Haste Makes Waste

Rushing can lead to mistakes. We all know that but still we rush. Sometimes it simply means spending valuable time redoing something.

Haste can waste more than time. It can also hurt my reputation if my mistakes are public.

A little risk assessment before we start hurrying can save us heartbreak. I'll risk my time but I won't needlessly risk my reputation.

Sometimes just showing up isn't enough.

Click to Tweet this Article

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Start Writing when you Feel Stuck

Image
Are you struggling when you sit down to write? Do those first couple of sentences elude you? Recently I learned a powerful technique for dealing with this dilemma. During a coaching session on writing with Neil Everton , I was asking him for help with closing my articles. Neil directed me back to the top of the examples I had brought and suggested we start at the beginning. You want your reader to nod and think “yes” , Neil told me. That first sentence needs to connect with the reader and bring them along for the rest of the article. One way to do this is to ask a question, as I did at the start of this article. Whether it’s a question or a statement, try to elicit feelings about the topic and empathize with the reader’s situation. Did I also figure out my endings? I learned that getting the beginning right made writing the closing so much easier. I simply need to answer that opening question. When you're stumped at the start, write out the question or problem that you w
Keep reading »

5 Ways to Grow Your List this Summer

Image
Your contact list doesn’t grow on its own and summer is when we all tend to slow down. Here are some practical, yet easy ways to grow your contact list over the summer months and still enjoy some time off. eMail Auto Responder When you set up your ‘out of office’ vacation notification, include a call to action and link to your newsletter sign-up form. Scheduled social media posts Set up a series of posts using Hootsuite or similar to encourage sign-ups . You can direct people to your sign-up form, to your archive, or to specific past issues that still make good reading. Review your current and prospective client list When you’re preparing for your fall sales activities, also note those that aren’t already receiving your newsletter and encourage them to sign up by sending a personal note. Review not only the contacts in your CRM system, but also those you’ve connected with on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. You could also consider mailing a copy of your most recent newsletter. Net
Keep reading »

Perpetual One-question Survey = Evergreen Content

Image
You and I both know it can be a lot of work to keep the content machine going - blogging, email marketing, social media and more. When I find an idea I can execute in 15 minutes that will give me social media posts and blog content (plus market intelligence) for years, I'm all over that. It's easier to explain if I give you an example - here's my own one-question survey: What is your content creation stumbling block?   Why run a one-question survey? You get market intelligence which is a fancy way of saying you can find out about your target market's problems, or preferences, or habits, or whatever you want to find out. I was curious to know what it is about blogging that people struggle with the most because I want to write articles that are helpful. You get three kinds of content: Calls-to-action to get people to complete your survey - on social feeds, in your newsletter, on your blog, in your email signature, and so on. Sharing the results periodically - on social
Keep reading »

Graphic Solutions

Image
Copyright and graphics are topics that come up in our business all the time. When you are using images on your website, blog or in your newsletter, you need to ensure they are copyright free or you have paid the copyright owner for use. You should not search Google images and take any image that pops up. Google searches for all images and does not filter out any by copyright status. There are several free sites for images and several more that are reasonably priced under $10. I recommend that you take some time to search for images that are not overused on the internet. You will come to recognize those that are most popular. Some of the places you can find free images are: Morguefile - a lot of free images, some very artsy, some not great quality but lots of quality there for those who are willing to browse Microsoft Office clipart - images that come up in that search are copyright free Unprofound - created and run by designers, this site has the very cool feature of s
Keep reading »

How to Get People to Open Your Emails

Image
How long did you think about the subject line of that email you just sent to your brand new client? Will they be interested or excited to open it? Or will they leave it sitting unopened, floating closer to the bottom of their inbox? I've discovered a little quirk. In fact, it feels more like a secret I shouldn't acknowledge, maybe even a tad manipulative. It didn't start out that way but now I know what I know... well, I can't un-know it. Here it is. If I send an email to any of my work friends with the words 'no rush' in the subject line, it's likely to get opened faster than any other email I send them. Of course, this may not work any longer once my friends read this article. But let me be clear, I've never used that knowledge to manipulate. And that's why it works. When I send an email with 'no rush' in the subject line, I really mean there's nothing inside requiring their attention soon. Usually it's a business idea in
Keep reading »

Does Your Mother Know What You Do? (Part 2)

Image
It's hard to believe it's been over 4 years since I took my mother to her first (and only) business networking event and wrote about it here . I'm a big fan of the "Mom test" for simplifying our small business marketing messages but I didn't fully appreciate it until yesterday morning. I was driving out Waverley Road taking the long, more scenic route to Bedford with my mom in the passenger seat. Because she's my biggest fan, I was telling her about some of the exciting new things going on with my business. Oh, she was making all the right noises and nodding, as moms will, but that's when it hit me - she really had no clue as to what I was talking about, much less about why it's interesting and valuable work. I thought I passed the Mom test years ago when I explained I do newsletters and websites and generally help small business owners implement their marketing plans. She could, and does, tell people that. But since she's never used
Keep reading »

How to Find the RIGHT Image

Image
A friend asked me to help her out by finding images of people talking on the phone to be used to market a new service. I like crestock.com for images (because they’re reasonably priced and easy to buy from) so I logged in and started searching for ‘manager on phone’. Great – 3030 images in the search results. I started scrolling through and saving images to a collection for later review. Good images, but none of them were really ‘speaking’ to me. Then I came across this one . It spoke to me – it stopped me and made me laugh. It reminded me of similar circumstances that I’d been in. Who hasn't goofed around at work now and then? The headline I imagined was: “Are your sales people avoiding the phone?” If I had known the headline first, I could have zeroed in on images that resonated it, rather than wading through hundreds of bland images of people talking on the phone. If you’re going to search for images , develop a few headlines first. When you have more than a broad sub
Keep reading »

Old Marketing Tricks

Image
"Yes, it's an old marketing trick to "accidentally" make a mistake in an email campaign so you can resend an email shortly thereafter to increase the number of times people see your message." This was the lead message in an email I received recently which included a correction to information which I had indeed received a couple of hours before. Making a deliberate mistake is a darn poor excuse to get into people's inboxes. Making ANY mistake doesn't reflect well on you, deliberate or not. Do your marketing well and you won't need to resort to tricks. And you won't need to fix mistakes. If a *real* mistake happens, here is my advice about how to deal with it . Let's avoid those made-up mistakes completely. Click to Tweet this Article
Keep reading »

Re-opt-in: a Messy Word for a Messy Process

Image
It's a word that didn't exist a few years ago... and maybe still doesn't? For those of you still on the fence about whether to ask your current mailing list to re-opt-in before July 1st, here is some information copied exactly from the Government of Canada website: Under section 66, consent to send commercial electronic messages (CEMs) is implied for a period of 36 months beginning July 1, 2014, where there is an existing business or non-business relationship that includes the communication of CEMs. Note however, that this three-year period of implied consent will end if the recipient indicates that they no longer consent to receiving CEMs. During the transitional period, the definitions of existing business and non-business relationships are not subject to the limitation periods that would otherwise be applicable under section 10 of CASL. Businesses and people may take advantage of this transitional period to seek express consent for the continued sending of CEMs. You
Keep reading »