Create boundaries between work and personal life and increase efficiency

Being a highly motivated workaholic is amazing and many consider that crucial if you want to succeed in your career. But, like everything else in life, if it’s not balanced it might cause damage. Hence, if you can’t set boundaries between work and personal life, you will be unfulfilled with your life and that will even kill your biggest asset, motivation.

That being said, keep reading to find out how to find ways to balance work and personal life by still keep being a hardworking and dedicated professional.

Avoid perfectionism

People can develop perfectionist habits from a young age. They will try to do everything perfectly at school and at home. While children and teenagers can easily be perfectionists, it is far more difficult for adults to do the same.

If your perfectionism becomes part of your daily habits, you will not balance your work life. Instead, you will dedicate more of your time towards achieving unrealistic work targets. As a result, your personal life will not receive the attention it deserves.

Avoiding perfectionism means psychologically preparing yourself for low achievements and getting a new perspective. You must be ready to miss your deadlines and not attain your targets.

For example, if you have set to work for eight hours a day, you must stop once that time is up. After dedicating more time to your personal life, your creativity and productivity will improve. Eventually, you will be able to do more work because you will have a clear vision.

Therefore, you must write realistic targets and objectives. How much work can you realistically do in a single day or week? Once you have determined that amount, you will set a minimum target. 

For instance, if you do 80% of your daily tasks after eight hours, you can dedicate the rest of the day to personal hobbies and activities.

Have a dedicated workspace

Discipline is a crucial ingredient in creating boundaries between work and personal life. It’s easy to become disciplined if you have a dedicated workspace where you do all your work. This is ideal for remote workers who work from their homes. When you have a dedicated workspace, you will avoid distractions and manage your time better.

You can get a chair and desk that will serve as the workspace. The desk should only accommodate items that are related to your work. A decluttered desk reduces anxiety and increases focus. You will complete more activities if no items are slowing down your progress.

The dedicated workspace can be located in an unused room, a spare bedroom, or even the garage. It should also have enough natural light, but be away from noise. 

In addition, you should get an ergonomic chair to reduce fatigue. If you have to stand up regularly to stretch your limbs, you may easily get distracted.

You can also try to have soft music playing in the background. Most people perform better when there is some soft noise in the background. If you have to take your meals, you can go to the dining table.

Set a routine

Remote workers have a difficult time following a specific schedule. Wondering how to be productive while working remotely? 

Working from home means that you can do your personal and work activities at the same time. Since you want to create boundaries between work and personal life, you will need to create a routine. The routine will specify working hours and leisure time. 

For instance, you may want to watch the latest movie during the day. However, if you have decided to work during the day, you have to postpone the film. 

It will be challenging to follow your routine when you first create it. However, as you keep doing the same thing every day, it will become a habit. Eventually, following your routine will be a daily ritual that you won’t have to force yourself to do.

It is a good idea to track the effectiveness of your routine. In the initial days, you may only complete about 30% of your scheduled activities. If you do one more extra activity each new day, you may start following your entire routine after two weeks.

Create some time for yourself

Burnouts are very common among workers. It is essential to set aside some time for yourself and rejuvenate. The purpose is to prevent your life from becoming monotonous and robotic. There should be occasional breaks where you take a vacation, exercise, or engage in a hobby.

Taking breaks frees the mind and nourishes your body. Therefore, you should do things such as meditation or yoga regularly. These activities can happen in the morning, during lunch breaks, or after work. They will increase your creativity and help you achieve maximum productivity.

Another way to create personal time is to switch off your work devices on Friday afternoon. Your business phone should be off, and clients should know that they can’t talk to you during the weekend. If you go on vacation, make sure to leave somebody to reply to your emails and phone calls.

Engage in constant communication

One consequence of overlapping work and personal life is reducing communication between yourself, your team, and family members. You have to talk regularly to your family and friends. Connecting with family and friends increases affection, support, and social cohesion.

You will work better if there are other people who support and love you. Consequently, you shouldn’t do any work if it is time to socialize with your friends or family. Your team members or boss must also know that they can’t contact you during this time.

You don’t have to meet your family or friends in person. Instead, you can organize virtual meetings, parties, or coffee dates. It’s also possible to go live on your social media and connect with your friends.

Conclusion

Achieving a work-life balance will increase your productivity and reduce stress. You will be more creative and motivated to do your work each day. That’s why you need a strategic planning process to set boundaries between work and personal life. Use the strategies we’ve listed above and start improving your way of living today.

Take time to build rapport

This is an ancient advice that applies to both in person and remote business negotiations. It’s very straightforward, people don’t feel comfortable to get right down to negotiating. It is important to take the time to build rapport with your negotiating partner. It will loosen up the situation and set up a more relaxed and friendly environment to begin your virtual negotiation. So remember, rule number one: resist the urge to get right to business.

Use video conferencing

Control your expressions

Body language says everything, it reveals and shows more than words. Therefore it is crucial to follow your expressions during a virtual business negotiation. Video meetings limit the visuals of the person and all the focus will be on you, making it impossible for the other negotiator to miss any expression you may make. 

A handy tip is to keep an eye on your face on your camera window and you will be able to remain with your poker expression easier.

Suggest a break

Breaks are equally important in virtual business negotiations as they are in in-person negotiations. Suggesting a break or two during your meeting will ease the tension and allow you to reset the tone and atmosphere of the conversation. Don’t underestimate breaks, you can also use them to develop a more personal relationship with your partner negotiator even if it is a remote negotiation. 

Conclusion

Finally, a good negotiator masters any environment in which the negotiation takes place. Why waste an opportunity by being ill-prepared. Take note of the above-mentioned advice and start practicing them today. It is crucial not to forget that your expressions go a long way, breaks help ease tensions and buy you time to think and simple chit chat builds rapport, setting a friendly atmosphere for the meeting.

16 tips for firing a client drama-free

To make sure you get the best advice on how to fire a client, we turned to entrepreneurs who had experience in the breakup department. Here are their stories from which you can draw conclusions and pick the best approach next time you’re dealing with firing a client.

Find the appropriate time

Tanner Arnold, President, and CEO of Revelation Machinery

Review your contract

Similarly, be certain that you won’t be in violation of the contract if you don’t deliver what you promised. Your working relationship may often be so bad that you have no choice but to bite the bullet and terminate your deal, accepting any penalties that might be imposed. It’s up to you to make the call, but it’s always a good idea to know what you’re giving up before firing a client.

Jake Smith, Managing Director at Absolute Reg 

Be expensive

Mike Dragan, COO at Streams Live 

Put your best foot forward

There are many different reasons for firing a client, but it’s never good to end with animosity. Whatever the difference, put your best foot forward, provide any work you did and information that might help them to succeed in the future. Do your best to have a phone call and let them know you are going in a different direction.

George Kocher, CEO at Brand North

Provide them with time to make arrangements

This is useful in situations where you’re finding the client is commanding more time and attention from staff than their contract is worth, and has allowed us to avoid confrontation and long-term bad will.

Jay York, CEO and Founder of Grove Brands 

Be legally covered

Rolf Bax, Chief Human Resources Officer at Resume 

Treat the process as you are leaving a job

Markus Albert, Managing Director at Eat First

Give another chance

The first thing you should ask yourself is whether there’s any chance of salvaging the relationship. If your client just wants to nitpick about tiny details or has started taking your work for granted, it might be time to bring things to an end.

Abby Ha, Head of Marketing and Business Development at WellPCB 

Shift the responsibility

Never accuse or insult the customer. And if it’s their fault, attempt to shift the responsibility elsewhere. Do not let them go before their project is completed. Or, at the very least, without specifying the measures necessary to transfer it to whoever would be dealing for the customer next.

Olivia Tan, Co-Founder at CocoFax

Wait until the contract expires

Waiting until the contract expires before dismissing a customer will help prevent awkward conversations and have a way out for the company. You have the option of not renewing their deal. The disadvantage is that you will also have to work for the difficult customer until the contract expires.

Alan Harder, Mortgage Broker at Alan Harder

Discuss it in person or over the phone

• Check your contract and take a look at the terms of your agreement.
• Discuss it in person or over the phone, but never via email or text message.
• Do not blame the client (although it’s their fault).
• Maintain your professional tone.
• Be firm about your decision. Do not be swayed.
• Recommend them to another company.

Ryan Smith, Owner of Ant and Garden Organic Pest Control

Extend your gratitude for their efforts

Using words politely is what matters most too. The calmness and composure affect the delivery of terrible news to the client. You do not want to step on the wrong foot. Take it slowly until the clients themselves realize you are ending the partnership with them. The whole idea is all about reaching out, pointing out mistakes/issues, resolving and settling through parting ways.

Isabella Zhou, Marketing Lead at Trustana

Be respectful

When I fired my clients, I made sure to keep my cool. I was straightforward, candid, but respectful. I expressed why they weren’t a good fit for our team and tried to let them go on a positive note. Of course, this wasn’t always the outcome, but maintaining professionalism comes with the job.

Riya Jain, Founder of Namo Padmavati 

Be careful afterward

The only thing I’ll say: just be very careful that they don’t find out later on that you’re looking for work, especially in the short-term – otherwise the lie will be revealed and it could reflect poorly on you.

Steve Morgan, Freelance SEO Consultant at Morgan Online Marketing

Explain it if it’s a win-win situation

In this type of situation, I’ve found it best to point out the ways in which my company and the client are not a good fit. If it’s presented in a way where you point out specific examples, and show how there wasn’t a positive outcome, it can help your client understand that they may need to work with a different type or style of a company. So that, in the end, you’re actually doing them a favor!

Josh Stomel, Founder of Turbo Finance 

Be direct but professional

I recommend being direct but professional. For example, you can say: “Our team has decided that your company is not the right fit for us at the moment.” Be sure to outline the details of the termination, wrapping up any loose ends for projects. You do not need to go into details of why you are firing them. Keep it brief, direct, and professional. It’s not personal, it’s business.

Eropa Stein, Founder and CEO of Hyre

Conclusion

Most of the time there are ways to build and maintain a strong client relationship, so make sure that you gave your client a chance to perform better, and that your conflict is not a result of a misunderstanding. If none of that is the issue then it’s probably time to break up the relationship.

Firing a client is unpleasant but it is possible to end on good terms and remove any hard feelings between. Often times it can be the best decision for both of you, especially when more bad than good comes out of your partnership.

Financial tips for small business owners

If you are one of those small business owners who are struggling to manage their finances, here are some easy and realistic financial management tips for small business to help you master your business finances without the need to hire a professional.

Avoid merging business and personal finances

Linking business and personal finances together is a nightmare for most financial experts. Using business funds for personal usage or securing business expenses with some of your personal savings may get the job done at the time being but will surely create a muddle that may require additional loans for stability in the long run.

Hence, keeping both business and personal expenses separate is a wise move. Alongside an account for personal expenditure, create a separate business account and make sure to use the business credit card for all business-related matters. Moreover, as a small business owner, creating a savings account for your business will future proof you to uncertain emergencies that could happen at any point in time.

One of the things accountants rigorously preach about is to strictly stick to the rules of not using personal credit cards and savings for business and vice versa. Merging these is one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make and it will only create a mess that you will regret in the future. Additionally, having separate accounts will ensure a smooth process of  tax-related matters, and your financial advisor or manager will thank you for making his job easier.

Keep records of your spendings

Losing a trail of the business expenses after a certain period of time is very common among many small business owners. Stacked up bills and other miscellaneous expenses are the results of someone not recording their expenses. This ultimately leads to more concerning issues such as overspending and using the business funds for non-business matters.

Recording your expenses will not only force you to stick to your budget but also assist in meeting your financial goals. So grab that pen and paper and start tracking your expenditures. Additionally, you can make use of accounting apps and literature to make recording transactions an easier process.

Create a buying schedule

Creating a purchasing schedule and sticking to it is one of the most important initial business decisions to make. This means not buying any new inventory or making additional payments until and unless the due bills are paid and waiting for financial stability before making any new purchases.

Scheduling your purchases will aid in decreasing tax liability in combination with avoiding the low cash flow occurrence. In order to claim supplies and other business-essential things on your tax return, it is best to buy them by the end of the year.

Cut on bigger expenses

As a small business owner, it is likely that your budget will be limited which is why you need to observe and cut down on some of your large expenses to allow cash flow within the business. This can be done by leaving the large office space and going online for a drastic decrease in real estate expenses. However, if your business requires physical space for operations, then moving into a smaller or less expensive locality might be a feasible option (see how to choose the best business location).

Moreover, labor cost is another large expense that accounts for approximately 70% of the entire business expenses. Therefore, if needed, you can cut down on some of your labor costs. You can easily do that by outsourcing to freelancers or contractors rather than recruiting full-time employees (which can turn into a real nightmare). However, keep a couple of important full-time employees, as new recruits may take time to train which is also an expense. The benefit of contractors on the flip side is that you pay them for the tasks and their time and they technically do not qualify for the company benefits and compensation packages.

Compensate yourself first

It is very common among small business owners to put all their efforts, sweat, and money into the business to make it stand on its feet and running. But what they often forget is that they are the most important asset of the business and hence they should pay themselves first. Surprisingly, only around 50% of the small business owners pay themselves.

Sure, the effort and money you put into your business will turn out to be fruitful and your business will eventually grow. However, an intelligent decision is to think about both ends of the spectrum and keep in mind if the business does not make a profit, and you have not paid yourself either, that will not be a desirable outcome for you.

Thus, always make sure not to forget yourself when paying others, because remember you are the foundation of the business, and compensating yourself will ensure and secure a bright future and shape of your business.

Conclusion

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to tighten up your financial practices, these tips can help you build a stronger, more profitable business. After all, good financial management isn’t about being perfect but about making informed decisions that help your business grow.

Treat your brand like it’s a human

It should have its own personality, goals, name, values, voice, opinions and its own network of friends, and even a few enemies (competitors). Crafting this step first will uniform all of your communications to your audience. It will ultimately mean you retain a highly engaged audience as a result.

Any brand with a loyal following, and good engagement has spent time on this. 

At XITE Energy, our values are around fun, excitement, motivation and health. This is something we amplify across our communications channels, social media, and is echoed by every member of our team. The less ‘business sounding’, but more human your brand is, the more engaging you are.

It really helps to bring your brand alive and makes you authentic. People interact with brands because they mirror similar values to their own and embody personalities that they like. If your goals are to get lots of followers, likes and comments on your social media, this is how to do it.

Plan first

It seems obvious, but you wouldn’t believe how often this gets skipped. Planning will save you time, allow you to be more strategic with your marketing, and essentially get you the best ROI.

A good place to start is planning your annual marketing calendar divided up by quarters (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4), and tying this in with sales promotions, key dates in your MACRO environment, and when you intend to launch new products. 

This means, ahead of time, you know what resources you need to plan for, how to tease the best social campaigns. Having this down visually means you can plan your budgets, and yearly spend wisely, and sharing this with the whole team means your internal comms will be a force to be reckoned with.

Change is inevitable

The important element to consider here is being aware of which changes you can control, and those you cannot.

Changes you can control are your monthly spend, your team recruits, or anything to do with your planning and decision making.

As for changes you can’t control… I think Covid-19 has done a pretty good job of showing the world what that means.

Being aware of these changes with a PESTLE analysis versus internal forces you can control, will mean you are prepared to be reactive to serious changes in the external environment. You might not be able to control them, but you can be well equipped with a contingency plan and mitigate any worst-case scenarios.

Focus on performance

There are a lot of exciting, big ideas that you may be keen to spend money on. In the beginning, your outgoings will be more than your incoming. So it’s time to manage your own expectations that you probably won’t be making any money anytime soon.

What you can do, is focus on conversions. Plan and do everything with your end-goal in mind, the sale. Base your marketing strategy on performance marketing tactics, for example, SEM and SEO with a measurable goal of driving traffic to your optimised website. Do your due diligence on researching those.

Network and contacts are your currency

As the old saying goes – “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. You might already be privileged to have grown up with a network of great contacts through family or friends. However, for most of us, it’s a case of on-going networking, building a base of strategic contacts – LinkedIn and Enterprise League are huge tools for this. A good network can mean you get in front of the right audiences, and the best part is that it’s free.

(Cliché incoming) Don’t run before you can walk

Again, this sounds obvious, but many have learned this the hard way. By going after too much too soon, you can run out of money, and end up bankrupt before you’ve even made it through your first year as a business owner. It’s the harsh truth, but you’re better off planning, testing, and learning what works for you progressively.

Be logical, be systematic

There are logical steps to brand building. That starts with “why”, your USP, brand name, mission statement, core values, target audience, market data, what your goals are, and how you want to be perceived. When this is nailed, this should then inform every. Decision. You. Make.

Know what you’re trying to achieve. Is it reach? Or engagement? In a campaign are you focusing on brand awareness? Or conversions? You can’t focus on both. Needless to say it defeats the object of having a “focus” altogether.

Knowing your objectives will enable you be able to take logical, and systematic steps to get there.

Make trade-offs essential to your decision making

Weigh everything up. Knowing the value of money will be pivotal to your success. Ask yourself questions every day with whether £1k might be best spent up on influencers, or is it best spent on Google ads. Maybe it’s a 60-40% split, or ratio. Work out the estimated ROI before you make your decision. 

Even more important, is knowing the financial value of your time. “Time is money” couldn’t be more true, especially when your outgoings are team wages, and your own wages. Am I making the best use of my time driving to drop this delivery to a customer myself? Or is it more time and money efficient to just spend £4.99 on postage? A good way to rationalise this is through basing your time on around £10 an hour – if it costs less than £10 to post it, post it. You could be spending that hour on making a huge deal.

When building your brand, start from the “why”

Simon Sinek says “It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of marketing your products based on the core product, its attributes, its features.” In our case, this was talking about the naturally sourced caffeine from green coffee beans, the active nootropics for cognitive health and function, and the health benefits with our specially selected B vitamins, supported by empirical research we spent months on during our NPD.

Start with your brand purpose and its reason to exist. Simon Sinek calls this the “why”. Maybe yours is to reduce climate change, to disrupt the status quo, to connect people together, or in our case; to motivate people to achieve their ambitions, or “do what Xite’s you”.

It’s also worth having a think about what brand archetype you want to fall under and get your tone of voice nailed early on.

What works for other brands won’t necessarily work for you

By all means, learn from case studies and examples around you. But it’s a rookie error to assume that because a strategy works for another brand, that it will work for you. Don’t try to mirror exactly what another brand does, because it won’t work. Be unique. And if you’re not unique, what value are you bringing with a new business? If you don’t have a USP, you might as well not waste your time and money on asking people to buy into something they’ve seen before a thousand times.

Conclusion

These tips aren’t magic solutions, but they’re proven “tactics” that have helped countless businesses grow from scratch into healthy brands. Remember, every successful company you admire today started somewhere, probably making the same rookie mistakes you might worry about.

The essence of SEO writing

Explore keywords with traffic potential

Identify search intent

Google chooses what content to show people according to their search intent. Search intent is what the person wants to find behind a query. In other words, you must understand all possible “why” and “what” that your content must cover to satisfy a user’s needs.

To make sure your content goes in line with the search intent of your target audience, you should fulfill the next three conditions:

• Choose the correct content type

The most straightforward way to understand what type of content you should put money on is by exploring the top positions on Google. It will tell you what type of content ranks well and you should take it into account.

For example, if your target keyword is mainly used across interrogative queries like “what is the difference between organic and paid search“, you will get such content types as blog posts, articles, or videos.

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However, if your target keywords don’t have informational intent, you won’t rank for blog posts. You will rank for video content or attract your target audience to your product pages.

• Think about content format

It won’t be hard to understand what content format you’re willing to create. There are a few standard formats to choose from – listicle, how-to guides, expert roundups, etc.

• Work on exploring content angle

Content angle reflects the purpose of your content. To put it simply, you must understand what message you want to send. To give you a clear idea of what it means, let’s analyze this very post per these three aspects.

1) Content type is “blog post”

2) Content format is “guide”

3) Content angle is providing concrete actionable tips on SEO writing for the beginners

Keep in mind these nuances and move forward with implementing the next tips.

Proceed with the determination of subtopics

You already have your target keyword. You know what type of content you’re going to write. You know in what format content will be created. Plus, you decided what angle content will take. 

What is the next step?

The next step is to figure out subtopics for your future writings. Three ways will help you here. Let’s review them:

• Analyze your competitors’ content

Must admit that this is a cool idea to analyze content created by the competitors. Just type your top priority query on Google and review the top pages it suggests. Afterwards, review the outline for each post paying attention to headings. For instance, this post on explainer video covers different subtopics that you could cover in your content as a separate topic.

• Review “People also ask” section

“People also ask” section can provide you with more topic ideas. These are the variations of what people might also be looking for on Google based on your primary keyword. 

• Explore what your competitors might rank for

If you want to be ahead of your competitors, you must explore other possible keyword ideas and topics they rank for. One of the best ways to do this is by using Content Gap tool. Just paste your competitors’ URLs and hit the “Show keywords” button.

Review the results and compare them with each other. Focus on those keywords that are used by all the competitors you’re analyzing. 

Once all the preparations are done, you can start writing the post. Nevertheless, continue to read and you will find out five SEO writing tips.

SEO writing tips

It won’t be hard to guess that SEO writing aims to create content that would rank high on Google and attract traffic to your website. Consequently, without knowing some SEO tips you won’t be able to write optimized content right off the bait. 

Here are five tips that will help you drastically.

Create a perfect title

Without a proper title tag, you won’t get neither traffic nor CTR from your target audience. Hence, review the titles of the pages from your competitors and think about how you could write the better one. 

You must use a target keyword in the title tag + keep in mind search intent you have identified at the beginning stage. Try to make every title tag unique that would make people never bounce back from the page.

Short URL

If you want to create SEO-friendly content, you should start with the URL of the post first. Basically, any URL must be simple and easy-to-read. It must include a primary keyword and you should keep it short.

Work on featured snippets optimization

Being featured in “featured snippets” is a wonderful opportunity for your content to be easily noticeable by a target audience. To be able to optimize your primary keyword snippet, you must understand the exact format that would meet the requirements of a future featured snippet. Afterwards, create content accordingly.

Internal links

Internal links are one of the on-page SEO elements you should never ignore. Plus, these links are good for user experience. Remember, you can’t cover everything in one topic. All additional subtopics related to the main topic can be covered in separate posts on your blog. Internal links help your target audience to navigate on your blog reading information from other articles thereby. 

Add images

Images make your content more engaging for your audience. It helps people to absorb information visually. Just imagine if you read this very guide without images and screenshots. I bet you would leave it without compunction.

Conclusion

Summing up everything mentioned in this post, SEO writing is not about using the right keywords, ranking, and traffic. These elements are just a part of the game. The main course of the process is creating readable content that would help the audience to solve the problems.

As a bonus for your efforts, you get traffic to your website and ranking positions.