5 Tools Your Online Business Needs for a Super-Productive 2017

You already know that running a business is hard work. The late hours, the managing of customers and employees, the brainstorming sessions for lead generation and handling cash flow: These are the reasons many businesses fail before they barely even start. And even some that escape the slammer would be better off dead. All these factors comprise the tale of business owners around the globe.

However, one of the defining attributes of a successful entrepreneur is the art of being relentless. If your own business did not do as well as you projected in 2016, then you should turn the page on that chapter and look forward to 2017 with fresh gusto and determination.

Thankfully, the year has only begun. So, now is the best time to evaluate what is working or not and invest more in the elements that do work. Technology, of course, looms large here: Owing to the new wave of stay-at-home jobs and the growing acceptance of remote teams by many businesses, the use of technology in running today’s businesses is at an all-time high.

Included in that technology are the apps available for just about every aspect of running a business. What comes to mind here are apps like Dropbox for file-hosting, iMessage for fast communication, Google Wallet for mobile payments, and many more apps, all of which have contributed toward making entrepreneurship easier and more effective for more and more people.
If, in 2017, one of your goals is effective business management and optimal productivity, then the apps below are non-negotiable.

1. Wunderlist

Have you ever been so overwhelmed with work that you begin to lose track of your priorities and can't recall what tasks you have or haven't completed? Wunderlist is one of the best task-management tools you will come across when you're looking for a solution.

With Wunderlist, you can create an unlimited number of to-do lists and share them with anybody: clients, staff, investors, partners, etc. These lists can also sync automatically so that everyone you shared the list with can see in real time which tasks are complete, and who's accountable.

For strictly business purposes, you can delegate tasks and divide them into mini-tasks; you can also assign durations for these tasks, add notes and set reminders. While the basic Wunderlist is free, Wunderlist for Business starts at $4.99 per user, per month.

2. Templafy

The Templafy app was developed to help work teams create professional files without having to leave their office application. It will help you improve the workflow of your busy team. Using the Templafy app, for instance, will help you access your company content anytime, whether you are in the office or at home.

Considering that as many as two billion business documents are created daily worldwide, this solution is rather timely. Moreover, the app is fully integrated with all your office platforms, too. The Essential package goes for $3.76 user/month, while the whole setup goes for just under $375.

3. Square

This app is the best for businesses that offer point-of-sale products or services. Such businesses include food trucks, beauty salons, grocery stores, etc. Users are provided with a small card reader to plug into their smartphones. This enables them to swipe their cards and process payments quickly and conveniently.

You won't lose money investing in Square, either, because the app isn't characterized by heavy monthly payments as are many other online payment systems. Instead, you're billed only a tiny percentage of your profit whenever you make a sale. Square deducts 2.75 percent for every transaction, or 3.5 percent plus 15 cents for transactions entered manually.

4. QuickBooks

This is arguably the world’s largest accounting software. QuickBooks gives you a full accounting experience. Its offerings range from tracking sales and expenses and dealing with financial statements to doing your taxes, handling payment of staff and vendors, and much more.

You can access this software on the go on your smartphone or tablet; and connect it to your bank account, PayPal and Square, or credit cards. You can also upload data from these sources without hassle. Pricing ranges from $10 to $24 for the first six months and $13 to $40 per month after that. Quickbooks also comes with a free 30-day trial period.

5. Nimble

As a customer-relationship management tool, Nimble is a solid bet. CRMs are supposed to help you keep track of all customer-related events in your business, and Nimble does a really good job of this, especially if your business has a huge online presence -- as every business should.

Nimble can automatically update your contacts’ information from their social media profiles. It also offers robust reporting and analytics and third-party app syncing, among many other features. Nimble further works on all platforms; pricing starts at $25 per license, with a 14-day free trial period.

3 Essentials for Spontaneously Mentoring Your Star Employees

Many of the most significant and memorable conversations of my professional career were impromptu. I don't look back with any high degree of fondness for the formal performance reviews my working life. The talk over a beer about my career with a mentor -- or even the complete unscheduled dialogue with an executive I looked up to -- are the moments I remember years later. These conversations helped support confidence in myself and reassured me that I was headed in the right direction. These "napkin" talks where my future was discussed were sketched on a scratch sheet of paper or literally a napkin in some cases, not a power point presentation. The casual nature of the exchange made both more natural and sincere. They were having the talk with me because they cared and saw potential in me, versus the discussion being mandated by management to include in a performance review.

Part of the enormous value of the napkin talk isn't that you are necessarily going to paint a crystal-clear picture of your employee's future; the point is you are expressing to your employee that you want them there, you see them in your company future and, most significantly, you care. You aren't required to have this talk; you want to have this talk because you're invested in your employee's success.

1. Paint a long-range picture.

Your parents or grandparents worked in vastly different times than we live in today. Perhaps they started their careers in their twenties with a big corporation, and four decades or so later, they retired from the same company. They probably worked their way up the rungs of the ladder, one at a time. Today, the path up the ladder is significantly more unpredictable and complex. Because of this, the importance of a great napkin talk conversation is more powerful than ever.
The best napkin talks visualising with your employee what their long-range professional future may look like. This exercise can be powerful in a mature company, but even more important if you are currently a smaller company or a start-up. If you have a high-potential employee, chances are good they think about their future and career frequently. Instead of letting them just speculate on their own, the napkin talk allows you to help shape their vision. It also helps crystallise in their mind that they indeed have a future with your company. This conversation shows that they're in your plan and that you can see them not only long-range with your organisation, but also advancing and playing a significant role.

2. This is what could happen but no guarantees.

If there is any danger in having a napkin talk, it's that your employee will take the conversation literally. Obviously, there are a lot of factors that can interrupt their path -- most notably their own performance and effort. This challenge, however, is easily mitigated by putting a disclaimer on the conversation. Make sure you preface anything can happen. There will undoubtedly be unforeseen factors and nothing is written in stone. Part of the napkin talk's power is that it is indeed informal, which complements the "asterisk" you attach about anything being possible.

3. Tell them they ultimately determine their own path.

The best leaders believe they influence their career trajectory more than external factors. That's not to say they place no value in other factors. But at the end of the day, they take responsibility for where they end up. This is of particular importance because you want to encourage accountability and a relationship between effort and reward.
Right now, your best people are visualising their future with, or after, your company. The napkin talk is a conversation better had sooner than later. It gives the up-and-coming stars of your organisation useful insight to consider when they are day-dreaming about their career. It allows you to help shape their expectations. Most importantly, it shows them you care. It's a talk they will likely remember years later.

How to Work Like You Are Running Out of Time

Time ticks away relentlessly, no matter what you do. The only thing you control is what you do between the ticks on the clock. You are what you have to manage.
Here are five things you can do now to be super-productive.

Plan Your Weeks and Your Days

If you don’t know what you need to do, you can fall into reactive mode, doing little things that don’t move the needle for you. If you show up to work without knowing what you need to do, even if work is your home office, hours can go by without you doing anything meaningful. This is why so many get so little done.

By planning your weeks and your days, you know what you need to do, and you can start on it right away. Without having to make a list, and without having to clean your desk first. Having a plan as to what work you are going to do eliminates the wasted time deciding what to do, and it reduces the likelihood that you are distracted by small things.

Prioritise Your Three Most Important Projects

If everything is a priority, you have no priority. Priority is singular. If you have two, you have competing priorities. What is the most important priority for you now?

Your number one priority should dominate your calendar. Your calendar is evidence as to what your priorities are, and if your priority doesn’t have large blocks of time dedicated to that priority, you will never be productive. You’ll just be busy.

It isn’t likely that too many of us are fortunate enough to work on only one priority. So let’s make it three. What are your second and third most important outcomes, initiatives, or projects? This is where your time and energy should be invested, and in the order of importance.

Choose Three Tasks Each Day and Block Time

In my experience, I can get three major tasks done each day. That means blocking 90 minutes per task for my three major tasks. That’s four and half hours of time, not much of your twenty-four hours, but more than most people dedicate to their primary outcomes in a week.

Choose the most important task that will move your most important priority forward and block time to do this first. Block time for your second most important task and do that task only after you have completed the most important task. Then, block time for the third.

Productivity isn’t how much work you do, or how busy you are. It’s a measurement of your results. By doing what is most important, you are going to be super productive.

Negotiate for Time with No Distractions

What can make this difficult is all the people and things that can distract you from your real work. You may need to negotiate with the people at work for time that you can work without distractions. You may also have to negotiate with your family. You will almost certainly have to negotiate with yourself.

The time you spend working without distraction is worth ten times the time you spend distracted. As I am writing these words, by phone is far enough away from me that I can’t reach it. I saw the screen light up when a text message came in. It will be there when I finish my work. The only software program open on my computer is Ulysses, the text editor I use for all my writing. Nothing else will command my attention before I finish writing this and reviewing the editor’s notes on my second book, The Lost Art of Closing.

Focus and energy are what allows you to do quality work.

Wake Up Early

A half a dozen of my friends are now waking up at 5:00 AM. At first, they were unhappy with me for sharing this recommendation with them. It’s easy to be grouchy when you haven’t had enough sleep. But, they are adjusting, and they are more productive. I have moved my wake-up time to 4:30 AM from 5:00 AM, which wasn’t that difficult of an adjustment.

Your first two hours can win the whole day. You can get so much done in the first two hours of the day that it is almost impossible not to be super productive. It’s quiet. There are no distractions. For me, my brain is much fresher, especially for work that requires me to think.

If you haven’t tried waking up early, you are missing out on one of the keys to getting more done. Yes, you will feel tired for a few days or weeks. Yes, you will go to bed earlier (like 9:30 PM, in my case). And yes, you will get more done faster.

Time is your single, finite, non-renewable resource. Anything so precious should be treated with the greatest care. That means you should invest it in what’s most important and not fritter it away.
What deserves your time and attention?

13 Words You Should Never Use In Sales Email Subject Lines

If eyes are the gateway to the soul, a subject line is the gateway to an email. Everything a prospect needs to know about an email is in the six to eight words they see in their inbox: Do you seem human? Do you have interesting insights to share? Does it seem like you could potentially help?Prospects will make assumptions about the answers to those questions the moment they read a subject line. if you choose your words wrong, your emails will never get opened. It doesn’t matter how good your insights are or how cute the GIF you included is -- if your subject line sucks, you might as well have sent a blank email.


When you only have six or eight words to capture a prospect’s attention, every single one has to count. It’s bad enough when the words you choose aren’t compelling or interesting. It’s even worse when your subject line uses a word or phrase that sets off subconscious alarm bells. Avoid the 13 words below unless you want your prospects to send your messages straight to the trash.

1) "15 minutes"

Judging by all the cold emails in my inbox asking for 15 minutes, salespeople think this is a great inclusion. But asking for your prospect’s time before you’ve even introduced yourself is a rookie move, and buyers won’t respond well to being asked for a meeting with no established value.

2) Your company name

How do you know your buyer’s even heard of you? Putting your company name in a subject line is a waste of space and also reinforces that this is a sales email. Put the customer first.

The one exception here? When you’re following up with an inbound lead who’s just converted and has your brand top-of-mind.

3) "Hi, <Prospect name>"

This phrase may have been novel in 2000, but it’s 2017 and things have changed. Customised outreach no longer means dropping in personalisation tokens and copying a generic subject line. If you want to personalise, tweak language according to your buyer’s industry or role.

4) "Quick call?"

This follows the same principle as #1. Here’s what a buyer sees when they see this subject line: A salesperson who they’ve never met or heard of asking for a meeting. There’s no faster way to establish yourself as just another pushy salesperson.

5) Anything misspelled

Making typos is a rookie mistake that makes you appear unprofessional and unorganised. Buyers have hundreds of emails and other priorities pulling at their attention. You’d better believe they’re not going to spend time reading an email from an unknown source with misspellings in it.

6) "Re:"

This is another trick that’s come into vogue lately. The thinking seems to be that writing "Re:" in the subject line of a first-touch email will fool buyers into thinking they have corresponded before. Even when this tactic worked, the subsequent realisation that this was a first-touch sales email creates bad feelings between buyers and salespeople. And by now, this technique is so ubiquitous that buyers see through it immediately.

7) Branded terms

Like your company name, a branded term is a waste of space and relies on the assumption that the buyer already knows you. Use the buyer’s language for the best shot at connecting with them.

8) "Connecting"

… But don’t say "connecting," because it is -- and sounds like -- jargon. Instead, get right to the point -- why are you connecting?

9) "Outreach"

Another jargony word, "outreach" automatically brings to mind the days of direct mail, cold calls both physical and over the phone, and that’s just about the last thing you want prospects to be thinking about when you are reaching out to sell something.

10) "Touch base"

Like "connecting" and "outreach," touching base is a mostly meaningless phrase that doesn’t hook the prospect’s curiosity in any way.

11) "Services"

You might offer unique and valuable services, but including the actual word transactionalises your role immediately as merely a provider. Position yourself as a consultant instead.

12) "Great deal"

Unless you’ve been regularly speaking with a prospect and have an end-of-month pricing package to offer them, avoid this phrase. It puts price top-of-mind before any real conversation has happened, and makes you sound like a storefront holding an "everything must go!" sale.

13) "[FIRSTNAME]"

Remember when I said personalisation tokens aren’t enough? They’re not, but what’s even worse is using them wrong. Misspelling a token or pulling in the wrong field not only makes the message seem less human, it also makes you look sloppy.