When I ask new entrepreneurs about their target market, I’m no longer surprised when I hear their answer. Far too often, it’s “everyone! Our product/service is needed by everyone. That’s why this business is such a sure thing!”

I can understand why their enthusiasm gets the better of their business sense. For plenty of businesses, the product or service can seem (at first) like everyone would want it. Restaurants are a classic example of this – everyone needs to eat, so how can a restaurant go wrong?

Of course, restaurants have some of the highest failure rates of any new venture. Everyone does need to eat, but getting the right combination of tasty food, great service, location, price, décor and a hundred other considerations just right is not an easy task. Most importantly, restaurants seem to do well when they target people with specific tastes. When was the last time you heard someone say “let’s go to that Chinese-Italian-Irish pub restaurant down the street! I hear it’s got something for everyone!”

In my own business, I learned early on to target specific markets. Of course, everyone needs systems to organize their lives, boost productivity and get better work-life balance. But who’s going to hire me to teach them how to achieve these things?

After doing my research, I recognized that some of my biggest customers would be people who were moving or downsizing their homes, as well as offices that needed to reduce clutter and improve productivity of their employees. Also, successful professionals who were being held back in some ways by bad habits and procrastination could also use my services.

After catering to these target markets, I also adjusted my services to that target market to offer both organization consulting and speaking engagements for companies and organizations that perhaps wanted a one-day workshop or training session. This has led to success and many happy clients.

Whether you’re hunting in the forest or running a business, you have to know where to direct your limited ammunition. Understand your target market before you start your business and keep re-evaluating to ensure you’re not missing opportunities in other markets.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

This month’s She-Team theme has been about channeling your passion for business. But this theme is also connected with other topics we’ve covered in past months. I mean, passion is so important to running a business that you can’t avoid talking about it!

Looking back over She-Team articles from the past year, I’ve picked out some of my favorites that tie into this theme:

Shake It or Go Down. Fiona Walsh looks at channeling your negative passion (ie. Frustration) into a positive business outcome.

Find Your Inspiration. Liz Gaige stresses the importance of loving what you do.

I’m Feeling a Pitter Patter in My Heart. Chris Flett talks about falling back in love with doing business development.

Scheduled Profitability. A few of my own suggestions for scheduling your business tasks to handle them while you’ve still got the energy.

Which posts were your favorite ones about channeling your passion for business (from this month or before)? Leave a comment and let us know.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

I’ve often talked about the importance of outsourcing tasks that you can’t do on your own to make sure you have time to focus on what you love about your business. But how do you do that? Many business owners have only a basic understanding of best practices when it comes to hiring good people.

A little while back, I got some great tips in this area from Vertical Bridge Corporate Consulting managing partner Sandra Reder. She had these ideas for how to conduct an effective hiring process:

1. Placing the advertisement on various job boards, website and possibly in print media

2. Receiving resumes (these days it can be anywhere from 75 to 150 resumes for one position)

3. Screening resumes to the job description and short-listing the suitable candidates

 4. Pre-qualifying calls to the short-listed candidates to see how they communicate, as well as to confirm some basic details about them

5. Possibly doing a more in-depth pre-screen on the phone to find out more about their past work experience before bringing them in for face-to-face interviews

My good friends at Clear HR Consulting also had some good advice about hiring, particularly in developing job descriptions and matching qualifications to your requirements, in one of their recent newsletters. I really liked this bit:

 Be specific about the qualifications, skills and experience required.

 * Consider requirements for education, work experience, technical skills and soft skills.

* Be specific about what qualifications the successful candidate must have. One of the biggest job description mistakes is listing vague & non-specific qualifications.

* Specify to what degree the candidate needs to possess the skills you require. For instance, if you need someone who needs to be able to do heavy lifting, specify the weight they need to be able to comfortably lift.

 * Include the level of education that needs to have been attained (e.g. grade 12, undergraduate degree in Science, P. Eng).

 * For “soft” skills that you require (e.g. organizational skills, communication skills), specify how strong their skills need to be or what they need to apply their skills towards. For example, “Good communication skills” can be improved by saying “Proven communication skills resolving customer complaints”.

 Remember, channeling your passion for business isn’t just about focusing your own activities. Hiring right and delegating will let you out-task certain responsibilities while you can concentrate on your own area of interest.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Referral networks are nothing new. They’ve probably been around since the first woolly mammoth hunter referred his wood-cutter friend to the guy who made fire. But how do we maximize these relationships to build business?

In my own business, I’ve put in a lot of effort to ensure that I am the one-stop shop, more dependable than the Yellow Pages, whenever someone needs something. Even if the person looking for the service needs something that is way out of the scope of what I do, this point of contact brings us closer for the day when they do need my professional organizing services. Being the center of a referral network has allowed me to help friends and colleagues build their businesses, but I also reap rewards (not just good karma) down the line.

But we could all pay a bit more attention to our referral partners and most of us would also benefit from tracking the results of those relationships a bit better.

First of all, when it comes to taking care of your referral partners, let’s be clear about what your partner wants from you. Sure, they’ll appreciate it when you take them out for lunch or send them a holiday card. But if you want to deliver true reciprocity and a reason for them to keep sending you business, think about how you might be able to send business their way.

This doesn’t mean going out of your way to send them business, even if you think it might not be a good fit for the referral – but do keep an ear out for genuine opportunities. And if something is a near-fit for what you think your colleague might provide, it doesn’t hurt to call up your friend and confirm whether they actually could go beyond the scope of what you understood they could do. For instance, if someone asks you to refer a good business coach and you think your referral partner only advises non-profits, it doesn’t hurt to call them and check if they can in fact do that work.

So, taking care of your referral partners is important. But it’s also important to track the benefits of your referral networks. Put together a spreadsheet showing the amount of effort (entertainment, phone calls, correspondence, etc) you’ve put into building the relationship and the amount of referrals you’ve seen as a result. Using those metrics, you’ll be able to focus on maintaining those relationships that provide the most benefit while also understanding better what kinds of efforts may work better to stimulate your other referral partners.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

So you’ve got an email marketing list 10,000 names long. But you’re still consistently getting less than a one per cent response rate, which is way down from what you’ve gotten in the past. Not to mention, you’ve started getting complaints from recipients that they kept getting your newsletter even after they formally requested not to, because duplicate emails had somehow crept into the mix.

Sometimes, it’s the message you’re writing that just isn’t connecting with your audience. But other times, the problem is that you haven’t taken the time to manage your relationships in their most basic level: your email lists, a critical piece of your marketing efforts. If your email blasts are resulting in a lot of bounce-backs, or what’s just as bad, no response at all, it’s time to revisit your list management.

How do you clear up your list? With paid list server services, management can be easy once you get a quick tutorial on the tools. You may be able to set up rules to automate many functions.  For free email marketing services or basic software that comes with your computer, you may need to do this work manually, one by one. It can be tedious, but it’s necessary (this may be where out-tasking comes in). Use card-scanners and other tech tools to expedite the process whenever possible.

You should be going through these lists at least twice a year. That means updating their contact information (including their information for other networks). Confirm if people have changed positions, since you want to be talking to the decision-makers for your field. An accurate but shorter contact list is generally more effective than a longer one filled with junk leads.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

A lot of the web tools we use for marketing purposes or just for fun can also be used to help us collaborate better in our work.

For instance, if you’ve ever tried drafting a document with two or more people, you’ll understand the frustrations of using email to send drafts back and forth. Is this the latest draft? Who made these changes? How do I get rid of all of this markup?

One alternative is Google Docs, which allows all invited users access to the same document, which they can look at and edit all at the same time.

Cell phones are also rapidly becoming mobile computing devices with tons of capabilities. If you’ve got an iPhone or a device with recording capabilities, consider recording a voice memo and sending the recording off to your teammates with just two more clicks.

Apps like Tweetdeck can also act as mobile group messaging devices on the fly. Take five minutes to create Twitter accounts (if you don’t already have them), create a work group on Tweetdeck and download the application to your phone. Now you’ve got a quick messaging platform that can also be used to share links and pictures.

With more teams working remotely than ever before, technology is awfully useful for helping people collaborate in new and practical ways. Experiment a little and you’ll find even more tools and tricks to keep your group in sync.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

We don’t always appreciate what we have, whether at home or at work. That angst that fights against complacency is actually a good thing – the sense that the grass is always greener on the other side is what makes us jump into new opportunities. That said, making a team work together with real synergy is not an everyday feat. Learn to spot the successes in your collaborations, so you can replicate that synergy elsewhere.

Does your team actually seem to enjoy working with each other? Happy people are productive people. If you find yourself actually looking forward to seeing the people at your office every day – well, that’s no small thing.

Then there’s the skill set. With an optimal balance where everyone is assigned tasks and workload according to their talents rather than which person has the smallest stack of projects on their desk, you’ll get real productivity.

Next, look at how your group talks to each other. If discussions are fluid, with plenty of back and forth, engaging ideas, and everybody listening to what other team members are saying, you’ve got something special. Far too many groups are dominated by someone with a forceful personality rather than expertise in all areas that the team has to work in. Freedom of speech and thought are not just good for civil society – they make businesses work better.

If you do recognize your team is functioning very well, analyze what it is about this group that works well. Often, it is based on good habits rather than some innate ability to work well with others. Try to transfer these habits to your other collaborative activities and watch your successes add up.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

In many small businesses, the two top employees aren’t just collaborating closely at work –  they’re husband and wife. How can you work together while maintaining a work-life balance?

First of all, you need to set firm boundaries for work and your life outside of your work. The dinner table and the bedroom are business-free zones. If you’re in a home office, papers, files, supplies and hardware all stay in there.

Dividing up responsibilities according to your real strengths is also key. If both partners have similar skill sets, it’s important to ensure they both have a share of the interesting work that will keep them motivated. It’s often easier if they have complementary skill sets (say, one handling logistics while another takes on creative tasks). Workload should be split fairly, which doesn’t always mean equally.

Communication is always important. You want to nip problems that can lead to workplace stress and resentment in the bud, because any lingering stress realistically will impact your relationship. Recognize that stressful situations will happen, but aim to mitigate these issues. Be honest with your partner and make sure that any possible miscommunications are clarified before the end of the workday.

Keep that balance in your work and life and you can have it all.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Are you making collaboration happen for your company, or are you hindering it? Fostering collaboration requires a bit of forward thinking and organization to make it seamless. A few things you can do:

1. Synchronize your calendars. A lot of office software allows you to view your colleagues’ calendars from your desktop. If you don’t have that option, wall calendars and bulletin boards can work well even for a big office. Flag special events and opportunities for your colleagues to work together.

2. Schedule regular meetings to get updates on progress, brainstorm and work together on specific projects.

3. Encourage water-cooler chats. A simple coffee and water station can be a focal point for some informal chats and collaborative efforts.

4. Collect emails and send out a daily or weekly memo with a quick update from everyone about what they’re up to. This simple habit will help everyone keep up to date.

5. Get to know each other outside of a work setting. Whether this means organizing a company softball team, grabbing a slice of pizza at the corner or a round of mini-golf, seeing each other in a less formal setting can help reinforce relationships and even inspire some out-of-the box thinking that will help when you get back to the office.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Productivity and disorganization don’t mix. I’ve been recommending and training clients on the GO System to help their operations remain organized and competitive. In tough times, telling your employees to just “work harder” isn’t an inspiring message – but providing them with simple, specific recommendations to decrease workplace stress and frustration will pay dividends.

Employees already come with project management skills and some effective organization and time-management habits (otherwise, why did you hire them?). But that doesn’t necessarily provide cohesive organization across a company. Without training in procedures, two employees working right next to each other in the same room, even doing similar kinds of work, may organize files, projects and effort in very different ways, making collaboration challenging.

Throughout your organization, all members of your team stand to benefit from standardized processes that can be adapted to your particular organization. You’ll want to focus on things like processing incoming items, prioritizing, rational time management, understanding personality and psychological issues and more. The GO System is particularly good at covering off these points.

For more information, check out the GO System at www.thegosystem.com/ or get help from a professional organizer.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca