TAROBY: Official News & Blog

1. Cut Your Workday by 30 Minutes
You will get more done. A deadline forces you to eliminate all the little time-wasters (silly interruptions, procrastination, perfectionism). Just because you can work all the time doesn’t mean you should. If you work in an office, stick to your scheduled hours. If you work at home, set an alarm to end your workday, and dedicate evenings and weekends completely to your personal life.

2. Define an Outcome for Every Meeting
Identify a topic and outcome for every meeting, and send it to all participants a minimum of 24 hours beforehand so that everyone comes prepared. Well-run, useful meetings provide enormous value–they can solve problems, generate ideas, save you time, clarify direction, tighten work bonds, build teamwork, and reignite passion for projects.

3. Reduce Paper Clutter
Eighty percent of what is filed is never looked at again. Before saving any document, ask yourself whether you would trust that the information is up to date next time you look for it. If not, it’s time to pitch, shred or recycle. For printing, use duplex printing to generate fewer pages. When it comes to printing information from web pages, consider using software such as Canon Easy-WebPrint EX–and print only the information you really need.

4. Create Templates
As entrepreneurs, we write many proposals, thank you notes, customer e-mails and press releases to various contacts. However, there is no need to write from scratch every time. While you don’t want your correspondence to sound like a form letter, writing every letter from scratch is an enormous waste of time. Creating a template for every document that must be sent more than once opens up your schedule for other work. Just be sure to customize your template based on the contact to whom you are writing.

5. Set the Due Date
No matter how much room you leave for creativity in the delegation process, never be vague about the due date. If you leave the due date vague, other priorities will usurp your delegatee’s focus, or not leave you enough time to correct the work, if necessary.

Leave enough of a cushion so that if the work doesn’t come back as you’d hoped, there is enough time to correct it before the real deadline. It’s sometimes helpful to give the person an estimate of how long you think the task should take and how long you want them to spend on it. Put a reminder in your planner to follow up the day the task is due.

Source: Entrepreneur.com

Every business in the world is run by an entrepreneur, at least at the initial stages. Entrepreneurship isn’t as easy as one thinks. There are many things that are needed in an entrepreneur to become a successful entrepreneur. Out of these so many things one thing that has changed for good is the misconception that entrepreneurs are only born and cannot be created. If this would have been true then there wouldn’t have been so many huge business schools making people entrepreneurs who weren’t originally entrepreneurs. Here we will look at some of the most important qualities that an entrepreneur must have in order to be successful in entrepreneurship.

1. Self Confidence
In order to succeed anywhere in the life one needs to have self confidence. Self confidence not only gives a person self assurance that he is right but also gives him or her courage to face the unseen challenges ahead. Often people think that self confidence only means to assume that everything that one thinks is right and the whole God damn world is wrong. Self confidence depicts the confidence in one’s abilities and endurance to bear the unbearable of the toughest situations in life.

2. Pro-activity
One other key feature of entrepreneurs is being proactive. As the businesses in this fast changing world have become very dynamic, it has become very difficult to see the changes come through and react. It is not also an advisable option to react to the situations that arrive in one’s life. Entrepreneurs need to see the things in a very different angle. They need to be sure of the coming things and they should be forward looking with prepared minds to be prepared and able to handle any kind of situation that may arise in their lives.

3. Self initiative
It is very important that entrepreneurs should be self starters. Often entrepreneurs don’t get the things done unless they need to. Especially in cases of initiatives that need to be carried in an organization for any kind of change. Facing change is difficult but it will become worse if you behave like a sitting duck in a pound waiting for a crocodile. Grab the challenges and get yourself ahead of the competition be being more of an initiator rather then a freaking mindless entrepreneur only waiting for things to go wrong or do something when need may arise.

4. Self discipline
A golden trait of an entrepreneur is being self disciplined. It is very hard to imagine that entrepreneurs won’t be self disciplined. But that is the hard fact of life and that is why most ventures fail. Entrepreneurs usually become lousy when they are nearing success and think that that’s it. But a successful entrepreneur is the one who doesn’t lapse in efforts and is consistent with his efforts the way he use to put in efforts before.

Source: Ezine Articles

Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of a good sales funnel is customer follow up. Often times we spend countless hours priming and primping our customer/prospect leading up to the sale. But in the end we drop the ball the moment the customer doesn’t bite or, worse yet, we make a sale and then forget about that customer and move on to the next.

This is the probably the single biggest mistake most people make when working with a client or prospect list. They fail to follow up properly if at all.

Following up with a customer/prospect is paramount to building a lasting business relationship and it is one of the main ways to maintain that relationship and create customer value through this retention. Through one customer can come repeat sales, referrals and a loyal customer for life.

It’s not difficult and doesn’t take much time if it is done in a systematic way. If your business currently does not have a good follow up system, then you need to get one now. There are several types of customer follow up and each one should have its own unique message.

Let’s examine the reasons you follow up with a customer after the sale:

1. You want to be sure they are pleased with your product/service
2. You want to further develop the relationship with that customer and entice repeat sales
3. This in turn will limit refunds – a sale is not a sale until after the guarantee period is over. Many people forget this and ultimately forget the customer once the sale is made.

The reasons you follow up when there is no sale:

1. To follow up on whether they have made a decision.
2. To further address any objections your customer may have.
3. To determine the time that is right for them.

There are several ways to follow up with a customer and you should utilize each method. A good chain for “after the sale” is sent to the customer in a 5, 14, and 30 day interval. This can be a mix of a card dropped in the mail, an e-mail followed with a card or a phone call to touch base with your customer to see how they are getting along and if they are having any issues.

If a customer is not ready to purchase, this is NOT a sign they will never purchase. Sometimes, this type of customer ends up being your most loyal customer. Never give up on a customer/prospect if they are not ready to buy. If they absolutely say “NO” they will never purchase, then leave them alone. But if they are simply not ready at that time to purchase, then follow up is critical. Maybe in 3, 4 or 6 months they will be ready. Life happens to people. Be there when life corrects itself and they are ready. If you aren’t, then someone else will be and they will reap the rewards.

So stop spending so much time up front trying to get the sale. Using good customer follow up techniques will not only go a long way in creating customer value, but in the end will help build a sustainable relationship with your customer which will ultimately result in more sales, repeat business and a higher bottom line.

Source: EzineArticles.com

Today’s smartphones make it easy to check e-mail, so there’s no excuse for having an overflowing inbox. But if you’re just starting out as an entrepreneur, there’s a good chance you’re using a consumer-oriented “POP3″  e-mail service, which can become a headache as your business takes off.

Here’s why: Short for “Post Office Protocol 3,” POP3 downloads messages to your device’s e-mail client, such as Outlook or Entourage, and then deletes them from the server. So if you check messages from multiple devices–say, a laptop at home, a desktop in the office and a smartphone in between–each of their inboxes is different.

It’s more efficient to use an e-mail system based on Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), which keeps all of your devices’ inboxes in sync by giving each one a copy of your messages but still preserving the original on the server. That means, for example, that you can read a message on your laptop in the morning and review it again in the afternoon from your smartphone.

Ditto for messages you’ve sent, deleted or moved to a special folder, because every time one of your devices connects with the server, it gets an updated snapshot of your whole account. With POP3, you’d have to update each device individually and manually–a huge waste of time and a great way to get yourself in a position where an important message is on your desktop, but all you have is your smartphone.

Not all e-mail providers charge extra for IMAP. For example, Google’s free Gmail uses IMAP and works with most major e-mail apps, such as Outlook, Taroby and smartphone operating systems, such as Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile.

Source: Entrepreneur.com

Unified messaging is quickly growing in popularity among businesses and private individuals alike, and for good reason: by using a unified messaging system, it’s possible to receive a number of different types of messages through a single access point instead of needing a different type of access for each message. This can be especially advantageous for businesses, as it allows them to reduce the amount of equipment that they need while making their communications systems much more efficient. If you have been considering switching your company to unified messaging but are wanting to make sure that it’s right for your business needs, then consider the following in order to see whether this is the messaging solution that you’ve been looking for.

An All-in-One Solution

By choosing unified messaging for your company, you will be getting an all-in-one solution for all of your messaging needs. Unified messaging allows your employees to receive voice messages, faxes, e-mail, text messages, and even video messages all through their computer, cellular phone, or other access points. E-mail, faxes, and other text messages can even be received as audio through standard telephones, with text-to-phone technology that is available with many unified messaging services; even if the service that you choose does not offer this feature, your employees will still be able to receive alerts telling them what types of messages they have when using a phone, and will be able to access all of their messages via their cellular phone or over the internet.

Less Equipment to Maintain

Because unified messaging doesn’t require separate machines for each type of message your employees might receive, there is much less equipment which must be bought and maintained. Additionally, the unified messaging system won’t require paper, ink, or other resources the way that fax machines and some other messaging systems might; any faxes or text-based messages can be read and printed out as needed from an employee’s computer, or simply listened to via telephone with a text-to-voice enabled unified messaging system.

Productivity and Cost Effectiveness

There are other advantages to using a unified messaging system, as well. Employees can spend more time focusing on their work instead of having to wait by the fax machine or visit another part of the office every time they need to send certain items off. Though the time spent doing these sorts of tasks may seem trivial, over the course of the day this can add up into a significant amount of time. This can give your employees a little extra time to get their work done, and they will be instantly alerted when the fax or message that they were waiting for arrives.
If your employees travel a lot or are often out of the office, unified messaging can be even more useful. Many unified messaging systems have features which enable messages to be sent to a variety of different access points, trying each in order so that your employee can receive their message alert regardless of whether they’re in the office or away on a job. This can save valuable time as well as trips back and forth from the job site and office to check messages or receive faxes that may be vital to the work that they are doing.

Source: Ezinearticles

If you’re a manager of an Email Support team providing support to customers, the quality of emails your team sends out is really important. ‘Send after approval‘ feature in Taroby helps you to ensure quality, especially while training new employees in your team. It’s also an indispensable feature while handling emails which are sensitive and needs to be reviewed by many people in the team, before being sent out to the customers or partners.

How to use ‘Send after Approval’ in Taroby

1.    Go to New => Email, at the top left corner to create a new Email message.
2.    Compose the message after filling in Email addresses, and Subject line.
3.    Go to Sending Options on the bottom right corner and hit the Add button to see the sending options layer.
4.    Check the “Send After Approval of” check box on the Send options Layer, and also select the team member whose approval is required.
5.    Hit the Send button to send the Email.
6.    The Email gets assigned to the manager whose approval is requested.
The Manager can approve or decline the Email according to its merit. He can give his suggestions through ‘attached comments’ if the Email still needs work.

No matter how much planning, preparation, and winnowing of your schedule you do, there are still times when responsibilities can wreak havoc on your to-do list. Whether at work or at home, there will be days or weeks when a lot of things just have to get done.

How you face and perceive these challenges, though, will determine your stress and anxiety levels throughout this process.

1. Maintain perspective. Now is the time to remind yourself of the big picture and of the temporary nature of this stress. Why are you taking on these responsibilities? What is the goal of all your hard work? Looking at the end result reinforces the temporary nature of your current condition.

2. Don’t lose sight of the details. Be sure every vital to-do item is written on your list and methodically work your way through these items. If an important action is not on your list, you’ll worry about it unnecessarily. Also, remember to get done the most important work first.

3. Embrace some of the stress. A little bit of stress (what is known as short-term, fight-or-flight stress) can be a good thing, especially if it helps to push you through your work. Use any stress you’re feeling to your advantage to give you a boost of energy to get many items checked off your list.

4. Take breaks. Research shows that you’ll be more productive if you alternate between mindful and mindless work. You’re more likely to finish all of the items on your list if you take a short break for mindless work for at least five or 10 minutes every hour.

5. Manage expectations. Regularly check in with the people who are waiting on the completion of your to-do items.
The more they know about where you are in the process, the better they can anticipate and plan their to-do lists. How often and how detailed your updates need to be will be determined by the type of responsibilities you have.

6. Don’t extend the stress. Now is not the time to take on a new project. Schedule appointments to talk about new opportunities for a few days or weeks down the line. You don’t have to say, “no,” you just need to say, “not right now.”

7. Celebrate. When you’re finished with your massive to-do list, or at least the extremely weighty parts of it, take time to celebrate. You don’t need to go on a vacation (although, vacations are nice), but a reward of some kind is definitely in order. I’m quite fond of a walk to the ice cream shop.

Image Courtesy businessweek
Source: unclutterer

Time is your most precious resource when you work from home on the Internet. If your Internet connection goes down or your computer blows up, the situation can be remedied but if you waste time, it is gone forever. If you fail to develop effective time management techniques you will all too often find that the hours you had intended to use productively have evaporated without trace. Time, although free, is valuable and it is irreplaceable: every second is unique and should be treated as an important asset. You will only manage to save time if you plan and employ your own personal time management strategy. We all have different demands being made upon our time, so managing to save time will be achieved in different ways by each of us. There is, however, one sure way anyone working at home online can manage to save time and that is by modifying the way we treat our email.

The trouble with working online is that your email is always just a click or two away at any time during your working day. If you were running an offline business from home, your day would be centered away from your computer and you would have to make a conscious decision about when and how often to check your email. When you are already sitting at your pc and connected to the Internet, it is just too easy to forget all about time management techniques and develop bad email habits. If you use the following time management strategy, you will maintain control of your working hours and find that you can easily get more done in less time.

1. Set an email schedule for yourself. Make it a rule only to check your inbox two or three times a day and set a strict time limit (ten or fifteen minutes per session is about right) on how long you spend dealing with email.

2. Don’t check your email as soon as you power up your computer at the start of any work session. You will be at your most alert and creative during the first hour of work. Use this time to complete more complicated or difficult tasks.

3. Don’t have your email alert permanently on to notify you as soon as an email hits your mailbox. This will serve to distract you while you are working and tempt you to abandon the schedule you have planned.

4. Deal with each email as soon as you read it. Flagging an email and going back to it to send your reply makes double the work. The only time you should permit yourself to do this is if you need to do some research before you reply.

5. Use your bookmark function. You are bound to get emails that contain a link to a website. Maybe you have subscribed to interesting online news letters or they could be offers of useful ebooks or tools. The time you have allocated to your email session should be used solely for reading and replying to emails. Bookmark any of the sites that appear worthy of further investigation and schedule time for a visit. This is the most dangerous part of dealing with emails: all commercial emails will have a “hook” with which to catch you, drag you into a black hole and make your time disappear. You must be alert to this so that you can unhook yourself and visit these websites at a time you decide is best for your schedule.

Developing good time management techniques is not difficult. You do, however, need to be constantly on your guard against temptations which might make you forget your time management strategy. Developing good habits and curing bad ones is the foundation of effective time management techniques

Source: e-bizdir.com

In the current globalised economy many small and medium business houses are engaged in international business. In international business spread across time zones, its very important to send the business emails in your business partner’s time zone. If you want your partner to receive a particular email message early in the morning, say  one hour after his day has began, it’s pretty hard to do that using any traditional Email Client, as you might need to stay awake late in the night, and hit that send button at that particular time.

This is where Taroby’s “Send Later” Feature comes in Handy, allowing you to save messages to be sent at a future date and time.

You need not loose your sleep while your business partner recieves the email in time – all managed by Taroby.

How to send messages at a Future date

1. Go to New => Email, at the top left corner to create a new Email message.
2. Compose the message after filling in Email addresses, and Subject line.
3. Go to Sending Options on the bottom right corner and hit the Add button to see the sending options layer.
4. Check the “Send Later on” check box on the Send options Layer, and also edit the Date and time.
5. Hit the Send button to send the Email.

In all efforts toward success, motivation plays a crucial part. However, this is a very vague concept that it easily gets lost in the equation. So, what is motivation?

Image via "The Future Buzz"

According to scientific studies, motivation is necessary in order to energize performance and achieve responses. However, it remains unclear as to whether motivation should come first or secondary to all behavior. Many people associate motivation with emotion. However, humans are also capable of controlling emotional responses on given circumstances. Therefore, your sense of motivation drastically influences how you feel and the way you perform.

The Importance of Motivation

Motivation is important in everything you do: whether at home, school, or at work. The practice and theory involved in motivating people encompasses various disciplines, mostly involving the study of human nature. Hence, it is a very complex concept in itself, knowing that you are dealing with dynamic entities in humans.

According to various researches, motivated people are more productive as compared to those who are not. Motivation in doing something is equal to their drive, which can either by stimulated by internal or external factors.

Many would consider function to be a product of both motivation and your ability.

How To Stay Motivated?

These are basic rules that you must follow in order to keep yourself and the people around you motivated:

1. Set a goal and path. Creating paths that lead to your goal helps you accomplish the tiny goals you have. Then, you can work your way towards the bigger goals.

2. Complete what you have started. Develop a habit of finishing off a task before moving on to the next. If not, then you will form the unhealthy habit of jumping from one task to the next, until you end up accomplishing nothing.

3. Find support. Find people who share your interest or are going through the same dilemmas as you. Having someone who understands you will keep you motivated.

4. Keep learning. Whether be it from your mistakes or others, or from the things you encounter on your day to day life, turn every experience into a lesson.

5. Utilize your natural talent. This must work in harmony with your efforts to learn more knowledge, so you always perform your best and you keep yourself motivated.

Keeping Others Motivated

Knowledge of yourself and your situation will enable you to control the circumstances in your life and devise ways to keep your motivation level on a high. However, dealing with others is a different thing. Mainly because you cannot control the way they feel nor the way their minds work. The same applies for someone who have subordinates in the workplace; hence, you should take note of the following principles to make sure that the people who work for you are motivated as well:

• always be willing to provide for their needs
• practice strict but just rules within the workplace
• avoid favoritism, instead treat everyone equally
• provide for your employee’s needs
• set work related goals that they can aim for
• recognize or reward good performance

Pertaining to the last on the list of principles, rewards must not necessarily come in concrete form. Even recognition or salutation for an excellent job on a task would create this mindset that they now have established a standard on the boss’ mind when it comes to their work. Hence, they will be energized into living up to that standard, if not excel them.

Since motivation is an essential part in your everyday dealings, make sure to follow measures that maintain yours while also helping others stay motivated.

Source: Ezinearticle.com