Entrepreneur Life Archives | Page 2 of 6 | A Personal Organizer

The Top 5 Ways To Use Canva Like A Pro In Your Business

By Helena Alkhas
Filed Under: Entrepreneur Life, Marketing for Professional Organizers

How to use Canva to consistently create shareable content for your business.

When you are trying to grow your business, one of the things you will always need, no matter what stage you are in with your business, is good content. The most effective type of content that will give you a brand following and grow your business must be both of high quality, encourage sharing and engagement, and consistent.

Because creating content can take a lot of time and energy, it’s so important to use great tools that make it easier. Enter Canva.

Not only does Canva give you the most user-friendly design tools available, but it also helps you to easily stay consistent with the content that you are creating and sharing for your business.

Canva’s tools let you create quality and consistent content even if you aren’t a design pro.

Here is just the tip of the iceberg of things you can make for your business using Canva to create the type of content that your business needs:

Business cards
Your logo
A brand kit
Graphics for Facebook (feed posts, ads, stories, group, and page covers), Instagram (feed and stories), and all the major social media platforms
Graphics for Pinterest (If you are blogging or have a website you should definitely be using Pinterest to grow your website traffic.

Now that you have an idea of what you can create with Canva, Here are some of the most useful and user-friendly features that Canva offers.

Pre-Sized templates for every type of content
Text, graphics, and photo options to create the unique look you want for your content
Resize to fit the most popular social media, web, and print sizes- biz cards, logos,
Facebook covers, Pinterest graphics, or letterhead for all of your amazing new freebies you can now create.

So where do you start?

First, you’ll want to choose a template for whatever it is you are making. Depending on which social media platform or blog graphic you are creating an image for, these templates will be sized accordingly to what each platform requires for the best looking content images.

Once you select the template for your image, you can then change the graphics, the layout, even use a blank template to start from scratch in the size that you want. Here is a great tutorial on how to get started using all of Canvas’s tools. (link)

Upload your own photos or use Canva’s free stock images (note: make sure you read their terms of use with their images. You cannot use their stock designs to sell products). Or you can pay for the pro photo upgrade and get tons of free stock from the Canva’s inventory.

Bonus tip: don’t forget to create folders for your projects and make a copy of a design you will want to use as a template before creating a new one. This will save you so much time when you want to repeat the styling of a particular type of content.

Conclusion

Canva is truly a game changer for business owners who want to create high quality, beautiful, custom content but do not have a degree in graphic design or do not want to invest the time and energy into learning design programs like Photoshop or InDesign.

In addition to being such a user-friendly tool to create content, Canva also helps you stay on brand by giving you the option to save your design templates and create a brand kit where you can keep all of the elements of your brand together in one place.

Canva’s free membership has a lot of great options to get you started. If you want to get even more out of the app, like pro photo options and templates, and the ability to download your designs on a transparent background, you’ll want to upgrade to their Pro Plan.

Still, feel like you need a little help on the graphic design end or need to take your design and formatting further for an eBook or course launch?

Head over to Fiverr and hire a designer to do the work for you.

Fiverr has a great pool of talented designers that can work on your project for you and save you the hassle of figuring out all of those detailed layout measurements.

Are you ready to take your business’ content game to the next level with amazing graphics and a consistent brand message? Start using Canva today to execute all of those great content ideas you have been thinking up!

Do you already use Canva for your business? What is your favorite tool you have used so far? I’d love to know in the comments!

How to Declutter Your Business, Take Control And Get Things Done

By Helena Alkhas
Filed Under: Become a PRO Organizer, Entrepreneur Life

If you are at a place where you feel stuck in your professional organizing business, you may find that a good “de-junking” is what you need to jump-start your progress.

As professional organizers, we understand the effect clutter has on our client’s lives, but maybe we fail to see how it impacts our organizing business.

Clutter in your business is like clutter anywhere else- it clouds your spaces, your minds, makes your thoughts and direction unclear, slows you down, and keep you from achieving your goals. Here is a daily to-do list that wil help you plan out your steps for each day. You can get instant access to all of the organizing printables by subscribing to the vault.

Wow. When I say it like that, you can see how many negative effects clutter can have on our personal and our professional lives. Don’t worry; I’m here to help. Here is a decision making planner that you might find useful as you declutter your business.

If you would like instant access to all of our printables at once, subscribe to get instant access to the vault!

Cleaning up chaos and restoring order to your business is all about finding the right tools and methods that work with you, your clients, your contractors—and your unique type of professional organizing business.

Here are some signs that your business may need to be de-junked:

You feel that your business is stuck in the position it is currently in
Your creative juices are running low
You are unsure of what steps to take next to propel your business forward
You are having a hard time coming up with ideas and making decisions
Your workspaces are cluttered, and you feel stressed very quickly when you are there
You feel overwhelmed regularly

Do any of these things sound familiar? If they do, your business is likely cluttered and possibly stunted as a result.

To move on to the next stage with your business, you need to declutter or de-junk your business.

Here are three ways that you can get started de-junking your business right now:

1. Create a manual for your business

You will want to create two manuals—a master manual for yourself, and one without your personal information for your VA or project manager.

Your business manual should act as a complete package, should anything happen to you, so that whoever jumps in to take care of your business while you’re out of commission can locate all the information, logins, websites, accounts to the tools you use, independent contractors to be paid, business documents and even the simplest things like how to access your computer. LastPass is the tool I use to hold all my passwords but also to gather all my accounts in case my husband needs to take care of anything for me.

2. Look at your software

Take a look at the software you have on your computer as well as the apps you have on your phone.

What business tools serve you well and are used often? Which ones suck up more of your time while you try to figure out how to use them than they are worth?

Clear away any software on your mobile and on your computer that is not useful and is just taking up space and mental bandwidth.

3. Break the decluttering process down

A great way to approach this process is by breaking the tasks down into manageable parts.

If over time things have piled up and right now you have tons of information, links and a lot to declutter, be it online or offline, create a doable plan so you don’t give up before you complete this important process.

Creating a calendar with a working schedule is the best way to accomplish this.

In my Complete Guide to De-junking Your business, I give you a step-by-step process and the checklists you need to de-clutter your business so you can start, grow, and scale your professional organizing business.

Once you clear the clutter, you will see your business and your revenue grow.

Are you are ready to take the next step to get your business moving in the right direction? Here are some words of inspiration for you:

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe

Whether you are at the very beginning of your journey to becoming a professional organizer, are mid-way and feel stuck, or are growing but looking for a way to scale, The Complete Guide to De-Junking Your Business is going to give you the tools you need to start taking action right now to make your business grow.

Once you commit to de-junking, decluttering, and clarifying your business, you will see your productivity go up, and your stress go down. How good does that sound? Pretty much #goals right?

Grab your copy of The Complete Guide to De-junking Your Business right now and be instantly ready to start or improve your professional organizing business!

How to De-Junk your business - A Personal Organizer — eBook – Dejunk your business – eBook, Workbook & Planner.

Calendar - Dejunk your business - A Personal Organizer — Workbook

Checklist - Dejunk your business - A Personal Organizer — Checklist

Creating A Social Media Plan For Your Business

By Helena Alkhas
Filed Under: Entrepreneur Life, Social Media

Ah, social media. Love it or hate it; it is a crucial part of our business. Whether you are starting a new business or are looking to give your social media plan a refresh, you most likely have had some kinds of experience on social media.

During your time on social media, you have probably noticed how some brands come right out of the gate and charge to Instagram superstar with massive followings and engagement, while others seem to have been struggling for years with a minimal audience and little to no engagement.

So what separates the two?

Under it all and between all of the algorithms and trends, being successful on any social media channel is really about your ability to create relationships with your audience or your followers. To grow on any social media channel, you need to have a few things in place, all of which should focus on creating a clear and consistent brand message and a connection with your audience.

Let’s take a look at what successful people do on social media:

They focus their posts on their audience. What they want, need, and tries to solve these problems or guide them with their products or services
They are highly interactive. They answer every comment on their posts, and they also comment frequently on posts that are in their feed.
They share their lives and experiences rather than continually selling and promoting.
They focus their efforts on the social media platforms that they have the most success on instead of spreading attention to thin on too many platforms

Notice a common thread in these characteristics? That’s right. All of these behaviors increase the connection between business owner and customer. Now that we know what works best on social media let’s look at how you can adjust or create your social media plan to connect with your audience and customers.

The following steps will help you create the most effective social media plan for your business.

1. Start by looking at all of your social media platforms. Where do you have the most engagement?

Is your Instagram struggling to get more than a few likes per post with little to no engagement in the comments? If so, take a look at what you are posting.

Try to adjust your content plan according to the things successful social media folks do that are listed above.

After a month, if you still hear crickets, it might be time to consider if this particular platform is really worth your time and effort, or could your time be spent more effectively somewhere else?

2. Another thing to consider when you are choosing where to focus your energy on social media is to look at which channels are best for what types of things.

Facebook is excellent for connecting with other solopreneurs or small business owners.

Linkedin is your best bet for connecting and reaching people in the professional world.

Instagram is great for visual-centric businesses.

You’ll always want to think about what platforms you enjoy using the most. If you like spending time on a specific social media site, you will be more likely to share and engage with your audience there organically.

3. Once you have decided on what platforms you want to focus your social media plan on it’s time to develop a content strategy.

Start by thinking about your audience.

Next, create a content calendar where you will share something that will help them in different ways on different days.

There are many different ways to create a content calendar for your business.

Choose one that works for you, but make sure you do have a plan and write it down. Having a plan will save you hours of sitting around stressing out what to post next.

4. Here’s one that gets buried under all the science and planning- Be Social! Interacting and engaging with your audience is crucial to creating a connection with your followers.

Share things from your personal life: tips, hobbies, travel experience, your new favorite recipe, Netflix series, course, or book. And don’t forget to ask your customers about their thoughts on things as well. What do their personal lives look like?

Once you implement these things in your social media plan, you will start to see changes happening in your business. Creating a clear and consistent brand message, along with encouraging interaction and engagement with your audience is what will convert followers into customers.

Want more tips on how to start and grow your business? Join the Entrepreneur Life Series right here!

The Art of Storytelling: Top 5 Do’s And Don’ts Of Creating Your Brand’s Story

By Helena Alkhas
Filed Under: Entrepreneur Life, Marketing for Professional Organizers

As human beings, we are wired to learn through stories. Throughout history people have told stories to keep traditions alive, to communicate, to illustrate essential points. Because story is such an essential part of how we learn things, it is fundamentally vital that we create a clear story about our brands.

One of the most important things that you can do to ensure the growth of your business is to craft a story around your business that gives customers a crystal clear idea of what your brand and business stand for.

And because all your customer cares about is what you can do for him.her, even more importantly your story should tell your customers what you can do for them. What are the core values of your business? How does your product or service, based on this value, solve your customers’ problems.

When you start crafting the story that will represent your business you’ll most likely ask yourself, “what will it say?” Start by thinking about the services or products you offer.

Next, think about the problems people have who need the things you sell. This is the foundation of your story.

Storytelling needs a few things to make the magic happen; clear vision, skill, practice, creativity, and enough passion about what you are writing about to follow the story to the end.

Let’s look to a professional organizing business as an example; what might a story of a personal organizer be? Your niche can also help you determine how you tell your story. What services do you offer? What problems do these services or products solve for your customers? What sets you apart from others in your field?

Here are my top 5 Do’s when you are practicing the art of storytelling for your Brand

1. Do structure the story of your brand in the same way that traditional stories are structures, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
2. Make the narrative that tells your customers how your core values can solve their problems.
3. Make it engaging so that it encourages your audience to interact with your brand.
4. Be clear about what your business’s message is
5. Tell a story that is about your customers-not yourself

Now that we have talked about what makes for good brand storytelling let’s look at what not to do.

Here are my top 5 Don’ts for creating your brand’s story

1. Write something excessively long to describe every who, what, where, why, and when surrounding your company.
2. Don’t add in random stories because you think it adds character. It doesn’t. The only thing it adds is confusion, AKA the death of all sales.
3. Don’t talk about your sales goals or overly “sell” when you are writing your business’ story.
4. Don’t make your story a sales pitch. Your sales pitch is something different, such as your call to action. Leave sales out of your “story” Before you can sell anything you need to create trust with your audience and readers.
5. Don’t tell too many boring details. While the metrics and logistics of your business may fascinate you, these things are not why your customers are drawn to your or your business.

Why is it essential to create a story for your business?

People tell stories for many reasons- to entertain, to teach, to guide, and to explain. Your businesses story can do all of these things, but the one things it must do to be successful, AKA converting audience members into paying customers, your story must be clear and concise.

Your story should be able to take all of the nuances for your business and sum them up into one or two sentences that tell your customer why they need what you have.

Crafting a compelling story for your brand creates a community around your audience members and customers. When you tell a story around your business that people can relate and connect to, as well as benefit from, you bring like-minded people together.

The community you build around your business is where you create repeat customers who trust what you do and are willing to invest in your solutions.

Getting started

Now that you know more about the importance of creating a story for your business as well as the top 5 dos and don’ts of the process, you can get started.

It’s important to remember that writing the story of your business is a crucial element in building the foundation of your brand. As such, this is not a quick and easy writing task.

While you are writing you may have several stops and starts, get a bit sidetracked, and find yourself stuck at times. Don’t worry; this is a normal part of any writing process.

If you use these tips as a guide, you will be able to create a story for your business that positions you as an expert in your field, creates an eager audience, and returning customers.

Have questions? I’d love to hear them in the comments below!

The Importance Of Building Trust On Social Media

By Helena Alkhas
Filed Under: Entrepreneur Life, Social Media

Creating Trust Through Consistency

One of the most important ways you can build trust on social media is to Be Consistent with Your Marketing-what you share.

The content you choose to share with your audience is the “face” of your business. Because of this, consistency is a critical element in a business’ success. Of course, many other vital factors will lead to a successful business, but consistency is what will create name recognition and trust from your audience, which will lead to more sales.

Consistency in What and When you share with your audience

Sharing consistent content with your audience is what will build your community so you can develop a relationship.

When you are deciding what types of content to share you should post things that will be helpful to your audience while showcasing your expertise to new followers.

By sharing consistent content, you are assuring your customers that they can expect you to give them the things they need time after time. With each visit to your website, with each share of a social post, your audience will know what they are getting.

Once there is doubt in a customers mind, you will find yourself having to start all over again and rebuild that trust. Making consistency a priority will help you avoid this situation and will keep your customers coming back to do business with you. Doubt in a customer’s mind generally means you have to rebuild that trust again to show that they should continue doing business with you.

Here is an example of how lack of consistency can hurt your reputation and your business: Think about your inbox. How many of those emails that you get are from opt-ins that you thought sounded great in the beginning, but now you can not remember what company they are from. Why does this happen? Inconsistency. When someone creates an opt-in and then abandons the people on their list by not following up and engaging in those who signed up, the recipients of these emails forget why this email is in their inbox. What happens next? Unsubscribe.

Once this happens, you have to work much harder to get people to sign up for anything you are offering.

Consistency with your brand image

Every day we are bombarded with messages from people who say they have found the answers to pulling in 6-or 7-figure incomes. I’m sure you’ve seen them.

If you tried implementing all of their different strategies, you’d be exhausted from keeping up with it all and your audience would be very confused about your overall message. And confusion is the death of gaining a sale or a returning customer.

When it comes to branding, consistency, and repetition will help develop name recognition. When you are creating the story around your brand, remember to keep it simple and clear. Always tell your customers what you are offering and why it will solve one of their problems.

Whatever your trademark is, don’t go changing it without some serious consideration first. The more consistent your brand image is, the more people will recognize and trust your business.

Here is where creating a brand kit for your business becomes vital. A brand kit can be simple or very complex. In its simplest for you want to be sure it includes your brand’s colors, fonts, and most used tag lines.

Be consistent with your brand image, colors, and message online so you’re always recognized. Once people come to identify you as an authority in your field, you will begin to see considerable changes in your business.

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How To Create A Blog Content Strategy That Will Grow Your Business

By Helena Alkhas
Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Entrepreneur Life

What is a content strategy and why do you need one?

Now that you have a blog and are ready to start sharing all of your great ideas with your audience, you’ll want to start thinking about developing a strategy to share your content.

Why? Having a solid and consistent content strategy is the best way to connect with your audience and is key to growing a successful blog. So what is a content strategy and why do you need one?

A content strategy is simply a plan that you create, document, and use as a guide when publishing content to your blog. A solid content strategy is what separates a hobby blog from a high-ranking, popular, moneymaking blog. Here’s how to get started.

Have clear goals when creating a content strategy

Having clear goals for your business blog is so important to the success of your blog.

Think of your blog as a journey that you are taking your readers on. A journey needs a beginning, middle, and an end. You want to create a clear path for your readers to follow that tells the story of your brand and business.

When you are creating content ask yourself what part of your business’s story a post or content tells. Does it speak to where you started, where you are in the present, or where you would like to go? If the answer is yes to one of these questions, you can be pretty confident that your content strategy is clearly designed and well-focused.

Know your audience

Knowing who you are talking to is probably one of the most important things to keep in mind when you are creating content.

Make it a habit to check in on whom your audience is, who is procuring your services, or buying your products, who is following you on social media, and who is reading your blog. Use what you find to keep your content relevant and useful to potential clients.

Ask yourself what problems you want to solve for your audience

If you think about it, the most popular blogs have achieved their success by offering real solutions to their readers.

Here are a few things to ask yourself when you are thinking about what problems your audience most often presents and what you can offer them to help solve them:

What problems do your audience often present?
How can you give them a solution to these problems?
What is unique about your solution that other businesses are not offering?
How easy are these solutions for them to access and implement?

Once you ask yourself these questions, you will be able to fine-tune the content you are offering your readers so they consistently come back to your blog.

What type of Content can you create?

Now that you have the focus of your blog content, you can start to think about the different types of consent you can create. Here are a few of the most popular types of consent.

Blog posts
Downloadable content
Freebies
Courses
Video and images

It is a good strategy to create and share a wide variety of content to your readers so that your blog feels fresh each time they visit.

Consider where you will publish your content

Once you have created your content, you will want to consider how and where you can share it to get the most bang for your buck.

What social media channels are best for your content– depending on what your business is, different social media channels will be more effective places for you to share your content. Check out other businesses in your field and see where they are sharing their content, and which channels seem to be the most receptive and engaged with their content.
Guest posting– Guest posting is a great way to grow a community and make connections while getting your content out there. When you have a great post or an idea for a post, send out a few inquiries to other blogs in your niche that you admire and ask them if they would be willing to let you guest post. Offer to link to their blog and always do your best to follow their requirements for guest posting.

Develop a plan to create, schedule, and share your content on a regular basis

Once you create great content, the next step is sharing it. By creating a real strategy for sharing your content, you will make your content go the extra mile and reach more people who may be interested in your business. So what are the most important aspects of sharing your content?

Consistency is key– be sure to share your content on a consistent schedule. Research the times that are best for each channel, and post during these times each week.
Make a schedule for each social media channel you plan to use– Every channel has its own rules for popular times to post, as well as how many times a day to post. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest all favor different days, time of the day, and frequency, so make sure to do a little research before you create your posting and sharing schedule.
Choose planning tools– Planning tools are a blogger’s best friend. Depending on what social media channel you are posting to, you may want to use different scheduling tools. Some tools are good for general scheduling across many channels, while others are more specific in their use.
Make it easy for your readers and followers to share your content – We use Social Warfare (affiliate link) here on the blog and it has been a great tool to help us spread the word about our work and help people get organized through our tips and posts.

Growing Your Blog and Your Business

As the digital marketing world continues to expand, blogs remain one of the best ways to advertise.

Blogs are a key component of any business marketing strategy and are one of the most effective ways to give your business a strong online presence.

Having a solid and intentional blog content strategy enhances your blog by giving readers something they can count on and making your business a go-to in your industry. With a consistent and quality content plan in place, your blog will continue to be a success and grow your business.