that every website is a potential marketing engine. If you aren’t optimizing your website for your company, you’re losing ground to your competition. The trends are clear: the Internet is the new yellow pages. If your listing doesn’t appear, you are losing business.
First Step: Fresh Content
The first thing we do for our clients is to update their websites to make sure the content addresses their target audience: their existing and potential customers. It has to welcome visitors, introduce a business and answer their questions.
We often recommend an active blog, because business blogging is an excellent way to attract new customers and answer more questions in a more in-depth manner. That makes the website more useful, and useful content online often is shared. If your visitors are sharing your content, that’s better than advertising.
Landing Pages Work
The next logical step, once the website content is working to attract new visitors, is to turn those visitors into customers. That’s the goal of landing pages.
A landing page is a special page constructed on your website that you direct people to when you want them to learn more about your products or services. The classic example of a landing page is the website page where you send web users who click on your ad somewhere else (e.g., on a social media site). By clicking the ad, they have already demonstrated interest in your company, so you want them to land on a useful, informative and active page.
In this case, your landing page must explain your competitive advantage. You have to sell your company. You have to persuade the visitor to buy your products or services. Normally, your website should not be an avenue to push your products or services onto your visitors. That drives people away. But a landing page is different. On the landing page, you want to give them options and a way to contact you or make a purchase.
Put Theory into Practice
Now that you understand how your website is supposed to operate to generate business and convert visitors into customers, get to it! Contact us for a website assessment, and we’ll give you our honest, objective feedback regarding your website’s effectiveness, whether you hire us or not. What have you got to lose, except inertia?
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Sep 13, 2013 | Small Business Advice
Confessions of a Freelance Content Provider
Between us, Mark and Linda have owned a number of small businesses. As writers and editors, the businesses we start never get very big… yet we always strive for excellence and always work hard at marketing our services. Despite that, we continually fall into the trap of losing that balance between working like crazy and looking for work like crazy.
Image courtesy of bplanet / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Some call it “the feast or famine cycle.” We’re not sure if that’s the best moniker for this syndrome, though. Maybe it should be “damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” If we’re working like crazy, that means we’re earning money, but we aren’t looking for future work. If we are looking for work like crazy, that means we aren’t earning any money. As a result, we try to find a balance, but we never can. We tend to approach our marketing efforts in a disorganized and disjointed way.
Marketing Sure Helps
We tell clients in person and in our blog that they must maintain their marketing to get consistent, effective results. While we’re pretty good about adding fresh content to our website — it is after all what we do best — we’re slackers when it comes to consistent marketing beyond the site. Part of the problem may be a certain amount of laziness, but one of the biggest hurdles is forcing ourselves to do those unpleasant tasks — like sales and cold calling. It’s hard work, even when we know the person we’re talking to can benefit from the services we provide.
At the same time, as Linda says, “it’s difficult to make myself look for work when I have plenty on my desk.” Both Linda and Mark freelance to other clients outside Ray Access. It’s a small but growing business that doesn’t yet provide enough income for both of us to survive on, so we can’t afford to ignore other ready streams of income in order to step up our marketing efforts. “Why spend money,” Linda asks, “when I can stay at my keyboard and make money?”
Identifying the Trap
And there’s the trap. We’ve experienced it in every business we’ve ever owned. We’ve heard countless similar tales from fellow entrepreneurs. It happened when Linda was reconditioning yachts on the Chesapeake Bay and when she headed a freelance writing business. It happened when Mark was trying to ramp up a video production company and when he ran his own editing business.
As Linda so aptly put it: “I’ll be so enamored with a single lucrative contract that I ignore the marketing end of the business. I’ll do the jobs I actually contract for and enjoy the most, while telling myself — life is good, why not? And then — bam! — the single biggest client decides to move out of town or close up shop. And I’m left in the dust. A contractor without a contract.”
This blog post falls outside of our usual informational topics — talking about the importance of putting great copy on your website — to give you a glimpse of the darker side of small business. You may already know all about it if you run a small company. If you don’t, let this serve as a warning.
Is open confession good for the soul? I don’t know and can’t think about it because I’ve got some writing to do. What keeps you up at night?
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.
