Business Management Archives | Social Speak Network

How to prioritize your task list

By utilizing the Eisenhower Matrix, you can divide your tasks into 4 different boxes and be able to focus on what is most important, schedule what is important but not urgent, delegate everything you can and then don’t do the things that don’t serve a purpose in your business.

The Eisenhower Box: How to be More Productive

To Do: Draw a big box on your paper and then divide that box into 4 little boxes.

Label the first box- Do First
Label the second box – Schedule
Label the third box – Delegate
Label the fourth box – Don’t do

5 time management tips when working with the Eisenhower Matrix

Putting things to-do on a list frees your mind. But always question what is worth doing first.
Try limiting yourself to no more than eight tasks per quadrant. Before adding another one, complete the most important one first. Remember: It is not about collecting but finishing tasks.
You should always maintain only one list for both business and private tasks. That way you will never be able to complain about not having done anything for your family or yourself at the end of the day.
Do not let you or others distract you. Do not let others define your priority. Plan in the morning, then work on your stuff. And in the end, enjoy the feeling of completion.
Finally, try not to procrastinate that much. Not even by over-managing your to-dos.

Prioritizing tasks by urgency and importance results in 4 quadrants with different work strategies: https://www.eisenhower.me/eisenhower-matrix/

Another example source: http://timewiser.com/blog/eisenhower-matrix-productivity-at-work/

October 17, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Business Management, Entrepreneur Life, Mompreneur Series

Mompreneur Interview with Owners of Aerie Lane – Tarpon Springs, FL

I had the pleasure of interviewing these two amazing sisters that decided to take the leap of faith and invest, not only in themselves but in their future by opening a new franchise called Aerie Lane. In this interview you will learn:

How these sisters are able to work together, divide and conquer.
Splitting roles while one left corporate and runs the day to day and the other is still working her corporate job.
Playing off each other’s strengths to create an amazing partnership!

What is Aerie Lane?

Aerie Lane is about gathering with friends, creating with inspiration, and connecting projects and people in creative ways. Each time you construct a project by hand, you share a part of yourself with others.

Check out their website here to book your next party!

Like them on Facebook and support their business!

Have you been thinking of starting your own business? Need a little motivation? Maybe just a little push? We invite you to join our Facebook group here.

July 7, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Business Management, Social Media, Video

Tools for Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, it is important to find tools to help us stay organized, creative and on top of our social media. In this video, we will go over 10 tools to help you save time, work smarter, not harder.

Interested in learning more? Take a look at the following videos:

Creating the Right Mindset as an Entrepreneur

Setting your Social Media Goals

Core Values, Why They Are Important To Your Business

April 23, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Business Advice, Business Management, Internet Marketing

Tips for Creating a Successful Online Business

Not too long ago, people would visit the local stores and endure the long lines just to get the things they need. Today, however, people prefer to shop online. In fact, studies revealed that consumers make 51% of their purchases online.

With the growth on online retail and shopping, many of you probably have an existing e-commerce business or looking to start an online business.

Here are some tips for creating a successful online business.

Bring your products to life

Product photography can mean the difference between losing customers and making a sale. High quality product photos are a must when trying to persuade people to buy your stuff.

Internet users are bombarded with ads, emails and news stories. With so many businesses vying for their attention, you only have a few seconds to capture the attention of your target audience. Unique and visually appealing photos can help you do just that. If you’re selling clothes, we recommend that you hire a model. This way, people will have an idea how the clothes look like when worn.

Clean and user-friendly design

A professionally-designed and user-friendly website can go a long way in the success of your online business. It also adds credibility and will help increase trust in your company.

According to studies, 42% of online shoppers base their opinion of a business based on the overall design of their website. Majority of consumers didn’t push through with the sale because the site has poor aesthetics.

Fast loading time

An average person has an attention span of 8 seconds. Yes, you read that right. They want to get things they want fast. This is why we’re in the age of fast – fast cars, fast foods and fast websites.

Survey revealed that people expect websites to load in 2 seconds. They would leave the site if it doesn’t load within 4 seconds. Slow loading time can drastically affect your sales. People aren’t going to stick around if it takes a while for your website to load.

Easy payment process

Most people prefer to shop online because it’s more convenient. As such, you want to make the shopping process easier for them. The more methods of payment you offer, the more likely a customer will buy.

Credit cards and Paypal are the quickest and easiest ways for customers to pay. You may also offer cash on delivery, money order, personal cheque, direct deposit into your bank account.

August 7, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Business Advice, Business Management

The Most Common Misconception About Digital Marketing

Running a business in the digital age has its perks. It also can be incredibly difficult. Retail stores need to rethink their sales channels and social media networks get you sucked into a deep abyss if you aren’t careful. Over and over again, however, we see business owners make the same mistake. It is based off a misconception that can not only hurt the long term success of your business, but can also keep you from ever getting off the ground in the first place.

The most common misconception about digital marketing is that digital marketing replaces the need to make personal relationships.

When we first create social media accounts for clients, we have to consistently change our client’s mindset about what their networks will do for them. Our clients want to see their networks boom, which can be a great goal, but to what end? Would you rather have a small network of devoted customers who trust you and help sell for you or a large network of individuals who don’t even recognize your name, let alone buy from you?

Many times the client who wants and expects the large network then stops their in person networking and relationship building thinking that one post per day is actually going to lead to new sales. Though, again, if your network is active and trusts you, this may do the trick, but for businesses, you can and should never stop your personal relationship building.

The digital age has made many business owners lazy when it comes to getting their word out. They sit online wondering why nobody has come knocking on their door. Those who hustle, however, reap the benefits.

You now have access to millions of people, if you only reach out. My recommendation for clients is to find the individuals who are are your level or a step above you that you admire and wish to connect with. Start following their social media accounts and commenting on their posts. As you do this, share their posts, too, and tag them so they can a notification that you are publishing their content.

From here… reach out! Write an email or direct message the individual. Let them know how much you’ve enjoyed their articles on X, Y, Z and then get straight to the point. What are your goals for reaching out for them? Do you want to run a joint webinar? Do you have an article that you think their audience would enjoy or benefit from?

The more clear you are, the more likely you will receive a reply. Of course, leading up to this point you’ve been interacting with them on their social media and blogs, so you should already have some name recognition.

In addition to digital networking, keep up your local networking.

Meeting with people and groups keeps us on our toes and from moving away from what the market needs. It helps us refine our message and get real time feedback from individuals we know and trust. This blog post goes into more detail about why networking groups can transform your business and how to get involved.

To make sure that you aren’t making the biggest mistake in the digital age, continually get out of your comfort zone and form actual relationships with people you admire who are one step ahead of you. Even if the relationships start online, you are still treating the account handle or email as a person, and that individual respond accordingly.

Do you still network in person? Have you succeeded at reaching out to an individual you now partner with online?

Be sure to share your success stories!

May 27, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Boundless Internet Marketing Solutions, Business Advice, Business Management, Connecting with Customers

Top Mistakes You Can Make as a New Business

Working with businesses owners we see a lot of mistakes and successes. Especially for the new business or freelancer, the mistakes below can completely destroy your business before it has the chance to succeed.

Mistake #1: Striving for Perfection

“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”

– Salvador Dali

As a type A perfectionist, I struggled with this. It also is the number one thing I see people starting a business struggle with, as well. Your business is your baby and you are pouring your heart and sole into making it a success, but being too wrapped up in the little things can keep your from actually going out and finding clients. If you find yourself:

Stressing over your logo
Tweaking every aspect of your website
Rereading your introduction email over and over to make it just right (but still not hitting send)
Working on perfecting your elevator speech before you attend your first networking group

then you may be focusing too much on being a perfectionist. Trust me, though thoughtful branding can help you land more clients, if you are receiving personal referrals, it isn’t going to stop you from getting paying clients. People choose who they are going to work with based on your personal connection not because of what your logo looks like. Then there is your website… Perfection for every site is a moving target. Your products and services will change. You will notice contacts respond more to one aspect of your business rather than another. As for the next two points, you are procrastinating! It is okay to want to define your messaging, but just getting out there and putting yourself out to prospects is far more important. Sure you want to make sure your messaging is just right when you reach out to that dream prospect or mentor, but these shouldn’t be your first contact. The best part about putting yourself out there before you think you are ready is that you get to understand what the market actually wants and needs! When I first started Boundless Marketing, I had my dream service offerings in mind. Turned out that nobody even understood what I was talking about! There wasn’t a market. I drastically shifted my messaging and began signing contracts almost immediately.

Mistake #2: Thinking you can get clients just by posting things online.

“The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everyone else looks for work. Marinate on that for a minute.”

– Robert T. Kiyosaki

The internet and social media has shifted many of our mindsets about how you can get clients. Even through online channels you need to create a personal relationship with your network. Just posting your blog posts online isn’t going to cut it. I recently signed up for a program to Gain 100 Followers in 3 Days, just to see how other professionals where growing and starting their email lists. Guess what, these influential bloggers and business owners all start int the same place – asking friends, colleagues, clients, and prospects individually if they wanted to join their email list! If you find yourself:

Wondering why your networks haven’t converted into paying clients
Haven’t asked your mom, sibling, aunt, and grandparent if they want to join your list
Are frustrated seeing all these other people succeed

Then you may just be making this mistake. Start going to networking groups and collecting business cards. Take the email address you collect and shoot out a quick note following the template below :

“Hi NAME, I recently met you at EVENT NAME and loved learning about your business. I am in the process of starting an email list focusing on 3 TOPICS YOU WILL BE WRITING ABOUT, and was wondering if you would be interested in receiving the emails. My goal with list is to LIST BENEFITS. Are you interested in learning more?”

Not everyone will say they are interested, but the ones who do will help you grow your contacts quickly! We work with a lot of businesses who see varying amount of success through their social media marketing. The ones who see a return quickly are the clients who are complementing our marketing management services with their own outreach and networking. To see the best results from your marketing, you need to treat social media as you do in person networking. Create personal relationships and treat handles and usernames as individual people not just another account.

Mistake #3: Not Understanding Your Own Values

“When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.”

– Roy E. Disney

Okay, so this one does tie into the branding of your business, but it really is getting out being your authentic self. Knowing your values helps you to better manage your time, set priorities, and work with clients you enjoy. If you find yourself:

Wishing there were more hours in the day
Being drained after meetings with prospects
Continually wishing you had done X, Y, or Z

Then you may be making this mistake. One of my first clients taught me this lesson the hard way. My values are Relationships (family), Creativity, Challenges, Health, Experiences, and Knowledge. Shortly after I began my business full time, I traveled to my brother’s wedding. I was ecstatic to see him tie the knot and spend time with my family. Unfortunately, a new client nearly ruined my weekend. As a people pleaser, I started bending over backwards for the client and found myself anxiously checking email during the rehearsal dinner. I wasn’t being present. Finally, I recognized I would resent my actions if I didn’t shut off all devices to be there for my family. Sure there was a nasty email from my client, but we worked through our differences once the owner understood my boundaries. If you find yourself stressed about client conversations, I urge you to lay out boundaries, guidelines, and a list of responsibilities. You may loose some clients, but they are the people who take up 80% of your time. Think of all the other things you could do to grow your business if you had 80% of your time back!

What mistakes have you made in your own business that kept you from success?

May 19, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Boundless Internet Marketing Solutions, Business Advice, Business Management

No Plan B – 4 Tips to Jumping into Business Ownership

“The best fights are those fought by those without a Plan B.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Jumping into business ownership is daunting. How do you know when it is time to let go of your previous life? How can you be sure that your new endeavor will lead to success? The truth is, there is no end-all, be-all advice regarding the right time to jump all in or whether or not you will be successful. There are things you can do, however, that can increase the odds of fulfilling your dreams.

Tip 1: Plan, plan, plan

Creating a road map for your business is integral to your success. Not only do you need to know where you are starting from, but you also need to know what your goals are for month 1, month 6, 1 year, and 5 years. Working through these goals can help you to understand what you need to do to reach them. From here, write a list of the top activities that in the end will lead to you reaching your goals. For example, in my business, we need clients. Most of our clients come from personal relationships, referrals, and outbound marketing. In order to be successful, each week I need to reach more prospects or referral partners. Even if I’m swamped with current projects, I need to make sure I am continually touching new businesses.

In addition to planning for how you will get your first clients, you also need to plan your offerings. Create a list of all the services you can provide and create sample bundles or packages. What if someone only needs help with one aspect of what you provide, how will you charge? What if they want something you haven’t thought of, but have the skills to tackle, will you create a custom service offering for that client?

When I started out, I thought I would only be offering data analysis for marketing efforts. I thought I would be helping clients to understand what works and what doesn’t work as a way to tailor their marketing efforts. Though this is something I do, I was able to listen to my tribe and completely shift my messaging and packages to align with what the market actually needed.

Regardless of how much planning you do, your business plan is going to change.

“We should always have a plan B, but at the same time, treat plan A like it were our only option.”
― Izey Victoria Odiase

Tip 2: Surround yourself with positivity, but not naivety

We all have cheerleaders. Often in business, however, these cheerleaders are wrong to not give push back. Your idea may not actually be all that great. This isn’t to say that you can’t make it in business, it’s just that someone who always agrees with you isn’t going to get you to the place where you will find the most successes.

Though you need to remove negative energy of people pulling you back and second guessing your move to entrepreneurship, you need to also make sure that the positive energy you are surround yourself in is made of people who have been through your same journey and can help give push back when you are approaching a common pitfall. The people you surround yourself with will have a direct effect on your ability to succeed. Find mentors and other business owners who can talk you through marketing, technology, hiring and firing, taxes, etc.

Tip 3: Don’t have a Plan B

Here I mean don’t plan on needing your plan b. Jump head first into your business and don’t get distracted. Though your offerings may change, you need to stay course that you are now a business owner. The most successful businesses take shifts in the market in stride, but never second guess their decision to be in business.

“I don’t believe we should carry backup
plans in life’s suitcase—

they’re too easy to unpack
like living a life in yoga pants,
so comfortable our hips spread
into new timezones…”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

Tip 4: Have backup funds to support you as you jump in

Try not to jump ship unless you have some residual income, clients, or savings already in place. As a new business, you don’t want to feel as though you need to work with every prospect you meet and you don’t want to come across as though you are begging for the next gig. Though being on the verge of bankruptcy can motivate some, most of us will become distracted from our daily activities if you need to constantly worry about money. Additionally, make sure you have truthful discussions with your spouse about how spending and budgeting will need to change and be realistic about startup expenses. Things always take longer and cost more than you initially estimate.

Tip 5: Throw all this advice away (except the part about listening to your market)

If you know it is time to jump into your own business, just do it. You only live life once, why not make it the most fulfilling life you can. I think the number one reason why people decide to be a business owner is that they are worried about security, health insurance, managing their time, but when you just jump into it, you learn to make things work.

I didn’t set out to be a business owner, but somehow freelancing turned into a full time income. Now I can’t get enough. I encourage all of you with a business idea to give it a shot. Start taking on clients on the side or developing your MVP (minimum viable product). Keep your salary, but work towards being self sufficient. In the end you will thank your employer for funding your budding business.

Best of Luck!

May 9, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Boundless Internet Marketing Solutions, Business Advice, Business Management

Are You Unemployable?

One phrase that always comes up when I’m chatting with my friends and colleagues whom own their own businesses is “I am just so unemployable.” Why do so many business owners and freelancers believe they are unemployable? Let’s dissect this below:

We recognize the value in knocking off top priorities and checking out for the day.
We are comfortable going for a run, walk, hike, lunch date in the middle of the day as a way to clear our heads for fresh perspective.
Even though we’ve traveled to Europe, Mexico, and across the US, we haven’t taken a REAL vacation in years.
We don’t understand why people bog themselves down in minute tasks that should be outsourced.
98% of the time we don’t set an alarm in the morning (if you are a morning person) or go to bed at a decent time (if you are a night owl) because we know when we get the best work done in our daily schedule.
We choose only to work with clients who understand that sometimes little Suzie or Johnny needs to come to our meetings.
We cut out time every week to further our own education.
When we feel the most successful, our values are aligned with the work on our plate.

I don’t know, if I had an employee like this, I think I’d jump for joy! The problem is that so many businesses require 8 hours a day. It is a way to build a strong culture and often those who are first into the office and last to leave make a lasting impression on management about how committed they are to the organization. Surely as an employee, you can’t outsource those small repetitive tasks – or can you?

Running your own business takes perseverance. Every day you need to make a choice about how you will spend your time. It’s easy to get side-tracked by “shiny object syndrome” or those small tasks that don’t actually result in return. But if you jump all in, you may in fact find that you will never be employable again.

Do you find yourself thinking that you are unemployable even though you work harder than anyone else you know?

May 5, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Blogging, Boulder Marketing, Business Management

The Truth About Repurposing Content

70% of small businesses in the US are owned and operated by a single person.*

As a solopreneur, how on earth are you supposed to create enough content to fill 365 days in a year? As a small business where you wear multiple hats everyday, how are you supposed to create enough content? No matter what systems you have in place there simply isn’t enough time in the day to create a new piece of content every single day of the year.

So, what should you do as a small business to make sure your followers remain educated and in tune with your brand?

The number one thing you can do to streamline your posting is to repurpose your content.

Wait, what? This is an incredible time-saving tip that often is overlooked! Your Twitter followers aren’t necessarily the same as you LinkedIn connections and your newsletter list may not include your Facebook fans. Though you don’t want to publish duplicate articles in such a way that Google will penalize you, repurposing is much more than copying and pasting a blog post on multiple article websites.

Brochures and Traditional Media

We all still have some sort of ‘traditional’ marketing. For some this is in the form of flyers, brochures, presentations, newspaper articles, and even commercials in networking groups. Each of these present an opportunity to reuse content.

Flyers & Brochures

Grab the headers and images from these to create social media posts. You can additionally create a quick blog post with the content from the brochure.

Presentations & Interviews

What an incredible source for content. Create videos from your presentations and audio from your podcasts. You can then create a blog post that features these, as well as the transcription of the piece (hint use an app for this). Slides from your presentation can be turned into standalone social media posts and the videos can also be turned into lead-generating freebies.

You may even find that some aspects of the presentation or interview provide prompts for more in depth articles. Run with it!

Commercials from Networking Groups

If you really want to take control of your content calendar, you should plan out your networking group introductions. Typically these 45 second elevator pitches end up being last minute decisions, but if you plan ahead, not only will you see results within your networking group, but you also will create a new social media post for your business each week! Just as with interview questions providing prompts for longer blog posts, you may find people are especially drawn to one elevator pitch, pay attention and it may turn into a great article!

Blog Posts

Blog posts and articles are meant to be reused! Think of a typical blog you write, is there a list or bullets? Do you break the content up into multiple segments? Are there different ways to phrase the blog title? Your blog post can be recycled as social media posts and shared to other networks in its entirety.

Using Blogs for Social Media

The first week you publish a blog post, you should also share it to your social media channels (e.g. Facebook Business Page, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, etc). Did you know that there are numerous services that can do this for you? We automatically share published blogs to our social media accounts utilizing wordpress plugins and Zapier or IFTTT. Using these plugins, you can decide which pieces of your content should be shared and how it should be structured.

After the posts are automatically shared, re-share the post the following week. The featured image can be shared on Pinterest and Instagram, whereas the blog title or a quote from a blog can be used on the other social media networks. But, that’s not it … If your blog contains the ‘Top 7 Ways to …’ SHARE each of the points as a post and link back to the blog. If your blog contains easily identified sections (as in you are using header tags as discussed in a recent blog on SEO and your blog) take each of the headings and share it as a social media post.

THEN, after a month or two, cycle back through your blogs and reshare them.

Blogs in Newsletters

Have you ever sat down to write a newsletter and found that after 45 minutes you still had a white screen? Newsletters can be difficult to put together because they are a personal communication with your tribe. Rather than trying to create fresh content for your entire newsletter, use your recent blog posts to provide valuable and educational content to your recipients.

A typical newsletter could include a brief (2-3 sentence) introductory greeting from the owner followed by top articles that you’ve published since the last blog.

Publishing Blogs on External Sites

On LinkedIn Pulse (Articles) and Medium.com, you can also copy and paste the content from your blog in its entirety as a way to share the information with your networks and position yourself as an expert in the field. LinkedIn currently doesn’t allow this through apps, but Medium.com has an API that allows numerous apps to automate this process.

Rewrite Old Blogs

The last step here is to actually rewrite and update old blog posts to keep them relevant and then start the sharing-cycle all over. When you rewrite an article, you can expand on ideas or just make the article more relevant to the current industry landscape. You can also combine older, shorter blog posts to create longer ones that tend to rank higher in organic listings.

Repurposing Images

Images drive digital engagement. Don’t shy away from reusing product images, event photos, or other pictures that relate to your business. The same image can be used multiple times with different captions, text overlays, and in blogs, newsletters, and social media posts. The repetitiveness of the images, provided you aren’t posting the same image every single day, can increase your brand awareness.

Time Savers for Repurposing Content

The best time to repurpose content, believe it or not, is actually when you first click “Publish” on your blog. How so, you might ask. When you publish a blog, you already know how many subtopics or bullet points are in the post. Additionally, you’ve just created images to enter into the blog.

Using tools like Hootsuite and Buffer, you should create the various iterations of the the social media posts that link back to the blog. Schedule these to be posted at different times during the day and different days of the week. Then move forward a month or two and create copy and paste a handful of the posts to be republished. On Twitter specifically, it is absolutely okay to publish the same post multiple times. On your other networks, consider the number of followers or fans before scheduling the same post or similar posts multiple times in a row.

Reusing and repurposing content is the number one thing your business can do to ensure you have enough content to fill 365 days of the year. By following the ideas laid out above, you can ensure your brand remains on point and that you still have time to focus on the aspects of your business that require daily attention.

How else have you repurposed content for your brand?

(eCapital: 20 Small Business Facts Your Might Not Know)

May 3, 2017/1 Comment/by Caitlin McDonald

Boundless Internet Marketing Solutions, Business Advice, Business Management

Asana vs. Trello: Project Management Application Comparison

Choosing a project management tool as a small business can be quite challenging. The tool should be able to grow with you and integrate into other systems. Especially with remote team members, you need to make sure everyone is on the same page and that you have the ability to take a snapshot quickly of the progress of each project. For a long time, we used Google Spreadsheets to keep track of contractor activities, but soon found this to be too much of a nightmare as we grew. We’ve discovered Asana and Trello to be incredible resources for us and our client teams with whom we are working.

Though we all wish Salesforce was within our budget, Trello and Asana both have free platforms that you can utilize as you are just starting out. This blog compares the free versions of Asana and Trello to help make your project management app selection process easier as you are starting out with your business.

A little background on Asana

Asana is a popular task management app that strives to manage team’s internal coordination. It has a simplistic UI design with the following features:

Tasks: Tasks are the items that you need to complete or remember. They are organized into three groups: Today, Upcoming, and later. Each task can:

be assigned to one individual, but the task can be saved to multiple Projects. So, if two projects rely on the completion of a single task, you would include this on each.
have subtasks that relate to the main task
include tags for each sorting and organization
have set due dates including recurring due dates
have comments and descriptions making it easy to specifically communicate regarding one item.

Projects: Projects are made of all the tasks within one project. You can separate the tasks out into different Sections within the Project. The free version of Asana allows you to create 3 Projects. You can either view the tasks within a project as a Bullet Point checklist or using the Kanban system, which utilizes board to display the information.

Organizations or Teams: These are the divisions within Asana. An organization is everyone with a set business email address and then they can be broken out into teams. Within the free platform, you belong to one team, but can also have a personal workspace.

Drawbacks of Asana

Though Asana is a simplistic, it can be difficult to sort through which tasks are due when, specifically with recurring tasks. The future iterations of a task do not appear on your list or calendar until the current iteration is complete. Additionally, the integrations with other applications typically only works with the paid version. Lastly, sub-tasks can be difficult to work with as they can lose their connection to the parent task. For many projects, we’ve moved these subtasks to parent tasks and just named them to make it clear they belong grouped together.

A little background on Trello

Unlike Asana, Trello is a task management app that only uses the Kanban system to organize projects. It is much like using sticky notes on a white board to create a visual display of upcoming, in process, and completed tasks.

Some features of Trello:

Board: A board is a process in development or a project underway. It is made up of Lists and Cards.

List: A list is a way to divide a board into different categories. These appear as a vertical stream of cards. We typically use each list as a step in the development process including lists for work in progress, needing approval, and complete.

Cards: Cards divide a list into the specific items that need to be completed. These can be made of checklists, uploads, descriptions, notes, and comments, and can link to documents and images. For each card you can:

add members
use labels for organization
create checklists
assign due dates (not recurring)
subscribe, copy, and archive.
move the card from one list to another until it reaches completion.

Drawbacks of Trello

Though I love the simplistic feel of Trello and how easy it is to visualize your progress, it does become a little messy once you have multiple cards, lists, and boards. When multiple people are assigned to numerous cards, you may lose track of an item that is your responsibility to complete. Lastly, our team has a lot of recurring tasks, making Trello inefficient for us to use as a management system.

Final Thoughts

I personally like both Asana and Trello, however we do utilize Asana for managing our own tasks and those for our contractors. This is because you can view items as a list, as calendar due dates, and as boards. Trello really only allows you to view the items through the boards (the Kanban system). Yes it’s great that you can move items between boards easily, but at the same time having that calendar functionality to see when a project is coming up and the ability to see a chart of the progression of a task is a great asset to have for your team. Also, we utilize the recurring due date function within Asana.

Either free platform will work for a small team to manage their tasks and I highly recommend checking them both out. Be sure to let us know which you decide to use for your business!

April 30, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Tips for Creating a Successful Online Business

Here are some tips for creating a successful online business.

Bring your products to life

Clean and user-friendly design

Fast loading time

Easy payment process

The Most Common Misconception About Digital Marketing

Top Mistakes You Can Make as a New Business

Mistake #1: Striving for Perfection

Mistake #2: Thinking you can get clients just by posting things online.

Mistake #3: Not Understanding Your Own Values

No Plan B – 4 Tips to Jumping into Business Ownership

Tip 1: Plan, plan, plan

Tip 2: Surround yourself with positivity, but not naivety

Tip 3: Don’t have a Plan B

Tip 4: Have backup funds to support you as you jump in

Tip 5: Throw all this advice away (except the part about listening to your market)

Are You Unemployable?

Asana vs. Trello: Project Management Application Comparison

A little background on Asana

Drawbacks of Asana

A little background on Trello

Some features of Trello:

Drawbacks of Trello

Final Thoughts

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