What’s the difference between a winning grant proposal and a losing one?

Grant writing.

Grant funding today is more difficult to obtain than ever before. A recent National Institute of Health (NIH) report showed that out of 50,000 grant applications, only 10,000 were given funding. That’s only 19%, which has fallen from 33% in the last 15 years.

Why?

A lack of Government funding, fierce competition, and poor grant writing skills.

We can’t do anything about the Government funds. We can do little about fierce competition. We can, however, do a lot about poor grant writing skills.

From completing complex grant applications to writing tip-top proposals, we’ve created the following eight templates to hone your grant writing skills.

If you’re in a hurry, go ahead! Click on the links below to jump straight in!

1. Applying for a Government Grant Checklist
2. Budget Proposal Template
3. Grant Application Process
4. How to Search for Grants Process
5. How to Write a Grant Proposal Checklist
6. How to Write a Research Proposal Checklist
7. Proposal Template Checklist Process
8. Simple Proposal Format Checklist

Curious about what these templates looks like? Check out the Proposal Template embedded below.

Scroll down for more information on each template of our grant writing template pack.

In addition to introducing our grant writing templates, I’ll be taking you behind the grant writing scenes, covering the following topics:

• What is a grant? (Clue: it’s not free money)
• Uncover the truth about what grant writing really is
• How to write grant proposals that win every time
• How to ace your grant proposals with Process Street

Ready? Let’s start with the basics…

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“Everyone who works here is a jerk. It smells terribly bad and the manager is an a**hole.” – Vanessa, TrustPilot

As a business owner, how would you respond to this review? Fight back and tell the customer they’re wrong? Ignore it and hope it goes away? Or apologize profusely and kill them with kindness?

In a world where 70% of consumers look at multiple review sites and read a whopping 10 reviews before choosing a local business, review management needs to be a crucial part of your business success plan.

But with 63% of businesses not checking or responding to their online reviews, we at Process Street, have written this post to help you understand the impact and importance of managing your online reviews.

This post will tell you everything you need to know about review management, including the following topics:

• What is review management?
• Where did review management begin?
• How important is review management?
• How to respond to reviews
• How to get more reviews
• When to ask for reviews
• How to monitor reviews
• How to use Process Street to manage online reviews

We will also give you access to 14 super-charged templates that will actively help you manage your online reviews. If you’re in a hurry, feel free to jump straight into them:

1. Asking Valuable Customers for Feedback Checklist
2. Customer Service Representative Performance Review Checklist
3. Individual Review Feedback Analysis Process Checklist
4. How to Ask for a Review from a High Touch Client Checklist
5. How to Get Google Reviews from Top Customers Checklist
6. How to Get Reviews on Amazon With a Personal Touch Checklist
7. How to Respond to Google Reviews Process Checklist
8. How to Respond to Yelp Reviews Process Checklist
9. Monitor Reviews Set-up Checklist
10. Positive Review Response Process Checklist
11. Product Review Process Checklist
12. Reply to eBay Feedback Process Checklist
13. Responding to Negative Reviews Process
14. Social Listening Strategy Process Checklist

If you’re curious about what these templates look like, check out this embedded Social Listening Strategy Process Checklist here, or scroll down to find them all embedded.

But if you’ve got time, grab yourself a cuppa and let’s get started!

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Business-related problems not only crop up constantly, but they can also have massively negative impacts if not resolved promptly.

In fact, problems related to cash flow are why 82% of small businesses fail.

The good news is there’s a nifty way to get to the bottom of roadblocks quickly: 5 Whys.

According to Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Industries and inventor of 5 Whys, asking ‘why?’ 5 times can help you get to the root cause of the issue or problem you’re facing.

In this post, you’re going to learn more about the 5 Whys process, why it’s so beneficial, and you’ll even get your hands on a 5 Whys template, courtesy of Process Street.

Read through these sections to get the complete lowdown:

• What is 5 Whys? (The 5 Whys definition)
• What is 5 Whys’ history?
• How is the 5 Whys process beneficial?
• How to utilize Process Street’s 5 Whys template
• Improving & taking control of your business with Process Street!

So, why are you waiting around?

It’s time to become a pro at finding out why problems occur!

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Picture this: You’re on vacation.

(Sounds good already, huh?)

It’s summer. The sun’s shining. You’re on a beach with white sands and an ocean so clear you can see the coral.

You think, “Hey, I wouldn’t mind an ice cream right about now.” So you go to the ice cream kiosk before it closes for the day, choose your flavor of choice, go back to your towel, and eat it.

It’s the best ice cream you’ve ever had.

You want more.

But it’s gone. (And the kiosk is shut, too.)

Your vacation is ruined. R U I N E D.

Sometimes, one of something isn’t enough. Not just when it comes to delicious food, but also concerning more practical things like iPhone charging cables (why are they so flimsy, Apple?!), and of course, checklists.

Having multiple checklists holds you and your team in incredibly good stead when it comes to all kinds of business-related activity, no matter if the team works in marketing, engineering, sales, or customer support.

But don’t take my word for it.

Take the word of the 30+ businesses who’ve offered their insights to the Process Street community regarding the types of checklist they use (and why). Read through the following sections to get the complete lowdown:

• What makes having different types of checklist beneficial?
• How teams utilize their varying types of checklist
• Tips and tricks for making various types of checklist for your team
• Tools used to create different types of checklist
• Use Process Street for every kind of checklist imaginable!

Now, forget about that ice cream – there’s work to do!

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In 1836, Edward Bulwer-Lytton came up with the adage “the pen is mightier than the sword“.

Bulwer-Lytton was referring to good writing and effective communication being the most powerful tool of all. So powerful that it could win wars.

In business’ modern-day war against tough deadlines, seemingly never-ending workloads, and stiff business competition, Bulwer-Lytton’s adage still rings true.

Particularly when it comes to penning checklists.

Here at Process Street, we’d go far as to say that checklists are something of a secret weapon hidden in plain sight. They maximize productivity, minimize stress and anxiety, and can keep perilous human error at bay.

But the rewards can only be reaped if checklists are well-written.

Not sure how to write checklists properly? Confused whether you’re penning checklists the right way or not?

I’ve got you covered in the following sections where you’ll learn what checklists are used for, why they’re so useful, on top of being given tips and tricks for writing checklists from 15 thriving companies:

• What are checklists?
• Why are checklists so useful?
• Tips & tricks for writing checklists from 15 thriving businesses
• Writing checklists: The key takeaways
• Use Process Street for writing checklists efficiently and effectively!

Now, it’s time to march onwards!

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At Process Street, we’re all about checklists. We use them for absolutely everything.

I have a checklist for my daily tasks, a checklist for writing this blog post, and even a checklist for planning our monthly sprint!

Basically, no task is too big nor too small for a checklist.

But it got us thinking – what are the best ways to use checklists to get maximum value from them?

My personal view is that they’re most useful for highly regular recurring tasks, like a sales call or dealing with an IT support ticket.

My reasoning here is that following the checklist gives you incremental benefits, so the more you follow it the more you benefit. Moreover, the more you follow a business process, the more you understand it’s faults and failings, allowing you to make improvements. Therefore, using a checklist to follow a business process for a task which you do multiple times a day will give you the highest efficiency savings and output increases.

This is compounded if you use a tool like Process Street due to its automation potential; you can automate data entry for data gathered during the task, you can trigger another action in another app, or you can automate the approval process for a completed task.

So I think I have a pretty strong case for why the most common actions benefit most from checklists, but that doesn’t necessarily tell us how they can work best for you.

In this article, you’ll look at a few different ways of employing checklists and get great insight and input from across the industry, as part of Process Street’s original research.

• Checklists in the workplace: Notes and ad hoc checklists for organization
• Checklists in the workplace: Employee tasks and recurring processes for efficiency
• Checklists in the workplace: Idea generation and getting good work done
• How not to use checklists in the workplace
• Gaffes and mixups; the hilarious happenings of checklists gone wrong!
• Start using Process Street checklists in your workplace today!

Let’s get started.

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Do you use a daily task checklist?

If yes, then why?

Why not, then why not?

This was the question we, at Process Street, posed to top business experts across the globe.

With this question in mind, I noticed after a Star Wars movie marathon – yes I am a Sci-Fi nerd – that even Han and Chewie used checklists.

If chewie uses them, why wouldn’t you use them?

In all serious though, checklists have been shown to give profound benefits in all manner of industries. For example:

• Pre-flight checklists aid aviation safety to such an extent that checklist misuse has been attributed to three major airline accidents in three months
• Surgical checklists reduce mortality by 22% post surgey
• $10 billion is lost annually from US process industries due to human error that would have been avoided via checklists

Checklists in general are remarkable. But what about daily task checklists? Well, thats what we strove to find out.

Here, you will find the results of our in-depth examination, exploring the usefulness of checklists exercised on a daily basis.

We present to you our findings, outlined as 15 daily task checklist benefits.

You can click on the links below to be directed to the relevant section. Alternatively, grab a coffee, sit back and take the time to read all we have to say to ascertain a thorough understanding of our findings.

• Daily task checklist: What is a daily task checklist?
• Daily checklist benefit 1, productivity improvements
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 2, organizational improvements
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 3, keeping track of your daily tasks
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 4, improving teamwork
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 5, increased transparency
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 6, improved work quality
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 7, greater efficiency
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 8, improved time management
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 9, error reduction
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 10, improved work consistency
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 11, improved work effectiveness
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 12, planning improvements
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 13, smoother workflows and processes
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 14, accountability improvements
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 15, a happier you
• Daily Task Checklist: Why not?
• Use Process Street as your task manager and checklist maker

Let’s get started!
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Fleet management is so much more than simply owning and operating vehicles. It’s a complex interplay of many different factors and optimizations – much like the concept of business process management.

In recent years, more and more tools for fleet management optimization are emerging. Fleet management is changing.

Projected growth of the fleet management industry to about $30 billion by 2022 is largely driven by advances in technology – and the rate at which fleet management companies adopt this emerging technology will largely impact the rate of this projected growth.

And it seems fleet management companies are aware of this.

The National Conference of State Fleet Administrators (NCSFA) recommended in a 2018 survey of 44 state and university fleet participants that fleet management companies begin implementing “robust fleet management policies and procedures” as well as “accelerating the implementation of technology to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of fleet management practices”.

That same survey showed that 38% of repairs and 39% of preventative maintenance work were insourced, on top of the in-house work that is done as part of routine fleet management. Just another incentive to tighten up your processes and streamline all of that manual work with a good, solid process.

In this article, we’ll be looking at how you can use Process Street to implement robust fleet management policies and procedures. I’ll cover:

• What is fleet management?
• What is fleet management software?
• Fleet management templates
• Using Process Street for fleet management

Let’s start by making sure we’re all on the same page; what exactly is fleet management?
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In July 2018, the number of active Google Drive users surged into the billions.

This means the number of users had increased by 200 million within just one year.

One reason for Google Drive’s success is its extensive usability. You can send emails, create spreadsheets, arrange meetings, update your calendar, create slideshows, and produce text documents.

It is with this function, produce text documents that we begin this Process Street article comparing a Google Docs checklist with a Process Street checklist.

You see, like Process Street, Google has recognized the benefits checklists bring at both a business and a personal level. Google has made it possible to create checklists with its text document function.

Our questions driving this article are:

• Why would you want to create a Google Docs checklist?
• How would you go about creating a Google Docs checklists?
• Is a Google Docs checklist right for you and your business?

If you are new to checklists, Google Docs, and Process Street, then this is the article for you.

You can click on any of the below subheaders to jump to the relevant section.

• What is a Google Docs checklist?
• Make a checklist in Goole Docs
• The benefits of using a Google Docs checklists
• Checklist template: What a checklist template is and our top Google Docs checklist templates
• Google Docs vs Process Street
• Process Street: How we can help you with your checklists

Shall we get started?

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Duties. Deliverables. Deadlines.

No matter if an employee is working as part of a tiny startup based in the CEO’s basement, or a multinational company with offices across the globe, there are important tasks that each and every employee needs to knock out the park.

But how can companies ensure their employees can complete tasks effectively? And that employees aren’t creating a backlog of work for themselves, which could decrease overall productivity by up to 68%?

Answer: An employee task list.

At least, that’s what countless top, thriving companies have told us after we asked them about their task list and checklist habits.

In this post – which is the next part in Process Street‘s series investigating how, why, and in what ways successful businesses use lists for their workflows – I’ll deep dive into the nitty-gritty of employee task lists. Plus, you’ll get the exclusive opportunity to discover the never-seen-before findings from our in-depth research.

Just read through the following sections:

• What is an employee task list?
• What jobs require an employee task list?
• How is an employee task list useful?
• Why marketing teams around the globe utilize employee task lists
• Employee task list best practices: Crushing duties & deadlines
• Use Process Street to create a superpowered employee task list!

However, before delving into our findings, I’ll first define exactly what an employee task list is.

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