Your Business Quick Tip Newsletter
Vol 19 No #189 – 21st October 2020
Contents
- Secret Diamond of Google/ MS36
- Phone Tip: Ease Your Work Life Imbalance
- Interested In A Fermentation or Microgreen Lesson?
- iPhone Tip – Record Videos Quickly
- New, Specialised Excel Tip X-Lookup
- A Simple “Sales” Lesson from An Electrical Company
- Personal Productivity and Business Improvement Training
1. Secret Diamond of Google/ MS365
Interested in a little known cloud software program with multiple uses for so many? One of my favourites, it’s FORMS; available both on Microsoft and Google.
- Microsoft 365 you’ll see the app icon on the left navigation bar (the nav. has just been refigured). Forms is a green square with a capital F. In OneDrive, Click the Plus > Forms Survey
- Google Drive Click New > More > Forms
Forms enables you to create any “Fill In” easily. It creates a hyperlink you email. When someone clicks the form opens. They fill it out; and beautifully all responses are added to an online Excel or Google Sheet. Which of course you can download. Even better it graphically tabulates responses for you in pie and bar charts.
So what you say? Kiss your manual data entry goodbye and with all the uses for work, home, school, community – it’s only limited by your imagination
- Surveys, sign up forms, reservations, registrations.
- Order, health and safety, quotes
- Repair and maintenance, timesheets, log books
- Open home registrations, attendance, party invites
2. Phone Tip: Ease Your Work Life Imbalance
I’m sure you’ve read about setting boundaries between work and your personal time.
Here’s a simple, smart way to help you resist temptation.
- Turn off Email Notifications. You do this in the specific email program you use. But more importantly,
- Set your Do Not Disturb. Here’s where to find it- and you’ll have various permissions you can enable.
- iPhone > Settings > Do Not Disturb
- Samsung > Settings > Notifications > Do Not Disturb
3. Interested In A Fermentation or Microgreen Lesson?
Though not an expert by any means, I have been growing sprouts and microgreens for years, and have been on the homemade probiotic fermenting bandwagon too. Sauerkraut, kefir, kombucha and ginger beer bandwagon. Making it yourself saves a significant amount of money. Sauerkraut is cabbage and salt. Kombucha, a starter, sweet tea and sugar…..
If this is something you’d be interested in learning about (either via a zoom meeting or live) please let me know your preference. My survey is only several questions AND you’ll get to see how the tip above on Forms works.
4. iPhone Tip – Record Videos Quickly
Did you know the latest iPhones have a new setting that lets you record videos very quickly?
- Open the Camera app
- Hold down the shutter button at the bottom to begin filming
- Release your thumb or finger when you want to stop recording
5. New, Specialised Excel Tip, X-Lookup
If you use VLookup or HLookup (for example, looking up the price of a part by it’s number, or finding a student’s name based on their ID); then you’ll love the brand new XLookup in Microsoft Excel 2019. It’s infinitely easier and has more scope. Here’s how to learn more.
6. A Simple “Sales” Lesson from An Electrical Company
“Debbie, we had a large contract that was coming up in a few months. In the interim we needed to take up the slack with work in order not to lay off staff. Naturally we thought we’d go to our customers first and see if we could get some new business from them.
We initially thought we’d contact 1000, offering a complimentary check of their external electrical connection. Afraid of wasting our money on such a large mailing, we began with a trial of 100 letters. From those 100 we got 80 appointments!
In fact we got so much work and were so flat out from that mail out we were thanking our lucky stars we didn’t send the original 1000 planned!!!”
I know what you’re thinking. “Nice story Debbie. But I’m not a trade person. What’s this got to do with me?
What is your answer to these five questions?
- How detailed is your ‘marketing’ database? I didn’t say customer database because you should be thinking on a larger scale. Customers. Prospects (depending on your business).
- How closely can you target (relevance to them – not you?)
- How fast can you move when customer service or sales opportunities arise?
- How often do you use your database to add value to your service AND bring in $$$?
- Have you thought of using actual letters instead of email lately?
Personal Productivity and Business Improvement Training
All training is bespoke and focuses on the bottom line of freeing up time and improving business performance. Any mode – In-house, One to one, small through large groups in NZ.
Worldwide, online, webinar.
Call 64 27 575 5359 or email debbie@debbiespeaks.com now for a chat and quote.
- Email: Outlook or Gmail
- MS Office Mastery
- Persuasive Communication
- Sales, Marketing, Business Improvement