Increasing Productivity on Your Website

Increasing Productivity on Your Website

If you're anything like me, you probably feel like there's never enough time in the day to accomplish everything you want to. If you have lofty revenue targets like I do (seven figures), you know that exchanging your time for cash makes it extremely difficult to get there. This second issue hit me when I saw how many doctors and lawyers were leaving their offices to start their own practices. 

When I inquired as to the cause, they stated that they only received payment when they worked and that the fact that they could only work a set number of hours each day was the primary factor limiting their earnings.

How can you simply get more done if you are not merely exchanging your time for money by working for a salary or an hourly wage?

Initially, you should check to see if you're actually focusing on the right goals. That, in most cases, implies taking some active steps toward expanding and advertising your enterprise. The rest of the work can be contracted out to specialists. You shouldn't do it yourself if you can pay someone else to do it for less money.

In my experience, one of the main reasons most internet entrepreneurs fail is that they try to take on too much on their own. It's impossible to excel at every single task or subject matter. In order to maximize the return on your most precious resource (your time), you must first determine what those things are.

It's possible that you'll need to figure out the fundamentals on your own at first. As an example, it could be helpful to learn the fundamentals of HTML or, at the very least, how to navigate a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor while creating your first website. However, studying such things may not be the best and most efficient use of your time if you can afford to employ a webmaster and programmers to accomplish everything for you.

Like many of my contemporaries, I taught myself to use DreamWeaver so that I could create my own web pages. Simply put, I didn't want to be held hostage while waiting for my webmaster to implement tweaks to my website that I knew would have a major impact on my revenue. It's not uncommon for skilled webmasters and programmers to be in high demand, keeping them quite busy.

I, too, frequently fell into the trap I now warn YOU about after I had a firm grasp of the fundamentals.I have two requests for you. Learn to say "no" and set priorities first.

It's not easy to master the art of refusal. Helping others is ingrained in our human nature. Each of us craves social acceptance. To say "no" to a plea for help is, in our opinion, a surefire way to lose friends and influence people negatively. Until you master the art of saying "no" when you're already swamped, other people will dictate your schedule and the tasks you do. You can't afford to give someone else that much power over your time, money, and existence. Therefore, it is essential to learn how to effectively say "no" on occasion. The nice way to put it is:

Mastering the ability to prioritize is the second crucial skill. If you don't force yourself to do the things that will actually help you in the long run, you'll waste your time doing the things that are more pleasurable in the short term.

There are several methods for setting priorities; pick the one that makes the most sense to you. The best way for me to get everything done is to write out everything that needs to be done and then tackle the most critical tasks first. Firmness and candor are required for this. Prioritizing what needs to be done first ensures that only the least essential tasks will be left undone.

You should try to strike a balance while setting priorities. Health and family ties are two areas where you generally don't want to make concessions. Put those before business matters.

Offering to do too much for others is a mistake that many entrepreneurs, including myself, fall into. Someone on the phone or in an online forum post requests your assistance with a task that seems elementary to you. No matter how many times you try to explain it to them, they still don't seem to "get it." You decide to volunteer to help them out. All of a sudden, you're spending your time doing the things you pay others to do so you can devote yourself to more productive endeavors.

How I escaped the entanglement I just described... Many of my customers had prerequisites that had to be met before we could go on to bigger and better things. A basic understanding of file transfer protocol (FTP), HTML, and CSS, as well as the ability to make simple adjustments to a website and swap out images, were all necessities. I used to volunteer to take care of these small tasks because I thought it would save time, but then I realized how quickly they might snowball into large undertakings. What I did was either search for or make video guides that showed you step-by-step how to complete these mundane but necessary chores. I figured it was more efficient to complete the work once and then document the process so that I could refer back to it later if necessary.

My website's "How" section can be found at http://WillieCrawford.com/. These are embedded links to some of the Camtasia-created videos I mentioned. These are instructional flash videos on: Just cut and paste. Send a file through the File Transfer Protocol. Modify website content as needed.

These are just a small sample of the many that I have; I'm just showing them to you so that the point may be made. A system like this, if properly implemented, could save a lot of time.

In a similar vein, if you're getting the same questions over and over again, you might want to include a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section on your website. Thousands of messages and calls can be avoided as a result of this. Simply highlight the link to it on your main page.

Create email templates in your inbox software to save time while responding to the same inquiries or requests. Then, to swiftly reply through email, you only need to bring up the template and alter the name. Programs that read an email, check for keywords, and then respond mechanically based on the message's content are another option. 

As that is beyond the scope of this piece, I will not elaborate.

If you discover that you are repeatedly discussing the same issue with your clients, you may want to consider posting an MP3 teleclass recording online in addition to the Camtasia videos. You may also set up a phone line and provide your customers with the number to dial in order to hear the recorded messages, directions, or other information. This is a common practice for many companies in the sales industry, who use it for weekly training meetings and similar purposes.

Many other common-sense strategies exist for increasing productivity. There

 are a few that I use frequently; here are a handful of examples: Just putting in more efficient hours; for example, I rarely visit the post office. My employees and I have made arrangements for the mail containers to be left on the counter as we come up. 

We just ask the counter attendant for more "buckets" to hold our mail, and then we either buy stamps in bulk or use the Internet to do so. When we really need to speak with a postal worker, we avoid the lunch rush by going to the post office when it's least crowded. Don't let yourself get distracted by things like chitchat on online forums. 

These are wonderful venues to meet new people, generate ideas, and do research; just be sure you aren't using them as an excuse to put off starting a pressing task. Figure out when you're at your peak productivity, and use that time to tackle your most difficult tasks. Schedule your email and phone responses during times when you are likely to be least productive (based on your own biological rhythms). 

Can you please stop putting things off? If we put off starting a project until we feel we can finish it, we are likely putting it off because it appears too daunting. Just chunk it up into manageable chunks, and it won't seem as daunting. Then pick one of the actions and carry it out. Cross that item off the list to remind yourself that you're making headway. 

Use tools like autoresponders and dynamic online forms to speed up the delivery of frequently requested paperwork. The content of your webpages can even be automatically updated or modified with the help of software. "Traffic on Steroids" is a program of this type that I use and enjoy. Visit http://WillieCrawford.com/traffic-on-steroids.html to learn more.

Some other techniques to increase your productivity include the following: It's simply a matter of deciding what's most important and acting accordingly. If you implement even a handful of these strategies, you'll be astonished at how much more you can accomplish. There's no way to achieve success without trying at least some of these methods, because otherwise you'll never get anything done.

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