It’s springtime! Sunny days, beautiful flowers, and warm temperatures. These things somehow inspire the majority of society to do some deep cleaning in their homes. Moving furniture that hasn’t been moved since this time last year. Dusting on top of the fan blades (admit it. We all forget about those). The spring time is perfect for ridding your house of dirt and clutter. I’m sure you know where I am going with this…. It’s time to declutter your marketing strategies, too!
So, grab your laptop, an ice coffee and head outside to bask in the sun while we go over some spring cleaning tips!
Importance of Workflows
What is the foundation of your business? What keeps everything running and moving smoothly? I’d say your workflows! How you operate and organize your business is very important. If you have bad workflows you are wasting time and ultimately your money. You also will do yourself a disfavor when you are trying to do taxes or find pictures from 3 years ago if nothing is organized.
Why are streamlined workflows important:
- You stay organized
- You don’t let your clients or work slip through the cracks
- You save time and money
- You maintain your peace of mind
Declutter your Workflow Tip #1: ORGANIZE YOUR FOLDERS
These can be virtual or in your filing cabinet. Wherever they are, they should be organized. Raise your hand if you get stressed when you’re in a hurry and can’t find something you really need? *raises hand*
Organizing your folders will help you in the long run. As a photographer, my hard drives are very important to me and my files are organized so that I can easily find a photo in less than a minute!
My personal opinion is to first start off with THE YEAR then go from there. Obviously, I don’t know what type of business you run, but I do know we all go through the same years. Then you can create umbrella folders for your main business topics (i.e., finance, inventory, marketing, etc.). Inside each of the umbrella folders create subtopics, so inside your marketing folder you could have: blogs, ads, photos, and strategies.
EXAMPLE:
Hardrive > 2021 > Marketing > Blogs > April
Declutter your Workflow Tip #2: Analyze your processes
Your actual workflows can either be creating chaos or making your business life easy. Take a good long look at your systems in place and see if it is truly worth your time and money! If a process is wasting your time, it is ultimately wasting your money. This could be through making mistakes with your customers or paying your employees to do something that should take half the time.
If you have the budget, use programs to help streamline your processes. For example. I just purchased a subscription to Honeybook to help streamline my client onboarding process, creating contracts, sending invoices, and managing projects. It REALLY has saved me so much time and I have only had it since the beginning of March. I am honestly willing to pay for easy-to-use programs if they make my life less stressful. Use my affiliate code with Honeybook to receive 25% off your subscription!
Another great program I just got is Quickbooks – Self Employed. It has an app too. It keeps up with my cash flow and my mileage automatically. I love that after I get done driving somewhere it send me a notification to choose whether the drive was personal or for business. It will definitely be a life saver come tax season next year!
How do you fix a chaotic process? Think.
Write down all your painpoints about this specific area in your business.
Look for a common theme in them.
Visualize your end goal.
Brainstorm what you would need to make it easier.
Find a program that does exactly what you are looking for or create a step-by-step guide to do it. I will say here, if you can find an electronic and automated way to do a process, it will save your efforts now and as you continue to grow!
Chaotic processes create big problems when your business grows and you have more clients or employees. It leads to mistakes and ultimately money down the drain.
Declutter your Workflow Tip #3: Delegate where you can
If there are tasks weighing you down and keeping you from enjoying your business, delegate if you can. If it is something you are able to outsource to someone or hire an employee to do, you should greatly consider. Overall, as a small business owner, you can be swamped really quick and then it’s not fun anymore. Find small things you can outsource to make your life easier.
Many times, we think, I can just do it myself and save money. BUT are you really saving money? For example, let’s think about finances, payroll, or taxes. If I take hours to learn how to log and file my taxes and payroll paperwork, those are hours that I could be working with clients, selling products, or creating content. While I may be trying to save money by not hiring an accountant, I am losing time. And we all know as a small business owner TIME IS MONEY!
Delegating overall will lower your load and help reduce stress. You want to make sure you are delegating tasks to people you trust will get the job done and get it done right. You don’t want to have to stress about whether or not your tasks are getting done!
One way Nostalgia Media works to help small business owners… is to take the stress off of social media for them! Want to delegate your social media? We have social media management and content creation packages to allow owners to focus on what you do do best: RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS! Reach out today for more information.
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