And the Golden Rule of Running a Small Business
If you’re anything like me, maintaining a small business can fall to the backburner. I tend to put my customers’ small business marketing needs before mine, and the list of “to-dos” is continually growing. I’ve learned to change my mindset about that (easier said than done, I know) with one piece of advice – what I call the Golden Rule of Running a Small Business…
TREAT YOUR BUSINESS LIKE YOU WOULD TREAT A CLIENT’S BUSINESS
That means taking time to prioritize not only your small business marketing needs but in all other business aspects too. One day I got so tired of scribbling down the tasks that I needed to do, I set aside time to create a weekly, monthly and yearly checklist. Now, at the first of each month and every morning I pull up the appropriate list and work through my preassigned tasks. This has allowed me to stay on top of my small business and not feel so overwhelmed every day, which in turn gives me the ability to give the best service to my clients.
I like to think of it as business self-care. The more you take care of your mental health, the better you are for the people around you. Well, same goes for business – the more you take care of your small business, the better you and your business will be for your clients.
Here are some of the items on my Small Business Self-Care checklist:
WEBSITE
o Branding and colors are consistent
o Links working
o Content is up to date
o Typography is consistent (same spacing, sizing, fonts)
o Take a snapshot of your website analytics
o Take a snapshot of your social media analytics
o SEO maintenance (has your new content and imagery been SEO optimized?)
ACCOUNTING
o Bills paid
o Invoices sent (you wouldn’t believe how often people forget to collect their money!)
TRAINING AND EDUCATION
o Make a list of certifications and trainings you want to take
o Pick a training/certification and work on it once a week
REVIEWS
o Make sure you respond to reviews on Google, Yelp, Thumbtack, your blog, etc. This helps your SEO and gain customer trust.
SOCIAL MEDIA
o Content is created for the next month
o Content is scheduled across all platforms for the next month
o Engage with followers
o Like pages that are in your industry
OTHER STUFF
o Desktop icons are cleaned up and organized
o Computer document files are cleaned up and organized
o Photos and imagery are cleaned up and organized in files
Every business is different with their small business task lists. Sometimes a small business doesn’t even know what they need to do. And that’s where STAK Marketing comes in. We can create a small business marketing to do list, marketing strategy and general business check lists based on what you want to accomplish. Drop us a note to get started HERE.
Are you ready to implement the Small Business Self-Care?
Keep STAKing,
Michelle Johnson
Owner/Founder STAK Marketing
Michelle Johnson is the owner, founder and Chief Marketing Guru at STAK Marketing. Our passion at STAK Marketing is to create beautiful STAKs of marketing strategies that help small businesses grow and reach their goals. STAK Marketing's expertise ranges from SEO to branding, e-mail marketing to social media management, PR to advertising and much more - making STAK Marketing a one-stop-shop for all your small business marketing needs .