Automotive | OutboundEngine

Best Time Management Tips for Productive Small Business Owners

Erin Myers — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 10:30:54 +0000

Many small business owners are accustomed to burning the candle at both ends. In fact, 39 percent report working up to 60 hours per week. It’s no wonder time management tips are so commonly sought out by busy small business owners.

Are you a professional who finds the idea of a 40-hour workweek laughable? Test out these time management tips and “work” your way to a more productive week.

1. Make a Schedule Based on Your Personal Productivity Fluctuations

Your productivity and energy levels may swing like a pendulum throughout the day. The trick to tackling your most important tasks is to capitalize on the portions of the day when you have the most momentum.

Duke University psychology and behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely found that for much of the workforce, the most productive block of time occurs within the first two hours of their workday. He recommends using this time to tackle highly cognitive tasks, like strategically mapping out your day or completing creative projects.

If you know you struggle to concentrate in the late afternoon, save that time for tasks requiring less brainpower. Try responding to emails instead of scheduling end-of-day meetings or tackling important deadlines.

Compartmentalizing tasks based on the inherent ebbs and flows of your energy level can help you remain productive throughout your day.

2. Find Creative Ways to Limit Distractions

Once you find your flow, it’s important to stay on task. However, between the onslaught of push notifications and needy clients, most of us face large-and small-scale distractions every three minutes. That can be even more often if you’re working from home with kids in the house. While some of these interruptions can be quickly addressed, getting back to the original task at hand takes an average of 23 minutes.

There’s a clear takeaway: cut out two small distractions from your workday and you’ve potentially saved yourself an hour of billable time!

Try a combination of these techniques to help you stay focused:

Find playlists you can work to. We love instrumental music and useful online options like SimplyNoise.
Close browser windows you don’t need. This will save you from tempting distractions. If you’re worried about losing track of important tabs, use a tool like Session Buddy to save your tabs for later. If you’re using Chrome, you can also hide unused tabs away inside a tab group.
Turn off notifications and set your phone to airplane mode. If you’re worried about time sensitive notifications, do this only for short sprints of time when you need to maintain intense focus.
Keep a healthy snack at your desk. Hunger is distracting, and so is getting up to search for snacks.

3. Limit Your Priorities

When you’re running a small business, anything related to your company is ultimately your responsibility. But, as the adage says, “If everything is important, then nothing is.”

Not everything requires equal attention, and having an expansive to-do list can lead to task paralysis. By keeping your priority list short, you automatically hone your focus. For more than 72 percent of small business owners, this concentration hinges largely on developing high-level strategies that can help grow their businesses.

Which leads us directly to our next topic…

4. Learn the Art of Delegation by Automation

After you’ve culled the list of priorities down to the essentials, what’s next? The short answer: delegating them!

For some small business owners, this means hiring a part-time assistant to help manage the schedule or answer emails. Others turn to online assistants like Upwork or Zirtual for general task management and website maintenance.

And nearly 50 percent of companies use some form of marketing automation to get more out of their day. (Think customized email blasts and social media campaigns tailored to your customers.)

Bonus Tip: We can automate your marketing!

5. Stay Organized

Ever found yourself shuffling through business cards to find the one you want? Or logging in and out of multiple apps to get the information you need about a client? Or scrolling through an endless list of emails in search of the one you’re looking for? All of that takes time, and when you add it up over days and weeks, it can become a significant amount. Organization pays off not just in peace of mind but in actual minutes of your life.

Fortunately, there are apps to streamline nearly every repetitive, headache-inducing task you can think of. We compiled a list of our five favorite organization apps, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Wrap-Up

If you start following all these tips, you should see an immediate uptick in your daily free time. And don’t forget that we’re here to save you even more time by taking marketing off your plate.

Improve Your Follow-Up Calls With These 8 Tips

Erin Myers — Tue, 03 May 2022 10:44:00 +0000

In business, the follow-up is a fact of life. Now that texting has been more common than calling for a while, phone conversations aren’t getting easier for many people. However, phone calls (and lately, video chats) are an important part of business communication — especially when you can’t meet in person. When someone reaches out to you, the way you handle that follow-up call can make or break your relationship with that customer or prospect. A bad or even just an underwhelming first impression has a huge impact. If it happens enough times, your business will start to suffer. Here are some tried-and-true techniques to improve your follow-up calls and have more effective phone conversations.

1. Schedule your calls.

People are busy these days, and the chances of you catching them at an opportune time without making an appointment are slim. Scheduling your follow-up call is the polite and professional thing to do.

Of course, there will be exceptions to the rule. An angry client may want a callback immediately, or the request might be time-sensitive. Use your best judgment.

Bonus Tip: Be ready to leave a brief phone message, even if you’ve scheduled the call beforehand.

2. Be prepared.

People know when you’re unprepared, and it’s not a confidence booster. Instead of wasting their time and yours, do some prep work beforehand.

Thanks to Google and social media, it’s easier than ever to gain insight into a prospect’s personal background and interests. As for existing clients, they should already be in your database, along with information about their interactions with your marketing and web content.

This should be more than enough info to put together some helpful talking points and focus the purpose of your conversation. You don’t necessarily need a script — keep it natural — but being prepared helps you come across as a competent professional.

3. Ask questions that get answers.

This isn’t as simple as avoiding “yes” or “no” questions. For many of us, asking effective questions isn’t always easy. The questions you ask, as well as the questions you don’t, have a major impact on the success of your conversations.

Potential pitfalls include:

Leading the witness: “You changed your furnace filter this past spring, right?”
Multiple choice or multiple questions: “Did you change your furnace filter last month, last fall or has it been even longer? Do you know if maybe your spouse took care of it? Has anyone else performed service on it recently?”
Rambling: “Have you ever changed the furnace filter? You know, you really need to change the filter every spring and fall, sometimes more if you’ve got pets or smokers in the house. I knew this one guy…”

While these examples seem conversational and relatively harmless, they introduce unnecessary variables that may confuse the client, when a more direct “When was the furnace filter last changed?” would have done the trick. Plus, it can make busy people feel like their time is being wasted when they can answer your question quickly.

If you want to improve your follow-up phone conversations, you have to learn to ask direct, deliberate questions that result in useful answers. And you have to be comfortable remaining silent while the client responds.

4. Keep the conversation balanced.

A useful phone conversation requires equal parts give and take. If you’re doing all of the talking, you won’t get the customer’s input. But if you’re doing all of the listening, then you’re not asking the questions necessary to draw insight from the customer.

To establish rapport, learn the client’s pain points and communicate your value proposition effectively, you have to keep the conversation balanced.

Be sure you give them time to answer before asking your next question. If they feel like you’ve steamrolled the conversation, their interest in working with you any further will be unlikely. Improve your follow-up calls by being an attentive listener and active participant.

5. Ask follow-up questions.

Ask your questions and listen to the answers. Don’t interrupt, but don’t be afraid to ask follow-up questions if you need more information. Follow-up questions can also be useful in guiding the conversation, especially if you’re talking to someone who is chatty or has trouble staying on topic.

For some, the potential embarrassment of asking a “stupid” question is enough to keep them quiet entirely. But it’s better to ask now than to make a deal-breaking mistake later because you thought you could fake it. Remember, asking follow-up questions shows you’re listening, and it shows you care about building a long-lasting relationship.

6. Clarify answers by repeating them back to the client in your own words.

When you place an order at the drive-thru window, they often read the order back to you before ringing it up. This is done to ensure your order is correct. This same technique can work wonders when following up with clients.

No matter how hard you listen during a call, there’s always the chance of a misunderstanding. Maybe the client gave a vague or complicated answer, or maybe you just misheard the response. Repeating the answer back to the client allows you to clarify the information and keep it from becoming a problem.

7. Know how to use your phone.

This should go without saying, but how many times have you been on a call with someone who didn’t know how to mute the phone, much less patch in an associate or transfer a call? If you’re in a business where phone technology can make your follow-up calls complicated, make sure you know what you’re doing before getting the client on the line.

Give yourself a few minutes before the call to make sure you know how to navigate any potential technological issues.

8. Send a follow-up email to recap the call.

That’s right — you should follow up the follow-up! After the call, compile the highlights of the conversation and any outstanding items that need following up. The purpose of this recap email isn’t to provide a word-for-word summary of the conversation but to instead thank the client and document the major talking points of the call for future reference.

These follow-up emails also ensure any action items or responsibilities are clear to both sides. A clear recap email will improve your follow-up calls and keep the conversation going in a productive and useful way.

If you’re not sure where to start, check out our super cut-and-paste follow-up email templates here.

Improve your follow-up calls today.

Quality phone conversations go a long way toward customer satisfaction and business growth. After all, the best marketing in the world won’t amount to much if you don’t know how to follow up with the leads it generates. Use these techniques and improve your follow-up calls to make the most of your future client interactions.

Customer Retention vs Customer Loyalty: What’s the Difference?

Taylor Landis — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 07:28:37 +0000

The most successful business owners use every resource they have to maintain and grow their book of business. Loyal customers are perhaps your most valuable resource — but only if you can activate them.

What’s the difference between customer retention and customer loyalty?

The difference between customer retention and customer loyalty is more than a difference in vocabulary. While they share some similarities, retention and loyalty cannot be used interchangeably when describing customers.

A retained customer may buy from you again, or they might not. They may go with someone else once the time comes. They are retained simply by the fact that they haven’t shopped anywhere else yet.

A loyal customer will buy from you again and encourage others to do the same. This often results in quality referrals and positive word-of-mouth reviews. Loyalty goes beyond spending money. Loyal customers will vouch for you and serve as advocates for your business.

One study showed extremely happy customers are more than five times as likely to repurchase. In addition to a high return purchase rate, they are also almost seven times as likely to forgive a business for mistakes. Those are pretty incredible stats!

As every small (or medium or big) business owner knows, the backbone of their success is people working hard to make customers happy. A customer that sticks by your business through positive and less-than-positive experiences is a truly loyal customer. The same can be said about customers who recommend you to their friends and send you referrals.

How do you find out if you’ve got a loyal customer on your hands?

One way to find out the difference between customer retention and customer loyalty is to use something all consumers have seen at one point or another. Look familiar?

Image courtesy of QuestionPro

This survey is an example of the simple but effective Net Promoter Score (NPS). Companies and businesses use the NPS to see how customers perceive their business.

While it may seem like getting a majority of people rating you around 7/8 would be a good thing, those customers are neither unhappy or thrilled. The difference between customer retention and customer loyalty lies right here. The customers ranking your company a 9/10 are the “promoters,” your most loyal customers. Those people will serve as advocates for your business without you asking.

Image courtesy of QuestionPro

Those that rate you between a 0-6 can provide valuable feedback. For most people, constructive criticism can be difficult to hear, but for a business, this information can make a big difference to your bottom line. What could you have done better to help serve them? That information may not mean these customers will ever go from a 0 to 10, but it could help push a customer who ranks you a 7 or 8 move up into the promoter category.

How do you take a customer and turn them into a loyal customer?

One downside to the simplicity of the NPS survey is that it often doesn’t allow customers to elaborate on why they voted the way they did. Learning the “why” is more important than ever with countless options at the fingertips of every unsatisfied buyer.

The “why” is more difficult to find out, but worth the effort. You may need to do some personal, one-on-one outreach to find out the specifics. For example, your customers may say they wish your marketing emails were more helpful and less about selling, and that is something you can fix. If they thought you called too much or not enough, you can work with that.

With the answers to these questions and other information like whether these clients have provided you testimonials, sent you referrals, and engaged with your marketing communications, you’ll have a list of your loyal customers.

How do I activate my loyal customers to help my referral business?

This final question may be the most relevant to business owners. If a loyal customer shouts your business from the rooftops, there isn’t much for you to do but thank them.

But that often doesn’t happen without a little prompting. Keep in mind that even loyal customers do not always realize the impact that referrals have on your business. In most cases, the best way to get help with your referral business is to ask. Yes, it sounds simple, but it does take a little effort on your part, and it’s worth it to your business.

Check out the posts found here and here for more detail and ideas for activating those loyal customers and getting referrals from them the right way.

Bottom line: be sure you are tapping into your network of happy customers for referrals.

Use the power of your network.

Knowing the difference between customer retention and customer loyalty means you won’t miss opportunities within your existing network. Customers that already know your value and can give a personal account of how great you are to work with allows you to instantly stand out from the crowd.

For many businesses or marketers, this all is easier said than done. If you need help with your marketing automation or want to learn more about how it keeps you top of mind with your network, we’re here to help.

Customer Follow-Up Templates You Can Cut and Paste

Sarah Philips — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 15:00:00 +0000

You finally have a few minutes to spare and you’re all set to reach out to a few customers, but the cursor is just blinking back at you. You know you need to touch base, but you can’t think of what to say. We’ve all been there, and that’s why we created these easy customer follow-up templates.

Personally reaching out to your customers will help you build stronger relationships and bolster customer loyalty. There’s no doubt about it: drafting that email or making that phone call is something you need to do, and communicating the right message at the right time is key. Customers move through a progression of steps in their lifecycle and addressing them appropriately can mean the difference between coming off as trustworthy or sounding insincere.

We’ve included a few templates you can cut and paste below, or you can download our customer follow-up templates for even more conversation starters.

Download the customer follow-up templates now.

Whether you’re building awareness with a prospect, reconnecting with a past customer or asking for referrals, you should tailor your message to fit the moment.

When Building Awareness With New Prospects

When you meet a potential customer, it’s a good idea to follow up on your recent interaction sooner than later. Send them a brief introductory email to open the lines of communication.

Hi [Customer name],

It was great meeting you [Specify when and where you met – yesterday, this morning]. I’d love to stay in touch. Do you mind if I connect with you on LinkedIn?

Sincerely,

[Your name here]

Reconnecting With Past Customers

Loyalty is the catalyst for customer advocacy. Build loyalty over time by checking in once a quarter with an email similar to the example below.

Hi [Customer name],

It’s been a while since we chatted, and I wanted to check in to see how things are going. [NOTE: Here you might mention a seasonal time change that may spur buying activity from your customer. For example: Do you have anything planned this summer that I can help you with?] As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions you may have. I am happy to share my expertise.

Best,

[Your name here]

Asking for Referrals

Once you’ve earned the loyalty of your customers and proven your expertise, you can and should ask directly for referrals. Experts say the best time to ask for referrals is immediately after a successful transaction.

Hi [Customer name],

I hope everything is going well with you. I have a quick favor to ask. Do you know anyone who may be looking to [Service you provide] in the next [Amount of time: six months, three months, few weeks]? I appreciate any referrals you can provide, and I promise to do my best to continue deserving your business. As always, please let me know if I can help you with anything!

Thanks in advance,

[Your name here]

Stay Top of Mind

Having regular client touch points is essential for building trust and credibility with your network. Following up intermittently isn’t enough. Customers are looking for content that adds value year round. These customer follow-up templates will help you maintain consistent communication. If you need assistance with your email marketing and staying top of mind, OutboundEngine is here to help!