How to Write Killer Sales Copy (And See If It’s Working)

By Rob Wells

Sales copy matters more than you might think.

It’s important to supplement your text with images and video, but words on the page have a powerful impact on what consumers do.

A photograph of a smartphone doesn’t tell you its specs. A video about a running shoe can’t attract search traffic without intriguing copy to go with it. You need the copywriting portion of your sales page to compel action.

Unfortunately, far too many marketers don’t know what sales copy is or why it matters. Worse, they write uninspired copy that turns off consumers and gives their competitors the advantage.

As you’ll learn from this guide, writing sales copy isn’t a one-and-done practice. Your copy needs to change and evolve with your target audience, and the only way to know what works is to test it.

Sure, refining and testing copy takes more time. But if it results in more revenue for your business, you’ll want to do it the right way.

What is Sales Copy?

Sales copy is a text that persuades consumers to buy a product or service. You can write sales copy in paragraph form, create lists, or overlay it on an image.

The best sales copy focuses on how the end consumer can benefit from whatever you’re selling.

In many cases, though, sales copy is too dry for consumption. It puts the reader to sleep. While you don’t need to turn your sales page into the next techno-thriller novel, you should play with language and voice to give visitors a reason to keep reading.

The goal of sales copy is to convince the visitor to buy your product or service. It needs to present what you’re selling in such an attractive light that the consumer can’t say “no.”

Easier said than done.

Where many marketers go wrong with sales copy is allowing the product or service to speak for itself. If the consumer hasn’t worn a pair of your shoes or tried your service, they don’t have a frame of reference.

Consequently, you need to reach them on an emotional, visceral level and tap into their desire for what you’re selling. This means hitting pain points, calling out qualities that beat the competition, and appealing to your target demographic.

How to Write Killer Sales Copy – The Best Tips

Many people mistakenly believe that design alone sells products. That’s not true. Sales copy is essential for helping consumers make educated decisions and for highlighting the top benefits your target audience can enjoy by investing in what you’re selling.

Yes, design matters. However, without sales copy, it won’t produce revenue for your business.

We’ve come up with the best tips for producing eye-catching, persuasive, engaging sales copy, whether you’re selling sneakers or a SaaS product. You can use these strategies to learn how to write copy that sells, wripen existing sales copy or to start over from scratch.

For demonstration purposes, we’ll use a fictitious company that sells HVAC products and services.

1. Choose one focus

Your target audience has one specific pain point, one goal, one desire. They might have secondary pain points, goals, and desires, but you need to focus on one to send the point home.

A prospective HVAC customer whose air conditioning system has begun to fail might have one of many pain points:

Click here to read more https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/sales-copy/

17 Ways to Skyrocket Your Etsy Sales in 2022 (Etsy Marketing Tips You Can Use Today)

By Growing your Craft

‘How to increase your Etsy sales?’ That’s the questions that every Etsy seller wants the answer to.

‍With the ever increasing number of sellers on the platform, your products and Etsy store can easily get lost among your competitors.

‍With multiple successful shops and a 6-figure business, I can assure you that there are some practical ways that you can improve your Etsy sales.

‍Here are 17 of my favourite ways to increase your Etsy sales in 2022.

Use Etsy SEO For Better Etsy Search Ranking

Etsy SEO is probably one of the most important things you can do to increase the visibility of your shop and products. And therefore, increasing your Etsy sales.

‍You probably already know some of the ranking factors of Etsy search engine: How well your title and tags match the shopper’s search, how well the product sells, how well reviewed is your shop, etc.  They are crucial in allowing your listings to show up on the first page of Etsy search results.

You can check out the complete list of Etsy search ranking factors here.

‍One of the most important strategies I use about Etsy SEO is to do comprehensive keyword research. Keyword research is the process of finding out the search terms that your customers are using. And using the right keywords to make your product able to rank in Etsy search. A good way to find them is to use the autocomplete and the category functions within Etsy.

Using those keywords, you can now plug them in the title and tags of your product listing. Remember to 

  • Match the exact keyword in title and tag
  • Use all 13 tags to maximize the chance of showing up in search
  • Aim for longer keywords as they have less competition and easier to rank

There are many more strategies to optimize your Etsy search. I’ve written a complete guide to Etsy SEO of how to maximize the chance to show up in search in GYC Etsy Academy. They are all the techniques I used when building up my 6-figure Etsy shop.

Write High Converting Product Description

A good and compelling product description will greatly improve your conversion rate.

‍There are 3 main purposes of product description:

  1. Entice and capture shopper’s attention
  2. Show how the product can improve shopper’s life or solve their problem
  3. Remove barriers of purchase

Many other Etsy sellers forget about these points and start writing the things they want to say, like the color, size, etc. They are good information, but you have to ask yourself, what’s in it for your customer?

‍It perfectly blends the fan’s features with benefits for the user. The customer knows how this fan can improve their home. There are a lot of other big brands that you can learn how to write compelling descriptions from. Lush, Dyson, Reebok, etc.

‍One of the best ways to improve your Etsy search ranking and sales is to boost your conversion rate. And the most effective place to start is your product listings.

Steal the exact Etsy listing template that I use to grow my 6-figure Etsy shops in The Etsy Listing Sales Machine.

Take Eye-Catching Product Photos

You don’t need an expensive DSLR to take product photos that sell. 

‍Natural lights are the easiest to handle. Try not to use direct harsh sunlight, but light that is reflected off other objects, light through a thin curtain, or lighting in early morning / late afternoon.

‍Learning photo editing tools are also essential. The photos coming out of your phone (or even your expensive camera) won’t be perfect. Knowing how to edit the photos to be brighter, more contrast-y, or correcting the colors, would mean whether the shopper clicks your product or not.

Click here to read more https://www.growingyourcraft.com/blog/etsy-marketing-tips-increase-views

25 Ways to Increase Online Sales

By Dan Shewan

Increasing online sales is the primary goal of countless businesses, large and small alike. Whether you run a mom-and-pop retail business or work for a vast ecommerce giant like Amazon, increasing sales through online channels is a little like bowling a strike – it looks a lot easier than it actually is.

Fortunately, there are dozens of ways you can make more sales online, many of which you can implement right away. Some of these tips focus on specific strategies you can implement, whereas others are more generalized. In this post, we’ll be looking at 25 such strategies, so whether you sell physical goods or run a service-based business, here are 25 actionable techniques you can use to increase online sales performance.

1. Be Honest in Your Sales Copy

This might seem painfully obvious, but it’s amazing to me how many sites write checks their products can’t cash. Not only is honesty in your copy crucial to your business’ reputation, it also fosters and encourages trust in your brand. Don’t make claims you can’t substantiate, and don’t use hyperbole lightly – today’s consumers are hypersensitive to marketing BS, so be honest, straightforward, and approachable in all your sales copy, from your homepage to your email campaigns.

This principle also applies to how you position yourself as a business. Ever come across a site that’s obviously run by one or two people, but features copy that would be better suited to a multinational enterprise company? This approach not only makes you look foolish, it also damages your brand’s credibility. If you’re a small company, take pride in that and be upfront about it – many consumers are turning to smaller businesses precisely because of the more individualized, personal service they can offer. Don’t try to be something you’re not.

2. Get More Ad Clicks with Ad Extensions

If you’re selling stuff online, ad extensions are a no-brainer – this feature (available in both AdWords and Bing) allows you to make your ad bigger with more places to click. And it doesn’t cost any extra! AND it increases your ad’s click-through rate! Amazing, right?

In the above example, the links to “Men’s Sunglasses” and “Women’s Sunglasses” give people who are looking to buy a new pair of Ray-Ban’s two additional places to click. This saves the potential customer a step and makes it easier and faster to find exactly what they want (so they go to your site instead of a competitor’s).

3. Show Off Customer Testimonials and Trust Signals

In today’s social media environment, customer feedback has never been more important. Fortunately, this means that your satisfied customers can provide you with one of the most valuable weapons in your arsenal – testimonials.

Legions of satisfied customers are considerably more influential than even the best-written sales copy, so make sure you include gushing testimonials and reviews from your hardcore brand evangelists gushing about how wonderful you are. These might appear on your product pages, landing pages, pricing page, even your home page. For more info, check out my post on the power of customer testimonials.

Similarly, the inclusion of trust signals can be an excellent way to increase online sales and/or average order value, as it creates a more favorable perception of your brand in the mind of the prospect and can potentially overcome hesitations preemptively. If your business has any professional accreditations (even something as routine as a Better Business Bureau certification or membership to your local chamber of commerce), put these trust signals front and center on your site. If you have an impressive list of satisfied clients, make sure your prospects know about it.

4. Create a Sense of Urgency

It’s important to be honest and transparent about who you are and what you do, but there’s no rule against creating a sense of urgency to persuade prospects to buy from you right now.

Click here to read more https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/03/increase-sales-online

HOW TO CHOOSE A NICHE FOR YOUR DROPSHIPPING STORE

ARTICLE by Nicole Martins Ferreira

Have you ever wanted to learn the entire process of creating an online store?

From coming up with the ‘big’ idea to getting your first sale, you can follow along with my journey to learn how to build a new online store from scratch.

In case you have no idea who the heck I am, I’m Nicole Martins Ferreira. I’ve been working in marketing since 2008 and started building online stores in 2013. As an experienced marketer, I’ll show you how to choose products based on their marketability, optimize for conversions and land your first sale. I’ll also show you how to design your online store as a professional brand.

I constantly get messages from new store owners asking for advice on how to build a store, get sales and build a brand they can be proud of. So I wanted to show you a behind the scenes look at what I do when building a new online store.

I hope to show you all that you can find high-quality products to sell. And that, yes, even dropshippers can build an amazing brand.

But since I’m showing you my journey as it happens, anything can go wrong. And, like a new entrepreneur, I can’t predict what will go wrong, I can only take action to resolve it. So I’ll let you know when it’s time to pivot and how to solve problems without overreacting to them.

This weekly series is as real as it gets. You’ll get a true inside look at what it’s like to build a dropshipping business. So follow along with my journey if you want to learn from my wins and challenges.

Over the next eight weeks, I’ll be showing the entire process of what goes on in my head when I build a new store. You’ll learn how to choose a niche, pick the right theme, the step by step process of setting up a Shopify store, how to choose products for your store and ordering samples for quality assurance, the process for designing a store, and of course marketing.

This week, I’ll be breaking down the exact process I follow for choosing what niche to build a store in. You’ll learn what I look for in a dropshipping niche, which tools I use, and how I measure popularity. At the end of this article, I will choose a niche and build a store around it for the duration of this weekly series.

So let’s dive into the big question.

Click Here To read more https://www.oberlo.com/blog/how-to-choose-a-niche

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Get A Free Voice Over Like This One

Way to Make your Money Work for You

By Tonny Wandella

Income is something that helps us pay for the necessities of life (and occasional luxuries). ‘Passive income is one of the best types of income you can earn – but what exactly is it? Simply explained, passive income is money that you earn on a regular basis without having to work for it. This can often refer to money earned from sources other than your primary jobs, such as investment dividends, rental property income, a limited partnership in a firm, or other sources.

The benefit of passive income is that once you’ve built up a productive environment to earn it, you can practically create money while sleeping. Your investment’s return on investment just keeps on giving.

The finest form of passive income is when you can set up a situation where you can receive a consistent stream of revenue from one or more sources while avoiding unnecessary risk. Nobody hates to lose money, especially as they approach or enter retirement.

How to make money work hard for you:

Look for income-producing assets.

Luxury products such as watercraft, high-end cars, apparel, and objects for your house (such as swimming pools) are not usual revenue providers unless they are rented out, resold, or used for business. Dividend-paying stocks, investment funds, bonds, term deposits, enterprises, and investment assets are examples of dividend-paying stocks. Consider with a professional financial consultant when deciding where to invest substantial sums of money.

Consider Exchange Traded Funds

ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) are a type of mutual fund that trades on a stock exchange. They provide a variety of investments, including stocks, bonds, and other assets. While ETFs and index funds are similar, there are a few differences. They are tax-advantaged and exchanged several times per day.

Use It To Build An Online Business

Starting an online business is the fifth way you can put your money to work for you. Of course, you can start a regular brick-and-mortar business, but I’m referring to an online business because it allows you to produce passive income. You may sell digital products, make money through advertising, make money through affiliate marketing, and much more! This is a non-active approach to put your money to work for you.

Final Thoughts

The power of investing is incredible, but you won’t be able to reap its benefits unless you get started. There are several possibilities if you aren’t sure how to make your money work for you. Every day that passes could be a squandered opportunity to increase your wealth. Because most investments require time, it’s critical to get started as soon as possible if you want your money to work for you. Choose only investment strategies that you are familiar with and understand. A sound financial strategy does not entail taking excessive risks; rather, it entails careful preparation and mapping out a path to a secure financial future.

25 Ways to Make Money Online, Offline and at Home

By NerdWallet

Want to make money, but you’re not sure where to start? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

And you’re not alone. More than one-quarter (27%) of Americans earned extra income from side gigs last year, according to the Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2020, released in May 2021 by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

NerdWallet rounded up 25 legitimate ways to make money — at home or out and about — and listed each option based on how fast you can get started and get paid. While most people prefer fast cash, don’t discount the “slow” gigs, as they may pay more in the long run.

How to make money online

Making money online is the sweet spot people look for in the gig economy. Whether you aspire to be a six-figure social media influencer, or are just looking to supplement your regular income with some internet gigs, we’ve found some viable options.

1. Pick up freelance work online

Make money online through websites such as Upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer.com. These sites offer opportunities to do a variety of freelance jobs, such as writing, programming, design, marketing, data entry and being a virtual assistant. Fluent in a second language? Check sites such as Gengo or One Hour Translation, or drum up business through a site of your own. No matter what kind of freelancing you do, keep track of the going rate for the kind of work you provide so you know if you’re charging too much or too little. Learn how to get started on Upwork.

Total time: It can take a while to get your first gig. Setup: 24 hours. How easy to start: Easy, if you have the expertise. Age threshold: 13+ but varies by site. Payment speed: Varies by site.

2. Test websites and apps

Another way to make money from home is on sites like UserTesting.com. You get paid for your thoughts on how well — or not so well — certain websites and apps worked. You’ll have to pass a short test to be accepted, then you’ll be paid $10 for each 20-minute test, which involves a recording and answering four follow-up written questions. Or you could earn up to $120 to participate in a video conversation with a customer after your test.

Total time: Approval time can vary. Setup: Less than an hour. How easy to start: Easy, if you have the tech gear and complete a sample test. Age threshold: 18+. Payment speed: Seven days.

3. Pick up tasks on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk

Even in the age of automation, some jobs still require a human touch. Companies often outsource those jobs via services like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. As a “worker,” the tasks you’ll be assigned can be tedious — tagging images, transcribing videos, classifying receipts — and can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Temporary employers or “requesters” set the price for each task and get to approve the finished product before paying you. That can leave room for scams, so do your research. Join a community like the MTurk Crowd forum, or the MTurk and Turker Nation subreddits, which can steer you away from shifty dealers. These communities and fellow “workers” can answer questions and give a realistic idea of how much money you can expect to make. Read more about Mechanical Turk as a way to make quick money online.

Total time: Several days to find out if you’re approved. Setup: Depends on the task you choose. How easy to start: Easy if you have certain skills. Age threshold: 18+. Payment speed: You get paid following work approval, which can take up to 30 days.

Read more https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-make-money

10 Tools to Start an Online Business without Breaking the Bank

By Chris Porteous

Hundreds of new online businesses go from idea to reality every day. While statistically most of these businesses are destined to go belly up, there are those that will grow and ultimately become very successful. Everybody who learns how to start an online business obviously hopes to be in that select category of success stories.

The question is how to start an online business that will beat the odds and succeed.

Determination and hard work, of course, are the coal that fuels the engine, but that engine will have trouble staying on the tracks if the right tools aren’t used to keep it moving.

There are plenty of tools out there that can help your online business perform more efficiently to save you time. Thankfully, a lot of them offer a range of plans that are quite affordable for business owners just starting out.

The goal is to shoot for tools that get the job done in the best way possible and won’t put your online business in the red before it’s up and running.

What Are Your Weaknesses- How to Counter Them and Build Your Strengths _ Lifehack

1. LivePlan for Business Planning

Having a good idea for an online business is the first step to launching your career as an online entrepreneur. Making a solid business plan for that killer idea is second. There are a number of great tools out there that can help you make a business plan and lay out the blueprint to turn your idea into a profitable venture.

For example, LivePlan starts at $11.66 per month and walks users through each step of the business planning process and has over 500 different business templates to ensure that users find the perfect one for their business venture.

2. Siteground or InMotion for Web Hosting

If you’re going to start an online business, establishing a website is going to be one of the first steps. You can get free web hosting, but it’s often lower-quality, and you’ll probably find that spending even a couple of bucks a month makes a world of difference. When it comes to web hosting, it’s important to look at your business’ needs.

For a small business, a shared hosting plan like Siteground is probably your best bet. You’ll be sharing a server with other websites, but it’s affordable at often less than $12 a month and is easy to use.

If you’re expecting a huge amount of traffic, a dedicated hosting site such as InMotion may be a better choice. This type of web hosting will be more expensive, but it is highly secured and won’t get bogged down easily by a lot of visitors.

This article can help you learn what to look for when choosing a web hosting provider.

3. WordPress or Squarespace for Content Management

Now that you’ve got your web hosting in place, it’s time to choose a content management tool to build and maintain your online presence. WordPressis obviously the best-known and for good reason. It’s incredibly customizable and comes with an array of free resources, tools, and plug-ins that can be applied as your business grows.

Squarespace is another popular website content management platform that many newbies will probably find a little easier to use than WordPress. No coding required! Both products have several levels of pricing, with Squarespace starting at $12 a month and WordPress at $8 per month. Really, you can’t go wrong with either one.

By lifehack.org/articles/technology/8-tools-start-online-business-without-breaking-the-bank.html

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Top Marketing Tips for Content Creators

By Epidemic sound

If you want to become a full-time content creator, you have to think of yourself as a business. Whether you’re just starting or are looking to take the next step, every business needs to grow to survive. Here are our top marketing tips for content creators!

7 content marketing ideas to try

No matter if you’re on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or a freelance videographer, each of these tips is aimed at you: the creative brain behind the content.

1. Search Engine Optimization

Built on keywords, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is used by search engines like Google, Bing, and more to rank content. When people ask a question on the internet, various factors determine where and when your content pops up, depending on how well it solves their query.

Consistent, high-quality content is crucial – you can’t just string keywords together and hope for the best. They have to be relevant to your content and ladder up with all your backend stuff, too. If you post content on YouTube, we put together a handy YouTube SEO guide, which you can read here.

Use a specialist service like Ahrefs or Keyword Tool to identify keywords, how difficult they are, and how they rank compared to other subjects. Over months and years, your SEO-friendly content ecosystem establishes you as an authority on your chosen topic. However, as engines like Google evolve, so does SEO. This means you have to keep abreast of everything in the SEO world!

2. Google AdWords

If you need results quicker than SEO allows, you can pay Google to bump your content up the search ladder. AdWords lets you pay to rank in pretty much any search term, giving you the chance to cast your net as wide or narrow as you please.

However, it can get pretty pricey if you’re not careful, so it’s best to start with a micro-budget to see if the results are worth it. From there, you can dial your investment in Google AdWords up or down as required!

Sure, you can muscle into a competitor’s space and hog some of their viewers. But what if you brought your content to an audience that’s not been catered to yet? This is an untapped market, and your SEO or Google AdWords efforts can come in handy here.

If you identify a demographic who’ve not been served by content like yours but want to based on their search results, then you’ve won the proverbial lottery. The same goes for new trends on social media, which can be partly informed by search intent (thanks, SEO!) Tap into that niche, find that hot new trend, and grow.

While you pile the bricks up high in your content castle, don’t forget to soundtrack your epic journey. Never worry about copyright claims, licensing, royalties, or any of that jargon with an Epidemic Sound subscription.

Read more https://www.epidemicsound.com/blog/top-marketing-tips-for-content-creators/

7 Ways to Make Money with a WordPress Site

By Desiree Johnson

WordPress is the world’s most popular site builder and content management system. Designed for publishing but used for sites ranging from small blogs to large corporations, this free and open source software allows anyone to establish an online presence – and make money. Depending on your goals and interests, you can create one, or many, different income streams with a little time and minimal expense with your WordPress skills and the tools of your self-hosted Word Press site.

How Can You Make Money With WordPress?

WordPress was created to help all kinds of users create a basic website, and from that core code it’s possible to design sites for many different purposes with the many theme options, plugins, and extensions that are available from WordPress itself and third-party developers around the world. 

WordPress itself is free to download and install with the web hosting provider of your choice, so it’s possible to create a WordPress site or blog that can make money for the price of a domain name and a web hosting package, using only free WordPress themes and plugins. Depending on the nature of your site and your goals, you can also choose from a variety of premium themes and plugins, as well as other tools and services for setting up and monetizing specific kinds of WordPress sites, such as membership or eCommerce websites.

Your self-hosted WordPress site is your “home base” online, and you’re free to use it to develop a number of different avenues for earning money; but just as you would need to investigate local laws and regulations before setting up a physical business or service, it’s important to consider the legalities of online commerce, too. 

For example, if you’re planning to sell products or conduct business that involves collecting personal information from users, it’s important to be sure that your site follows national and international regulations regarding collecting and using that information. You might also need to investigate issues like taxes, shipping charges or local laws pertaining to your physical place of business. If you’re freelancing, you might need to look into the legalities of writing contracts and negotiating with clients.

Your WordPress site can be used to earn income from the things you create like from a blog, the services you provide, or the space you offer to others. Your site can become a business in itself, or it can become another tool to support a business you already own. While it may be hard work at first, monetizing your website is a great way to earn an extra income or it can even turn into a full-time job. For example, a local small business might find that a website provides another tool for maintaining an existing customer base.

Whatever your goals might be, your WordPress site can open doors to a global marketplace of possibilities for making money with WordPress with these 7 tips.

1.) Sell Your WordPress Skills

Whether you’re a seasoned WordPress user with development skills or a relative newcomer to the platform, you can leverage your WordPress skills to earn money. Opportunities include:

  • Building WordPress themes and plugins
  • Designing WordPress sites
  • Teaching others how to set up a WordPress site
  • Setting up blogs or other kinds of sites for new users
  • Creating tutorials or “how to” articles and videos on WordPress

2.) Sell Products on Your WordPress Site

Your WordPress site can become an online storefront for selling just about any kind of physical or digital goods. Products ranging from e-books and digital images to T-shirts, apparel, and electronics can be marketed from your site using free eCommerce plugins, such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads. Integrate with third-party print-on-demand and shipping services to fulfill orders for physical products, or connect your site with online marketplaces and shopping sites. Once you’ve built a strong WordPress website, you’ll be able to start selling and earn money in no time at all. 

3.) Create a Freelance Business

The Internet is made for freelancing and creative entrepreneurship, and your WordPress site can help. Photographers, designers, freelance writers, and other creatives can set up portfolio sites, build professional profiles and offer a variety of goods and services with the tools of WordPress themes and plugins. Your WordPress site can showcase your services and rates and establish you as an authority in your niche. Free and premium plugins can provide tools for creating landing pages, email and newsletter campaigns, and building forums and social networks on your site.

Read more https://www.bluehost.com/resources/7-ways-to-make-money-with-a-wordpress-site/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=genericsearch&gclid=Cj0KCQiA5OuNBhCRARIsACgaiqXIjYQPCBraZd879pbdkDaCFMT0AJ_CnxohzOWQIE-MLbBV5c0mtWYaAjIDEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Proven Ways to Successfully Manage Small Business When You Have ADHD

By Kabbage

The challenges of running a small business and its finances are tough enough for the neurotypical, but as it turns out, ADHD and the desire to run a business go hand-in-hand. People happy with the daily grind and detailed work of a regular job rarely feel the push to go entrepreneurial – and ADHD contributes to being unhappy with that situation.

Sadly, as Michael Gerber pointed out in the productivity classic The E-Myth, that same trait that pushes people to start a business makes it hard to watch the details of finances and operations that makes a company successful. We were lucky enough to sit down with ADHD organization and life coach Nikki Kinzer and talk about success techniques for people in this common situation. She named five areas where business owners with ADHD are particularly challenged, and how they can deal with it.

Prioritizing the Day

One common impact of ADHD is feeling that everything is important and urgent, and that all tasks have the same value. This makes it hard to identify mission-critical jobs, let alone stay on task for them. Nikki advises that her clients work from a master To Do list, and to look at three factors for each item when deciding what to do first:

  • Time: Is there a hard deadline for any of the tasks? Do any have soft deadlines or benchmarks that will enable meeting a hard deadline in the future? When in doubt, time-sensitive tasks get priority.
  • Impact: What will happen if the task gets left undone? Consider not just the impact to you, but the impact to others. Are there people waiting for you to finish your task before they can complete their part of the project? How many people will feel the impact of your decision about this particular to-do item?
  • Complexity: Gauge how complicated or difficult – and thus distraction and procrastination prone – the task is. Assign the highest-rated tasks to times when you’re usually the most productive, or when you can work with a coach or accountability partner who keeps you on track. There’s no One Right Way™ to choose when to work on the hardest tasks, but evaluating priorities with that in mind will help you succeed.

Managing Distractions

Steven Covey’s “Quadrant Two” is all about distractions – things that are urgent, but not important. Phone calls, emails and social media pings are external distractions everybody deals with, but according to Nikki, people with ADHD deal with a myriad of internal distractions as well.

Nikki recommends that her clients spend one day keeping track of everything that distracts them, from great ideas to small annoyances. She then has them look for patterns and situations that offer solutions. If an open office door means getting into too many conversations, closing the door fixes that. A clean desk or powered-down cell phone are other examples of this in action.

Mindfulness practice is another tool in Nikki’s toolbox. She encourages clients to set concentration goals, starting at 15 minutes. Set a timer and promise yourself you’ll ignore distractions – even really attractive distractions – until the timer goes off. Once it goes off, take a break and let the mind wander. This is similar to the Pomodoro Method we’ve mentioned previously here at the Kabbage blog, and works extraordinarily well.

Getting Organized

Office organization is a challenge in every business, but for people who are easily distracted it’s even more of a problem. Piles of paper and computer files in disarray are at best a constant call to stop work and start organizing. At worst, they become a rabbit hole of distracting tasks as you read and work on the items in the piles.

Nikki’s recommendation for getting organized is to seek outside help. Setting up and sticking to a system troubles people who don’t have specific symptoms that impact the behaviors responsible for staying organized. Hiring an ADHD Coach or Professional Organizer who specializes in ADHD gives you the help and expertise you need to set yourself up for success.

For those who aren’t ready to make that kind of commitment, Nikki’s blog and our articles on Kabbage.com are a great place to start.

Handling Hyperfocus

It might seem ironic to the uninitiated that too much focus would be a problem for people with ADHD, but it is. Psychology Today defines hyperfocus as a fixation on a specific event, task or topic and notes that it’s a common symptom of ADHD. Among Nikki’s entrepreneurial clients, she notes that this usually takes the form of giving attention mostly or only to the most interesting parts of the job. Other parts – the unglamorous activities that make a business work – get ignored.

Nikki recommends the opposite of her mindfulness practice as a way of overcoming Hyperfocus. Set a timer for fifteen minutes before you need to stop what you’re focused on and move on to other tasks. Once it rings, start transitioning out of your focus mode and into being mentally ready to shift gears. For some of her clients, a timer isn’t enough. They need a partner, coach or co-worker to gently interrupt. According to Nikki, “It’s not as easy to say no to a partner or co-worker as it is to a phone alarm.”

Read more https://www.kabbage.com/resource-center/manage/proven-ways-to-successfully-manage-small-business-when-you-have-adhd/

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