Guest post by Kyla Reed
The Real Reason You Aren’t Making Money
If you run your own business or are a freelancer, you probably know how hard it is to balance administrative work with maintaining clients and landing new ones.
From hiring and outsourcing, updating your website and sorting out a schedule to answering the never-ending flow of emails into your inbox, you may feel like you’re getting overwhelmed.
Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.
In all of the administrative hard work it takes to make your business run, sales can unintentionally slip to the wayside. Marketing becomes a chore, client contact moves further down your list of to-do’s, and you find that you’re simply maintaining your business, not building it.
So how do you fix it?
Sales.
It’s that simple. Seems obvious enough.
However, in the day-to-day, sales can get pushed aside to make room for administrative tasks. And of course, these tasks are important. They make your business run smoothly. They build a solid foundation. But if you’re not bringing in sales for your business, you’ve built a strong foundation that serves no purpose.
The key is finding balance. You must learn to structure your schedule and allocate proportionate amounts of time to what makes your business grow, not just survive. You’ve probably experienced this first hand. You begin focusing on social media growth or website design and sales get shoved to the side. Business is pretty straight forward. You get out of it what you put into it. If you spend more time focusing on sales, profitability increases. When you focus on something else, profitability slips.
Take a second to evaluate how you’re spending your time.
Are you implementing a mundane and monotonous social media or content marketing strategy just to check it off the list? The content that you publish speaks volumes about your company to potential clients. Clear, concise, and audience-appropriate content works more in your favor than simply spitting out a designated number of social media or blog posts per week. Are you leaving room for relevant and up-to-date communication and information? Your time as a business owner is precious and limited. Be creative and intentional with it in all areas, including content marketing.
Are you endlessly crunching numbers and hours to ensure your projects are profitable? Scoping your projects on the front end saves you time, money, and a whole lot of stress. Managing client expectations can be challenging, but with great scoping tools like BrainLeaf’s, expectations are set out before your project even starts. And remember, if a client wants additional services, scope it out! Doing it correctly at the forefront saves time and ultimately gives you better (and more!) sales.
Are you drowning in lack of resources, poor time management, or administrative tasks? Whether you have more projects than you can handle or you’re looking to bring on some help, don’t underestimate the power (and convenience) of outsourcing. Companies like CodeWright provide collaborative support through team provision and project managing that help you get a handle on your business. You can even delegate tasks to a virtual assistant. And don’t forget, there’s a slew of project management tools out there to help you out. Here are a few of my favorites:
So how do you increase sales?
Ahh, THE number one question in business. Don’t worry, I won’t to leave you hanging. I’ll be answering this question in our next post, so stay tuned!
In the meantime, to learn how to get more out of your clients, check out this read from Mike McDerment, co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks.
Kyla is a writer and blogger who comes from a B2C background in the fashion industry. She is a Content Writer and Blog Manager at DO | Creative Content Marketing based in Atlanta, Georgia and is experienced in sales, direct marketing, and management.
