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Project Management Tools Every Event Planner Should Steal
Project Management 5 min read

Project Management Tools Every Event Planner Should Steal

If this sounds like the last event you managed, then I suggest you start stealing. We all know the greats do it: Good writers borrow, great writers steal. Good artists copy, great artists steal. It’s about time that event managers started stealing, too. So whom are you to steal from? Project managers, of course. Inside The Project Manager’s Toolbox Large events such as product launches, industry conferences, and promotional affairs are just projects in disguise. Since project management methodologies are closely aligned with event planning, the gadgets you need to make your event successful are already available. Most project managers have a powerful digital toolbox known as project management software. The best applications provide a central place where you can plan and assign tasks, track and communicate with vendors, and oversee everything you need to keep an event running smoothly. Let’s review some of the most important features of PM software, and how they relate to event planning: Gantt Charts Humans are visual creatures. When planning and scheduling an event, it’s helpful to have a visual that transforms a conceptual workload into actionable items. This is where Gantt charts come in. A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart used to illustrate start and finish dates for critical tasks. They are particularly helpful for visualizing a project’s timeline and quickly assessing whether or not your event is on schedule. Event management requires tracking many separate teams and vendors, whose tasks are often interconnected or dependent. Gantt charts allow you to assign dependencies to tasks which need to be performed in a particular order. All major tasks and milestones necessary for project execution can be chronologically depicted with this tool. You can also monitor the progress of each high level task at a glance, which is valuable in situations where a change in the timing of one task affects all the other tasks that depend on it. File Sharing When events have multiple teams and vendors, it’s critical to have an easy way to share documents and information. Project management software with file sharing tools provides an accessible central storage area for all important information and common documents. This eliminates redundant revisions and the need to exchange documents via email. Not only is this great for team collaboration, but for tracking and managing vendor proposals, contracts, negotiations, and invoices. Collaboration Tools Project management software is the swiss army knife of collaboration. Thanks to robust features and integrations, most platforms can be tailored to the needs of your team or event. Need to keep in touch with colleagues, ask quick project questions, or send documents (perhaps a revised guestlist, for instance)? Instant messaging has you covered. Need to get everyone out of their overloaded inbox and on the same page? Project management software allows individuals to comment on tasks, tag keywords or people in questions, and get notifications of updates and progress changes automatically.   Need to work with different vendors or teams for each event? A good project management platform will offer additional collaborator licenses for free. This means contractors can discuss progress, upload files, and mark tasks complete— which makes tracking vendors simple. Kanban Boards Another helpful visualization tool is a Kanban board. Once an event’s major milestones are determined, Kanban boards are helpful for breaking them into bite-sized chunks. Teams can see their group objective, then delegate responsibilities by adding subtasks and individual action items with deadlines. Kanban boards provide transparency by letting everybody see what everybody else is working on. Event managers can quickly see where resources are allocated, monitor team or vendor progress, and identify bottlenecks. This tool also reinforces efficient project behavior. For example, when everyone’s work is visualized, it deters individuals from overcommitting and limits the amount of deliverables in progress. Event Planning is a Project Events can be a powerful strategic marketing tool for any size company. Making your events successful requires a holistic view of collaboration from planning to execution. Project management software helps you plan a timeline, manage deadlines, facilitate collaboration, and track vendors. Managers use these tools in tandem with their methodology of choice to carefully articulate project goals, expectations, milestones, and key deliverables. Good event planners use a project manager’s methodology, great event managers steal their tools. About the author: Jenna Puckett is an associate technology analyst at TechnologyAdvice. She covers topics related to project management, marketing automation, employee performance, and other emerging tech trends. Connect with her on LinkedIn. 

The Art of Writing: How to Create Content Like a Pro
Marketing 7 min read

The Art of Writing: How to Create Content Like a Pro

Even if writing isn’t exactly your forte, the ability to communicate clearly and persuasively is essential—both for your leadership skills, and your ability to develop a strong online presence for your brand.  Imagine this: you’ve spent a good deal of time and money developing a beautifully designed, user-friendly website for your company, and you have high expectations for it to lead to greater brand awareness and more sales. But that website needs fuel in the form of great content. Moreover, you’ll have to promote it via social media, with… you guessed it, more great content.  Many of you don’t need to envision that scenario: you’ve faced it already, and you know that you simply can’t afford to neglect your writing skills. How to Master the Art of Writing Of course, there's aren't any instant shortcuts that will make you a brilliant writer overnight. It's a skill that takes a lot of practice, commitment, and diligence. However, there are certain methods that will help you improve your creativity and writing technique with less effort, including these key strategies and tools: 1. Understand the 'Why' Behind Each Piece of Content Think the purpose of content is simply to promote your brand? Think again! Your primary goal is to help the reader. Your reader should not come away believing that promotion was your main objective, but that your content is helping them in some way. Here are the main goals your content should have: Delivering value for the target audience, in the form of problem solutions, tips that improve their lives, answers to their questions, or entertainment Growing relationships with your audience that keep them coming back over the long term Defining your brand (or yourself) to target readers Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania analyzed the most emailed articles from The New York Times. The results were surprising: people liked sharing elaborate articles on intellectually-challenging topics, and they preferred recommending articles that awakened positive emotions. What about your brand? Analyze your own audience's preferences and then craft content that will meet their expectations.   2. Create How-To and List Articles Although some audiences prefer long form content based on in-depth research, they still want it organized in a clean, easy-to-skim format. Even if listicles and how-to articles seem like an outdated form of content, they are still effective.  The trick is, you need a very specific topic that will separate you from the competition. So, instead of writing an article named Top 10 Movies from the 80s, try something like Top 10 Movies from the 80s to Watch in October.  3. Use the Right Keywords It's not enough to write great content—you have to make it easy for your audience to find. You know how Google works: you enter a set of keywords and the engine lists relevant results. Obviously, you want your content ranked as high as possible in results pages for the search phrases your audience uses most often. This is where SEO optimization comes in. You’ll need to use the right keywords in the right places, without letting those keywords take over your content. You should always put the human reader first by making sure keywords make sense within the context of your writing.  4. Ask Questions Questions are great because they make your content interactive. When you ask a question, the reader will answer it in their own head (and hopefully in the comments section of your article as well). In addition, questions awaken curiosity. It's a perfect opportunity for you to guide them to another of your articles or content pieces that discusses their question in greater detail and offers answers.  5. Express Your Personality Uniqueness is the factor that makes your content recognizable. It doesn’t matter whether you’re learning how to start a blog, a social media page, or you’re writing email campaigns. You have to find your unique voice! Your content should convey your company's distinct organizational culture, and it should make your brand recognizable.  You’ll connect better with your audience if you write in first or second person, as if you're speaking directly to them. Adding some humor, storytelling, and real-life experience to your posts will help make your content even more engaging.  Tools to Make You a More Efficient Writer Now that you’re aware of some tips to help you reach your the target audience, let’s go through some tools that will support the process. Google AdWords – Keyword Planner This is where you’ll get SEO keywords from. In addition to keyword ideas, the tool gives you a chance to organize your overall content writing campaign. You will see how a list of keywords may perform, and you can create your own keywords by combining different suggestions.  EduGeeksClub Professional Writing Service If you need outside help generating content for your blog, email campaigns, and social media updates, you can outsource with a service like EduGeeksClub. This writing service connects you with professional writers from different niches, so you’ll always rely on experts who will work under your specific instructions.  Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator A great title is a critical part of attracting attention, especially when it comes to standing out in a sea of online content. If you have no idea where to start, this tool will give you a solid starting point. Enter three nouns relevant to the theme you want to work on, and the app will give you suggestions for a captivating title.  CoSchedule Blog Post Headline Analyzer If you've brainstormed a few options for a headline but don't know which to use, this tool will predict how each of them will perform before you even publish the content. It gives you a grade based on word choice, emotional appeal, and the power of the topic.     Are you ready to start working on your writing skills? Try the tips and tools suggested above and inform us about the progress you make! Author Bio Karen Dikson is a marketing expert and creative writer.  She finds her inspiration in books and traveling. Connect with Karen on Twitter.

The 8 Best Wrike Apps and Integrations for Cross-Functional Collaboration
Wrike Tips 7 min read

The 8 Best Wrike Apps and Integrations for Cross-Functional Collaboration

Wrike’s integrations enable teams to collaborate effectively, wherever they are. Here are eight of the best Wrike apps for cross-functional collaboration.

5 Ways to Keep Leadership Involved Without Slowing Your Process
Leadership 5 min read

5 Ways to Keep Leadership Involved Without Slowing Your Process

Leadership is busy. When it comes time to get their input on a project, they often either lack enough previous knowledge to weigh in (without multiple hold-up questions) or take too long to complete their action step. This delays the project’s end date and can be incredibly frustrating for the team members who are involved in the project. They feel like they’re in a holding pattern and worse yet, may have to go back and make aggressive changes quickly when leadership finally weighs in.

Outsourcing a Project Manager? Top Tips For a Smooth Implementation
Project Management 10 min read

Outsourcing a Project Manager? Top Tips For a Smooth Implementation

What does it take to successfully implement a project with an outsourced project manager? Here are some key tips to successful project implementation.

3 Strategies for Bringing a Distributed Team Member On Board
Leadership 5 min read

3 Strategies for Bringing a Distributed Team Member On Board

On our first day at a new job, we observe everything that is happening in the office and start to understand what is okay and what it is not allowed. We start building a mental map of what things are like in the office so that we can adapt faster. We notice if the receptionist is smiling or appears cranky, we look inside the meeting rooms and see if people are engaged and speaking or if they have their heads down, we look at people working at their desks and observe whether they have their feet propped up on the table or are focused on work, and we start to get to know them by what they have on their walls, desks, etc. But what happens when we join a distributed team? Nothing is visible to us, so we cannot build the mental map that typically helps us adapt to a new place and that gives us confidence to feel strong in a new environment. How can companies with distributed team members help them adapt to the virtual environment? 1. Use video ALWAYS! Start with the obvious: If your company has a physical location, substitute walking through the corridors and peeking through the glass doors of meeting rooms with a virtual tour of the office. If all of your team is remote, do all meetings with video. It is quite common for employees to object to the use of video. But when bringing a new member on board, make sure he/she uses video from the very first day. Video will help both of you in many ways: Better communication: 80% of the messages we receive come from body language. Building trust: We only trust people that we know, so video helps us gain more information about a person. Have a quick introductory meeting with the entire team, and while the new person receives training, have 1:1 meetings with the other team members. Get your message through: Intercall conducted a study showing that 65% of us do other work during conference calls without video, 55% eat or prepare food, and 47% go to the restroom! If you want people to actually pay full attention, use video. Break the geographical distance. If your team is multicultural, you are probably dealing with a variety of accents; body language will help you understand better what the others are saying. 2. Put everything in writing Document everything you say. Our attention spans are short even when we have somebody in front of us, so imagine what it is like when the other person is in a different country, being viewed through a little screen! Do not expect new team members to remember everything you say. Training somebody from a distance is not the same as training somebody in an office; you need to communicate better and more often. Provide common ground rules Your job is to guide the newcomer; the purpose is not to give him/her rules that shouldn’t be broken, but to show the person how you work, what is expected of him/her, what to expect from you and your company, and how you are currently playing. If there are rules are there to be broken in your company, say so, and at least show them how you work at the moment. During the first days, your job is to provide a solid ground where he/she can understand the new environment. Prepare a handbook with graphic documentation Avoid, at all costs, handbooks with a lot of text. Have your design team work on the handbook to make it attractive, easy to remember, and navigate. Keep visual records of meetings During meetings, use online whiteboards, and if trainings are complicated, record the trainings and have them available for people to check at any point in time. 3. Repetition is key You will need to repeat concepts and ideas more than usual because those ideas are not being reinforced in the same way that they would be if he/she was in the same office as the rest of the team. Repeat, but be creative when you do so: Create exercises for the new person to solve so you have a good excuse to repeat some ideas that were not clear. Give him/her small challenges one at a time. During your trainings, always summarize the most important points seen in the previous training. During every meeting, find a different example that explains the purpose of his/her job and why it is important. If those examples have to do with real customers or real team members, that’s even better! Daily mentoring Distance and a lack of bonding make distributed teams rust and break. If you create strong ties between team members from the very beginning, you will have done a lot. If your work methodology doesn’t include daily meetings, make sure that during the first 2 weeks the new team member meets with somebody at least once per day. The meetings should always include the following parts: Fun virtual icebreakers Questions about previous meetings and feedback about past challenges A main topic A new challenge proposal A fun, short activity to end on a high note Using solo mentors can be a good way to organize the transition of a new team member, but it can also create some unhealthy dependencies; remember that you can also have meetings that include different people so that the new team member sees all the colors of your team! Author Bio Anna Danes is the CEO of Managing Virtual Teams, where she consults for companies with global teams. Having worked and studied in different European countries, Asia, and the US, she provides a multicultural take on business. Follow her on Twitter: @virtualteams Download our free eBook If you want more advice on how to efficiently and successfully manage your remote team, download our free eBook: The Art of Staying Productive Across Distance

The Ultimate Strategic Guide For Evolving Your Digital Marketing Game
Marketing 7 min read

The Ultimate Strategic Guide For Evolving Your Digital Marketing Game

Keeping up with today’s marketing challenges is tough. There is a lot of information to process and examine before formulating a strategy, plus many startups and small businesses have limited budgets. They have to focus on the most cost-effective marketing channels to see positive results. So as a marketer or aspiring entrepreneur, where should you focus? Here are a few tips to maximize your reach through digital marketing. 1. Know your audience and competitors  This is the cardinal rule of marketing. Without knowing your audience, you can't effectively speak to them or grab their attention (What are they interested in? What are they looking for, and where do they go to find it?). In-depth knowledge of your target audience allows you to pinpoint your strategy for the people who are most likely to purchase your product, and most willing to contact you directly.  So how do you get to know your customers?  Step 1: Start with the data that you already have (past surveys and Google Analytics) Also, hold interviews with the major stakeholders to better understand what they like about your organization. Step 2: Once you have enough data, it’s time to create an audience profile worksheet. Step 3: After you’ve created an audience profile, use it as the basis for each and every decision. This will ensure your organization remains customer-centric.  Also, whether you’re a small business or an established brand, you have to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. By analyzing your competitors, you can future-proof your business and have an idea of what’s in store. Analyze at least five close competitors in your industry.  Keep these points in mind when conducting competitor analysis: What potential threats do your competitors pose? What opportunities do they create for you? Which mediums do they use to market their product or service? Are they doing content marketing, and how successful are they? What topics do they cover? Which keywords do they use? Tools like SEMRush, SuggestMtrx, and SEOchat can help you determine top competitor keywords.  2. Define an engagement strategy  According to a survey of marketers conducted by Econsultancy.com, most respondents want to improve customer engagement and brand building by providing a positive experience — they're just not sure how to do it. This is where you have to rely on the data you’ve collected on your customers and competitors to formulate an engagement strategy backed by data (see point 1).   Identify the channels (Facebook, Google+) your customers are active on Target those channels and attract customers with relevant content and positive customer reviews (social proof) Use gamification to increase brand engagement Connect with customers by responding to comments, queries and requests Surprise customers by sending them coupons and other incentives on their birthday or holidays Develop an omni-channel user experience 3. Retain current customers  82% of companies agree that retaining customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones. The moment you see churn numbers start to rise, take steps to find out where the problem lies.  Some questions to investigate: has your customer left you for a competitor? Are your communications no longer personalized? Or does your product no longer meet their needs? You need to know these answers to retain your customers.  4. Focus on search engine optimization  Well executed SEO can bring in a tremendous amount of traffic to your website. According to Social Media Today, 57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation. But optimizing your website isn't easy, and it requires time and patience.  Tips for optimizing your website: Learn how search engine spiders work Before you write content, do some research on keywords and build your material around them Perform A/B tests on your headlines and website copy  Update content on a regular basis Share and promote your website address Include a targeted call-to-action on each page of your website Use Google speed insights to improve your site's user experience Have you wondered how much business you’ll be losing by not having your site optimized for mobile users? Well, the answer is A LOT. The number of smartphone users worldwide is expected to grow to 4.77 billion in 2017 — and those numbers will continue to skyrocket in the coming years. So don’t forget to optimize your content, website, and apps for mobile users.  SEO will also lead to improvements in your content marketing results, since you can focus on creating articles, eBooks, and infographics that potential customers are most interested in reading — and can easily find. Knowing exactly what keywords and topics customers are looking for makes it easier to provide targeted, discoverable content.  5. Start promoting your brand on social media Social networking sites are a great way to help you stay connected with existing customers, and will encourage you to seek out potential customers.  For instance, let’s say you’ve recently opened a coffee shop. Using geo search, you can find people who have tweeted about coffee close to your location, and then reach out and offer them a coupon to try your coffee. Apart from the points mentioned above, here a few other areas to concentrate on: Vary your content types, including videos, Slideshares, and infographics. Enforce a multi-channel digital marketing campaign with the help of tools like Pardot, Eloqua,and Bizible Include social media buttons on each page of your website Use email campaigns to nurture leads Offering solutions, education, and entertainment matters. Providing value to customers is the best way to engage and connect. Once you have generated leads, learn to manage them efficiently with tools like Integrate, Pipedrive, and ProsperWorks If you are promoting your brand on multiple channels, be consistent across them all.  Instead of trying to do everything, focus your digital marketing resources on excelling in a few key areas.  Success in marketing means you never stop learning, keeping up with the latest trends, and above all, listening to your audience. You can read about digital marketing until your eyes cross, but at the end of the day, there is no better guide than dialing in to your customers.  Author Bio: Sandra Christie, a writer for @IdigicNet, has several published articles about social media that talk about general improvement of your social feed, and get more brand presence using it.

3 Easy Ways to Cut Costs and Keep Your Business Lean
Leadership 5 min read

3 Easy Ways to Cut Costs and Keep Your Business Lean

"When in doubt, simplify." ― Eric Ries, The Lean Startup. Small businesses are always pushing to drive profits and increase sales, but few fledgling firms truly know the ins and outs of cutting costs to maximize profits. Here are three ways you can effectively cut costs for your small business while keeping operations running smoothly. 1. Switch to Free Why pay when you don’t have to? Here are some normally costly practices that have free counterparts: Move your IT to the Cloud. Many cloud apps are easily scalable, streamlined, and effective, so turn to Google docs, Microsoft Office Live Workspace, Amazon Cloud Drive, Onedrive, and DropBox to help you shed some paperweights. Build and maintain a free site. Don’t spend thousands of dollars paying a web designer to develop your site. Apps like Strikingly offer free website creation and management tools. Your site needs to mature alongside your business: a simple landing page can transform into a multi-faceted online store, blog, and consumer hub as you grow.  Project manage like a boss. Wrike is an online tool that makes it easy to implement lean product management. Real-time updates for remote teams, interactive Gantt Chart project timelines, and unique email-friendliness are only a few ways it can help you breeze through daily tasks and manage your business processes. Use intern power. Recruiting young pre-professionals can easily increase efficiencies in the office without padding the salary books. You will be promoting a culture of lifelong learning by recruiting eager minds ready to put in effort and gain experience for lower compensation.  2. Practice The Art of the Discount You never know what discounts you can get until you ask! It’s astounding how many companies are willing to gift a substantial promotion in order to keep your business. Here are some discounts to pursue: Renegotiate your lease. Even if it’s a long-term lease, your best bet is trying to renegotiate. A short-term rent reduction may be just what you need to hold over until sales perk back up again. Just beware of trading short-term relief for a longer commitment. To bulk, or not to bulk? Buying in bulk may not save you as much money as you think. While paying month-to-month may make little sense when there are heavy discounts for paying annually, a shipment of 1,000 ballpoint pens can easily dry up before you use them all. Consider carefully whether buying in bulk fits your business’s trajectory. Check your insurance price. Shopping around for insurance policies can be really beneficial, especially during renewals. Look for an unbiased, independent agent to help you find the best rate for your specific needs. 3. Eliminate Redundancy Unnecessary expenses are everywhere. A magnifying glass, some wine, and a late night with the ol’ balance book can prune superfluous monthly charges (just not too much wine). Look out for extraneous subscriptions, interest from late loan payments, as well as credit card processing and membership fees. Here are a few ways you can trim the excess: Use less paper. Did you know that 40% of office paper is discarded within 24 hours of printing? Cloud storage will allow you to save on copy paper (and stop killing so many trees).  Eliminate discretionary spending. Stick to essential expenses only. Sure, there will always be  marketing opportunities that can be dealt with more leniency, but try and keep your checkbook closed to things like new break room upholstery.  Track inventory closely. More money tied up in long-term assets means less money in the bank. Make sure you’re spending only what you need to on inventory. Shut down power-hungry appliances. Use energy-efficient light bulbs and office appliances with the Energy Star label. Not only will you save on your electricity bill, you’ll be eligible for green energy tax credits. If you still want to save power, you can always request a free energy audit from your power company. Help Your Business Succeed Cutting out paper, asking for discounts, and using free online work tools are all effective strategies for saving money and gaining a significant head start on your competition. Cutting your costs doesn’t happen overnight though, so remember to breathe and believe in your success. Nothing happens without putting yourself out there, so I’ll let Eric close us out: “Reading is good, action is better.”  ― Eric Ries, The Lean Startup Author Bio: Andrew Mao is on the Growth Team at Strikingly, a Y-Combinator alum and pioneering site building tool for startups and go-getters.Building your site with Strikingly is a considerable head start compared to campaigns that try to build their sites without it. Instead of spending $15,000 or more to develop your own site, go ahead and start a free site with Strikingly.

3 Tips to Improve Project Management for Creative Teams
Project Management 5 min read

3 Tips to Improve Project Management for Creative Teams

When everybody has ideas to contribute, managing a creative team requires you to assume the role of a funnel. Your team pours their ideas out and you need to combine all of them into something that makes sense. With that in mind, here are some tips on how to improve your project management for creative teams.

Daily Writing Habits to Boost Productivity—Even If You're Not a Writer
Productivity 5 min read

Daily Writing Habits to Boost Productivity—Even If You're Not a Writer

Even if you don't consider yourself much of a writer, you'd be surprised at how much the act of jotting your thoughts down on paper can help you get more done every day. Getting into a daily writing habit has multiple benefits: putting your goals down in writing makes you more likely to achieve them, it improves the clarity and focus of your ideas, and it declutters your mind so you can think and solve problems more effectively. Plus, a daily writing habit can help you get into a productive mental flow. Here are a few useful tips and tools to help you get started.  Write fiction in the morning to shake up new ideas Even if you've never tried writing fiction before, try writing a short story in the morning, before you do anything else — even if it's silly. Making yourself think creatively helps open your mind up to more imaginative ideas and increases your creativity.  Record your thoughts in a diary Keeping a diary isn't just for teenagers; it's a great way to reflect on and analyze your day. What went well, and what could you have done differently? What do you hope to accomplish tomorrow? You'll soon uncover patterns, reinforce good habits, and find ways to improve how you go about your everyday work.  Send postcards to people you're close to Don't save postcards for holidays. Sending them regularly to loved ones helps you express yourself and nurture your personal relationships, resulting in a healthier mindset, improving your overall health, and boosting happiness (which in turn leads to greater productivity).  Write academic papers You may cringe at the thought of returning to the days of thesis statements and transitional sentences. But writing academic essays helps develop your critical thinking skills, forces you to consider and balance arguments for and against a topic, and encourages you to think more deeply about complex topics. Plus, it'll hone your research skills.  Create jokes and funny stories Making yourself think creatively in this manner is great for your productivity, as you're practicing using your brain in ways you're not used to, and you're developing new skills as you do so. As an added bonus, you'll soon be the life of the party, as you'll have a whole host of funny stories with which to regale your friends. How to get started? All you really need is a pen and paper, or even the Notes app on your phone. But if you're looking to further hone your writing skills and start making it an everyday habit, give these recommended resources a try: Zen Pen: Sitting down to write is one thing, but avoiding distractions is another. Zen Pen is an app that offers a clean, distraction-free way to focus on getting your thoughts on paper. ProWritingAid: This online app/service shows the grammatical and spelling errors in your writing, and provides suggested edits— so you can focus on getting your ideas down without worrying about typos. BoomEssays: If you're publishing your thoughts as blog posts online, you'll want your writing to be error-free. This service provides assistance and advice. And check out their writing blog for new skills and ideas. Hemingway App: This online editing app highlights run-on and complex sentences, keeping your writing bold and concise (just as Hemingway would want it).  Wrike: Store and organize all your writing and ideas as tasks, and then share selected them with friends or colleagues to collaborate. They'll be able to leave comments on the entire work, or highlight specific sentences/paragraphs for editing. Start Your Daily Writing Habit for Greater Productivity Ready to give a daily writing habit a shot? Try these tips and tools, and you'll see your productivity start to soar. Who knows, you may even discover that you're a natural with the written word! Author Bio: Gloria Kopp is a web content writer and elearning consultant from Manville City. After graduating from the University of Wyoming, she started a career in creative writing and is currently working as a part-time editor and writer at Essayroo writing service. She has also recently launched her Studydemic educational blog.

$250K to $1.2M in 18 Months: Hubstaff's 2-Step Process for Hyper-Growth
Leadership 5 min read

$250K to $1.2M in 18 Months: Hubstaff's 2-Step Process for Hyper-Growth

What makes companies successful?  There are a myriad of factors for fast and sustainable business development, including building a powerful brand, forging strong partnerships, and having a flexible management system in place. But having a single, clear business goal is arguably one of the most important elements for success. A focused goal makes your team more purposeful in how they spend their time, and thus more productive—which paves the way for rapid company growth that's actually sustainable.  As a 100% self-funded and fully remote team, we at Hubstaff have been using a simple, two-step process that has helped us grow and scale our business sustainably. And we're happier and more productive than ever: our marketing strategy examples helped us go from $250K to $1.2M in revenue in just 18 months.  Here's how we did it: Step 1: Identify a single business goal As our co-founder Dave Nevogt says, a huge part of the battle of running a successful business is focusing your energy and resources on the right things. That’s why every year we set a very specific business goal and only take on projects that directly further this goal. Last year, our goal was to reach $70k in Monthly Recurring Revenue. To achieve this, we used the Theory of Constraints to break down our yearly business goal into quarterly goals. Then we broke quarterly goals down into weekly tasks: On our marketing team, for example, ROI on each task is measured by tracking time spent. Although a productivity tracking tool isn’t absolutely necessary, it does help make you (painfully) aware of how much time you’re wasting, which enhances productivity. Wrike's time tracking integration with Hubstaff helps us plan and prioritize upcoming work, as well as track time and productivity levels on each Wrike task without switching between tools. Step 2: Use time data to pinpoint tasks that drive ROI today Time data is one of your most important business metrics. Use it to assess ROI, know what’s working and what’s not, and determine the best use of your team's time. Plus, you can more effectively plan and scale your team based on actual business needs. For example, if your development team is spending more time on customer support than on dev work, it’s time to hire more support team members. Your team’s time data can give you these kinds of valuable insights.  At Hubstaff, we track time on all our tasks across all departments, from marketing and customer support to development. At the end of each week, month or quarter, we can see exactly how much time was spent on a particular task—and how much revenue it generated.  Here is the formula our marketing team uses to measure ROI for each task: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) = (# of hours spent on that task) x (your hourly wage + other expenses, like software tools)/(# of paying customers acquired from the task)  Let’s say, from the above snapshot, I spent 5 hours updating our FAQ, used a $25 tool, and my hourly wage is $35. Using our analytics, I discovered we added 10 paying customers from that task. Here is what the CAC will look like: CAC = ((5 hrs X $35) + $25)/10= $20 per customer After calculating that number (CAC), we ask ourselves one question: is Average Lifetime Value (ALV) > 3 x Customer Acquisition Cost? If the answer is no, is there any way to make this strategy more efficient and cost-effective? If yes, try to refine it and measure ROI again. If the answer is yes, that’s a task with proven ROI. Once you’ve calculated the ROI of particular tasks, it’s time to use the Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. The basic idea is that 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your marketing tasks. You just need to identify that 20% and bet heavily on them.  It’s also crucial to keep in mind that just because something drives revenue today, doesn't mean it will six months down the line. The rule of thumb is that if you see any tasks with proven high ROI, you should double down on them today. Added benefits of the two-step process This two-step process has clear benefits beyond the numbers. Before we applied it, we were slightly disorganized, using multiple strategies to drive growth and betting that at least one would do the job.    Now our team’s mindset has transformed. We constantly come back to the bigger picture and question not only whether a task is worth our time and money, but whether it will help us achieve our goal in the quickest and most efficient way possible. Author Bio: Madhav Bhandari is a marketing manager at Hubstaff. He helps acquire customers with high ROI marketing experiments, action focused analytics, and product iterations. You can follow him on Twitter at @themadbhandari

3 Kinds of Data To Help Avoid Project Management Failure
Project Management 5 min read

3 Kinds of Data To Help Avoid Project Management Failure

Our friends over at TechnologyAdvice spend a lot of time gathering the best tech advice for you to improve your work performance. This guest post from one of their writers, Christopher Herbert, tells you the three things you need to take your projects down the road to success. A project’s success or failure is judged by its adherence to the guidelines established when it began. This is both typical and reasonable, but only if those guidelines are well constructed and attainable. Often, an executive declares a project a failure based on the failure to operate within the allotted budget, failure to complete on time, or failure to produce a product of high enough quality. But such a judgment can be complicated. A project within its budget but failing to meet all the stakeholder’s ever-shifting needs may be considered a failure, while an ambitious project may go way over budget but still be considered a success because at least it was properly completed. These subjective definitions of failure reveal that the measurement of a project’s success is not always about delivery, but about perception. If the project guidelines can be better defined before it starts, it has a greater likelihood of achieving success. Data can improve these expectations. Data about past projects can help you set appropriate, attainable goals, and inform you as to how much of the unexpected should actually be expected. 1. Planned Versus Actual Start/End Dates for Similar Projects This data point requires that you’ve performed projects of this kind before. Simply collecting the actual start dates and actual end dates of previous projects (not the “projected” dates) will give you an average time-to-completion estimate, as well as high and low possibilities. For further predictive accuracy, find the number of work days between those two dates, accounting for holidays, corporate training days, employee PTO vacation days, and unexpected sick days. Then find the number of problems faced, how long it took to address them, the number of adjustments made to the original plan, and time lost due to plan adjustments. Much of this data may not be included in the official report, so it may require digging through emails, records in your project management tool, meeting minutes, or questioning those involved. Use this data to compare with the holidays, corporate training, PTO days, etc. that are planned to occur within the timespan of your upcoming project. Throw in the average unexpected setbacks that occurred in each previous project. This estimate, being based on previous experiences, has a higher likelihood of accuracy than a gut instinct, or even average project time. It may also be more convincing when attempting to explain why a project will simply take longer to complete than the executives would like. 2. Project Team Productivity Data This data point does not require prior projects of its kind per se, but it does require that you have some sort of data on individual employee productivity for similar tasks to those required by the current project. This requires a certain degree of willingness from your staff to either allow the monitoring - or participate in the monitoring - of how long it takes them to accomplish certain tasks. Ideally, this would be more than just a generalized, “It takes me two hours to do this.” Rather, it needs to be consistent, non-intrusive observations of the rate of task completion (such as noting each time an item is completed). Whether its measured in words per minute, lines of code per hour, or pots painted per day, this data can be used to create average productivity estimates, as well as minimum and maximum productivity levels. Once you’ve identified a realistic rate of production, you can either use that information to calculate team progress manually or with the help of project management software. Many PM applications allow you to assign tasks to a team of workers. With productivity data for each team member already entered, the software will give you an estimated completion time for the entire project. This allows you to estimate time-to-completion of a team’s assignments based on of the cumulative productivity of each employee, with data to back it up. One thing to be wary of is that many employees are uncomfortable with particularly detailed monitoring of their task progress. Assure them that the monitoring is purely for the sake of setting reasonable goals on future projects, which in turn will lead to higher success rates, and fewer project cancellations. 3. Resources and Materials Consumption Data Material consumption is some of the easiest data to find accurate values for, and can save you serious money. Analyzing the relationship between the amount of materials anticipated, requested, used, and leftover from previous projects should help you better calculate the amount required for your upcoming project. Similarly, quality assurance data on the frequency of defective products will help you anticipate the cost and delay of making up for imperfections. Aside from the materials alone, entire budgets of prior projects can be broken down and analyzed to find which areas frequently overspend, and therefore which areas need to be better planned for. Whether that be a particular resource, labor, or tool, it’s likely to go over budget again, unless real changes were made. All of this data collection is purely for the purpose of improving your project’s expectations beforehand. It’s the difference between simply picturing a finished bridge or piece of software in three months, and actually calculating out the time it will take for each team to perform their tasks based on numbers from their previous performances. Which method would you use to determine a project’s eventual success or failure?

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