Tag: Business Tips

Working together as a multigenerational team isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Individuals of different generations often have different value sets and methodologies for approaching work. They might also prefer to use different software to support their respective work styles. The uncommunicated or misunderstood disparity in ideals can cause friction that may lead to serious conflict between individuals or entire teams. And organizational rifts can leave a lasting impression on a team’s culture that lingers like a thorny phantom.

If it feels like your team is approaching such a rift, take heart. It’s not a fate your team is bound to, as many multigenerational teams have found ways to collaborate effectively. Because when it comes down to it, people are fundamentally more similar than they are different. Throughout history, people of diverse interests and backgrounds have been able to overcome their differences to achieve great things. So here are five ways your team can overcome multigenerational differences to collaborate more effectively.

1. Discuss Values

One of the biggest obstacles for multigenerational teams to overcome is value differences. People see the world through their own lens and unconsciously apply their values to everything they look at. Take three different people that see the same object — a stick lying on the floor of the woods, for example. A child might see the stick as a makeshift sword, whereas an ecology major might see the forces of decay working over time. A third person, a veteran dog breeder, may see the stick as a great tool to use for training.

Not only your age but also your role heavily influences the way you perceive the world. And, as it happens, older team members are generally in senior roles, with younger members in junior roles — but not always. Multigenerational teams can struggle to collaborate because of mixed perceptions, unspoken differences in values, and imbalanced power dynamics. So it’s important to make sure your organization creates space for ongoing value conversations between team members. Set aside time to explicitly discuss company values and give members a platform to voice their goals and concerns appropriately.

2. Ongoing Education

While many individuals and teams might have the best of intentions, that doesn’t mean they’ll always communicate effectively. It can be difficult to translate exactly what you’re feeling into intelligible, considerate, and persuasive speech. Many people’s ideals and perceptions are tied to their linguistic perceptions. If someone doesn’t have the right language, they can struggle to understand a certain concept. On the flip side, certain outdated language can cripple someone’s ability to absorb new information because it doesn’t fit with their previous paradigm.

Thankfully, there are diversity and inclusivity training programs aimed at helping people break outdated conceptions and incorporate new ones. You may find that some people are reluctant to undergo such a program. However, it’s important to make sure that your organization is inclusive of an ever-increasingly diverse workforce. Cultural differences will come into conflict if there isn’t sufficient workplace scaffolding and support established ahead of time. Plus, ongoing education facilitates a workplace environment of curiosity, growth, and lifelong learning.

3. Inclusive Bonding

Another reason why people in multigenerational teams may struggle is that they haven’t bonded enough. There are a host of different ways that people can bond, both positive and negative, but you’ll likely want to focus on the former. Negative bonding occurs when people share the experience of enduring adversity together without an appreciation for what has been learned that has been beneficial to both sides. Positive bonding occurs when people share uplifting, moving, and joyful experiences, generating positive momentum that carries teams forward. Both experiences can be conducive to helping teams collaborate, but negative bonding can generate internal, lasting rifts between parties.

It’s better, then, to focus on creating positive bonding experiences for your team whenever you can. Holiday parties and company retreats are classic examples of work-environment experiences manufactured to encourage positive bonding. However, in the case of multigenerational teams, it may be harder to hit the mark of what everyone would agree is a good time. So, just like having a values discussion, ask your team members what they’d like to do by putting it to a vote. A democratic outcome can be more palatable as people will usually tolerate, if not enjoy, what the majority voted on.

4. Adopt New Workstyles and Software

In addition to boosting team collaboration through socialization, it’s important to tackle the issue from a practical standpoint as well. The way that teams actually work together has changed dramatically over the past couple of decades. Especially with the advent of the 2020 global pandemic, remote work has become more ubiquitous than ever before. And whether or not you personally are a fan of remote work, the reality is that many people are and will continue to seek opportunities that support it. Including remote workers is just one example of the kinds of various styles you may need to account for on a daily basis.

Using the appropriate software will help build up ongoing team collaboration. Besides email, there are myriad communications channels, video conferencing, gaming platforms, and other software that facilitate various office cultures. Even if your team is entirely local, using simple software like synced team calendars can make a big difference in workplace cohesion. It’s important to note here that some generations may struggle with new technology more than others. So make sure that you encourage younger generations to be patient and cultivate helpful mindsets.

5. Update Your Employee Value Proposition

The disparity of employee benefits can be a real sticking point for many people. Part of how employees are valued and how they feel valued is measured by what they’re offered. When employees feel like everyone is valued equally, or at least appropriately for their position, collaboration is easier. Being valued appropriately increases the respect people feel for each other, and respect greases the wheels of social interaction. Make sure that your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) reflects the people actually working at your business.

What kind of EVP do you offer your millennial employees compared to your baby boomer employees? Are there advantages that different generations can share, or is there too great a disparity? Employee wellness programs that focus on establishing a healthy work/life balance tend to be appealing to many generations. However, long-term investment programs and frequent social events may appeal to some more than others. When dealing with multigenerational teams, make sure you accommodate different needs and desires with an appropriate range of benefits.

Keep Working Forward

One of the greatest difficulties that arise between people in multigenerational teams is the disagreement that comes from holding different values. Your team will likely come into conflict if individuals aren’t able to effectively communicate their perspectives to each other. Diversity and inclusion training will help increase your team members’ communicational literacy. Facilitate respect between generations by educating people to use a common language — and common sense.

Likewise, encourage your teams to work together on the same platforms. These days, there are many workplace software available that make workflow pipelines more visible than ever. Offering appropriate benefits will help your team members feel valued. Having a diverse, multigenerational team doesn’t mean everyone has to be perfectly the same. More so, it’s about making sure everyone feels respected and heard by each other.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by RODNAE Productions; Pexels; Thank you!

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There are a lot of different things that go into starting and operating a business. You need a product or service that can sell and a team that can distribute it. You need marketing campaigns, a customer service plan, and financial planning. All of these things are important, but there are nitty-gritty details, like customer expectations, that can be easily overlooked that can throw your entire plan into disarray.

One overlooked aspect of running a business is managing expectations. This isn’t likely to be a bolded item on your “how to be the perfect CEO” Powerpoint presentation. However, that doesn’t make it any less important just because it’s not talked about enough. Customer expectations can have an enormous impact on the success of your company, for better or for worse.

Expectations come in many shapes and forms. There are expectations for quality, time, appearance, customer service, and just about everything in between. Customer expectations greatly affect the decision to shop with your business as opposed to your direct competitors.

In this article, we’ll discuss why you should set customer expectations and why it will be beneficial to do so. Additionally, we’ll touch on some of the things that can go wrong when you don’t properly set customer expectations as you develop client relationships. The way you set and manage expectations is an important aspect of running a business, so let’s get right into it:

1. Keeps Customers Accountable

There is a considerable demographic of consumers that will try to get away with as much as they can. They’ll seek out every possible loophole that works to their benefit. Anything that isn’t explicitly explained or detailed in your company policy can be skewed heavily in their favor if you’re not careful.

Setting customer expectations before you even develop a client relationship can prevent too much tomfoolery from happening. What you’re doing is using clear expectations to keep customers accountable to themselves and to you. Even as a one-time customer, you are developing a relationship with a company, and there are expectations that both sides need to meet in order for transactions and partnerships to be properly executed.

Let’s use a return policy as an example. Many companies establish a 30-day window for products to be returned after purchase. If your expectation is clearly stated to be a month-long time period for possible returns, your customers will be expected to follow that policy. Set that expectation from the start, and you’ll have a lot fewer calls and complaints about trying to return an item well past the 30-day limit.

2. Predicts and Anticipates Needs

Customers can be a needy bunch. You won’t be able to provide one hundred percent foolproof, satisfactory performance to every consumer within a 500-mile radius. However, you can do your best to take care of every client and customer by using expectations to predict and anticipate their most common needs.

A common expectation being set is the delivery time required for companies to ship their products to a customer’s doorstep. If you don’t provide an estimate to your customers at the time of purchase, they’ll come up with their own expectations. Their prediction might be significantly faster than what you’re capable of doing, and they could be setting themselves up for disappointment when your deliveries don’t reach Amazon Prime levels.

Knowing this, you can maintain customer expectations by anticipating the needs that may arise. When someone buys something from you online, you can typically assume they want their purchases completed and shipped as soon as possible. You should be ready to address possible delays due to common errors such as payment problems and address mix-ups.

3. Maintains a Realistic Outlook

When you are able to set customer expectations from the very start, you are able to maintain a realistic outlook. Not all expectations are realistic, especially when many situations are left up to interpretation. If you let vague responses and information take hold, customers may build up expectations to be impossibly high and still hope that you can meet them.

Let’s go back to that return policy. If this policy is made well-known to your customers, they know exactly what to expect if they choose to make a return. This includes opportunities to receive a refund and a timetable for a second delivery if applicable. If these expectations are not set clearly, customers will attempt to make demands that could be unreasonable.

What you need to remember is to stick to the expectations you set. You can’t offer a money-back guarantee and try to weasel your way out of it every time a customer tries to take advantage of the deal. The more you stick to your word, the greater the relationship and brand image you will develop with consumers.

4. Establishes Consistency

One thing customers love to see in the brands they shop with is consistency. Knowing exactly what you’re getting out of a company makes it easier to develop a long-term relationship with them. If you’re never sure about the quality of the service you’ll get, you might as well seek out different options that provide stability.

This concept can be clearly seen at hair salons. People can be very particular about how they get their hair done. When selecting a hair salon, they have expectations that need to be met for them to want to return. If you can set and meet those expectations, your customer retention rates will be through the roof. After all, you won’t want to visit a hair salon that cuts your hair a different style at every visit.

These sorts of expectations come through performance. You can’t set high expectations for your products and services if you’re unable to meet them consistently. Top brands have the expectations they do because they have a long track record of success. People expect high-quality products on a consistent basis from Nike, Apple, and Tesla because they’ve shown they are capable of setting and meeting those expectations.

5. Set Expectations Can Be Exceeded

Perhaps the greatest reason to set expectations for your business is so you can exceed them. You should obviously aim for high expectations, but keeping them reasonable means you can go above and beyond from time to time. Customers who feel like their expectations have been exceeded will be blown away.

You can’t feasibly exceed expectations for every single customer. This can be taxing financially, emotionally, and physically, depending on your industry. However, it’s nice to know that if you need to appease a customer or land a major client, you have a list of quality expectations and the capability to push them to their limit when deemed necessary.

For example, you could pay the extra fee for overnight shipping on your deliveries, but you set customer expectations at three days. If you really needed to, you could pay the few that would speed up delivery, such as a replacement for a defective product or a large purchase that can put your small business on the map.

We all have expectations for everything we do, whether we actively set them or not. When operating a business, you have expectations for yourself and your company. Your customers also have expectations of you. While some of these expectations are out of your control, you can manipulate them in your favor. Setting customer expectations allows you to serve your community to the best of your abilities accurately.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Tim Douglas; Pexels; Thank you!

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Everyone gets sad sometimes. But not everyone gets SAD. SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, is a condition that occurs when your mood changes with the seasons. And while anyone could potentially get SAD at any time of the year, it usually happens during the colder, darker months.

There are many reasons why you might feel SAD from the end of fall through the start of spring. You might simply not be getting enough sunlight or the chemical equivalent. Alternatively, you might need to focus on strengthening social bonds instead of letting them slip. Here are a few different reasons you might feel SAD and what you can do about it.

Seek Sunlight

While it might seem trivial, a lack of sunlight can have a significant and detrimental effect on your mental health. That’s because skin exposure to sunlight is one of the main ways your body naturally produces vitamin D. Vitamin D is crucial for critical body functions — your muscles, brain, heart, and immune system all have vitamin D receptors. So when your vitamin D levels are low, your body and your mental health suffer.

Some believe SAD often occurs during the winter months because of vitamin D deficiency. The sky is naturally darker from late September to late March, and daylight savings doesn’t help. By setting the clocks back an hour, society reduces the chances that people get enough light exposure. So you must make sure to schedule light time into your day literally. Even just 15 minutes of sun on your face can make a huge difference.

However, on some winter days, the sun just doesn’t shine. That’s why it can be a good idea to have a backup. A lightbox, or SAD lamp, is a device you can purchase that mimics the effects of the sun. It effectively tricks your body into thinking you’re experiencing sunlight, causing it to produce vitamin D. No matter how you do it, prioritizing sun exposure, whether real or artificial, is essential for fighting winter SADness.

Socialize

Humans are social creatures. Some are more extroverted than others, but everyone needs someone. People live and thrive even when they have the appropriate amount of social bonding. This could be why you might feel increasingly SAD in the winter months. As it gets darker and colder, people tend to go out and socialize less, creating a vicious cycle.

The holidays somewhat alleviate this issue. Notice that most of the typical American holidays occur in the latter, darker half of the year. Halloween to New Year is a hectic time that can quickly fly by because of all the events and gatherings. Most cultures worldwide have celebrations that last days to weeks during this period. These events create reasons for people to gather, and they can boost morale during hard times.

Now think about January, February, and March. Besides Valentine’s Day (the positive effects of which are debatable), your calendar probably looks as cold and bleak as the weather. So spice things up a little! You don’t need a big occasion to host a gathering — celebrating togetherness is a good enough reason. The end of January, in particular, is a perfect time, as it’s unlikely that many people are busy.

One of the best things about creating social gatherings is it helps everyone with their SADness. You might just help a friend who was really struggling but didn’t know how to reach out. And who knows? Maybe your new event can become a yearly tradition in your friend group.

Secure Your Sleep Schedule

Just like the worst of weather can dissuade you from going out, it can also disrupt your staying in. Unless you’re a night owl, working during daylight hours can be far more motivating than during darker ones. It’s easier to maintain a sense of time, as, without shadows, the night can seem eternal. This psychological effect can bleed into your discipline to maintain a routine since darkness falls so early in winter.

So it’s critical to keep a healthy schedule during the winter months. Of course, a healthy schedule looks different for everyone, but it always revolves around getting good sleep. A whole, restful night of sleep can completely make-or-break your motivation to get things done. Especially in winter, since it’s likely that the sun won’t rise for a while after you get up.

Sleeping in is okay sometimes, but do your best to go to bed and wake up simultaneously each day. You’ll make better use of the sunlight hours that you do have. You’ll also increase the chances of getting that all-important vitamin D. Maintaining a regular sleep schedule will support your ability to stay productive during the day. You’ll feel good by taking care of your responsibilities so that you can host that deep-winter gathering later on guilt-free.

Stay Clean

Like your sleep schedule, it can be easy to let your cleanliness go during winter. However, cleanliness applies to many aspects of life, from your external environment to your internal one. So it’s essential to ensure you’re doing your best to keep your health during the winter months. And since you’re ensuring a healthy sleep schedule, you’ll more likely have the energy to do so.

A clean external environment is precisely what it sounds like. No matter what kind of place you have — a house, apartment, condo, or a yurt — it’s essential to maintain it. Dirty living spaces have a negative effect on your mental health. You can think of a messy external environment as a reflection of your internal state of mind and vice versa. So if you’re feeling down, change your sheets and make your bed — your mind will thank you later.

A clean internal environment means eating healthy — another fundamental that’s easy to neglect during winter. This is because the months of October through December are filled with tasty treats. If you’re particularly susceptible to sugar, do your best to balance it out. Remember, it’s not about entirely abstaining from treats but about ensuring you compensate with proper nutrition.

Stabilize Over Time (Journal)

Some days are better than others, and the dark ones at the end of the year are no exception. While there are many ways to improve winter days, it can be hard to know if your methods are working. After all, no one solution will make everything better. For example, maybe your SAD lamp gives you a nice boost in the morning, but then you find that you just can’t focus in the afternoon. What’s going on?

Keeping a journal is a great way to keep tabs on yourself. It allows you to track your progress over time to see the bigger picture of your overall health. For example, you might reflect on a previous entry where you also felt good in the morning but lost energy later. You recall from the journal entry that you used your lamp in the morning but ate too much sugar at lunch. And the same thing happened today — a connection!

A once-off occurrence is just that: chance. But something happening twice is a connection, and thrice is a pattern. Journaling lets you observe yourself as a series of living practices. As a result, you can more clearly and concretely deconstruct your habits to find what’s working and cut out what’s not. It takes effort and consistency but can help you guide yourself more effectively over time.

Successful SADness Survival

Sometimes it can be tricky to know precisely why you’re feeling down. There are probably a few interconnected factors at play. So it’s helpful to remember that you’re a living creature, and living creatures need certain things to thrive. Sleep, good food, and sunlight are essential for any creature, but humans are particularly social. So it’s also important to maintain good personal and interpersonal health throughout the winter.

Even if you yourself don’t get too SAD, you probably know someone who does. So reach out and help those around you. Helping others often has a positive effect on your own psychology. So by helping others, you also help yourself. It’s a beautiful cycle that can brighten up even the darkest winter day.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Gustavo Fring; Pexels; Thank you!

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There are numerous ways to improve your business’s productivity. Many developers have created technology targeted at doing just that. But which technologies to use and how to use them isn’t always clear. Using productivity software effectively is a skill in itself and not one that everyone intuitively grasps. Sometimes it’s even worth organizing a training day or writing a manual to keep your employees on the same page.

It’s important to explicitly communicate how you’d like your business culture to develop when using such technology. Keep reading to learn how your business can promote productivity by implementing software and how you can teach your employees to use these tools effectively.

Improve Your Communications

Email has been alive and well for over three decades now. While it was used by some industries as early as the ‘80s, it really took off in the mid-’90s dot com era. Email traveled at lightspeed compared to standard post mail, which was dubbed “snail mail” thereafter. Even for office workers, it was much more efficient and productive to simply send an email than physically walking to someone’s cubicle. However, we finally live in a time when email has met its match when it comes to intra-office communications.

Instant messaging services have existed for about as long as email, but they’ve never been as refined as they are now. Over the last decade, developers have focused on creating sophisticated messaging software. These tools are refined, multi-faceted, and, perhaps best of all, secure. You can help boost the productivity of your business by using such an internal messaging system as the main channel for your team’s communications. Email still has its place, but for dedicated teams, the productivity boost to communications from such software is unrivaled.

Learn Proper Communication Etiquette

Although email is outclassed when it comes to internal communications, it’s not obsolete. It remains useful for communicating with businesses, customers, and any external persons of interest. Make sure you and your team’s email skills don’t wane as they focus on developing their IM skills. Encourage them to keep up to date on best email practices. Writing compelling emails will remain essential as email users are projected to increase to 4.6 billion by 2025.

While email might continue to dominate intercommunications, your intracommunications will have their own etiquette. How to use each communication software best depends on which software you use. But, in general, you and your team may want to develop a writing style inclusive of asynchronous work patterns. Companies are increasingly employing remote workers, who may work asynchronously. Keep messages clear and actionable to reduce vagueness and increase individual productivity.

Whatever your working communication that happens in writing — you will want to follow Louise Dobson’s advice and “Watch your non-verbal intonation of intentions that confuses and offends your readers.”

Manage Projects Digitally

Any company of size will have multiple teams collaborating on various aspects of the same project. Bigger networks of teams have the potential to create elaborate and sophisticated products that appeal to large audiences. However, getting visibility on various aspects of project completion can also be difficult. One team might require a deliverable from another team before they can begin or finalize their own tasks. Just like a large traffic jam, one small accident or delay can create massive backups in inter-team productivity.

No matter your team’s size, you’d likely benefit from using a task manager or project collaboration software of some kind. Using productivity software literally grants visibility on all aspects of product management, large and small. You’ll be able to clearly see which teams and team members are working on which parts of a particular project. You can easily identify which deliverables cause pain points in workflow pipelines and adapt. Project collaboration software gives you data you might never have access to otherwise and has the potential to improve productivity massively.

Synch Up Your Calendars

Both kinds of the aforementioned software can indeed offer huge boosts to your business’s productivity. However, improper scheduling is an issue that will prevent your team(s) from making the most of the software. Using project managers to assign clear tasks and deliverables to team members is great. But not if a team member has scheduled to be out of the office for a dental appointment on the project deadline. Even using email, instant messaging, and other communication channels, scheduling information can get lost in translation.

Thankfully, calendars have also come a long way in the last decade. Digital calendars have lots of sophisticated features, and, again, one of the best is the visibility they offer. A team calendar will allow you to see at a glance exactly when your individual team members are available. That way, you can schedule to your heart’s content with unabashed impunity. You’ll decrease the likelihood of double and over-booking and forego potentially massive amounts of time wasted resolving scheduling conflicts.

Don’t Distract Yourself

When talking about software that increases your productivity, it’s also important to discuss what to avoid. Your attention is limited, and many applications want to capitalize on that attention. Social media is a particular offender and has the potential to throw off your focus completely. Games, personal messaging, even news, and other applications can rip your attention apart. So it’s important to make sure that attention-hungry software is mitigated effectively.

Every person is susceptible to having their attention eaten up by certain programs. They’re quite literally designed to take as much of your focus and attention, and time is money. Productivity-minded developers have sought to curb their time spent distracted and created software to hold attention-hungry sites in abatement. Encourage your team to install these kinds of software on their work devices to help increase their time spent focusing. Distracting sites and apps can be blocked during work hours, and productivity can be measured and displayed in real-time.

Make A Habit Of Finding New Software

When it comes to productivity, software skills promote a mindset of experimentation. There are so many apps, widgets, and downloads out there that will help increase your team’s productivity. But each team is different and has different needs relative to the kind of work they do. Effective communication and scheduling systems are relatively ubiquitous, but your team might have more niche needs. There is likely some sort of productivity software out there that could help you, but you’ll need to find it.

While you can do some research on your own, encourage your team members to investigate their own accord. Ask them to consider what daily challenges they encounter and if they would be alleviated by automation in some way. If so, have them follow up that line of thinking with search results. And, if the kind of software they need simply doesn’t exist, perhaps there’s a development opportunity afoot. Where there’s a need from one person or team, there are likely many more out there who have similar needs.

Invest In Your Business’s Future

There are many different kinds of software out there that will help boost your business’s productivity. Some of these are more prevalent and ubiquitous than others, but each requires its own skill set. Channels of communication will continue to be essential throughout all businesses. However, some businesses will find certain niche software more effective than others. It may take time to develop your team’s skill sets with software, but it can be well worth it in the long run.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Ivan Samkov; Pexels; Thank you!

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Nowadays, running your business without using some kind of software is hard. Even the most straightforward transactions are usually accomplished on an electronic point of service (POS). However, as amazing and often robust as digital programs can be, there’s always a chance they could fail.

Computer failure can spell disaster and can even put you out of business entirely. Unfortunately, losing sensitive client information, sales, or product data is too costly for many businesses to afford. So it’s essential to make sure you always have a software backup plan for yours.

There are a few causes for software failure that are different in nature. Breakpoints are links in the system that, when they fail, potentially compromise the whole thing. One source of failure involves physical breakpoints, while others are primarily digital. Both kinds of problems have proactive and reactive solutions. Here are some common computer errors that could compromise your business software and possible solutions you can implement to address them.

Physical Breakpoints: Hardware Malfunctions

Every computer system is made of a series of highly sophisticated and interwoven mechanics and circuitry. Such an elaborate system is an incredible tool, but it is susceptible to many breakpoints. Physical breakpoints generally involve some mechanics or circuitry failing. And the causes of such failure can vary.

A typical physical breakpoint is simply unplugging a computer at the wrong time. This can happen for numerous accidental reasons, like tripping over a cable or pulling the wrong one from a socket. Water damage is another easy accident that could occur at any time. A spilled water bottle or cup of coffee can easily cost thousands in repairs.

Besides human error, unexpected electrical currents can overload computer hardware. And while surge protectors can subdue capacity-exceeding currents, they’re not foolproof. Surge protectors will wear out eventually, and particularly high voltages produced by electrical storms can overload them. The particular danger with electrical currents is that they can damage your entire network, not just a single computer.

Like any hard-working physical system, computer parts naturally wear out over time. Fans, hard drives, circuitry, and other similar components are under stress daily from regular usage. An uncleaned fan that can’t do its job will eventually cause your computer to overheat and could damage its circuitry. Any system composed of delicate, multifaceted components is bound to experience malfunction sooner or later. Do you remember the last time you replaced vital computer parts? It might be time soon.

Physical Solutions: Part Replacement, Mindfulness, External Hard Drive

One of the best ways to reduce the chances of hardware malfunction is by keeping your office products up to date. Research the average lifespan of the most critical components of your network infrastructure. Fans, circuit boards, surge protectors, and other high-stress items must be cleaned or replaced. If you aren’t using safety items like surge protectors, pick some up immediately. It’s essential to clean and replace parts regularly to make sure there aren’t any unnecessary and preventable failures.

Likewise, stay up to date with the latest product innovations. Computer technologies are constantly being iterated on, and new, different component developments may be released to the market periodically. Set aside time to research or ask knowledgeable workers about the latest.

Facilitate a culture of caution and mindfulness in your office environment. Encourage workers to take an extra second or two to think about which cord they’re about to unplug. Keep cords and office spaces clean, tidy, and labeled if need be. Depending on how worried you are about spills, you could implement no food or beverage rules in working areas. Instead, designate specific office areas for eating and drinking, like a breakroom.

If you don’t use them already, buy external hard drives or entire backup PCs to store critical data and programs. Individual workers can use external hard drives to save current and past projects. You can rest assured you have a replacement should the worst happen, and a damaged computer becomes unsalvageable.

Digital Breakpoints: Software Malfunctions

Besides hardware complications, your software is also at risk of experiencing its own errors. Software malfunctions can happen for a variety of reasons, some of them unintentional and some very much malicious. Digital complications caused by intentional sabotage can put your network system in jeopardy.

One of the simplest but perhaps most overlooked ways for software to “malfunction” is through updates. As developers continue to develop their software, they’ll use them periodically. Many people allow their computers to update automatically. However, not all software updates are well-optimized and may not function as intended right away.

Software updates have many purposes, but they’re often used to fix any bugs that might be causing errors in the program. A bug is an inherent flaw in a program’s underlying structure or design. Bugs can be an application not functioning as intended or a program crashing entirely. Some bugs can also spread to your computer network system, causing minute changes like text formatting errors or large ones like crashes. Crashes are one of the worst effects of bugs, as data can get corrupted in the process.

Crashes might also be caused by malicious actors installing invasive programs called viruses onto your computer. Every business has access to many people’s sensitive financial information. Malicious actors who want access to that information will intentionally compromise your systems to get it. Software malfunctions can be multifaceted and, sometimes, quite challenging to repair.

Digital Solutions: Updates, Cloud Storage, Encryption

While software updates may mess with your systems, there are proactive steps you can take. First, turn off automatic updates and make sure you backup your system before initiating one. Then, unless an urgent bug needs patching, you don’t need to download new updates immediately. Instead, take some time and research significant updates to see if there are any common issues arising amongst other users. By waiting and researching, you can make an educated decision as to whether you want to download an update now or later.

In addition to using physical external hard drives or PCs, you can also use cloud computing. The cloud is a series of servers to rent storage space for your data. Some companies with cloud servers also have work programs you can use that will automatically save your data in periodic intervals. Otherwise, you’ll have to upload it manually. Either way, if your in-office systems ever crash, your data will stay safe far away in the cloud.

Another great benefit of storing data on the cloud is encrypted servers. Encryption adds significantly more resistance for would-be hackers to overcome. If you don’t encrypt sensitive information already, it’s worth investing in. Encrypting your data is the first line of defense against cyberattacks.

Just like you’ll want to improve your computer’s hardware continuously, you’ll also want to update its software. New applications are being developed at incredible speeds and can sometimes revolutionize your business productivity. So periodically set aside time to research the latest developments in the market and consider your options carefully. And make sure to back up your data before installing new software!

It’s Always Worth Having A Backup Plan

Computer management has numerous breakpoints on both the physical and digital sides. Your system getting compromised is as easy as spilling coffee or getting hacked. Losing access to your software and corresponding data can be catastrophic, so it’s worth investing in preventative and reactive solutions. Keep an up-to-date, clean workspace that adapts to new innovations. And always keep a backup, whether physical or digital, just in case anything goes wrong.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Michael Burrows; Pexels; Thank you!

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Let’s face it, sometimes, customers aren’t exactly an easy bunch. Some people will enter your business or log onto your website and struggle despite your best efforts to guide them in the right direction. These customers can get flustered, frustrated, burdensome, or just downright mean when things aren’t going their way.

From a business perspective, managing difficult customers with respect and poise is in your best interest. This keeps your brand image in good standing, so that prospective customers still see you as a viable option. Treat customers poorly, and you’ll get reviews bombed into a rapid profit decline.

Certainly, there are circumstances where customers should be shown the door, such as in cases of racism and outright abuse. However, your run-of-the-mill Monday morning grump deserves a little more tender love and care before you give up on them. Here are some ways your business can deal with those types of customers more effectively:

1. Active Listening

One of the most important soft skills you can learn and teach to your team is active listening. When it comes to customer service, this is often one of the best things you can practice. Active listening can help you quickly assess and diffuse even the most difficult of customer interactions.

There are a few key components that turn listening into active listening. First, try not to think of your next response until after the customer has finished speaking. This way, you’re less likely to interrupt them while they are speaking or missing key information. When it’s your turn to speak, repeat that information to them to confirm that you are listening and understanding.

Active listening includes asking questions, maintaining eye contact, and reading body language. This requires a lot more focus and attention than a lot of people are willing to give, especially when the customer is being a challenge. However, that focus will pay off when your active listening turns a difficult customer into a life-long client.

2. Be Apologetic

When a customer approaches you with a problem or complaint, they aren’t looking for excuses. More than anything, they are looking to be heard and validated. If your first thought is to say you’re sorry for the situation, customers will respond more positively. Tensions can get high rapidly if you get defensive right from the start.

Active listening will help here. Use the information you’re given from the customer to make a proper apology. Even if the customer is the one to blame, an apology can defuse an otherwise sticky situation. You might have to swallow your pride a little, but no one said running a business was easy.

The challenging part of an apology is sounding sincere. Customers can often detect sarcasm or an apology that sounds like it was written by artificial intelligence. Being genuine is easiest when you care about the customer and your business. Try to find ways to instill that in your customer service employees by treating them well and selling them on your company vision.

3. Have a Solution Ready

If you operate a business, you have to be prepared for every possible scenario. This includes dealing with disgruntled customers in every shape and form. Even if you’ve set up every possible safety precaution to avoid inconveniencing your clientele, accidents and errors are bound to happen. Being prepared for when they do, will stop fires from getting out of control.

Think about the most common situations that might cause a customer to become annoyed or angry. This could be a delayed delivery order, an overcharge on an account, or an appointment starting late. If you know these are possibilities, think about what solutions you can have in the chamber for when something inevitably goes south.

There are examples of company policies that you can look toward for inspiration. This could be anything from removing shipping charges on a delayed order to a 100% money-back guarantee if service is deemed unacceptable. If you have these solutions prepared, they’re readily available when needed.

4. Personalize the Experience

One way to make your apologies and solutions more effective is to make them more personal. Each customer will have a unique personality and complaint, so it only makes sense to address each case on an individual basis. Customers will take note of the extra measures you take, and can be taken care of more effectively.

Besides, customers can tell when your responses seem automated. Try not to read from a script when talking to them. Fall back on your active listening skills to combine the perfect services to help them overcome their setback.

Of course, you can put only so much variation into apologies and customer solutions. What’s important is remembering that every customer is a human being, not just a business statistic. Each person deserves a level of respect, even if they’re not showing you the same at the start. It may take some time for the customer to notice the attention to detail you’re showing them, but eventually, you’ll see your efforts begin to pay off.

5. Know When to Step Back

Some customers will be too difficult to deal with at the present moment. As mentioned before, some cases need to be pushed aside. When a customer is being completely unreasonable, or out of line, it is completely within your authority to refuse them service and move on.

Set some boundaries for you and your customer service team. You’ll know when to step away from customer interaction when these boundaries are crossed. This can include but not be limited to endless rants with no negotiation, verbal threats, and excessive cursing. You should not expect yourself or your team to endure such treatment just for the sake of business.

Before hanging up or sending a customer away, try to talk them down first. Inform them that if they continue their behavior, you’ll be required to cease communications with them. That way, it won’t seem like you’re just ignoring them or giving them the cold shoulder and instead disengaging yourself from a potential argument.

Still — if you are better prepared for abusive customers — the effect will not be so hard on you. Remember, their bad behavior has nothing to do with you — it is them. Think about what Nando Pelusi, Ph.D., suggests:

“To cope with a difficult person, you need to learn to question your automatic defensive philosophies, such as “I will not be treated that way; I won’t let you get away with this” and “My reputation is on the line if I fail.”

Resisting the trap set by difficult people is easier if you’re aware of your vulnerability to getting hurt and then feeling angry. That tendency is a vestige of Neanderthink, because there was a time when your status was more closely linked to life or death than it is today.

Better to check your fight, flight, or freeze reactions and refuse to be a part of a duel in which you’re an inadvertent participant. Sure, you need to stand up for yourself, but do so without demanding that you be above criticism at all costs. Remind yourself of your long-range goals: saving time, energy, hassle, and maybe even your own hide.” –Nando Pelusi Ph.D

6. Answer Promptly

Not all of your customers will be difficult in person or over the phone. Many of them will hide behind their screens when creating their complaints. This is sometimes done to boost their confidence or to think about what exactly they want to say before sending a message. Knowing how to deal with difficult emails and direct messages is important for your business to understand.

The most important thing you can do here is answer promptly. You don’t need to have all of the answers and solutions right away. The longer you wait to respond, the more agitated a customer can become. Even a short answer letting them know that you’ve seen the message and are working on a proper response is better than leaving them on read.

A preliminary message like this also gives you more time to think about how you want to respond. The great thing about online communication is that you can draft a response as often as you need. You can take the time to make sure you’re communicating well, as long as you don’t take a full week to send your response ultimately.

Difficult customers are simply a fact of life for business owners and customer service representatives. While dealing with these types of consumers will never be fun, you can improve the experience for both parties by improving your skills and understanding the whole process.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Liza Summer; Pexels; Thank you!

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There are few feelings that are as gratifying as closing your first deal as a new entrepreneur. All of your hard work and ingenuity have led up to that moment. Once you get one paying customer, you can start to snowball your business into a genuine competitor in your industry of choice.

While it’s nice to have paying customers, it’s even nicer to have the same paying customers again and again. Retention plays a huge role in the success of small businesses. Returning customers cost less to maintain, as you don’t have to fund marketing and outreach campaigns to meet sales quotas.

There are many reasons why your retention rates might not be as high as you would like. Identifying those reasons will allow you to improve your business model, so it continues to attract and retain customers at an efficient rate. Here are some of the most common reasons customers leave the companies they’ve done business with:

1. Unreasonable Pricing

When it comes to selecting a business for consumer needs, price tags are almost always the first consideration. Even if they don’t have a set budget in mind, most customers have an idea of how much they are willing to spend on certain items and services. Typically, the higher the price, the fewer customers you’ll see lining up.

Think about what you’re offering to the public. Let’s use the simple childhood summer gig of mowing the neighbor’s lawn. If you’re asking for 50 bucks to mow a single lawn, your neighbors will quickly accept the next offer that comes along at a more affordable price. When the supply of your service is low, you can sometimes get away with steep prices, but this business practice is not sustainable.

If you’re not sure what your pricing should be, take a look at your more established competitors. They have likely struggled with that same question and have settled on a price point after plenty of experimentation. You can make small adjustments based on their ideas to fit your business more precisely.

2. Quality Issues

To justify a higher price for products and services, you need to ensure the highest quality possible. Some customers are fine with a dip in quality if it leads to drastic savings. However, if a competitor can beat your price point and your level of quality, your customer base is going to dry up quickly.

As a rule of thumb, you should strive for the highest quality possible. Take pride in your work, avoiding cutting corners just to save a quick buck. Long-term success is often generated by high-quality craftsmanship, not slippery business tactics to try and maximize profits from day one.

As you increase your quality of work, it’s important to communicate these improvements in the industry news. Getting media placements highlighting these improvements can help differentiate your product and service. If a customer looks at your brand as an industry leader of quality, they are likely to pick you over other competitors.

3. Poor Customer Service

Even if you have the best product at the most reasonable price, customers can abandon ship if they’re not treated properly. Customer service can override or erase most of your other efforts. On the one hand, proper customer service can salvage a relationship and bring in lifelong customers. On the other, a poor customer service experience can drive customers away for good, even if you check all their other boxes.

Let’s say you’ve established yourself as the greatest restaurant in the city, sporting the finest menu and the largest selection of beverages. However, your servers have a tendency to be impatient and disrespectful. Do you think you’ll see a lot of customers make a return to your restaurant even though it serves the best food in town?

On the contrary, a small family-owned restaurant can often see many of the same customers coming through their doors each month. While their food might not shock the world, the warm atmosphere and customer service akin to visiting your grandparent’s house is enough to bring in regulars.

4. Limited Options

Customers love to feel as in control as possible when making purchasing decisions. This means providing a variety of options for them to consider. Too many options can feel overwhelming, but feeling underwhelmed by a lack of diversity can be just as bad for customer retention.

Concerns can stem from something as small as payment options. People can have strong preferences for payment methods and hope to be accommodated by businesses. Some prefer to stick with cash, others use a variety of credit cards, while others are still spending their leftover Bitcoin. The more payment methods you are able to accept, the fewer customers you’ll end up turning away.

A diverse portfolio also helps with retention. If you’re only providing one product, your customer base is going to remain small. The more quality products and services that you are able to provide, the more people you can get to stick around for the long haul.

5. Poor Security Protocols

We live in the information age. Personal information is shared all over the place, which makes a lot of interactions more convenient but also somewhat concerning. Scammers actively try to swoop into databases to get the information they can leverage for personal gain. Smart consumers are aware of this and choose to shop with businesses that are careful with the information they gather from customers.

Your website and any digital programs you use should be as secure as possible. Enable two-factor authentication, download data protection software, and only gather the data you really need to serve your customers. Make your efforts known to consumers, so they realize that you sincerely care about their safety and the well-being of their data.

Physical safety is also important. Is there anything in your store that needs to be more secure? Anything that you feel would make the customer feel safer is worth implementing. This could be security cameras in the parking lot to protect vehicles from damage and theft or adding lockers to the lobby for personal belongings.

6. High Employee Turnover

A high employee turnover rate says a few things about your business. First, it may depict a poor work environment that workers don’t want to stay in. Consumers are typically more willing to support a company that makes an effort to take care of its employees.

Additionally, a high turnover rate means you constantly need to hire and train new employees. New employees tend to make mistakes that can limit the customer experience. A business that never seems to have experienced workers won’t be fun to shop with very often.

Make a plan to reduce turnover for your sake and the sake of your customers. Put together benefits packages to attract and retain top talent in your industry. Invest in a good work environment and listen to the concerns of your team so you can continue to adapt in their favor. A positive and healthy work environment will lead to a more successful overall business. Even if employee turnover isn’t impacting how your customers feel about your business, it will save you a lot of time, money, and headache to have a consistent team to work with.

You may see customers leaving for one or many of the reasons listed above. Once you’re able to pinpoint your biggest problems, take action to address them right away. You can turn your former weaknesses into strengths and the new reasons why customers now choose to stay with your brand long-term.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Cottonbro Studio; Pexels; Thank you!

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Companies are constantly evolving, looking for new ways to diversify their marketing strategies to attract new customers while managing effective engagement with their existing followers.

The rise of social media, more than its traditional scope of practice, has meant that businesses and companies can increase their communication and marketing efforts towards previously under-recognized consumer markets.

As the internet spawned to become a platform through which several million companies now operate, managing direct social interactions on social media channels can be an arduous task if companies and marketing teams are properly equipped.

There are copious reasons why it’s important to have the right team and tools behind social media marketing and management. For many businesses, the idea of social media is more than basic use, but rather a place from which they can market new products and services, drive sales, increase brand exposure, offer social commerce options, and introduce brand awareness within their target audience and the greater public realm.

Aside from social commerce, these communication networks have also become a way to improve customer experience as studies show that 1 in 3 social media users prefer customer service and customer care being conducted via social media to phone or email.

These networks drive sales and create brand awareness. Still, they also play an important role in analyzing target audiences and consumer markets, giving companies a broader overview of the tools and resources they require to leave a lasting impression on their followers.

Let’s have a look at five free social media management tools any small and medium-sized business owner should be considering for their organization.

Later

While Later was originally designed and launched as an app dedicated to Instagram, the platform today supports several other social media networks while constantly adding new features as it grows.

Later is more than a social media marketing tool; it helps business owners create content that is striking and engaging and generates more click-through traffic helping owners direct their followers from their social media accounts to their websites.

There is a strong emphasis on visual content on Later, which makes it a more suitable add-on for businesses looking to increase their Instagram and TikTok following. Content scheduling still plays a big role, and in recent years the platform added tools and features that help to create and schedule images, videos, posts, and stories all under one umbrella.

What’s unique about Later is that it seamlessly helps tie together several important aspects of social media management, both visual and non-visual, to bring forth a powerful platform that can be used for free.

Free subscriptions on Later still give users access to features such as analytics, saved captions, and scheduled stories, among others. For small business owners who want to splurge a bit of cash on their social media management tools, Later’s cheapest plan starts at $9,00 per month, a good starting point for any small-scale operation.

Buffer

For quite some time, Buffer has remained a strong contender in social media management, allowing users more streamlined social media marketing features.

Although the platform only supports several social media networks, including LinkedIn and Pinterest, it does have some noteworthy free features that can help small businesses effectively manage their social accounts from one dashboard.

The basic layout of Buffer includes posting schedules, a Google Analytics campaign tracker, and a shuffling queue to create and enhance the variety of posts and content on a feed.

The platform helps to scale social media marketing efforts, and it comes with a friendly-to-use interface, which is perhaps why so many businesses and social media influencers are currently using it.

In a nutshell, one could say that Buffer is more of a social media automation tool with added features and resources. A majority of the core focus does help businesses queue their content and allow for it to publish automatically. For any small business owner, automated publishing helps them to post content that will keep their audiences engaged at all times, even when they are not present or seeing slower online traffic.

Free subscriptions include a small powerhouse of resources, but business owners who are looking to scale up their operations in the coming months or years will find more benefits with their paid plans.

TweetDeck

Twitter is one of the most underutilized social media networks for small businesses, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be, as the app sees more than 229 million daily active users as of 2022. Although 67% of B2B businesses use Twitter as a marketing tool, there is a lot of potential for smaller businesses when it comes to this social media network.

For the businesses that are on Twitter, though, TweetDeck is a simple management system that helps users create customizable social media dashboards which they can use to send and receive different tweets, manage their accounts, and monitor their profiles.

Users can upload and save future tweets and posts in their scheduling domain and set their tweets to be posted on predetermined dates.

TweetDeck isn’t necessarily the most intriguing or complex platform out there, but it does serve a good purpose for business owners who are leveraging the possibilities of Twitter.

There are paid subscriptions, but smaller businesses that can get away with the basics will be able to enjoy the standard free features.

Friends+Me

Not many business owners and entrepreneurs know about this beginner social media management platform that includes several interesting features that are available for free to any person.

Something that sets Friend+Me aside from others is that it gives users the freedom to integrate with several browser extensions both on desktop and mobile devices and works on Android and iOS.

The basic free account also gives users access to post-scheduling options and automated actions such as creating new posts or even streaming content from RSS feeds.

All other integrations can be controlled and monitored from one account and work on Facebook, now Meta, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest. Although there is the opportunity for the platform to become integrated with other popular social networks such as Instagram or TikTok, Friends+Me is a straightforward tool that gives small business owners just enough power to get their social media management under control.

There are some drawbacks, and the platform doesn’t come with all the bells and whistles that one would expect, but for a small team of marketers and creators, this could be the right tool that can help get them started with social media management.

Aside from the free and basic subscription options, users can also choose from paid plans which are between $9,00 and $1,200 per month. The bigger the plan, the more one can queue and schedule posts while also adding up to 50 team members when paying for the premium subscription.

CoSchedule

With so much cross-integration between social media networks while also including a business website, keeping track of and monitoring everything can be a tumultuous challenge at best.

CoSchedule is a bit more than a social media management tool, and it comes in different sizes depending on the scale of the business and social media marketing requirements.

For starters, CoSchedule has a built-in scheduling system that allows users to upload their posts and set them to be posted at a specific time. This might seem straightforward, but users can schedule a single post that can be posted across various social media networks at different times.

Users will also be able to view performance reports to see how a campaign or post has been performing. With this information at hand, it gives users a better chance to schedule posts to be posted at times when they are more likely to enjoy better exposure and interaction from followers.

Everything on CoSchedule can be done through a tailor-made publishing schedule, even messages to followers or follow-up messages. These features are all part of the free package, and for smaller, mid-tier businesses, there is a paid option that starts at $39,00 per month. Larger companies can request a quote directly from CoSchedule.

Performance is a key driver for CoSchedule, and that’s why many companies and entrepreneurs choose to work with a platform that allows them a lot more freedom, flexibility, and autonomy when it comes to managing their social media tasks and campaigns.

Social media influence on social commerce

Social media has become such an integral part of organizations these days that some high-end and medium-tier brands spent an estimated $132 billion on social media advertising in 2020, with some experts suggesting this figure will grow exponentially in the coming years as more brands and consumers move online.

Traditionally, social media was seen as a powerful tool to connect and stay connected; nowadays, it’s a platform through which companies can establish an intersection of both media and commerce.

Rapidly changing consumer behavior has led to companies adjusting their marketing strategies according to their customer’s needs; without change or innovation, many could see their profits being run into the ground.

Only in the last few years have we seen social commerce play a more prominent role in the way businesses operate. Changing consumer behavior against the backdrop of younger generations – Millennials and Generation Z – now having more spending power is leading to surging demand for digital tools for companies to utilize properly.

Shopping on social media is big money, and in the United States, it’s estimated that by 2025 social commerce will inject close to $100 billion into the local economy. The majority of this comes from younger shoppers as they accumulate wealth and increase their spending power.

Research by the Influencing Marketing Factory revealed that more than 40% of Millennials and Gen Zs shopped on social media last year.

This marks a strong turning point in how companies not only present themselves online but also how they engage and sell to customers.

While there are a lot of factors that are directly woven into the success rate of social media performance, with the right guidance and management tools, smaller companies can achieve a success rate faster and more sustainably.

Cost Factor

From afar, social media management can seem intimidating, especially for younger entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Running a single-person operation or managing a team of a couple of employees is already taxing enough; checking up on social media performance only adds more burden to any business owner’s schedule. Not only this, there are specific costs involved when looking to hire a professional or purchase specific tools that can help to automate processes.

Social media management is more than posting a picture on Facebook and Instagram or responding to customer questions and comments directly. It’s also more than uploading short YouTube content videos hoping to receive countless views in a couple of days.

While customer experience is a key differentiator between a well-thought social media strategy and a lesser-planned one, analytics, and growth help to paint a better picture of where a company should be better focussing their efforts.

Sprout Social found that although brands will spend differently on social media management as this is largely based on their needs and goals, on average, some businesses will spend roughly $12,300 per month on managing their social accounts.

The breakdown consists of content creation ($5,250 per month), social advertising ($5,000 per month), and platform management ($2,050 per month), among other types of expenses that are not always accounted for when starting.

For small business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers, social media management costs can take a hefty bite out of their monthly budgets and profits. Using the right tools not only makes the work a lot less streamlined but can help deliver better insights on how strategies need to improve to gain more followership, grow brand awareness and drive sales.

The Takeaway

While social media has allowed businesses a new opportunity to gain better market attention while also increasing their profitability and brand loyalty, it’s also given them a new set of challenges that are not easy to overcome without the right set of tools.

Digital advancements have made it easier and more convenient for businesses to develop a social media marketing strategy that will help them become more efficient while also delivering engaging content on multiple social network channels.

These tools are becoming omnipresent, and for small business owners, it means that they have a way to build their social media and increase followership while at the same time managing all these properties from the comfort of a single dashboard.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Tracy Le Blanc; Pexels; Thank you!

The post Making Social Media Management Simpler With Five Free Basic Tools appeared first on Calendar.

It’s no secret that traveling during the holidays can be a stressful experience. Ideally, the holidays should be a time of rest and relaxation. Instead, however, they often end up being one of the busiest times of the year — both at work and at home. It can be hard to balance remembering everything you need to, seeing everyone, and actually getting where you need to go. So here are a few ways you can use your calendar to set boundaries, reminders, and suggestions to lower your holiday travel stress.

Plan Your Route

One of the best ways to use your calendar to lower your travel stress is to map out your route ahead of time. Maybe you’re bouncing between different family members’ houses, taking a road trip, or flying abroad. It can be overwhelming to keep all the logistics in your head at the same time. Instead, once you have dates and times set in stone, put them on your calendar. You can use it to map out the itinerary of your travel plans.

One of the benefits of doing this is that you don’t have to keep everything in mind all the time. Whenever you forget where you need to be at a certain time, you can just take a look at your calendar. It will do all the heavy lifting for you, so you can enjoy yourself wherever you are.

Create Packing Lists

There’s nothing quite like packing for a long trip only to realize you forgot something crucial on the way. You should have the luxury of knowing you packed everything by the time you’ve left the house. And your calendar will help you avoid all that stress and anxiety by helping you make sure you’ve packed everything you need.

Many calendars have checklist features that will allow you to add items onto certain days. So you can create a day called “packing day” on your calendar. There, make a list titled “essentials” and include everything you absolutely need on it. Clothes and the like are important, and you could make a separate list to make sure you bring enough. But here, focus on things like medicine, money, passport (if necessary), and other things you just can’t leave home without.

Set Valuable Reminders

Just like your travel itinerary and your checklists, essential pre-departure appointments can add up. It’s easy to put off troublesome, time-consuming appointments like doctor’s visits until the last minute. But if you really need to get something checked out, it’s best to do it before you’re away for an extended period of time. Set a reminder notification on your calendar. You’ll be able to ensure your health as best you can before letting go and enjoying time with family. Nothing ruins the holiday mood like a medical emergency in the middle of dinner.

Another great use of reminders is for any long-term cooking plans. Holiday birds take a notoriously long time to thaw — up to multiple days at a time. The house chef can use their calendar to mark the exact moment they started thawing the soon-to-be roast. And a reminder notification will ping them when it’s a good time to start cookin’. Reminders can also be used for shopping, cleaning, or anything else you need to remember.

Coordinate People In Different Time Zones

If you’re traveling across different time zones, keeping track of when is when can be tricky. For example, if you’re on the west coast heading east to visit family, there’s a three-hour time difference. Communicating when you’ll be arriving can get confusing. And this confusion can create real problems if you’re waiting on someone to pick you up at a certain time. Using an online calendar will provide the correct time in each time zone for each respective person looking at it.

Another benefit of coordinating multiple people using a calendar is that it also helps those who can’t travel join in on the holiday fun. Not every family member can travel from far away for the holidays, so they’ll remain in their respective time zone. “Let’s do a family zoom at seven,” can spell danger — “Your seven or my seven?” An online calendar alert system will help ping everyone when it’s the right time to hop online for a call. It’s a great way to make sure no one’s left hearing dial tones instead of cheery music.

Protect Your Travel Time

After a long time traveling, you’re finally reunited with family members from around the world, ready to enjoy your vacation. Before bed, you open your phone and check your email — just in case — to find that you have twenty missed messages. There’s a client who’s not happy with the service they received, and they want to renegotiate their contract. And just as you were finally settling in.

Even if you let your co-workers know that you won’t be available on certain dates, it’s easy for them to forget. How is everyone at the office supposed to keep track of everyone else’s respective holiday plans, after all? Well, a coordinated online calendar will allow you to do exactly that. You can use your calendar to share your sacred, untouchable vacation days with the rest of your team. Even if something urgent comes up, they’ll have to reach out to someone else because you’re on Do Not Disturb.

School Starts Eventually

Speaking of travel schedules, it is important to make sure that you don’t “overextend yourself or your kids.” It can be tempting to want to make the most of your kids’ vacation days. There’s only so much time that they’ll be this young, after all, and it’s understandable you’d want to make the most of it. However, school does start again, potentially on different days or even months for kids of different ages. Different schools, both individual as well as public and private, have different back-to-school days as well.

Once again, an online calendar will help you keep track of each of your kids’ respective vacation limits. It’s also great for helping your kids stay up to date with their friend’s and peers’ schedules as well. That way, they can more easily plan hangouts over vacation — without having to worry if it will work or not.

Track Accommodations

Depending on how big your family is, there simply might not be enough room for everyone to stay in one place. Different family members, especially those traveling from afar, may have to find accommodation elsewhere. Limits imposed by hotels, homestays, rental cars, and other transport can create extra mini-timelines within a holiday’s timeframe. It can be hard to coordinate by word of mouth with everyone’s various travel times.

Get everyone on the same page by syncing up your calendars on one group calendar. That way, everyone can see everyone else’s plans. The whole group will be able to better understand what limits they’re working with. That way, there’s a lower chance some people will feel left out or forgotten from certain plans. It’s something that tends to happen with larger family gatherings and can add a sour feeling to the holidays if left unchecked.

Anything You Want To Remember

There are numerous ways to use your calendar to take some stress out of your holiday travel plans. You can use them to set valuable reminders and checklists — and make important timelines visible to anyone who needs to see them. One of the hardest parts of the holidays, especially with big families, is coordinating logistics. Use your calendar to your advantage so you can actually enjoy the holidays with (relative) ease.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV; Pexels; Thank you!

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Each January brings a lot of exciting opportunities. The new year is a great place to set goals — both in your personal and professional lives. Here we will talk about your calendar-based business and what you can do to get ready to take 2023 by storm.

Businesses that rely on a calendar to schedule meetings with clients have to worry about slightly different things than other types of companies. There’s a stronger focus on customer service and relationships, for starters. The following points highlight some of the essential things a calendar-based business can do to prepare for a new year:

Make Sure Your Database Is Up to Date

You have seen lots of different clients in the past year. In doing so, you have accumulated a trove of customer data. All of these details can get pretty overwhelming if you don’t take the time to review and organize them. You should add this to your to-do list to prepare for 2023.

Fortunately, much of the heavy lifting can be handed to your clients. For example, offer them the option to update their personal information if it has become outdated. They can either confirm it is correct or point out which changes need to be made for complete accuracy.

The rest will be left up to you. Do you need to thin out some contacts that you no longer need? Will it help to organize clients into groups based on schedule needs or demographics? These decisions will depend on your business and preferences, but they will help you get your feet set headed into 2023.

Start Creating Next Year’s Calendar

Just because it’s still 2022 doesn’t mean you can’t start scheduling meetings for the upcoming year. If you’ve already set up some meetings for the turn of the calendar, you can hit the ground running immediately.

You may even consider running a special promotion to incentivize continued customer loyalty at the beginning of the new year. For example, clients who already have meetings scheduled in January can qualify for special discounts on products or services regardless of which session dates they select. In addition, you might be able to add in some meetings several months in advance to lay a solid foundation for 2023.

Of course, you must have a sound reminder system in place as you begin creating next year’s calendar. A lot can happen that cause people to forget about meetings or change their original plans. Touch base with them at least a week in advance to ensure all of your scheduled events stay on track.

Square Away Payments

If you have any outstanding invoices from the past year, you should do your best to get them squared away before 2023 hits. Clients who take forever to complete payments are unlikely to schedule another meeting or appointment until they do. The longer it takes to collect payments, the more room customers have to try and wriggle away without paying at all.

This issue is significant for small businesses that work more intimately with their customers. For example, massage therapists who make house calls might expect payments to be made online through Venmo or Paypal. That can take some time. The better your business can prepare by getting ahead on things like this, the smoother the transition into 2023 will be.

Look through your records and see whether all payments are present and accounted for. If a payment or two is missing, reach out to the customer or client to gently remind them. Once your checkbook is completely balanced, you’ll have one less thing to worry about come 2023.

Keep an Eye on New Trends

With the coming of a new year, you can expect recent trends to emerge. While it’s essential to maintain a consistent business model, it’s also important to be aware of developments in your industry. Then, you can capitalize on them for short and successful marketing campaigns or pinpoint an upcoming trend that might become the next big thing.

Social media is a goldmine for coming and going trends. Is there a product or song that is trending on TikTok this week? Is there a movement you can support that’s been a trending hashtag on Twitter? Remember that online interactions are very transparent, so think before posting or commenting on anything under your business’s name.

Another place you can look is Google Trends. Here you can see what people around the world are searching for online. For example, has there been an increase in web searches for a particular hairstyle that you can advertise at your salon? Google might be able to help you time that right.

Make Sure Your Calendar Software Is Up to Date

Regarding your calendar software, it’s essential to ensure it is secure and that everything functions as it should. If there are software bugs, make sure to fix them. If there are usability or security issues, be sure to diagnose the problem and proceed to update the software to be sure these issues have been resolved.

Security breaches happen when businesses are caught unaware and assume things are good on their end. However, they can protect themselves and their clients by taking precautionary steps to ensure their software is secure and up-to-date. So, whether your calendar software is in the form of a desktop application, an internal website function, or a mobile app, there should be consistency throughout.

Be sure to have internal usability testing to ensure your software functions correctly. In addition to that, make sure your clients are also able to schedule successfully. Usability on various platforms can be a make-or-break factor for your clients. Overall, be sure to perform periodic software updates, especially if any of these things are out of line.

Set Goals and Aspirations

The final and perhaps the most important thing you should do in preparation for 2023 is to set some goals for the year. You can make faster progress in growing your business by setting appropriate goals and aspirations. Conversely, if you fail to set goals, you won’t have anything to work toward that will spur improvement.

Goals you can set might include:

• Increasing your client base by 25%
• Boosting annual revenue by a third
• Expanding your brick-and-mortar business
• Hiring another full-time employee
• Making your business space more energy-efficient
• Expanding your service lines

The most important thing about setting goals is to make them measurable and realistic. For example, everyone would like to double their annual revenue, but that’s likely too far-fetched. So instead, start with a goal more within reach, like one-third, then identify the steps and strategies to get you there. Measurable objectives should have milestones and plans that get you from point A to point B.

Final Thoughts

Now that you’ve had some insight on how to prepare your business for next year better, consider ways you can implement these tips. Take the time to review how each of these steps has already been –or can be–integrated into your business. Most importantly, be sure to follow up with the proper actions to prepare your business as needed.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Andrea Piacquadio; Pexels; Thank you!

The post How Businesses Can Get Ready for 2023 appeared first on Calendar.

Too many meetings on your schedule mean low productivity with all of your other work. You really can learn how to reduce your workload of meetings — and still make your meetings a success.

Zoom drowsy? Tired? Exhaustion? You may be hosting, attending, or leading too many meetings.

In some instances, a video or email might substitute (you can align thoughts, explore solutions, and even plan the next fiscal year).

The probability of having more than one meaningless or time-wasting gathering every day increases when we have too many meetings on our schedule. Remote work doesn’t mean you’re remote from meeting miasma.

Fortunately, there is something you can do. You will spend your time on more productive projects with the support of your teammates. Why are you getting together too much?

First, let’s explore the why of too many meetings

Why is your weekday filled with phone calls, Zoom meetings, and huddles? Many explanations exist for why you can’t get anything done — and the main issue seems to be that you and your team are continually in meetings.

Somehow — the corporate world developed a practice of inviting everyone to meetings. And thankfully, there has been enough information collected now that you know to only invite them if you believe you need to include them. Too many meetings will touch on anything and any work that an employee is working on. That goes for gatherings when you aren’t the host or meeting coordinator.

We sometimes assume we’re simply being courteous and covering all bases by inviting everyone — but squandering time by having too many chefs or participants in the kitchen (or meetings) isn’t benefiting anybody — including yourself.

If someone asks you to a virtual meeting and your first thought is, “I don’t need to be there,” let your employees be in charge of themselves — and decline. As an employee, you will want to send a message to the host expressing your choice not to attend and ask if they will update you by sending out a “roundup” of talking points afterward. If the host or meeting coordinator is okay with that — fantastic!

Though, some coordinators get a little touchy about requests for the meeting notes — so be cautious.

Some sessions should be conducted differently

For example — maybe the meeting should have been an email, a quick phone call, or an instant message. Too many team members inside your business are squandering time in poorly planned meetings that may have functioned better in another medium.

Unnecessary gatherings per day

We understand that the number of confabs you have every day varies based on your title or job inside the firm. For example — the higher-ups have to complete one-on-ones and project syncs that last 30 minutes to an hour. You have managers and team leaders that have similar constraints.

No matter who you are, don’t exceed 3-4 meetings per day — and keep them short. Also, consider your productivity. Ask yourself whether you work better in the afternoons or mornings. Avoid scheduling meetings during your most productive times.

Avoid too many meetings

Follow these four ways to avoid attending a million meetings a day — or at least cut down the time.

1. Cancel meetings with no agenda

2. Cancel if they have not posted meeting times two business days in advance

3. Skip Asynchronous communication for meetings — all communication must be in real-time

4. Shorten all meetings

As the boss, you will want to make sure these rules apply — and everyone will do better in the business if you stick by your own rules. So, prepare your agenda ahead of time and share it with your employees. Make sure all attendees come prepared with discussion topics, questions, and fast descriptions of their circumstances. It’s helpful to ask that all questions and descriptions be written down (this saves more time than you can imagine).

Without a plan and understanding of your work in detail — a meeting may not be necessary.

With an easy-to-use meeting agenda creator, everyone feels motivated to participate.

Likely, there is a time when you and your team are most productive — don’t stick a meeting right in the middle of your most productive times.

Some people do most of their work between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. So you know it’s in your best interest and the welfare of your to-do list to block off some “no meeting” time before lunch.

This historical period might be vague. Mark “Busy” on your calendar and other team members will know not to schedule a time during that period.

Another way is to set aside one day a week for meetings and have none on any other day. Inform meeting organizers that you only attend sessions on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. In this way, you will maximize your productivity on the other days of the week.

Determine if you will allow asynchronous communication

Some teams consider using asynchronous communication as a better way for them. Try it if it works — and if not — skip it and make other rules. Some teams work with Slack or Outlook in real-time communication, and these are solid communication tools that work (along with others you can find online).

Your remote team communication may be difficult — but understanding the differences between your at-office team and your remote team can increase productivity throughout both groups. Synchronous communication is about communicating right now, in the now, such as in face-to-face meetings, Zoom session, or phone conversations. These may be the only type of communication that works well for your particular team.

Your asynchronous communication occurring through email, instant chat, or project management platforms may be best for your team. The latter often saves time by eliminating the need to arrange anything. The team can then communicate at their leisure without interruption. This strategy is beneficial if your teammates are in a different time zone.

Conclusion — Now or never

If all else fails, be like Douglas Shearer — a Hollywood screenwriter who avoided dull-story conferences by keeping a pet tarantula on his shoulder. He never got invited to meetings.

Maybe you should try something similar.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Rodnae Productions; Pexels; Thank you!

The post Got Too Many Meetings? Here’s How to Cut Back appeared first on Calendar.

The question is, how do you deal with disruptive folks without losing your cool — especially in an essential meeting? Here are some suggestions on how to maintain control.

How to Deal with People Who Cause Disruption During Meetings

Having individuals talk and interrupt you can be highly irritating and aggravating. However, if they interrupt in the middle of a business meeting, or worse, interrupt you regularly, you have to do something. The question is, how do you deal with disruptive folks without losing your cool? Here are some suggestions on how to maintain control.

Establish ground rules.

Before the meeting, come up with some ground rules that everyone can agree on. For instance, beginning on time even if someone is late. Likewise, allowing only one person to speak at a time and not deviating from the subject and your agenda. Constant interruptions, individuals talking over one another, and coworkers chattering among themselves are all examples of disruptive behavior. Such behavior may be curbed by having a firm framework in the workplace. In addition, distributing a plan in advance might assist guests in deliberating over their remarks and questions more thoroughly.

Maintain your composure.

You could get the impression of that specific individual. They are on the planet for a purpose. Their only goal is getting under your skin, and you want to give them a piece of your mind. It’s critical, though, not to lose your cool or behave aggressively throughout this process. Instead, attempt to figure out what is causing them to be disruptive or challenging to work with instead. For those who wish to be more engaged, you may assign them the task of taking notes or keeping track of the time. Alternatively, notice if they are always in opposition to you. You might invite the other participants to remark on their presented points to get a more balanced perspective.

Don’t get involved in a heated debate.

Having a heated debate in front of anyone is poor leadership — but a debate with any amount of upset is not a good idea in your public company meetings — That’s as futile as trading on the Moscow Stock Exchange right now.

Having a heated argument with someone in front of the group is likely to make the rest of the group feel incredibly uncomfortable. You also run the danger of losing all credibility in the process. Try to have a positive attitude and avoid being pulled down by any bad behavior.

There will always be cynics at meetings; all you have to do is speak as well as you possibly can to win them over.

Always treat every participant with courtesy. Every participant, no matter how challenging they are, ought to be treated with dignity and courtesy. Some people be disruptive without even realizing it — it’s simply their nature – so accept that everyone is different and accept that they will be disruptive. Others in the conference may agree with their points of view, so never attempt to dismiss or mock them or their opinions.

Create an atmosphere that is conducive to learning.

For a meeting to function successfully, it is essential to consider the temperature and dynamics of the room. It is possible that an overly hot room can lead tempers to flare. Either that or everyone will fall asleep in their seats. People will be more awake if the temperature is a little on the chilly side, which is perfect. Avoid seating dominating personalities close to one other since they may take over the meeting or start a dispute between themselves.

Maintain a sense of order throughout the meeting.

A competent meeting leader should keep the meeting on track without deviating too far from the plan’s objectives. If someone becomes disruptive, you have the option of asking them to leave. For example, disruptions that are negatively impacting the flow of the meeting and preventing other people from contributing. This, however, should only be done as a last option in extreme cases.

Remote Meeting

In the case of a remote meeting, distractions are everywhere. And so are disruptions. And their devotees. Sports scores are discussed before the meeting. Not during. Weather is discussed after. Not during. Politics is verboten at all times. Before. During. And after. Monitor eye movement to see who’s on their phone playing games. Or texting.

Not every decision has to be reached by consensus — especially if you are the manager or leader in charge of a project. One of a leader’s major tasks is to bring as many people’s perspectives to the table as possible. When you’re only seeking feedback, though, you must be explicit.

Carl Bass, the former CEO of Autodesk, believes there is a built-in contradiction in encouraging individuals to express their thoughts since it may lead them to assume a choice would be made democratically.

Here’s how he approaches it right away:

At the start of every meeting, he makes it very obvious whether it’s a single person’s decision or whether it’s more of a debate to establish an agreement.

He believes it’s a pretty important thing to comprehend because otherwise, people could become irritated because they voiced their thoughts but don’t understand the bigger picture behind the ultimate choice.

Healthy discussion and ideas are important at certain times, and people want to be heard. It’s valuable to say that you really want to hear someone’s ideas or thoughts in detail and ask them to stay after and explain these to you so that you can understand the full impact of the information. This comment and attitude will usually calm things down if you have remained pleasant and neutral.

Featured Image Credit: Artem Podrez; Pexels; Thank you!

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Scheduling may cause tension and difficulties as managers try to match the best personnel with the most significant shifts. And things can get even trickier with employees during your holiday scheduling.

Getting employee shift scheduling properly added to the time sheets leads to happy workers, efficiency, and millions saved. Meetings become productive again when all information and times are set. However, scheduling may cause tension and difficulties even for mega-corporations as managers try to match the best personnel with the most significant shifts.

Also, businesses may go wrong despite their expertise, staff, and resources, but you want to have your best employees on the floor when you are in a crunch time — such as holiday shoppers.

In 2017, Ryanair canceled 20,000 flights due to roster issues, resulting in regulator reprimands and passenger complaints. They could have avoided this snafu with the right scheduling apps. Maybe some companies could recover from such a massive scheduling error — but not everyone.

Simplicity

Preparing a work schedule might be difficult, but the goal is to simplify it for employees and suppliers to access. Adopt software that is easy to use and accessible to everybody.

The idea is to provide workers with enough regularity to structure their lives around their work schedules. The timetable should allow for shift swapping and changes in advance. You want to know who does what and how frequently. People must inform you of any scheduling abuse! Also, don’t forget to inquire about the shift’s requirements, such as hours. What are the tasks and responsibilities? What abilities are required to work the shift?

These are easy questions to establish a reliable timetable for your company.

Involve Your Staff

Beyond enabling workers to request exchange shifts, include them and ask what they value most in their schedule. For example, do they like weekly, daily, or monthly schedules? Find out when they are most handy. A woman with two children might prefer to work during the day while her children are in school, while a single student may be more flexible or prefer night hours.

Managers’ perspective:

• Save time by using templates, duplicating shifts, and mass operations. Schedule it.
• Create single or several shifts, or import from Excel or a template.
• Filters, color-coded categories, and intelligent groupings help you choose the ideal individual for the job.
• Remind workers if they are late or refuse a shift for improved visibility and control
• Set up a central location for staff to access important information such as shift duties and special instructions.
• Shift changes are reported in real-time and notified to staff.

Employee’s perspective:

• Connecteam is simple to use, and you can use it from your phone.
• Maps, notes, files, photos, and more are available in real-time. Make a schedule.
• Get notified when shifts are published, modified, or canceled.
• Simple shift status or provide feedback on the go
• Request a shift replacement on the app if required.
• The whole itinerary is instantly accessible.

Plan Ahead Schedule

An emergency might arise for you or your workers, throwing your well-planned timetable into disarray. Establish your staff informed and keep a list of persons willing to fill in or swap shifts.

To be fair to all workers, plan shifts ahead of time (at least a month) to know when they must work and make other arrangements if necessary. Giving your employees a few days’ notice regarding shifts might lead to employee dissatisfaction. They need longer than that to plan their own personal events. This also helps your employees have an excellent work-life balance, allowing them to arrive refreshed and ready to give the most satisfactory customer service possible. A better schedule is called for.

Plus, planning ahead of time makes it easy to communicate with your team. Instead of various phone conversations, text messages, or WhatsApp groups, utilize the same application to keep everyone informed.

Focus on overtime

Overtime may cause weariness, stress, and even health issues. In July 2018, a Canadian study discovered that women who worked overtime had an increased risk of diabetes. The risk of heart disease and heart attacks rises with age.

Companies may enable workers to work extra, but they must receive time and a half (their regular hourly wage plus 50 percent ). If you make someone work overtime without their consent due to a scheduling error, you are costing your organization money and inflicting additional stress on your employee.

Using manual timesheets makes it challenging to locate the labor and time to review the records for errors or abuses. Timekeeping software that provides reports can help you discover and correct over time.

Don’t Forget Vacation and Sick leave schedule

A corporate policy should be in place for vacation and sick leave, as well as a mechanism to monitor it. For example, workers with the same expertise will not take a vacation simultaneously, leaving the firm and consumers exposed.

While you may use a spreadsheet to manage such leave, acquiring time off — monitoring application is less arduous and time-consuming. Make sure you choose one that can quickly create reports for managers or HR personnel.

Create a work schedule for your employees with confidence.

Time & Scheduling All In One

You may purchase a variety of scheduling applications. Some companies specialize in monitoring or scheduling for a particular sector. It’s usually more efficient to obtain scheduling software to handle it all and provide everyone access to the roster.

Combining time monitoring and work scheduling automates two procedures for the price. So you have more time to think about the big picture, and your workers don’t have to worry about inaccuracies in their paychecks or their upcoming schedules.

By asking that all employees install a time clock app on their mobile phones, you enable them to check their schedule at any time.

They do much more than enable workers to clock in and depart. Most enable workers to request time off or vacation directly from the app, contact managers through in-app chat, examine previous or current time sheets, and automate payment. Those seem like fantastic perks for both employers and workers.

The end result is a smooth, deft time wave of employees coming in and filling your business with the work that has to be done. There is a lot less stress when everyone adheres to a regular schedule for work times.

Featured Image Credit: Pixabay; Pexels; Thank you!

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