Cohen Consulting Group

A great entrepreneur will always be on the lookout for ways to improve their business. Efficiency is a goal everyone wants to achieve when it comes to business because it can translate into less work and more profits. Here are five ways you and/or your staff can become more efficient in your business.

Get software-savvy.

Do you use the same software apps day in and day out? If you do, ask yourself how well you really know them? Are you able to just get by or are you a whiz with deep knowledge? If you’re just getting by and spending a lot of time wandering around or undoing things, you may want to take a course in that software.

The deeper our knowledge is in the apps we use every day, the more proficient we can be. This is true of all of your staff as well.

Reward new suggestions.

Your staff will be the first to know where there are bottlenecks and hiccups in your processes. Encourage them to speak up when they find something that could be improved. Listen to their ideas and reward the good ones. Implementing ideas from your business’s “front line” will increase its overall efficiency.

Watch your time.

How do you spend the bulk of your day? Working on new strategic projects, fighting fires, or a little of both? An honest evaluation of how you spend your time can yield many ideas about what’s going right and what needs work in your business.

Allocate at least an hour a day to work “on” your business instead of in it. That time is the only way your can move your business to the next level. If you’re the CEO, the focus should be more external than internal, more proactive than reactive, and more strategic rather than operational.

Avoid “bright shiny object syndrome.”

Are you easily distracted by an email (that you didn’t realize waylaid you into an hour of unproductivity), a web link, or a conversation? It’s crazy-easy to get sidetracked right in the middle of a task these days. It’s also easy to purchase something that looks great without doing your homework.

One way to avoid unnecessary purchases is to get three bids from potential vendors on all major purchases for your business. Make it a procedure so that you’re not lured into fancy marketing and items you might not ever use once you see the fine print.

One person’s trash is another’s treasure.

When you start to look around your office, you might be surprised at all the things you haven’t used in a while. Laptops that have been replaced, office supplies that were accidentally double-ordered, those folders you were going to use two years ago for a marketing campaign, even extra desks and chairs that are now empty: all of these items could be recycled to not only free up space but also get you some cash.

Which idea do you like best? Try it next week to improve your business efficiency.

If you’re looking for ways to boost your productivity, technology is a great place to start. The good news is there are many free options available. Here are five favorites you might not know about.

1. Bridge lines.

If you need teleconference lines, you’re in luck: there are many high-quality options that are completely free. You can have several people, even hundreds, dial into a line and conduct a meeting or training session via the phone. You can record the session and download the recording as an MP3 file that can be played on an iPod.

Some of the more creative ways to use these free teleconferencing services include:

Staff meetings when someone is absent so they can listen later.
Free teleconference, providing tips to all your clients.
Free teleconference, allowing prospects to call in and sample what you offer or find out what you’re like to work with.
When you need to record anything. (You often need 2 people on the line to be able to record, but not always.)
To record a quick training session or how-to that can be distributed later.
To have a client record a testimonial you could put on your web site.
To record a meditation or therapeutic session you can listen to over and over again.
If you’re a coach or trainer, you can record the client training session and give the download as a service perk.

Our favorite: http://www.freeconferencecalling.com

2. FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) allows you to transfer large files between computers that are connected to the Internet. It’s handy for many reasons:

When you need to load large files such as videos or audios to your website
When you need to upload something to an artist, a transcriptionist, a warehouse, or other supplier
When you have documents such as white papers that you want people to have access to but don’t want to have to keep contacting your webmaster

As a client of mine, you have a free Citrix ShareFile account through my www.Sleeter.com account. If you aren’t already set up, ask me about it.

Also take a look at FileZilla: http://filezilla-project.org/ and Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/

3. Gmail.

It’s just a great idea to have a backup email address in addition to the primary email address you use. Gmail is perfect for this.

Go one productivity-boosting step further, and make your gmail account the one you use for all that email you don’t need to read as frequently. This could include notifications from social media like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, blog notifications, list posts, Google alerts, and any other nonproductive email, you don’t need to respond to.

Open your Gmail account less often than your primary email (even once a week if you dare) and gain that productivity boost. You’ll have freed your inbox from a bunch of clutter and can focus on your clients’ and employees’ emails instead.

Visit this site to find out more: https://mail.google.com

4. WordPress.

WordPress is free blog software that you can install on your web site or blog site. Once installed, it’s super-easy to use for both blogging and a website. You can add photos, graphics, white papers, videos, and audios to the library to put on your blog or your site.

It’s also great for search engine optimization; the search engines love it and will rank you higher when you blog and post fresh content.

Visit http://wordpress.org/ to find out more.

5. Ning.

Ning is a community platform where people can come together and post a profile, participate in discussions, join a group, and interact. Not all business models will benefit from Ning, but many of you are involved in a club, church group, nonprofit organization, or community where Ning could be very helpful.

Ning is almost free, at $19.95 per year or $2.95 per month, but it’s such an amazing platform, I include it here. Whenever you’d like to have a private (or public) community of people who are joined by a common interest, Ning can provide that extra online community connection that can help you group interact and bond even more.

Find out more about Ning at http://www.ning.com.

What are your favorite freebies?

5 Ways to Make Your Business More Efficient

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