At tenfive designs we believe that your Logo and business image are key elements in creating the right impression, with impact.

Many business owners ask….What does Graphic Design do for my Business?

As a Business owner I bet you take presentation seriously, because it is vitally important, isn’t it? Whether it be polished shoes, dressing smartly and arriving on time, we all in business strive to make the right kind of first impression on our potential clients.

Good design and visual communication of our business is often the first chance we get to make the right impression, and it’s important that we make a positive and memorable one.

Think of your own brand loyalties just for a moment and then consider why you hold them? Did you choose a product or service based on the brand you liked, how and why did you decide to choose that brand?

Most of us will realise that a good proportion of our choices will be made visually because we like what we see, or identify quickly with what is being presented.

Establish your own criteria to identify what you are trying to present. How do you want people to perceive your business, its service, or a particular product. Engage your audience clearly and quickly and most importantly, memorably!

About our Guest Blogger:

Mandie Spooner owns tenfive designs a Graphic Design Company that specialises in Business presentation and corporate image; her business is to make your business look great! tenfive designs also offer a wealth of other design and layout services.

Visit www.tenfivedesigns.com or email Mandie at mandie@tenfivedesigns.com

We support your business by offering help when you need it without the uncertainty of temporary staff or the expense of a full-time employee. We form a partnership to help you succeed!

Virtual assistants are independent contractors, working from their own offices and using their own equipment, who control management of the work and how it is carried out so that you can spend less time on the administrative aspects of your business and more time on growing your business.

Working with a VA provides many benefits, including:

• Pay only for time worked on a project, not a 40-hour work week.
• No insurance, retirement contributions, workers comp or other related benefits.
• No office space required.
• No training required in most cases.
• You have more time to spend on client work, i.e. making money!

I have many businesses that outsource administration work to me as a Personal Assistant or virtual assistant, and in turn, I have learned to let go of the reigns a little and outsource some parts of my business to others who are better able to undertake these specific tasks.

Outsourcing work is like having a skilled and valued employee on your team, without the extra costs that go along with having staff.  It can help you out a those busy times where you need an extra pair of hands, frees up your time to spend on more profitable opportunities and if the person you outsource to is an expert, you are getting a higher quality of work than you may be able to produce yourself!

You can even use external people to help expand your business by using them as a contractor to enable you to offer more from your business. This again will increase your profit margin and delight your customers by providing even more services.

For my business and many others outsourcing makes perfect sense, it lets you:

• Free up your time for more profitable opportunities
• Get a higher quality of work than you can do yourself
• Expand on your services to clients by using a contractor
• Give yourself a little breathing space at busy times

I know I need to do it with my business, have you considered it for yours, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Today I finally decided to set up my ‘home office’. I cannot wait till this weekend to go to Ikea and get a real desk! What a great feeling looking forward to getting up and going to work! Yes, I know it can seem like a luxury being able to walk from the kitchen to the office, but for the last 3 years my office was IN my living room just at the entrance of the kitchen needless to say by blocking the entrance there was a lot of frustration from mine and my husband. My desk is the dining table, and my computer plays Transformers almost as much as I try to use it for work. My favourite part (not really) are the sticky fingerprints I find all over my new desktop the next morning after my son has watched his cartoons and played his games on it after dinner.

The worst part about having my desk and computer in the family communal area is when the phone rings, or a Skype call comes through. The kids think it is Oma and Opa from the Netherlands calling…and they both come running from all over the house. I try frantically to quiet down or go into the other room so mama can take a work call. Do you think a 4 and 2 year old understand this? Especially when they think it is Oma? You can see the issues I am facing.

So, with a little help from Ikea planner I’ve finally figured out what I need to set up my home office. Having attended this month’s network event at Mumpreneurs Northern Beaches Network where Penny Webb from Working Mums MasterClass told us all about how to organise yourself, your family and your business. I feel quite liberated and finally feel like a professional, even if I’ve been acting this way for the past 3 years.

Now all I need is a nameplate stuck on the door and my own assistant out at the front.

My tips for setting up your own home office

What is it?  What is missing?  When you stop to think about it you realise that there is actually quite a bit missing.

You no longer wake up full of enthusiasm for your day and it seems to be more difficult to get started on your work.  In fact, it’s hard to decide where to begin.  You have some choices to make and you haven’t been able to work out what to do.

Wouldn’t it be good if you had someone to talk to?   Ah, there it is.  That is what is missing!

When you worked in a group environment it was so easy to take people for granted.  There was always someone to talk to of have coffee with.  In fact, sometimes there were too many people and too many interruptions but never once did you feel alone and isolated.

Working from home can be a very isolating experience and most of us have to make a conscious effort to go out and connect with others.  That is why networking becomes a vital part of your business strategy.

Networking can save your business sanity.  It gives you the opportunity to connect with other professionals in related businesses, which opens the door to new opportunities.  It lets you bounce ideas off people who understand what you are talking about.  It helps you create new ideas.  It stimulates your mind and your enthusiasm again.

So where can you start building your networks?

In your local area attend your local Chamber of Commerce meetings.  This is a great way to meet up with other entrepreneurs in your community. Find out about conferences and conventions that are being held and try to attend.

Internet networking is as important as face-to-face meetings. Not only can you attract visitors to your web site, you can take a break from the nitty gritty of your business. Look for work-at-home websites, visit these sites and interact on the message boards. Increasingly businesses are using social media sites such as Facebook to interact with clients and other professionals in the one place!

If there is nothing in your local area why not think about starting one?  That is exactly what I did.  Networking is quite important to me was what led me to found the Mumpreneurs Northern Beaches Network (www.mnbn.com.au) with co-founder Banika Smee.

Remember that networking doesn’t have to be formal.  Meeting over a quick coffee can often be more energising and time efficient as going to a meeting.  Find something that you enjoy and do it.  Go out and connect with business professionals regularly.  You will soon notice the difference in your business performance and your own attitude towards it.

October is the month of Cancer, the month we remember the women and men who have bravely fought this decease but in the end lost the battle, we also support the women and men who continue to fight and hopefully win!

I recently got to know Krystal Barter through a post on Facebook. Krystal’s story was very inspiring. An amazing woman who is a mother of three and founder of Pink Hope.

I was fortunate enough to be able to help the foundation by providing some administrative jobs that she needed to get done before the launch of her new website.

Which led me to what I wanted to write about in my this blog.

Social Media! An amazing tool that can be used to keep family and friends updated, promote your business for FREE but also get wonderful causes like Pink Hope out there.

But your Social Media isn’t just a Facebook fan page, Twitter page or LinkedIn. It is also your blog, your email signature and your newsletter. And all these tools can be linked to each other which is amazing!

Your Facebook can get linked to your Twitter account so all your updates on Facebook get tweeted on Twitter at the same time. Write a blog and you can share this on Facebook, Twitter etc. Create an event, you can email this obviously to your clients but you can share this again on Facebook, Twitter, put a link on your blog, website. Same with the newsletter, you put a link of the sign-up on your website on your Facebook so people click on it and it leads straight away to the sign up form for the newsletter. The newsletter can contain a link to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

And something that gets forgotten a lot is the email signature. Most people have their mobile, address and website on there but what about adding all those social media tools on there too?

Think it is too hard? I have created instructions for you to download so you can have your Facebook, Twitter etc. on your email signature!

Just click on this Outlook Email Signature Support and it will open up a new window.

Good luck! And if all fails, I can do this for you. $25 to set up your email signature!

Talk to you soon,

Diana

1. Keep a list of topic ideas with you at all times. Have you faced an obstacle while trying to complete a project? Did something funny happen to you on your way to the Monday morning meeting? Write about it. Even better, did something happen to you while standing in line at the grocery that made you think, “There’s got to be a better way to do that.” Blog topics are all around you, so make sure you capture these topics at the moment you think of them. Nothing sucks up more time than searching online for a new article idea that will resonate immediately with you and your audience. Not every post you publish has to give profound insight into an industry specific issue. Finding topics to write about is as easy as keeping a grocery list.
2. Edit, but don’t obsess. A blog post should be grammatically correct and free of typos, but it doesn’t have to be literary perfection. If a three-paragraph post takes you more than an hour to revise and edit, then you’re probably spending too much time on it. My rule: Write it, spellcheck, take a break, re-read it for typos, then publish. If you are more concerned about writing quality than I am you can add a step where someone else reviews it as well. I’m a big believer that decent writing and great content is better than the other way around.
3. Readers love bullets, lists, and numbers. Remember, it’s a blog post, not an article for the Harvard Law Review. Keep it short and to the point and keep your content easy to read. Numbered lists (like, say, Five Tips for Efficient Blogging) pull readers in because they know from the start how much content you plan on covering. Bulleted lists are also a visual cue that your content will not take forever to read.
4. Finding links the easy way. Reporters will do a lot of research before writing an article. This is time consuming, but they will also have a lot of additional resources to point someone towards once they write the article. But, for blogging, sometimes the chicken can come before the egg when linking is concerned. If you have a specific topic you want to cover, it’s usually faster to write your content first before finding relevant links to include. Once you have the article, you can search for other blog articles and resources to use for links if you want.
5. Respond to comments only when appropriate. Responding to your reader comments is crucial if you want to keep and grow your audience. But it’s difficult to maintain a sense of efficiency if you’re trying to respond to every single comment from every post. Three quick questions to consider before responding to every comment: Is it a legitimate question regarding your post, company, or product? Do you they make a false statement that needs clarification? Is the comment from a loyal reader who comments on a regular basis? Depending on your readership, responding to comments may become an overwhelming task. Certainly, you need to be an active part of the commenting on your own blog. But you do not need to respond to every comment. In many cases the article you wrote is your response.

I hope you have found this as useful as I have. Because now if I have an idea for a blog while I go for a walk, or at the shops I just type it into the Notes of my mobile phone or if I have no time I just call myself and leave a message on the voicemail.

The fact was, there was no such local network. The closest was the Working Women’s Network which focuses on the Northern Beaches but meets up at Roseville, not that far but too far for when you have little children that don’t go to school yet! In case one of them wakes up, or you are still breastfeeding and need to be home at a certain time etc.

So I suggested to set one up myself and she said she would join me in this! So together Banika Smee from Witjuti and I founded Mumpreneurs Northern Beaches Network. We had our first network event, and only 3 of us were there but our second event is coming up on the 1st of September and already 4 women have signed up for this!

I decided to write about this on my blog to attract more women because if Banika and I feel like this I am positive there are more of us out there!

You can check us out on Facebook at mumpreneursnorthernbeachesnetwork, or on Twitter at MumpreneursNBN or even our own blog site at www.mumpreneursnorthernbeachesnetwork.com

I hope you can join us on Wednesday 1st of September from 7pm till 9pm at Gloria Jeans (corner of Pittwater Road and Waterloo Street in Narrabeen), just reply to this blog, or reply on Facebook or Twitter so we know how many are coming and we can organise the name badges plus the first coffee is on us! (note: this is for a small size coffee, maximum charge of $3.30).

All you need to bring are your business cards, flyers/ brochures, samples/ products and yourself and we will provide great company in a relaxing environment! Did I mention that this is a free network and that you get a free coffee!

Here you will find out about updates and current promotions!

Promotion for the month of August 2010 is if you are a new client in August you will get the first hour for free, please note there is a minimum charge of 2 hours per job.

If you are an existing client and refer another business to PA on the GO you will get 20% discount of your invoice, please note the referred business has to hire PA on the GO for a minimum of 4 hours.

Please also check out our Facebook and Twitter pages for any updates/ promotions. Just click on the links at the top of the page.

Look forward to working with you!

Diana
Director
PA on the GO