MEET OR CANCEL THAT MEETING!

There are probably as many good reasons to cancel a meeting as there are to have one in the first place but, unfortunately, we usually go ahead with them anyway. And, thus develops your meetings’ reputation as boring, pointless, time-wasting exercises in futility. It’s not too late to fix that though, by keeping a few rules of thumb  in mind when deciding....to meet or not to meet. That is the question!

            Here’s when you should meet:

• You have information to impart that cannot be understood in written form by an adult of average intelligence.
• Your team is in need of motivation, encouragement, and recognition that is best shared face-to-face... and you intend to focus on that during your meeting.
• Input, ideas, comments, and general feedback from your team is needed and your meeting will be designed so that their voices can be heard.
• It is possible for your library to make time for the right people to be away from their daily tasks long enough to attend your meeting.
• You have a pattern of shared decision-making in your organization and you need to apply it to a specific project.

Unfortunately, lots of meetings take place that don’t meet this criteria. For whatever reason, good or bad, staff is pulled off the floor (or glued to their computer monitors) for seemingly endless hours of pointless debate. Here are just a few meeting mistakes that should be avoided when handling something as valuable as your team’s time and talent:

• It’s the first Tuesday and all the public services managers meet on the first Tuesday so, even though we have nothing pressing to discuss, let’s meet!
• Public Service involves everything from Children’s story times to Adult Reference to Circulation. Today’s meeting topic involves only a Circulation issue but, hey, let’s make everyone else come too!
• More than half of your meeting agenda involves sharing some board information that’s available in a printed report. Why not spend a good hour or so reading it aloud to everyone, rather than having them read it themselves ahead of time and bring questions!?
• After wasting the first half of the meeting (see above), let’s spend the second half hearing how all the work that was supposed to be done and reported on hasn’t been done because no one completed their assignment from the prior meeting.

If you see yourself or your team in any of these examples, maybe it’s time you re-thought how and why you hold your meetings! With some planning and intentional design, they can become something exciting, encouraging, and purposeful – and something that attendees really want to be part of. If they’re not...then cancel that meeting and try again.

 - Catherine Hakala-Ausperk with the American Library Assocaition, author of How to Build Great Teams

HERE ARE 4 WAYS TO START A HIGH-GROWTH BUSINESS WITH ZERO FUNDING

It's a well-known fact that not every entrepreneur has access to start-up capital. The vast majority of start-ups are born well outside of established innovation hubs like Silicon Valley and New York, and they might not have access to any sort of support structure whatsoever.

If this is you, I don't have to tell you that the odds are stacked against you. However, there's one tried-and-true path that is always available, regardless of where you are or your access to resources: bootstrapping.

You may think that bootstrapping is fine for a small business  --  a mom-and-pop shop, a consulting firm, a local service provider. But in this competitive digital age, even a small business can't remain a small business forever.

Mom-and-pop shops evolve into direct-to-consumer e-commerce ventures. Consultants join forces to become expert networks. Service providers morph into digital service marketplaces.

These days, a small business can become a high-growth business without a lot of up-front investment. Here are the top four ways I've experienced the service-to-product transformation, either with my own start-ups, those I've advised, or those I've worked for.

1. Automate a service or put automation around it.

Two of the start-ups I advise are transforming the way businesses hire. One is already funded, the other is bootstrapping.

Both start-ups are helmed by former staffing company leaders who saw massive opportunities in the shifting needs of the modern workforce. As their experience increasingly told them that the old ways of hiring were too slow, too manual, and were producing diminishing results, they both turned to technology and automation to add speed, remove friction, and provide better results at a fraction of head count, time spent, and costs.

This still takes time and money. Technology is still expensive, old habits can be hard to break, and there will always be one or more incumbents trying to crush you. The good news is, you can use your existing service income to fund change instead of using it to compete against the incumbents at their own game.

2. Create a subscription product.

Recurring revenue is a coveted alternative to the feast-or-famine periods that are always associated with service work. It can also help smooth out spiky customer demand, which in turn allows your company to scale and thus results in the higher valuations associated with product companies.

A simple way to create a recurring revenue stream (simple on paper, anyway) is to package your most requested services into a monthly subscription product, with pricing based on expected volume.

At my previous start-up, Automated Insights, where we delivered automated content based on our customers' data, we rolled up most of the costs of our customization and maintenance efforts into a monthly platform licensing fee. For instances where we had to go above and beyond to customize, we established a managed services team that we could dispatch at our old hourly rate.

This not only smoothed out our demand curve and provided reliable income, it also actually reduced the number of requests for customization, as customers realized that they could instead have "automated content in a box."

3. Turn an expert service into an expert marketplace.

Most service providers have a referral network they turn to when a customer needs something that's adjacent to their own expertise.

These networks can grow to be very large, and each member of the network usually has a network of their own. When all these networks are connected and exposed through an app, it becomes an expert marketplace.

Expert marketplaces are more work than they first appear, because expert marketplaces that are just vendor directories don't provide any additional value, and thus rarely succeed. So use your service income to create that value by vetting the vendors and removing friction from the transaction.

4. Pivot from providing services to selling frameworks.

The first start-up I ever joined was a technical consulting firm that built custom software. We used our feast-or-famine downtime to start building frameworks for development steps we had to take each time we built an application.

These frameworks helped us deliver better quality software in a lot less time. Eventually, we got so good using the frameworks that we stopped building custom software altogether and started selling the frameworks to other developers.

That pivot cut our resource costs, boosted our margins, and led to a much higher valuation when we were acquired a few years later.

Bonus: Bootstrapping with service income keeps your start-up growing at a sane pace.

In every case, these service-to-product transitions use customer revenue to turn a valuable service into a revenue-generating product. It's the opposite path of conventional venture capital funded start-ups.

When those VC-backed start-ups get traction, they often find themselves on a treadmill of constantly needing more investment to reach constantly increasing valuations. When they don't get that investment, or they don't hit their milestones, they fail.

On the other hand, the bootstrap path can turn an existing service customer base into a repeatable, sustainable, product customer base, keeping your start-up off the VC treadmill and reducing growth risk as your valuation increases.

BY JOE PROCOPIO, FOUNDER, TEACHINGSTARTUP.COM@JPROCO

5 REASONS WHY ALL BLOGGERS SHOULD USE A VPN

Nowadays, setting up strong passwords and installing antivirus software is no longer the bare minimum of cybersecurity.

You need a virtual private network (VPN) if you want to keep your online activities private because hackers, third parties, and ISPs continually monitor networks and your online habits.

When you work as a blogger, you might feel like the internet is your second home because most of your work is online.

However, remember that the internet is not a safe place to live. As a precaution, you should consider using a virtual private network.

For both updating your blog or meeting other bloggers on the internet, most experts suggest using a VPN to ensure your privacy and security.

A Virtual Private Network, or VPN, can be useful to bloggers for a variety of reasons:

1. Keeping information secure

Virtual Private Networks are most commonly used for the security they provide.  Your readers’ information is sometimes stored on your computer, and it is your responsibility to keep that information safe. You need to know that your blog is completely secure.

Unless you do, you will ruin your reputation with each of your readers, and it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to regain it.

2. Traveling and Blogging

Many times, you will have the opportunity or necessity to blog while away from home. A public network is usually the only one available to you most of the time, so that you will need an internet connection for this.

Using public networks can pose a security risk because hackers can steal passwords and usernames, including those used to access your blogs.

Upon doing this, the hacker will have access to your blog, all of the work you put into it and your readers’ trust in you will be undermined.

3. Online identity protection

It is also important for you to keep the identity of your blog secret from other internet users.

Hackers desire access to your identity for many reasons, including scams and damaging your online reputation. Using a VPN is a great way to remain safe online even when doing important activities.

You may lose followers and users, however, by being invisible online. You may also have difficulty backing up your data.

4. Keeping you hidden

When updating a blog or uploading content, being anonymous when using virtual private networks is the first and foremost benefit.

Bloggers and webmasters need to ensure that their content is protected every time they upload because they could be stolen and misused to protect their content from hackers and competitors.

You can also keep your content and other information secure from prying eyes when using a private network to accomplish this.

5. Keeping your online transactions safe

It is crucial to keep all your online financial transactions safe and secure, regardless of paying for hosting or SEO services.

Therefore, experts always recommend using a VPN before doing any financial transactions online. It provides dense encryption of all the personal information or financial information added to an online store or website.

VPN Bonus Tip

When you travel or live in an area that requires you to pay exorbitant rates for private internet access, it is impossible to avoid using public Wi-Fi.

As a result, VPN can be an invaluable tool. It offers a secure tunnel for your online activities, disguises your identity when you use a public Wi-Fi hotspot, and enables you to protect your identity while surfing the internet.

FIVE SECRETS TO HIRING WELL

The ad was out long enough, the applications came piling in, and the interviews are over. Okay, then why are you hanging back and not making that final decision? If you’re afraid you might choose the wrong person, you’re right, you might. The decision to bring someone new onto the team, as someone once told me, could turn out to the best – or the worst – decision you’ve ever made. Still, you need to make that call! Here are some hiring tips and secrets that just might give you a bit more confidence you’re making the best decision.

You know you’re hiring well when:

1. You knew who you were looking for.

With every opportunity to fill an option position, leaders need to begin by analyzing real, customer-focused needs! If your Children’s Librarian retires and your community demographics have begun to lean strongly to senior citizens, then maybe it’s time to consider moving those hours into another position. If your library just made an enormous investment in self-charge machines and two of your circulation team members are leaving, maybe those hours as well can be better used in another position – maybe even something brand new! Do you need a Technology Trainer perhaps? Or how about a security guard? Would it help to have someone on the team with a social worker’s background or maybe someone who speaks a foreign language?

Open positions should be met with open discussions first, before any ads are written or interview questions prepared. Once you have developed a complete profile of the person you need to add to your team, including background, skills, and abilities, THEN you’re ready to start looking. This profile will help keep you focused throughout your search. Every time you meet an interesting candidate who might turn your head, you and your hiring team can remember just what you really need – and return to your applicant pool to find it!

2. You’ve considered diverse opinions.

The only way to include a variety of diverse opinions into a hiring decision is to assemble a diverse hiring team – and then listen to them. While this won’t change the final decision into a democratic vote, it will give you, as the team leader, a more comprehensive understanding of how each candidate is viewed and how others might evaluate them.

Here’s an important tip about hiring teams – don’t use the same people over and over and don’t limit members to supervisors or other bosses. Why? Because by including members of the team your new hire will join, you’re going to get an early view of how best to begin blending your team into something new and better. Also, your team members can bring an understanding of the realities of their work that you – because you don’t work beside them – could never add.

There’s another great reason to add non-bosses to your hiring team and that is to develop tomorrow’s bosses by giving others the chance to grow their skills and experiences.

3. You took your time.

Whenever I’m asked what a board or supervisor should do first, as soon as they learn someone on the team is leaving, my answer is the same. Cover their work. Interim appointments have the dual benefit of giving you and your hiring team the luxury of time to hire right (no panic to hire fast because stuff isn’t getting done) but also – again – they give you the opportunity to build someone’s skills and abilities who might someday be moving up themselves.

Once you’ve finished your process and, still, no one (including you) is jumping up and down in excitement over the potential new team member, then take more time and re-post. Adding to your team is way too important of an activity to rush through and the consequences of doing so are...well, just take your time and you’ll know you’ve made the best decision possible.

4. You know their history.

This secret is no secret at all, as I’m sure you’ve heard it one thousand times. Still, though, it is incredibly one of the most ignored hiring rules of all time. Check references! Check the references listed by the applicant. Check with the current supervisor. Check (informally) if you know anyone else who might speak to the applicant’s fit for your job.

What if the applicant asks you to please not contact their supervisor because she/he doesn’t know a job search is underway? Then clarify – early on – that you must hear from the supervisor but that you will not contact her/him unless and until the applicant is a finalist for the position. If they still say “No,” then remove them from consideration. You must know more about your potential new team member than just what they chose to tell you.

5. They’re smiling.

Soft skills matter as much these days – if not more – than they ever did. We’re a people-focused industry and, whether you’re talking about external or internal customer service, you need to hire a people-focused person. Author Arte Nathan once said it best, “You can’t teach employees to smile. They have to smile before you hire them.”

 - Catherine Hakala-Ausperk with the American Library Association, author of Build Great Teams

QUICK WAYS TO GET MORE REVIEWS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Social proof in the form of customer reviews plays a huge role in a shopper’s buying decision and can be one of your greatest marketing tools. 83% of people trust reviews over advertising, and more than half of consumers won’t buy from a company if it has less than a 4-star rating.

Not only do reviews help buyers in their purchase decisions, but they give them a reason to trust your business. In other words, social proof can remove doubts from hesitant shoppers and convince them to buy from you.

Reviews can also provide additional context to your products or services and boost rankings in search engines.

Alright, let’s dive in. Here are 6 quick tips to help you get more reviews for your business.

1. Make It Easy to Leave a Review

Avoid giving your customers an excuse not to leave you a review by making the process too complicated. Guaranteed, they won’t search for where they can leave a review on your website, so you need to make it easy and put the star ratings right in front of them.

In other words, the easier you make it for customers to leave you a review, the more likely you are to get them. For example, Beardbrand makes their reviews easy to find and as easy to leave with a review section for each product:

You can quickly set this up with apps such as Yotpo Social Reviews, Kudobuzz, or Product Reviews by Shopify.

2. Follow Up and Ask Buyers For Reviews

Follow up with buyers and ask for reviews. Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask; the worst that can happen is no action or a no.

For instance, you can set up an automated email that goes out to customers after they make a purchase and ask them how they are experiencing your product. Let them know that their input is valuable to help improve your business.

And always respond to negative reviews. Take this opportunity to learn from your customers and find out what you can do to improve your products and services. Depending on how well you respond to negative reviews, customers may still decide to buy your product over a 5-star item.

3. Showcase Your Reviews on Your Website

You should be proud of your reviews and showcase them on your website.

For example, AIOSEO proudly displays a sample of their customer reviews on their homepage as social proof of why users love their SEO plugin.

Adding reviews on your website is powerful because when people visit your site, they can instantly see that other users are enjoying your products and encourage them to purchase.

And if the reviews are particularly good or entertaining, share them on social media and include them in your email marketing. Whatever gets the word out there.

Reviews can also boost your SEO and rankings in search engines. Your 5-star reviews will be displayed next to your brand name in search results, increasing the click-through rate to your site.

That said, the easiest way to add glowing reviews to your site is by using a WordPress review feed plugin, like Smash Balloon.

4. Use Incentives to Get More Customer Reviews

Incentives like coupons, discounts, and other rewards are excellent ways to encourage your customers to leave reviews. Who wouldn’t want to make a bargain in exchange for leaving a few words?

After all, 130 million Instagram users tap on shopping posts each month, so give them an incentive to shop and leave you that valuable review.

Best of all, incentives also encourage repeat sales which is a bonus. For instance, loyalty programs are a great way to track and distribute incentives. So, if you have a loyalty program in place, you can offer customers reward points for reviews and then share them on all digital channels.

Remember that social mentions can be a pretty cool reward too. People love to see and read about themselves and are more likely to pass it on to their networks. But don’t forget to tag the customer.

5. Run a Contest

Running a contest is an effective way to market your business and get more reviews.

For instance, you can use a prize wheel, similar to the wheel of fortune, on your website where customers can win different giveaways for leaving reviews. You can then connect the spins on the wheel to various activities. For example, submit a review on Facebook = 3 spins on the wheel, a video testimonial on YouTube = 5 spins, a Google or Yelp review = 2 spins, and so forth.

Also, hosting a video testimonial contest can help you increase your reviews. Encourage customers to send you recorded video testimonials, and share them on YouTube, social media, and your website for even more exposure.

Running a contest or raffle requires a little bit of prize planning and website configuration, but it can be well worth the effort. It’s also a fun activity that your customers will remember and possibly spread the word about throughout their networks.

6. Add Your Business to Review Sites

Adding your business profile to legit review sites like Yelp or Trustpilot can help boost your review count.

Ensure that your profile includes all the necessary information about your business to make it easy for customers and prospects to find your profile. People specifically go to these review sites to read and leave reviews or find out more about a company.

Again, it all comes down to making it easy for customers to leave reviews, and getting listed on review sites can help with that.

HOW TO BOOST RANKINGS IN GOOGLE'S FEATURED SNIPPETS

Do you want to know how to boost rankings in Google featured snippets? By grabbing a feature in Google’s rich snippets, your CTR (click-through rate) will instantly skyrocket and boost your rankings, as well.

Imagine this: 5.14 billion searches are made on Google each day, which is almost 2.46 trillion searches in 2019 alone. This means that by optimizing your website for featured snippets, you can tap into that traffic and increase your conversions. And more conversions mean more sales for your business.

So in this post, I’ll show you how to boost rankings in Google’s featured snippets by adding schema mark-up to your website. I’ll also cover what a featured snippet or rich snippet is.

What’s a Featured Snippet on Google?

A featured snippet or rich snippet is a brief excerpt from a webpage that appears in Google’s search results to quickly answer a user’s question. Often, it includes additional information like star ratings and prices.

In other words, featured snippets create nice-looking search results that display information about the page. Not only that, but the added reviews and star ratings make it look better in the search results, too.

Here’s an example of a featured snippet in Google search:

As you can see in the above screenshot, it shows star ratings, votes, and price. This sneak peek gives users the information they’ll need to decide if they want to check out the product and click through to the site. Typically, the more information you can show, the more likely it is that people will click on your link.

In addition, it’s vital to optimize your website for featured snippets since, for example, 40.7% of all answers from voice searches are from a featured snippet. And voice search is gaining popularity each day. Many users prefer to speak directly into their smartphones instead of typing in a search on Google.

Also, being able to show additional information like product images and star ratings in search is advantageous since people like visuals better than reading just text.

Research has shown that users can remember 65% of visual content even three days after seeing it. This means that they’re more likely to recall your product image or brand name and search for it again if they didn’t purchase from you the first time.

How Are Featured Snippets Generated?

To optimize your website for featured snippets, you’ll need to add schema mark-up to your site.

But what’s schema mark-up, you may ask?

Schema mark-up or structured data is a code that tells Google and other popular search engines what your web page is about. The code enables search engines to show additional information in search results.

For instance, you can add schema mark-up to:

Products Reviews Articles/Blog posts Events Recipes Books Apps FAQs And more…

 
And to again illustrate how good they look, here are examples of featured snippets on Google of delicious chocolate cake recipes:

Seeing something you’d like? I’d probably have clicked on all of these, just saying:-)

Anyway, Google can show these nice-looking rich snippets because these web pages use schema mark-up.

That said, let’s take a look at how to do just that so you can boost your rankings in Google’s featured snippets.

Optimizing Your Site for Featured Snippets

Now, to the fun part of optimizing your website to rank in the featured snippets on Google. We’ll do this by adding schema mark-up to your pages.

Using a WordPress SEO plugin, like All in One SEO (AIOSEO), Yoast SEO, or Rank Math is the easiest way to do this. And in this article, I’ll show you how to optimize your site for featured snippets using one of WordPress’s original SEO plugins, AIOSEO.

This SEO plugin makes it super easy to add schema mark-up to your website.

Alright, let’s begin…

After installing and activating the plugin on your website, you need to start by adding your information.

So, navigate to the All in One SEO menu and click on Search Appearance. Next, go to the Global Settings tab and scroll down to the Schema Mark-up field.

Then, you simply choose whether your website represents an organization or person and fill out the form that will be displayed right after.

Fill in all the information requested to allow for a good user experience. Providing this information will also make it easier for Google to know what your website is about and show it in the snippets.

Next, you need to check that the Sitelinks Search Box option is enabled, allowing people to find your site in Google’s search results quickly.

If you for some reason wouldn’t want this option, you can switch the button to “Off.”

Now, you need to go back to Search Appearance and click on the Content Types tab.

Once in Content Types, you can choose which type of content you want to add schema mark-up to, such as posts, pages, or products.

In this example, I’ve chosen to show you how to add schema mark-up to Posts. So, in the Post section, you click on the Schema Mark-up tab and set the Schema and Article Type.

For blog posts, the Article schema type is the best option. And the Article Type is set to Blog Posts by default, so you can just leave it as is.

That’s it!

You can also add schema to your individual posts and pages directly in the WordPress editor.

To do this, you navigate to the AIOSEO Settings (located at the bottom of the page) and click on the Schema tab.

A new window will open, where you can select your Schema Type by clicking on the drop-down menu.

Like in the general settings for schema mark-up, you then choose your Article Type.

And there you have it! As simple as that.

In addition, you can also add schema to your product pages to get Google to show additional information such as star ratings, order stock, and price in its search results.

Before I leave this topic, I need to tell you that the information you’ve added won’t be visible to your website visitors but is added to the source code of your site.

Wrapping Up

Getting featured in the rich snippets will do wonders for your click-through rate and rankings on Google. I recommend that you take the time to set this up (it’ll be quick). You won’t regret it. Also, make sure to check your Google Analytics to keep track of your organic search traffic.

SEVEN REBRANDING MISTAKES TO AVOID

Are you thinking of rebranding your business?

Doing a full rebrand can be a powerful way for you to grow as a company by creating a new image.

A rebrand is an intensive effort that should be as perfect and complete as possible.

Let’s look at some critical mistakes that you should avoid during your rebranding process. Keep these tips in mind to launch your new brand image with minimal friction.

Not defining your values and purpose

One mistake that some companies make is to rebrand just for the sake of it. They don’t have a clear vision or reason for why they want to do a full rebrand. In some cases, business owners just want to hop on the next trend without looking at whether it makes sense for them. 

Making changes to your brand image without a clear purpose can be a costly mistake. It’s easy to find yourself losing time and money because your design elements aren’t cohesive. You can end up making changes over and over again because you don’t know why you’re doing a rebrand. 

Before you start any practical aspect of your rebranding, start with asking why you want to do this.

Perhaps, you want to differentiate yourself from your competition. Or maybe, you want your brand image to reflect the values of your audience to drive a deeper connection with them. Or you believe your business is an industry leader and you want your brand image to show that. 

It’s important to sit down and flesh out a clear statement that expresses why you’re doing a rebrand. State what is your goal with this effort and understand the set of values that form the core of your rebranding. 

Starting with such overarching guidelines will make it easy to make the right design decisions. You’ll also empower your employees to work in a way that’s effective and meaningful. 

Not taking feedback

Your rebranding effort is not something that you should do in isolation. Unless you’re a solopreneur, it’s critical to involve your employees, partners, and even your customers in your rebranding effort.

Without feedback from other parties, you run the risk of removing the very elements that appeal to your audience and drive your employees. Or your new brand tone and image could divert from what really makes your brand important to people. 

Start by involving your partners and employees while discussing the goals and values of your business and why you should rebrand.

Also, use survey forms and feedback forms and send them to your employees and a small sample of your customers.

Ask questions revolving around what they think your company does best, what feelings your brand image evokes, and what changes they like to see.

Sometimes, you’ll learn that your current brand image is exactly the way it should be. For example, Tropicana redesigned its packaging to look trendier. But despite its heavy advertising and marketing efforts, the new package design led to heavy backlash from people who loved the product. 

Tropicana’s package redesign led to a severe backlash. Source

Don’t change your brand just to stay with the current trends. And make sure that you get feedback to know if your rebranding works. 

Not creating a Coming Soon page

If you’re redesigning your website as part of your rebranding strategy, then you need to create an attractive ‘Coming Soon’ page to share the news that you’re doing a rebrand and a redesign of your site. 

It’s a mistake to leave a static page that just says ‘Website under construction’.

You can create an attractive coming soon page by using a landing page plugin like SeedProd. 

Here are some of the elements that you can add to your coming soon page:

• An optin form for users to subscribe to your newsletter
• A countdown timer that counts down to when your new website is launched
• Links to your social media page that people can follow
• Links to important blog posts, articles, and other web pages you want your users to check out
• An attractive hero image that’s the first thing people see
• Short and creative headlines that catch people’s eyes 
• Contact details like your email or a contact form for users to reach you

By creating a coming soon page for your website under development, you’ll remind your audience to come back later. 

Not doing 301 redirects

For some businesses, a rebrand includes buying a brand new domain and moving content from the previous web address to a new one. In this case, you need to use a 301 redirect to send visitors to the new location or page. 

Other reasons to create 301 redirects include when you merge several posts into a single new one. Or when you delete old posts that are no longer relevant and you need to send users to updated and newer posts instead.

In all these cases and more, 301 redirects tell your users’ browser and search engines that your content has moved to a new location. And this is critical because not creating such redirects will impact your SEO.

The easiest way to redirect users from your old or broken URLs to new ones is to use the right plugin. An SEO plugin like AIOSEO can help you do this and manage your SEO efforts. You can also find good redirect plugins in the WordPress marketplace.

Not sharing on social media

A simple rebranding mistake is to not plan how you’ll tell your audience that you’re rebranding the company. It’s not the best idea to spring an entirely new brand image onto your audience as a surprise.

You need to introduce the fact that you’re doing a rebrand early on through your social media pages.

This gives you the chance to get feedback from your audience. And you’ll also build a buzz around your upcoming rebrand.

As part of your rebranding strategy, plan to create blog posts, social media images, video content, and other digital assets to share along the way. 

Create a content calendar and use a social media management tool to plan and schedule posts to appear and your rebranding moves forward. 

Rolling out your new brand slowly

When you launch your new brand image and kit, it needs to be the final version that you are sharing with the world.

Watch out for these mistakes that can create a poor user experience for your customers:

• Failing to update your website and social media at the same time
• Rolling out your changes bit by bit. For example, changing your logo one day without updating your brand profile name and description in your profile ‘About’ sections
• Making changes to your brand identity elements after launching them

You want to make your new brand identity as complete and perfect as possible before it’s launched. Making changes later or not updating all your content at once will create confusion and disrupt your user’s experience with your brand. 

Not documenting your new brand changes 

Documentation is critical for every business activity including your branding. As soon as you define the key elements of your brand image, it’s important to document the details for internal purposes.

Use a cloud-based storage service where you can save files that your entire team can access. Create a brand asset folder and a document that details everything from the overarching vision for your brand to the font used in your website and stationery.

Finally, when you launch your new brand image to the world, make sure that you update your Media Kit on your website with the new details. Include logos, the hex value for the colors used, the font type kit, and more.

Creating documentation ensures that everyone is on the same page. And both internal and external stakeholders can find the details they need whenever necessary for media purposes.

Back to you

We’ve covered the critical mistakes that you can make while rebranding your business. however, by following the tips mentioned here, you will be covered.

Focus on creating a new brand image that resonates with your customers. You’ll see better growth and a stronger relationship with your audience.

TOP PERFORMERS NEVER LET A SECOND GO TO WASTE, HOW?

Every person on the planet is allotted the same 1440 minutes each day; it’s how we choose to use them that makes all the difference. Unfortunately, efficient time management can sometimes be a challenge. To help you make the most of the time you’ve been given, check out these 14 simple yet effective time management tips.

1. Tackle the Most Important Tasks First

This is calling Eating That Frog! Start every day by tackling your largest, scariest task first. When you do that, everything else will be simple.

A system for prioritizing tasks called the ABCDE Method. In this method, A tasks always come before B tasks and B tasks before C tasks. D tasks are delegated and E tasks are eliminated entirely. By sticking to this method, you can ensure that you are always tackling the most important things first and using your time as wisely as possible.

2. Make a To-Do List

To-do lists have a way of helping people organize their tasks. They also create a physical embodiment of the tasks’ existence, reminding you that they need to be done and providing you incentive to start checking items off. Be sure to use multiple lists to stay organized. An article about the 4 types of to-do lists to demonstrate the range of lists that can be useful for achieving all your goals.

3. Divide and Conquer

If you have a major task to get done, try to divide it up into a bunch of smaller tasks. This collection of smaller tasks will seem much less intimidating than the task seems when viewed as the whole.

4. Get the Momentum Going

Once you’ve divided your large task up into a bunch of smaller tasks, choose the smallest one in the bunch and knock it out. Getting started is often the hardest part of accomplishing something. Once you’ve got the ball rolling by finishing just one, small task, though, pushing forward will be much easier.

5. Start with the Unpleasant

If you’re staring down the barrel of an especially unpleasant task, it’s best to get it over with and get it done. Often times, worrying about your most difficult task will take up more energy than doing it. Avoid this waste of mental energy by getting your most unpleasant task out of the way first.

6. Focus on the Negative

Fear is an excellent motivator, and, if your tasks are important, not completing them is sure to come with some negative consequences. While you don’t want to focus on these consequences so much that you allow them to work you into a worried frenzy, a little bit concern can be great for crushing procrastination.

7. Come Prepared

When you set about a task, make sure you come fully prepared with everything you need to complete it. Not only will coming prepared keep you from having to trace back and forth getting items, being prepared is a great motivator in and of itself.

8. Take Time to Relax

A little bit of relaxation is crucial for maintaining a positive, motivated mindset. If you work constantly without taking the time to rest and gather your thoughts, you’ll quickly burn out and be unable to efficiently accomplish your tasks no matter how hard you try. My personal recommendation for relaxation time is meditation, but do whatever you find the most refreshing and peaceful.

9. Adopt a Sense of Urgency

It’s not enough to work hard – you need to work fast. Working fast is the best way to make the most of your time and accomplish as much as you can in the time you have available. Find a speed at which the quality of your work is still high and develop the sense of urgency necessary for you to maintain that speed.

10. Reward Yourself

Each time you complete a task (or a significant portion of a task) reward yourself. It doesn’t have to be anything major; step outside and stretch, get a cookie from the cabinet, check your phone, or substitute any other short yet pleasant activity that you might enjoy. So long as your rewards don’t start taking up too much of your time, they can be a powerful way to motivate you to start checking items off your to-do list.

11. Work Smarter, Not Harder

Before you dive into a task head first, take a step back and analyze the best way to go about it. Often times, a few minutes of advanced preparation will end up saving you hours of inefficient work.

12. Delegate

The best leaders know how to properly delegate tasks. If there is work that you can afford to outsource or delegate to someone else, do it. This way, you can ensure your efforts are always focused on the tasks that are most important for you yourself to handle.

13. Eliminate the Nonessential

Some tasks don’t really belong on your to-do list. If it’s not really important that they are done and you’re pressed for time, strike them out and don’t worry about them. They’ll only distract you from your other, more essential tasks.

14. Lock the Door

Distractions are the fuel of procrastination. Sometimes, the only way to completely defeat procrastination is to lock yourself in a room and avoid all distractions. Put your phone in another room, pull the shades, and get to work until the task is finished.