So how’s your budget coming along? Takes time huh? Getting all the paperwork together is a real pain. Don’t think an accountant is going to do a better job. Like I wrote before, “You are the one that should know the most about your business”. You should realize by now that you are perhaps finding in yourself some personal traits that a business owner must have in order to survive, Commitment and discipline.
Get an agenda. You can purchase a “Day Runner” but I recommend you make up your own. One that’s portable but not small, you need to take plenty of notes. I recommend the
Avery dividers that measure 5.5"x 8.0". Buy a set of tabbed separators you can label to your needs. I have mine labeled:
Current: I write down my current things to do and sometimes I have to make a separate sheet for a particular task. After I have these things down I like to go to the Weekly Calendar section and schedule them for immediate action.
Orders: My customer orders with name, phone, email and description of order.
Follow-up: Anything that needs to be followed up, merchandise order, customer call is written here.
Missed: For whatever reason an order is missed it doesn’t mean you dump the customer. A lot of money in the way of advertising and operating expenses have been spent to get them into your door. Offer to call them back when you get your new merchandise, give them a coupon towards a future purchase and if you were smart enough to get a birth date, give them a call.
To Do Month: During the course of the year you are bound to come up with new ideas, ads, etc. I like to breakdown ideas/tasks in this area broken up into the months I want to start working on them.
On the inside front cover of my agenda I placed a pad xxxx I secure it by keeping a tape behind it. This is great to jut down notes, ideas etc. Make sure to move it to the correct section afterwards or it’s just going to sit there.
I also have two Calendar sections one is my Weekly Calendar and the other is my Monthly Calendar.
Weekly Calendar: I prefer the Day Runner “Week in View Planning Calendar” Ref# 481-285Y. If you look at these calendar pages they will give you an immediate look of your week and each daily section is split into two sections Hours and “Record”. I post my tasks (divided by Office, Calls, Projects with ref# to notes, Pending Orders, etc) on these sections. Once listed I go ahead and post them on the days and times I want to work on them.
Monthly Calendar: I also have a Monthly Calendar section and once again I prefer the Day Runner “Tabbed Month in View Planning Calendar”. Once you get into the habit of using an agenda you will take advantage of both the “Objectives” section for projecting the course of your projects and skipping to the back of the you will find a “Planning Next Year” section where you can post your tasks such as tax preparation and filing along with the proposed advertising schedule for the coming year.
There is a section titled ‘Quarterly Overview”, I usually post a recap of my projects here and on the calendar section, in my shorthand, I have my advertising schedule for the entire quarter, more on this later.
On the Calendar dates itself I usually post personal things like dinners, beach days, dinner at Mom’s, etc
It might sound a bit obsessive but I guarantee your ability to plan ahead will pay for itself.
Get an agenda. You can purchase a “Day Runner” but I recommend you make up your own. One that’s portable but not small, you need to take plenty of notes. I recommend the
Avery dividers that measure 5.5"x 8.0". Buy a set of tabbed separators you can label to your needs. I have mine labeled:
Current: I write down my current things to do and sometimes I have to make a separate sheet for a particular task. After I have these things down I like to go to the Weekly Calendar section and schedule them for immediate action.
Orders: My customer orders with name, phone, email and description of order.
Follow-up: Anything that needs to be followed up, merchandise order, customer call is written here.
Missed: For whatever reason an order is missed it doesn’t mean you dump the customer. A lot of money in the way of advertising and operating expenses have been spent to get them into your door. Offer to call them back when you get your new merchandise, give them a coupon towards a future purchase and if you were smart enough to get a birth date, give them a call.
To Do Month: During the course of the year you are bound to come up with new ideas, ads, etc. I like to breakdown ideas/tasks in this area broken up into the months I want to start working on them.
On the inside front cover of my agenda I placed a pad xxxx I secure it by keeping a tape behind it. This is great to jut down notes, ideas etc. Make sure to move it to the correct section afterwards or it’s just going to sit there.
I also have two Calendar sections one is my Weekly Calendar and the other is my Monthly Calendar.
Weekly Calendar: I prefer the Day Runner “Week in View Planning Calendar” Ref# 481-285Y. If you look at these calendar pages they will give you an immediate look of your week and each daily section is split into two sections Hours and “Record”. I post my tasks (divided by Office, Calls, Projects with ref# to notes, Pending Orders, etc) on these sections. Once listed I go ahead and post them on the days and times I want to work on them.
Monthly Calendar: I also have a Monthly Calendar section and once again I prefer the Day Runner “Tabbed Month in View Planning Calendar”. Once you get into the habit of using an agenda you will take advantage of both the “Objectives” section for projecting the course of your projects and skipping to the back of the you will find a “Planning Next Year” section where you can post your tasks such as tax preparation and filing along with the proposed advertising schedule for the coming year.
There is a section titled ‘Quarterly Overview”, I usually post a recap of my projects here and on the calendar section, in my shorthand, I have my advertising schedule for the entire quarter, more on this later.
On the Calendar dates itself I usually post personal things like dinners, beach days, dinner at Mom’s, etc
It might sound a bit obsessive but I guarantee your ability to plan ahead will pay for itself.
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