[ Download our Free Ebook ] – Click here to download our free 111 page ebook on “How to automate the tasks you hate at work using Zapier“.

As a small business grows, and the number of employees increases, it is no longer possible for the person at the helm, the business owner, to attend to all problems as they arise. Without systems in place, you may find that you are dealing with issues in an ad hoc, time-consuming and often chaotic manner. It will mean that your employees are constantly bringing problems to you and that your business cannot run without you. This can be enormously stressful for you as a manager and frustrating for your staff. Systemisation of your business will be a key factor in helping you create a scalable, sustainable business that operates equally effectively whether you are present or not.

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It may not necessarily occur to the entrepreneur of a one-person start-up company to document the processes and procedures that are followed in the day-to-day running of the business, but as the business grows, there comes a time when it will be vital to have records of how things are done. “Documenting business processes”, or “business systemisation” as it’s also known, will make the difference between a business that plods along with a business owner constantly on the verge of burnout, and one that is successful and grows and prospers, and where the business owner is secure in the knowledge that things will go smoothly whether he or she is on site or not. Here are some of the main reasons why you as an entrepreneur need to document your business processes.

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I hate paper and I love Evernote. I use it to store everything. I automatically forward files from my email to my Evernote (including snail mail which is automatically scanned and emailed to me). I take photos of every document I sign and business card I’m given using their iPhone App and I even forward my Workflowy history to Evernote.

Some people may suggest using Dropbox or Google Drive, but Evernote has a specific benefit that makes it kick ass: Search.

Evernote is built around search. All documents, images and photos are scanned and made searchable. This means you can dump everything into one folder and Evernote will make it instantly searchable from any of your devices. No organizing, no tagging, just sweet, sweet search.

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[ Download our Free Ebook ] – Click here to download our free 111 page ebook on “How to automate the tasks you hate at work using Zapier“.

Communication is a crucial element to success for any business. But for businesses that have an outsourcing operation or runs on virtual teams, communication is life or death. Virtual environments do not have the luxury of being in the same room or building as their co-workers, so the natural communication benefits from working in an office disappear.

Poor communication can lead to lower quality, productivity, and morale across the organization.

Here are 5 tools that can get you and your team back on track and chatting up a storm.

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[ Download our Free Ebook ] – Click here to download our free 111 page ebook on “How to automate the tasks you hate at work using Zapier“.

Social Media is Powerful

Social Media is a powerful marketing tool for all businesses. It’s cheap, has a far reach and opens up engagement with customers. But this is nothing new, we’ve all seen the explosive growth in social media and we know its an essential part of our web strategy.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at the graph below extracted from a Search Engine Journal infographic.

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Blogging is a proven method of getting leads and sales for your business. Yet many companies are just not doing it.

Last week I made a Website Launch Checklist that got lots of great feedback, but a few people told me they don’t have a website (specifically a blog) to launch. After investigating further I found the most common reason for companies not blogging was because they didn’t know how to set one up.

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A few days ago I had a great call with Katie Sotor Vice President of Marketing for Crane to talk about a creative marketing campaign she ran that included sharpie markers, artists, and competitions. The campaign was extremely successful running for almost 6 months and netting 20k Facebook likes in the first 3 months.

Crane is a design company that takes ordinary boring products like humidifiers, air purifiers, and space heaters and turns them into beautiful creative designs.

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Managing email is an important activity for all small businesses. We have written about alternatives to email a couple of times but the truth of the matter is, email is here and it’s here to stay. For many small businesses, email is still at the core and relied upon for day to day transactions plus we all use our email to login to our favorite apps and services.

In this article, we will talk about apps various clients and tools you can use to improve email productivity across your team. We will not talk about how to host your business email, something we already covered in the Google Apps vs Microsoft 365 post. The goal is for you and your team to get to Inbox Zero as Merlin Mann says in his famous 2007 talk.

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If you run a website for a purpose, like a website or blog (see also: how to set up your company blog in 5 min), where the purpose is to drive more sales or educate your customers, ultimately resulting in higher profits, you MUST be focused on capturing leads for your website.

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A productivity suite covers all of your basic needs such as email, calendar, documents and shared file storage and is the core of all the business apps on the cloud.

There are two major players in this space: Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365.

While we might all have our current preferences and lean towards Google or Microsoft for our products, bear with me here because it’s not so crystal clear. If you have never used one of these two tools before, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. In this article, I’m going to compare Google Apps vs Microsoft Office 365 to show you which is the best suite of tools for your business and personal productivity.

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