Procrastination. It’s the black-eyed monster that none of us can actually manage to avoid. The bump in the road gleefully looking for new victims. The Toon Town cement wall that hops around at will, just waiting for unsuspecting passersby.

The question isn’t whether or not you procrastinate. I think all of us have put off a project or a paper or an errand indefinitely at some point or another. Since it usually isn’t nice enough to go away, however, we end up dealing with it sooner or later.

Usually at 2 am. When the project’s due by 9.

Deadlines are great motivators, but there’s something to be said for cutting the stress out of the equation. With that in mind, here are 5 quick and easy steps to kick procrastination to the curb!

1) Keep your to-do list short. My to-do list stretches across at least three sheets of paper on any given day. Staring at that too long is enough to give me hives…and the uncontrollable urge to crawl back into bed and play sick until it goes away. Break your list down into small, bite-sized pieces. Figure out what you HAVE to do today and put it on top. When you’re done with that, THEN start adding more to the list.

2) Learn to take projects in small bites. “Design, proof, print and distribute 50,000 flyers” isn’t a small bite. But that’s often what ends up written on the to-do list. Break it down. Do the writing, then the graphics (or vice versa). Then do your edits. View the proof. Print. Small bites help you get it done without feeling like it’s all about to crash down on your head!

3) Get started first thing in the morning. It’s easy to dawdle over that first cup of coffee. The sooner you get started, however, the sooner you’ll get in the groove and the sooner it’s going to get done. So dig in instead of spending an hour or two pondering over your email. As a matter of fact…

4) Decide when you’re going to be checking your messages. If it’s not time, don’t do it. Email, telephone and random people at the door can suck hours at a time. By the time you’re done, your day is gone and you haven’t scratched a thing off of your list.

5) Learn to say no. Procrastination happens most often when we’re feeling overwhelmed. Take a good, hard look at your project list. Is it made up of things you want/have to do, or is it full of things you just couldn’t say no to?

Trim your list, take it in small bites and learn to “just do it”. Procrastination will go flying out the window in no time.

Tags: Business, creativity, procrastination

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Ever wonder why it doesn’t matter how hard you beg, bribe or threaten your employees, they just can’t seem to get the job done the way you want them to?

Earlier this week I stumbled across an interesting article on employee motivation. Okay, I can’t really say “stumbled”. More like, “Was beaten over the head with a sledgehammer.” My brain is still throbbing.

I’ll save you the full recap, although if you’ve got time you should take a minute to go check it out. That article hit on something we’ve all known for a very, very long time. That nobody gets up, gets dressed and puts their blood, sweat and tears into a project just for the dollar signs they’re going to see at the end of it.

Are Your Employees Committed to the Cause, or Just Slogging Away for a Paycheck?

Like most people, I worked minimum wage jobs to pay my way through college. Waiting tables. Flipping burgers. Stocking books. Selling calendars. Cleaning the lab at the student clinic.

With the notable exception of the winter I spent mindlessly watching the clock tick from a mall kiosk, most of these jobs had some redeeming feature. Each and every one of them also came equipped with the co-worker that just doesn’t care.

You know why they didn’t care? Because they felt like they had absolutely no investment whatsoever in whether or not the company they were working for kept their head above water. If the company closed its doors, they’d just go work somewhere else.

Obviously, this did wonders for their commitment to getting to work on time. And taking care of their customers. And actually getting the job done.

Running an Evil Dictatorship Never Works Out the Way You Think It Will

 
When you step up to the bat on a project with a vision, you want to make sure everything’s perfect. So you lay down the project parameters, micro-manage everybody’s work, harp on your employees to make sure that deadline’s reached…and wonder why your team scatters like cockroaches the minute you walk in the door.

Draw your team in when you’re working together. Encourage them to provide input and offer suggestions. Make them feel like it’s their project, not your project.

You’ll be amazed by how quickly it makes a difference.

Tags: Business, employee motivation, teamwork

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School’s right around the corner. All that slacking you’ve done all summer? All those days you spent flying around by the seat of your pants? That’s done. Fin. Finis. Time to get back to living life by your to-do list and become the man with the plan.

If you’ve been coasting along on your old marketing plan until now, it’s time to toss that out the window and start thinking about what you want out of your marketing campaign for…2012.

Do you have a plan for 2012? Well, what are you waiting for?

Yep, that’s right. If the wheels aren’t already turning, it’s time to sit down with a pen and paper (or your Blackberry, or iPhone, or favorite iPad app, or whatever you’re doing your scheming on these days) and start making the preliminary sketches for where you want your business to go in 2012.

Making a Marketing Plan

Creating a marketing plan is a whole different ballgame from crafting your business plan. It’s easy to decide where you want your business to go, not nearly as easy to figure out how you’re going to get it from here to there.

Your marketing people should have a good handle on what’s next in this season’s lineup, but if you’re running a one man show (or just getting that show off the ground) here’s some food for thought:

1)      Who are you really marketing to this year? Do you have one key group of consumers? Two? Three? Don’t make the mistake of thinking all target groups are created equal.

2)      What new products and events do you have lined up for the coming year? Planning product launches now will save you acres of migraines later.

3)      Where do you plan to promote? It’s a no-brainer, I realize but it’s still well worth pointing out that B2B marketing and B2C marketing are completely different ballgames in the marketing arena-not just where you promote, but how.

A quick side note. Don’t prep your promo materials until you know EXACTLY who’s going to be looking at them. The amount of material I read geared toward professionals that sounds like it was written for my five year old, and vice versa, is enough to make me want to spend an hour or two banging my head into the wall.

4)      What specials/promos do you plan to run in the coming year? This is HUGE in terms of your marketing plan, so sit down and figure that out now while you have the chance.

The new year’s a whole lot closer than you think it is. What are you doing to make sure you’re ready for it all?

Tags: Business, business plan, marketing, marketing plan

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Liposuction. I still haven’t figured out if it’s a dirty word, still spoken in hushed tones by Hollywood starlets who don’t want to admit they’re slowly creeping into old age, or if technology and the advent of reality television have made it the next best thing to a household word.

Stefanie Wilder Taylor got me thinking about liposuction earlier this week, but not the kind that involves sucking the fat out of your thighs. I’m thinking more about the kind that sucks the fat out of your printing.

How Much “Fat” Are You Printing?

It’s impossible to spend enough time discussing the sheer, unequivocal awesomeness of digital printing. It’s fast. It’s detailed. And, most importantly, it steps in as the laser that sucks the fat out of your printing.

When you’ve got fat hanging around on your thighs, it slows you down. Bogs you up. Forces you to expend additional resources just to get through the day. You’re working twice as hard to get the same result.

That’s what happens when you’ve got too much fat in your printing.

Scenario #1: You’re giving the recycling guys a backache.

It can be hard to estimate how many of any given piece you’re going to need. Especially if you’re getting ready to launch a new (fill in the blank) that you’ve never tried before, because you have absolutely, positively no idea what you’re getting yourself into.

Hey, it’s cool. I get it. Less is more…unless more is more. But how much of that “more” is finding its way to the back of your storage closet and, eventually, to the recycling bin? What could you be doing with the money you spent on those posters/flyers/etc? (Hint: You’ll get more results taking your employees out to lunch. Just sayin’)

Scenario #2: You’re printing things you really don’t need to print.

Business cards are a need. Company stationary is a need. But are there things you’re printing you really don’t need to be? I love printed post-its as much as the next guy, but when they start falling off the top shelves it might be time to start scaling back. And how many forms are you using? Could they be consolidated into one?

Not only will your printing budget thank you, your customers will too. And the goodwill you’ll get from not forcing them to spend their day hunched over 101 pieces of paper?

Absolutely priceless.

Is it time for some lipo on your printing? How has your company started to cut the fat?

Tags: Business, printing

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Aaaargh! Oh, wait. There's cake? Well then...

1) It will usually be viewed as an informal party, and should always be accompanied by food.

2) If done too often, employees will begin sluffing off on Friday, because they know they’re going to have to make up the time on Saturday anyway and they need to enjoy their weekend while they can. (This may not pertain to your employees, per se, but I’m surprised at how often this one pops up.)

3) If used rarely, productivity and creativity can almost double on these days because your employees now it isn’t their usual 9 to 5 and they need to come in with their game faces on.
4) Starting at 10 instead of 8 will go a long way toward tcutting back on the complaining when it’s time for your team to get out of bed.

5) Nobody really needs to wear a suit and a tie to the office on Saturday.

6) If you know you’re going to need your team to work on Saturday, consider taking them out for lunch during the week. Unless that hour could get you out of working on the weekend, in which case you’re better off staying right where you are.

7) Make weekends project driven, not time driven. Knowing they have to get the first three stages of a project done by Monday morning, your team will bust their humps to get those stages out and get out of there as quickly as possible. If they know they’re stuck until 4 regardless, they’re going to drag the process out under a case of the weekend “I don’t wannas” for as long as possible, and may still be cutting it close at the end of the day-if they don’t just decide to roll over what they haven’t done until Monday morning.
Opening the windows might seem like cruel and unusual punishment but there’s almost nothing more painful than a grey, gloomy office on a bright, sunny Saturday. So let the sunshine in, take it with a grin, and go out there and get ‘er done!

Tags: Business, productivity, working weekends

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The best thing about summer is, for me, the amount of it I get to spend out on the road. I LOVE to travel, to scope out new sights, to visit family I haven’t seen in forever. Last week we took a road trip to see my parents out in Connecticut (and pick up a very excellent tan) and I was sharply reminded of the one part of road trips I don’t like.
Getting lost.

What ho, you say? If I could follow directions I wouldn’t lose hours driving around in the middle of nowhere looking for my turn? If I got a GPS, I wouldn’t be stuck sitting there staring at a tiny atlas with poorly marked roads? You’re probably right. But where’s the fun in that???
On this last roadtrip, I saw something I’d never seen before. The Interstate bridge was closed to traffic while they did roadwork. (You know the one about the three seasons in the Northeast, right? Snow, Snow and Road Work? Oh, so true…) Now, usually this would mean there was a well-marked detour that would eventually get you where you wanted to go, even if it took a few extra minutes along the way.
There were a few extra minutes involved, all right. Let me tell you what there wasn’t. A well-marked start of this detour. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t a well-marked anything anywhere on this detour. After about fifteen minutes of driving, followed by another fifteen minutes of staring aimlessly at the atlas trying to figure out how I was going to get across the Hudson River without having to swim, I had to use my phone-a-friend option to grovel someone into opening up Google Maps and figuring out how to get us out of there!
It’s funny how many similarities I could draw to business out of this. Because it’s easy to get lost along the way when you’re building a company, or planning a marketing campaign, or plotting out a new product launch. And sometimes, the tools we have to determine whether our next plan is going to pass or fail just plain aren’t up to the job. So we have to phone a friend, one that’s either already traveled that route or who has newer tools and technology that can help us find our way.

But what do you do when you’re at that unmarked detour and you can’t quite work up any genuine desire to admit to your friend that you can’t do it? That you need help? This is what gums up the works for many businesses, who wouldn’t’ find themselves in the predicaments they find themselves in if they’d look around and think, this is how they did it. Maybe they can help me do it better. Instead of, “I’m goin to close my eyes and guess, then see what happens next.”

Pick up a phone. Phone a friend. And leave that pride behind.

Tags: Business, directions, maps, marketing

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First things first: If you’re out on Twitter, I want to know why you haven’t come by to see me yet. Hanging out in the Twitterverse has sparked some great conversations with fellow printers, including this one about what it’s like to be a woman in printing and where the biggest challenge lies.

When I gave a shout-out to my printing ladies in the Twitterverse last week, asking them to tell me what they thought was the hardest part of being a woman in a traditionally male-dominated industry, I was surprised by the answers I got. I figured at least one of them would have something to say about banging their head against the typical glass-ceiling, boy’s club environment. That wasn’t the case. Most of them were concerned about trying to balance their home and work lives without feeling like they were being a horrible wife or mother for putting their career first.

When I read through their responses (and they were plentiful), I had to smile. Because it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you’ve got a family, whether it’s husband, child, father, mother, sister or second cousin twice removed, at some point you’re going to have to make a choice. Who do you spend time with? How dead are you going to be if you skip a family dinner because you have a HUGE deadline Monday morning and you need to get a head start on Sunday night? (If your family’s anything like mine, the answer to that is pretty darn dead. Make that decision very, very carefully.)

So how do our printing ladies do it? Several had been known to take their kids to work on their days off, and invite their husbands along on their business trips. Working at all hours of the night to have their days free wasn’t unusual, and many of them recommended working from home as often as possible. And all of them agreed that unless something major popped up, like a deadline that was going to blow up in their face if they didn’t jump on it, like, yesterday, work hours were work hours and family time was family time, and ne’er the twain shall meet.

The struggle to balance work and family life certainly isn’t exclusive to our ladies of the press. How do you balance work and family?

Tags: Business, printing, women in printing, working moms

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What sets a business apart? Seriously? Awesome products? Well, yeah. A fun, unique approach to their industry? Of course. But you know why consumers are still doing business with little mom and pop shops when there’s a major supplier of just about everything out there, and the Internet is available to conveniently bring it to them? Because they take the time to turn their heads from product development and where they want to go and make the most of where they are.

I think a lot of us fall into the trap of losing sight of the balance between where we are and where we’re going. If you’re a big business, you’ve got a whole team of people whose sole job is to come up with awesome new ideas to keep your business moving into the future. If you’re a small business like us, however, you have to split your resources. You have to divide your day between taking care of the customers you have now and the customers you’re going to have tomorrow, and if you think a bunch of customers that don’t even exist yet aren’t going to take up a whole lot of your time, you’ve got another think coming.

So how do you make sure your customers are satisfied without digging your business into a rut you can’t get out of? I have three words for you: Marketing, and Time Management.

Set aside a certain number of hours each week to plan for the future of your business. Those can be hours spent out in the field, talking to your customers and getting a feel for what they want and expect from you, or hours spent in your office brainstorming ideas and/or implementing ideas you’ve already put into place. Once you have that idea, kick it over to your marketing and development people and let it go. Let it breathe. Let it take shape. And let it transform.

Once that time is done, turn your attention to your business today. Get to know your customers, they love being recognized when they walk in the door. Figure out what you can do to make their customer experience better right now. A coffee pot on a cold winter day? Cookies and candy bowls at Christmas?

Yes, I’m a compulsive feeder. The kids in my neighborhood swarm at my house like little locusts because my cookie jar is never empty. Which is exactly my point. When you’re planning Christmas dinner but your cookie jar is empty, your place is going to be packed on Christmas day and empty the other 364 days of the year. Keep that cookie jar full, and make sure you’re taking the time to appreciate where you are, and the people who love you now, as well as where you’re going to be.

Tags: Business, customer service, marketing, moving forward in business

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How many times have you caught yourself walking around the singing, “I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the Map” for hours on end after that morning’s episode of Dora the Explorer? That cheerful, repetitive voice can play over and over in your head, all day long. The next time you’re in the toy store, you’re going to look at Map and know not only who he is, but his theme song as well. And if you can make it through the day without singing, “Forest, mountain, little blue tree!” you’re stronger than I am.

That’s marketing that works.

Amazingly enough, that same catchy tune and repetitive theme works on adults too. There’s a reason kids learn faster than grown-ups do. Not only are their minds blank slates, absorbing everything around them without  any of the prejudices, back-stories or pre-conceived notions that adults bring to the table every time they learn something new, they also learn it the right way. In relation to their natural world, with constant repetition to reinforce the idea and create an actual neural pathway into their brain.

Adults learn like that too. Tell me you saw the State Farm Cars 2 commercial. It’s fantastic. Not only does it have fun, colorful characters that most of us know and remember (I have a Finn McMissile car taped to my dashboard as we speak), but every adult in America had to fight the urge to sing, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there!” Why? Because constant repetition and a cheerful tune have burned the company’s catchphrase into our brains, and now? Now there’s no going back.

How does your marketing campaign use repetition and those childhood ways to reach your clientele?

Tags: Business, marketing

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Hey! Twitter tweeps! Did y’all catch the article on the hazards of over-specialization at the university level we posted up this morning? I found it an interesting read. Are we really leaning toward over-specialization, and losing our diversity and our adaptability in the process? Or are these doom-sayers just Gloomy Guses looking to rain on the parade of today’s business?

The Pros of Specialization

The battle cry in the fast-paced world of business is to diversify. Offer something that sets you apart from your competition and hammer it home. Whether that be a different product line, a different way of doing business or just a different way of dealing with your customers, you want to take that and make it your thing.

There are some definite pros to going out there and doing “your thing”. For starters, you can do something you enjoy and that you’re very, very good at. You already have a comfortable knowledge base under your belt, and you can continue to build on that rather than scrambling to stretch your wings into parts unknown.

You can also do what you enjoy, and when you love what you’re doing it’s not really work. Right?

The Downside and Eventual Downfall of Specialization

The last line in the previous section is actually a paraphrase of a quote by Confucious himself. But here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter how much you love something. When you do it day after day, when you depend on it for your livelihood, it doesn’t matter how much you love it. At some point, it’s going to become work.

The downside of specialization is that when you over-specialize, you wind up pigeonholing yourself. You become known as “The guy who does (X)”. When people need X, they’re going to come to you. But what happens when people need X+Y? Are they still going to come to you? Probably not. Most people aren’t going to come up and ask you if you  can do (Y) when the guy down the street is shouting that he’ll do both-and cut them a good price on it while he’s at it.

The need to generalize is growing as business is changing and budgets are being sucked in. Over-specializing, no matter how much you love that particular specialization, can leave you on the outside looking in when your customers need more than you’re willing to give. Consider carefully before whittling down the options you’re willing to put on the table.

Are you a specialist or a generalist? How did you choose?

Tags: Business, specialization

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