Success For Your Life & Business + Free Resources

Success is a must. After all, we must pay our bills, put food on the table, clothes on our back and, perhaps, be able to go out every now and then. Management is essential to that success, from home life to blogs to brick and mortar. These days, management is not limited to crunching numbers and directing employees. It’s changed.

Ever reach out to your contacts, only to get those dreaded “failed to send” messages come back at you? Those drive me absolutely insane. Unfortunately, that’s not even the worst part of not properly managing data. It’s just the one that seems to be the most obviously annoying. Admittedly, keeping those lists updated is not my strong suit.

There are more areas that could benefit from keeping up to date. There are constantly rollouts of social media changes and there’s a reason for it. Social media companies realize they have to stay on top of those things or they’ll be the next ‘MySpace’. That thing we all use to have but don’t even bother with anymore. Did you even know there is still a MySpace? It has now gone the way of all entertainment, but it’s there. Then again, I can’t remember for the life of me what I use to do on MySpace. It’s been THAT long.

Keeping up with the times, so to speak, will help ensure your business doesn’t become outdated no matter what area it may be in.

“How do We Do That?” you ask?

Nobody has time to keep up with every piece of social media, all the new trends and information and still be able to manage their business. Personally, I can barely keep my head above water most days. After all, my husband is adamant about his desire for my presence in our day to day lives.

One simple solution is to utilize a company that does data quality management for you. They will ensure that your data is up to date and they will identify trends and find the areas that will help your business thrive. Of course, to see the value of data quality management one must first gain a clear understanding of it. Science Direct does a phenomenal job of teaching it clearly, I recommend you check out both links in this paragraph for a thorough understanding. The first link is the simple version, the second is a technical, scholarly version.

Be safe. Another important aspect to both personal and small business safety, is security. Make sure that your network and data are protected well. We did an article last year that you may appreciate regarding personal data management and how to protect it.  While it does address personal data directly, the same information is helpful to any small business. Plus, there are free resources there and we all love those.

Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

Get organized. Yes, we all have our own way of organizing things. I call my organization controlled managed insanity. That’s crossed out because, being totally honest, my initial thought was indeed controlled insanity. Then my honesty creeped up and refused. So it’s corrected to managed. Everything is organized in files and binders around here: blog, financial management, home management, social life and even medical. The trick is not to over organize, I’m still working on that. Over organizing is when you’ve got stuff so sorted that you can no longer remember what it might be filed under or where it would be located.

Learn time management. I can’t give you good advice on this one and here’s why: over the course of researching and writing this post, I have been distracted at least 6 times and it’s not even done. One way I was distracted was while trying to pull up my post to share with you to help one get on time management track. (there’s a specific planner that works to help you do this and do it well, see it in that link, obviously I need to get a new one of those planners) So, in searching for that link, I found an old giveaway that needed to be taken down. Of course, might as well do that. Well, then I have to redirect it so it doesn’t go to ‘page cannot be found.’ Then, I had to take it off our giveaway page. This took a total of 5 minutes away from what I’m trying to accomplish: finishing this article. Five minutes doesn’t sound like long, but I do that all day. It adds up and is completely counterproductive. See how time management is essential to success?

And boy oh boy did that remind me.

Again.

Know What Works For You. There are ways to get things out there pretty much everywhere. I’m based in Arkansas with a focus on Oklahoma and Arkansas. From time to time though, I get responses from far away places. How? No clue. Tried to begin a store, failed. Why? No idea what my reach is, no way to evaluate it, no understanding of it. My understanding is limited to who responds on social media and analytics. That does not make a blog a success. Narrow in on what works for you and your business. There are tons of free resources. Hootsuite, for example, offers quite a few really good ones at no cost. I’ll be looking into those soon as well.

In Conclusion…

In order to be successful it’s essential to utilize resources. Our raw talent alone is not always enough, especially in a digital age. Things are out there to help us all get there, it’s simply a matter of reaching out and finding the right resources.

For blogger success: check out our resources.

Do you have any tips or resources you’d like to share?