How To Ditch Distractions And Stay Focused When Working Online

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While the Internet is one of the most powerful tools to facilitate communication, distribute information, and most importantly, enable work, it’s also chock full of sports scores, viral videos, tweets and wall posts, email chain-letters, and a ton of other distractions that can negatively affect your productivity and work output. (Trust me, I know.)

Here are a few tips you can follow to help better manage your work time to stay productive while also keeping yourself happy.

1. Set The Time: Bucketing your time into various categories can really help you stay focused and become more efficient with your day. Typically, I set my work into three different groups.

First, there’s standard “work” time. While working on my general projects, I'm also available to be contacted through standard email (Outlook or your software or web client of choice), instant messenger, Skype, the Elance Workroom, work-related social media, telephone, web cam etc. This is when you get your primary communication done before getting started on your main projects.

Second, there’s “solo” time. This is where I close Outlook, close all Internet browsing windows, set my IM status to "busy", and get down to business. Some others suggest completely unplugging to get away from Internet distractions (oh YouTube, you always come calling), but I stay connected just in case there is any online reference material I need access to or if there is some emergency contact that needs to be made regarding a project. Use the combination that fits your work life best, but remember to make sure you designate some time alone to get to work.

And lastly, there’s “break” time. While some may disagree, I find that designating small, succinct time periods where you can simply take a load off, read the news, stretch, catch up on blogs, or have a little bit of time to indulge yourself can really help you decompress during the day, especially after a long period of hard work. Some studies, like one from Northwestern University in Illinois, indicate that short breaks at work can actually help you solve complex problems. However, you probably should exhibit a strong level of self control – I know how easy it is to get lost for hours in the hundreds of thousands of items available on Amazon.

2. Control Your Notifications: Notifications, like the ones you see conveniently pop up in Outlook, Yahoo! IM, AOL Instant Messenger, RSS readers, and more are great for keeping you up to date with the latest news and commentary, but they somehow manage to come at the perfect time to derail your productive streak.

If you absolutely need to keep some sort of notifications system, try configuring your notifications to only play a sound rather than a sound and visual cue. According to a study at the University of Cardiff, a visual alert, like a pop up notification or flashing taskbar notification, caused a longer distraction period when compared to just an audio cue due to a shift in visual focus on the screen. Another benefit to using audio cues is that you can quickly and easily turn them on and off by utilizing your standard volume controls without fiddling with any computer settings.

3. Try Batch Processing: By definition, “Batch Processing” is the execution of a series of programs ("jobs") on a computer without manual intervention. Try applying some of the same ideology to your work. For example, with email, try setting a specific time period where you read and respond to all messages in a batch process. Some recommend doing this two times a day, for example once in the morning and once mid afternoon, but find a schedule that makes most sense for you.

Batch processing can be applied to a number of things, for example responding to Twitter and Facebook messages, IMing (they can wait a few minutes), RSS readers, and even your daily tasks. You’d be surprised at how you can really improve your productivity by organizing your tasks and plowing through them in an orderly fashion.

4. Set Rules: Many of you freelancers, consultants, and Internet entrepreneurs work from home or other places with physical, real-world distractions. Setting up a clear set of rules and following them consistently with roommates, friends, and children is especially critical for maintaining a healthy, productive work environment. 

The Best Small Business Resources Online

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Small businesses play a huge economic role in almost every industrial nation worldwide and not suprisingly are also a huge part of the New Way To Work on Elance. But regardless of the location, type of business, or market, many small businesses have commonalities and also share growing pains with others. Here is a quick roundup of small business websites, resources, and communities that you as a small business owner or entrepreneur can use as an asset for your success. (Although many of these sites focus primarily on U.S. targets, many of the tips and strategies can be applied to businesses worldwide.)

Inc.com – The online counterpart to Inc. Magazine hosts an excellent resource center for small business owners in its “How to Start a Small Business” Start-up Guide. The site covers everything from writing a business plan, conducting initial market research, how to get low-cost marketing for your start-up, raising capital, how to pitch your business to investors, and more. Also, since tax time is just around the corner, be sure to also check out their Tax Strategies section to find guides on structuring your business with tax cuts in mind, planning your taxes for tough times, and the lowdown on small-business tax deductions. (And they have a great blog, too.)

CNNMoney.com – CNNMoney, a partnership by CNN, Fortune Magaine, and Money, is one of the big players in the space of online business and finance publications. There are a ton of standard resources, like strategy articles, small business news, and a “How We Got Started” section showcasing small business success stories, but the section I found to be most compelling was the Questions & Answers. Here, you can view the question and answer of the day, search through the database of previously answered questions by CNNMoney staff, or shoot them your very own question to be answered by an expert.

Small Business Administration – Sponsored by the United States government, the Small Business Administration offers a wide variety of tools and information resources to aid the growth of your small business. If you’re looking for location-tailored information, the SBA offers regional, city-based offices and information to aid you. If you’re unable to take advantage of local resources, there are also many online components, like theSmall Business Training Network, that provides a wealth of information in the forms of online courses, research tools, podcasts, and more.

Duct Tape Marketing – Marketing is one of the core pillars of any business regardless of the size or business model it’s running. However, the mindset carried by many small business owners and entrepreneurs is that money is tight and marketing functions are almost always cost-prohibitive. Founded by John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing offers strategies to help run a variety of different low-cost, effective marketing campaigns.

BusinessWeek – As another popular online and print publication with clout,BusinessWeek’s Small Businesshub offers a nice series of informative articles written by Karen Klein, a Los Angeles-based writer that covers entrepreneurship and small-business needs, and Scott Shane, the Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve. Another area of the site I particularly like is the “Today’s Tip” blog, which offers a small-business tip on a daily basis.

All Business – If you’re just looking for a steady stream of business-related content, the All Business blogoffers a simple, straightforward site with a copious number of articles written by a wide range of business authors. The site updates with anywhere from five to 10 blog posts per day covering topics from business planning, out-of-home businesses, marketing, tech, retail, and more. Although the design may not have the aesthetics of some of the other sites, there’s more than enough content for you to keep your business mind occupied.

6 Tips To Improve Your Writing Skills

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The need for killer content for businesses and entrepreneurs continues to grow at an amazing pace. Whether it’s a blog post, product description, marketing collateral, or newsletter, the growth indemand for strong, high-quality content is clearly apparent as writing-related skills on the Elance Work Index continue to rise. And if that wasn’t enough to convince you, think about all of the other benefits that online content brings to your site, like search engine optimization, online community building, and more. (Check out a more in-depth look at why you need content here.)

However, there’s one thing that you must know before running off to slap a few words together – in order to reap the full benefits, you’re going to need a steady feed of high-caliber content. Are you suffering from a combination of dull content and Writer’s Block? Here are a few quick tips to add a little zip to your website’s content. Don't have the time? Hire a content creator right here.

1. Keep it fresh: Like food, freshness is key. Keeping your website’s blog (you’ve got a blog for your business, right?), product descriptions, and other pages fresh with new content will give your customers or readers a reason to come back for more.

Additionally, publishing fresh content to your website grabs the attention of search engines like Google and Yahoo!, giving you a little bit of a boost in Search Engine Optimization and search ranking. While you’re at it, don’t write about the same thing over and over – search engines will knock you a few points for duplicate and repeated content. Write high-quality content rich articles with a lot of relevant keywords for the most success.

2. Let your voice shine through: Remember, there are millions and millions of other websites out there on the web. Try to bring something unique to the table that your readers will enjoy. Try writing a bit more conversationally – your readers are people just like you.

Also important: Be sure to evaluate and understand your product and your target demographic and then cater your content and writing style to them. Although you might be noticing that more and more sites on the web today are taking a fun, more casual approach to writing with great success, don’t expect the same results if you write loose, sarcastic content for certain products or industries (for example, computer security.)

3. Get to the point: Your visitors have places to go and people to see online, so don’t bore them with overly-wordy paragraphs and descriptions. Internet surfers have the attention span of a 5-year old, so hitting them quickly with what’s important is key. If they aren’t able to answer the question, “Why is this important to me?” within the first few sentences, you can kiss those visitors goodbye.

Also, write shorter, quicker paragraphs. Succinct segments are far more digestible for the average person to read and retain.

4. Play by the rules: You could have a Pulitzer-prize worthy blog post published on your site, but if it’s riddled with typos, grammar errors, punctuation mistakes, and other blunders, its value to your site is close to zero. This is especially important for those with online businesses, as the legitimacy of your website can depend on the cleanliness of your copy.

Here’s a tip: Before you hit the “publish” button, read your entire post out loud to yourself. Although it may seem a little silly, you may be surprised at how ridiculous your writing can sound when spoken out loud. (It’s also a great way to surface mistakes quickly.) If you aren’t very confident in your writing skills, hire a copyeditor to double check your content for you.

5. Change it up: Tell me what sounds better – “The cat is black,” or “The small kitten’s fur shines a deep, midnight black.” Okay, that might have been overdoing it a little, but you get the picture.

The second sentence is far more interesting to read because it avoids using very common language (read: boring) and also provides far more information through context than the first sentence. Descriptive writing is particularly important for eCommerce product catalogs since your customer has only your words and maybe a few images to work with when making a purchasing decision.

6. Images are your friend: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Even if the old saying was only half true, it’d still be smart to pair up your content with some form of imagery. Images naturally attract eyes and can provide a huge amount of contextual information in a fraction of a second, while a block of text without an accompanying image is extremely easy to gloss over. If you’re publishing content to a blog, having an image isn’t just suggested – in my opinion, it’s a requirement.

These are just a few tips out of many out there that can help you improve the quality of your content in a jiffy. Any of you talented elancers have any other tricks of the trade? Do share in the comments below.

Grow Your Practice Through Wholesale Pricing and Value Billing - by Michelle Long

Grow Your Practice Through Wholesale Pricing and Value Billing

December 16th 2014 by Michelle Long

I enjoy training accountants and bookkeepers in cities across the United States, Canada, Australia and even London, England, as a contract trainer for Intuit®. Along the way, I’ve discovered a few things. First, accounting professionals in different countries may have different terms for some things – inventory vs. stock, vendors vs. suppliers, for example – yet, we all face similar challenges working with and billing our clients. Second, I’ve noticed more and more accounting professionals, globally, are moving away from hourly billing to value billing. As a result, they are growing their practice and improving their profitability.

Problems with Hourly Billing

It seems hourly billing is as much a part of the accounting industry as debits and credits. However, more and more accounting professionals are moving away from hourly billing due to one primary problem: hourly billing essentially puts a wall between us and our clients. Consider a couple of key issues:

• Rather than turn to us, clients may ask their questions to strangers on the Intuit Community forum, LinkedIn groups or elsewhere, because they are worried about how much we will charge them. This isn’t right! We don’t want our clients reluctant or afraid to call us.
• Clients are concerned with keeping fees down, so they worry about what you are working on, why the work is taking so long and whether you are working fast enough. Plus, they are reluctant to ask for additional services, such as budgeting, cash flow and forecasting – areas in which we could really help.
• We aren’t selling our time. Whether it is monthly bookkeeping, payroll, taxes or something else, we are selling our knowledge, skills and experience to get the job done for the client. Every year, we have more experience and expertise – which, of course, is extremely valuable.

Improved Efficiencies and Value Billing

With value billing, you charge the client a fixed fee based on the value of the services provided. Accountants and bookkeepers can operate more efficiently using technology like QuickBooks® Online. For example, you can set up bank and credit card accounts to automatically download transactions every night. Combined with rules you can create, you can automate the majority of the data entry.

As a result, instead of spending 10 hours per month to get the work completed, it may now only take 2-3 hours per month. Plus, QuickBooks Online helps you save even more time and improve efficiency because you no longer waste time sending data files back and forth. You also won’t worry about version compatibility or face data integrity issues. Should you earn less money when you’re still providing the same end result for the client?

Due to improved efficiencies combined with the problems of hourly billing, many accounting professionals are implementing value billing for clients. They are creating packages and bundling additional services and/or benefits for clients. This allows us to differentiate ourselves and enhance the trusted advisor relationship with clients.

Consider some additional benefits you can bundle and include with your regular services:

• Training – as part of the initial conversion and setup, include time for training the client.
• Support – you can create different levels of support available for the client to choose which level meets their needs. You may offer email or phone support with a guaranteed response time. The quicker the response time, the higher the fee charged.
• QuickBooks Online – with wholesale pricing (see below), many accounting professionals are including QuickBooks Online with the services provided for clients. You don’t have to worry about clients not wanting to update their program, either!
• You can offer a la carte services for clients, including budgeting, cash flow forecasting and more, and incorporate them into customized bundles of services to meet the needs of your clients.

Wholesale Pricing for QuickBooks Online

Numerous accounting professionals asked Intuit for wholesale pricing on QuickBooks Online – and it is now available. Accountants and bookkeepers can sign up for wholesale billing to save 30% on QuickBooks Online for the life of the subscription. However, when needed, you can remove a client from your wholesale billing account and transfer the Master Admin for the subscription to the client, at the regular price.

If you want to grow your practice and improve your profitability this year, I encourage you to begin implementing value billing with your clients. To learn more, register to join me for an upcoming webinar for the QB PowerHour, or or join me at an upcoming Intro to the Cloud event in your city.