Set Yourself Up for Success (Yes, Now) From Your Couch!

So you’re stuck at home. Maybe business is quiet, or you’ve been forced to close up shop all together. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to slack off! On the contrary—this is your chance to set yourself up to come back swinging. While your competition is zoned out on their seventh straight hour of Tiger King, you could be building up your client base—and preparing to open back up stronger than ever. It all starts with a little marketing.

Here’s what I mean.

Build Your Biz with Social Media Marketing

Millions of people are out of work, and even more are stuck at home, distanced from friends, family, and their normal busy lives. Guess what? That means a whole lot of opportunity for you—to turn bored social-media-surfers into future clients! It’s actually pretty darn simple.

Get some video rolling

One of the easiest ways to get your name out there and connect with clients? Video. Think about what you have to offer—industry-related tips? Self-care advice? Fun videos? A little much-needed humor?—and roll with it (literally). Break out your phone, put it in selfie mode, and get the camera rolling.

If you can make it industry-specific, that’s great. If not, that’s fine too; it’s really just about producing interesting, unique, valuable content—even if that’s something goofy or entertaining (hey, we need that right now!). Just be sure you’re not trying to sell anything on social media.

Set up a business account

Press pause before you post that hair-care or massage therapy video to your personal Facebook page, and get yourself a business account. Not only does having a business account make you look more credible and professional, it also helps to keep your personal life separate from your work life, and vice versa. Your business clients don’t want to know about your personal stuff, and hey, your friends might not want the biz details, either.

There are some other nice benefits to business accounts, too, like being able to check analytics and run ads. Plus, some social media platforms, like Facebook, can limit the number of friends or followers you’re allowed.

Get Motivated & Work That Marketing

If your business is closed or clients are quiet, you might be feeling a tad unmotivated, especially if you’ve been relocated from your normal office or workspace into what’s trying to pass for a home office. If you expect to reopen with booming business, you’ve got to get over that procrastination, get motivated, and get working!

Here are some tips for making the non-work from home work for you.

Get organized

First things first; work isn’t going to get done unless you’ve got an organized workspace. The dining room table doesn’t count, nor does the living room coffee table or that corner of the kitchen counter where paperwork has started to grow faster than your roots since the salon closed. You need to designate a space that’s just for work, a place where you can focus and not be distracted by personal life.

Once you’ve got your spot, get it work-ready with a few low-cost office supplies, like desk organizers or file folders, to keep paperwork, pencils, and other materials from piling up.

Make a plan

Okay, you’re organized. You have a lovely workspace and plenty of color-coded file folders. But… how do you make yourself actually, you know, do stuff? Hate to break it you sister, but you gotta stop procrastinating, put your big-girl panties on, and just do it!

Okay, all kidding aside, it helps to start with a plan. Try a task management program. These are super useful, as they allow you to create individual projects and to-dos, then check them off as you go. Make yourself some goals, projects, and tasks. Then, assign some hard due dates.

Now, it’s time to work.

Start with the hard stuff

Motivation tends to be highest at the start of a project or the beginning of the day. (Kind of like how it gets harder and harder to resist that leftover birthday cake as the day goes on… No, really. There’s an actual study about this). As the day wears on, you get tired, you lose focus, you start to get distracted… so try this: start with those hard tasks first.

Starting with the “icky” stuff lets you tackle those dreaded projects when you’re fresh (when motivation and willpower are at their peak), AND lets you get the hard part done with—so you’re less likely to put it off at the end of the day.

Take breaks

If you try to sit down and bang out eight hours of work without a break, you’re going to burn yourself out! In about five hours, you’ll be feeling antsy. Seven and you’ll be hating the wall your desk faces and cursing your paint color choices. Eight and your housemates will be considering alternate living options.

Don’t turn into work-from-home-zilla! Take breaks when you need to to stay fresh, motivated, and in good spirits. (And if you can, get outside at least once a day!)

Reward yourself!

At the end of a day, look back on everything you’ve accomplished… and give yourself a pat on the back. That’s one day down and one day closer to manifesting the business of your dreams! You can do it!

Need More Marketing Tips?

Hey, I get it. Not everybody’s a marketing pro.. which is good or I probably wouldn’t have a job! If you need more tips and ideas—well, I bet you can guess where you might find some handy social media videos (hint: check my Facebook and TikTok)! Or you can just, you know, shoot me an email or pick up the phone. Human contact, people! Let’s not be shy while we’re social distancing.

#businesstips #growyourbusiness #marketingtips #SocialMediaMarketing